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4,508,700 | were thoughtful and provocative, and the articles selected from them for this issue cover a range of topics: policy challenges, the future of family preservation, reforming child protective services, the future of residential group care, necessary paradigm shifts for child welfare workers and children, and child welfare education and training. The final article in this volume presents brief summaries of selected recent readings pertaining to the future of child and family welfare. An appendix provides contact information for the federally funded national resource centers in child welfare. The scope of child welfare is so broad that numerous other themes could have-and would have-been included in this special issue were it not for the limitations of space, including the focus on service outcomes, the impact of managed care, changes in federal and state legislation, the phenomenon of family violence, and the role and use of technology and data collection systems. Other pertinent topics have already been addressed in prior special issues of Child Welfare, most notably special-needs adoption [Sullivan & Freundlich 1999], family foster care [Barbell & Wright 19991, children with parents in prison [Seymour & Finney Hairston 1998], HIV /AIDS [Anderson et al. 1998], positive youth development [Nixon 1997], services for African American families and children [Jackson & Brissett-Chapman 1997], kinship care [Wilson & Chipungu 19961, and child day care [Hershfield & Selman 1995]. Policy Challenges Recent changes in federal law-particularly the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act of 1996 [P.L. 104-1931 and the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 [P.L. 105-891-are challenging the current | 28176261 |
4,508,701 | foundations of child welfare policy. In "Policy Challenges for Child Welfare in the New Century," Brenda G. McGowan and Elaine M. Walsh review these changes and their potentially negative impact on the stability of the child welfare system and the welfare of vulnerable children and families, especially the increasing number living in poverty and those with chronic personal or family problems. They delineate a number of opportunities to bring about positive change: increasing the involvement of child welfare professionals in presenting their views accurately and widely in the media, tracking the impact of recent legislative changes on the child welfare system (notably the potentially damaging effects of welfare reform), arguing more forcefully for the dual objectives of family preservation and child protection, and providing poor families with the opportunity to live in supportive and healthy communities. … | 28176261 |
4,508,702 | Learning pure-strategy Nash equilibria in networked multi-agent systems with uncertainty A multi-agent system with uncertainty entails a set of agents intent on maximizing their local utility functions that depend on the actions of other agents and a state of the world while having partial and different information about actions of other agents and the state of the world. When agents repeatedly have to make decisions in these settings, we propose a general class of decision-making dynamics based on the Fictitious Play (FP) algorithm with inertia. We show convergence of the proposed algorithm to pure Nash equilibria for the class of weakly acyclic games - a structural assumption on local utility functions that guarantees existence of pure Nash equilibria - as long as the predictions of the agents of their local utilities satisfy a mild asymptotic accuracy condition. Using the results on the general dynamics, the paper proposes distributed implementations of the FP algorithm with inertia suited for networked multi-agent systems and shows its convergence to pure Nash equilibria. Numerical examples corroborate the analysis providing insights to convergence time. | 12926111 |
4,508,703 | Tibetan Web Page Classification Based on Column Navigator A classification approach for Tibetan web pages is introduced in the paper. It takes advantage of the column navigators of the web pages to classify the Tibetan web pages into the predefined classes rapidly and accurately. The experimental results present that the approach has better classification accuracy for Tibetan web pages classification. It is useful and helpful for the construction of the statistical and rule-based classification of Tibetan texts as well as construction of high-quality Tibetan corpus. | 12907911 |
4,508,704 | CWP-693 1 D electromagnetic model reconstruction by modified inverse scattering series The inverse scattering series (ISS) is a tool that enables rapid interpretation of electromagnetic data using fewer computational resources and less a priori information than conventional approaches. However, the ISS converges only when the contrast between true and reference models is sufficiently small. We discuss the origin of the narrow range of convergence and qualitatively describe that there are two contradictory conditions that determine the convergence of the ISS. To mitigate the convergence conditions, we propose an alternative approach to electromagnetic data inversion: the modified inverse scattering series (MISS). The MISS is based on the iterative dissipative method (IDM), which provides an absolutely converging forward series. We consider several 1D models and study the applicability of the MISS to inverse problems of electromagnetic data in geophysics. The model tests reveal that compared to the ISS, the MISS converges for a wider contrast of the electric conductivity between true and reference models. The 1D tests also demonstrate that models reconstructed by the MISS are closer to true models than models generated via the ISS. This study shows that the MISS enables fast reconstruction of an electromagnetic model, which can be a good starting model for large-scale geophysical data processing, such as marine controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) data inversion. | 14041711 |
4,508,705 | [Effects of optotoxic substances on several glycolytic enzyme activities in the retina of the pig (author's transl)]. 1. The authors report the results obtained after the action of certain optotoxic substances on several enzyme activities in the retina of the pig. 2. This in vitro study involved enzyme interferences of the following optotoxic agents : ethionamide, d-penicillamine, ethylene diaminotetra-acetic acid (EDTA), disodium and dicobalt salts. The enzyme activities studied involved glycolysis, the enzymes selected being as follows: glucose phosphate isomerase (GPI, E.C. 5.3.1.9), fructose-1,6-diphosphate aldolase (F1-6diPA, E.C. 4.1.2.13), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH, E.C. 1.1.1.27). 3. Following the action of the effectors studied, a marked decrease in the enzyme activities examined was found in the retina. This decrease, of varying rapidity and regularity, went as far in some cases as total inhibition; there was disturbance of glycolysis. 4. These results indicate the existence of interactions with a complex mechanism. It may be noted that all of the effectors studied were chelating agents of divalent metals and the changes which they induced in the enzyme activities examined may be explained by interference of the chelates formed with metal cations, such as Zn++, co-factors or effectors of these glycolysis enzymes (with the exception of GPI). These stable chelates are formed by virtue of the primary amine--NH2, thiol--SH, thionyl-[Formula: see text] groups, i.e. groups belonging to molecules essential to cell metabolism. | 19503161 |
4,508,706 | [Treatment of wastewater from a toilet for reclamation with a airlift external recirculated membrane bioreactor]. A new type membrane bioreactor(MBR) coupled with a separated immersed membrane unit was studied for treatment of wastewater from a toilet and for reclamation of the treated water. The results showed that the effluent of the MBR was stable with COD < 47 mg/L, BOD5 < 8.5 mg/L, NH3-N < 20 mg/L, when the influent concentration was COD 440-970 mg/L, BOD5 307-612 mg/L, NH3-N 59-111 mg/L. The treated water could meet the standard of reused water for toilet washing issued by the Ministry of Construction P.R. China. The sludge loading, volume loading, HRT and their impaction to COD of effluent were studied. Appropriate sludge loading, volume loading were respectively 0.1 kg/(kg.d), 1 kg/(m3.d) and HRT 7-8 hour. The effect of mixed liquid suspendend solid(MLSS), temperature and permeating time of the MBR to the membrane fluxes were discussed in this paper. | 40365311 |
4,508,707 | Acute pure sensory paraneoplastic neuropathy with perivascular endoneurial inflammation We studied a patient with epidermoid carcinoma of the lung (treated surgically 1 year earlier) and an acute symmetric pure sensory neuropathy that regressed almost completely within 1 month. Superficial peroneal nerve biopsy 15 days after onset showed evidence of demyelination with perivascular endoneurial inflammation. On ultrastructural examination, lymphocytes were seen passing through endothelial cells of endoneurial capillaries. | 41424261 |
4,508,708 | HPAI and animal welfare on the agenda in Krakow 816 The Veterinary Record, June 16, 2007 the European Association of State Veterinary Officers (EASVO), held before the FVE’s general assembly, on June 1. He said that the tracking system provided a ‘reliable, independent and tamper-proof source of information’, which could automatically generate a detailed journey report, including transport, loading and resting times, as well as temperatures inside the vehicle. The costs were low (estimated to add 0·5 per cent to the cost of the average journey) if the system was linked to a central server, and it could also have administrative benefits for the transport company in terms of fleet management and calculating driver payments. However, the legislation so far gave no indication as to where the data should be collected and stored. Another speaker at the meeting, Véronique Bellmain, representing the OIE, noted that ‘In certain countries, retailers are moving fast to address consumer perceptions on animal welfare. They are thereby setting trade standards which have not been negotiated, and companies may put commercial pressure [on producers and other retailers] through corporate “codes” not adopted by international agreements.’ This, she said, underlined the important role of the OIE, for which animal welfare was now an official objective. Challenges on a global level had led the OIE to produce animal welfare guidelines that were outcome-based rather than prescriptive. ‘Evolution, not revolution’ was considered the best approach. ‘For example,’ she said, ‘we cannot prohibit the wringing of birds’ necks as a means of killing, but we can | 37456461 |
4,508,709 | describe the most humane way of doing this.’ DIALREL, a recent EU project to encourage dialogue on issues of religious slaughter, would also address consumer and socioeconomic issues, reported Nancy De Briyne of the FVE. ‘Statistics, such as the number of animals slaughtered without stunning, may reveal data unknown to many consumers,’ added Christophe Buhot, of France. ‘For example, in Belgium, 100 per cent of sheep are currently slaughtered this way, and in France, 80 per cent, part of which ends up in the normal retail market.’ Labelling to indicate the standard of welfare under which the animal was slaughtered might well be the way forward, he suggested. Delegates also learned about ‘Welfare Quality’, another EU initiaChristianne Bruschke gives an update on the global situation regarding highly pathogenic avian influenza | 37456461 |
4,508,710 | Overexpression of Cyclooxygenase-2 predicts poor survival of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma: A meta-analysis. Background The prognostic significance of cyclooxygenase-2 ( Cox-2 ) expression has been implicated in various cancers such as carcinomas of the breast, head and neck squamous cell, oral squamous cell, and nasopharyngeal. Despite meta-analysis studies of Cox-2 expression in Head and Neck cancer, similar investigation that focus on nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remains unexplored. Thus far, expression studies of Cox-2 in NPC have not yield conclusive findings due to conflicting results. This study, therefore, is the first to evaluate Cox-2 expression with the survival outcome and treatment response of NPC patients via a systematic meta-analysis approach.Methods Meta-analysis was done in compliance with the standard protocol of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Checklist. Potential studies were obtained from PubMed, Science Direct and Scopus. Fundamental and primary clinical characteristics of patients and hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of overall survival (OS) data were then collected and tabulated. Analysis of relationship between Cox-2 expression and survival outcome in NPC patients were explained with the aid of forest plot charts. Odd ratio (OR) evaluation to determine the relationship between Cox-2 expression and treatment response was via MedCalc (version 18.11) software, with results displayed in forest plots.Results Seven eligible studies containing 495 NPC patients were finally used in the meta-analysis. The pooled HRs with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for OS is 2.53 [2.13, 3.27], indicating that overexpression of Cox-2 corresponds to poor survival. In the case of treatment response, the pooled OR | 242455211 |
4,508,711 | is 0.98 [0.27-3.49], revealing that the expression pattern of Cox-2 did not relate to the outcome of treatment.Conclusions Overexpression of Cox-2 predicts worse survival outcome for NPC patients, but not treatment response. Hence, the prognostic value of Cox-2 in NPC is only relevant when survival probability of patients is considered. | 242455211 |
4,508,712 | 3 D radial oxygen enhanced imaging in normal and asthmatic human subjects INTRODUCTION: Robust assessment of pulmonary ventilation with MRI is challenging due to the poor imaging characteristics of lung parenchyma [1] and the expensive and specialized hardware requirements of hyperpolarized noble gas MRI [2]. Oxygen Enhanced (OE) MRI has potential as an inexpensive and readily available technique for ventilation imaging. The presence of molecular oxygen lowers the T1 of tissue, increasing signal intensities in ventilated lung [3]. The feasibility of 3D radial Ultrashort Echo Time (UTE) SPGR sequences for OE imaging has been previously demonstrated in rats [4] and humans [5]. The purpose of this work is to explore the utility of 3D radial UTE for pulmonary OE MRI in human subjects with and without obstructive lung disease. METHODS: Seven normal and five asthma subjects underwent imaging in this IRB-approved, prospective study on a 1.5T scanner (Signa HDX, GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, USA) using a commercial 8-channel cardiac coil. A 5.5 min 3D radial UTE acquisition was performed under adaptive end-expiratory respiratory gating with a 50% acceptance window. The scan was performed twice while the subject freely breathed a medical air mixture, the first time at 21% O2, the second time at 100% O2. Gas was delivered continuously through a non-rebreather mask with a 1-2 min pause between concentrations to avoid transient effects. Asthma subjects were imaged on two separate visits; normal subjects had one visit, but underwent multiple acquisitions if time permitted. Specific imaging parameters: optimal FA=8° based on literature T1 values [6], TE/TR=.08/4.2ms, | 5012861 |
4,508,713 | FOV = 32cm, 38000 projections, spatial resolution of 5 mm isotropic. ANALYSIS: Volumes acquired at 21% O2 (Vair) and 100% O2 (Voxy) were spatially registered using a 3D affine algorithm written in Elastix [7]. 3D lung masks were generated from each Voxy volume with a fully automated region growing algorithm written in Matlab [8]. Registration and masking took less than thirty minutes per volume. Voxelwise OE ventilation volumes were then generated using the equation VOE = (Voxy-Vair) / Vair * 100 (Fig. 1). Mean Signal Enhancement (MSE) was measured as the mean of VOE within the OE lung volume. One normal subject was excluded due to technical difficulties with the oxygen delivery system. Two normal OE volumes and two asthmatic OE volumes were omitted from analysis after a prospective blinded review due to non-physical MSE (MSE<0) paired with gross artifacts remaining after registration, leading to a technical failure rate of 5/19 or 26%. This resulted in 5 normal and 4 asthma subjects remaining for statistical comparisons. MSE of normal vs. asthma subjects was compared using a Welch’s t-test. MSE for posterior and anterior (P/A) lung regions was compared via a Wilcoxon signed rank test. Both tests were modified for repeated measures. RESULTS: Individual MSE measurements from asthmatic subjects were all lower than those from normal subjects (p < .1, Fig. 2). Average MSE for normal subjects was 5.0% ± 1.3% compared to 2.6% ± .3% for asthma subjects. MSE also tended to decrease along a P/A gradient, with 12 of 14 volumes having a lower anterior | 5012861 |
4,508,714 | vs. posterior MSE (p < .05, Fig. 3). DISCUSSION: The lower observed MSE in asthma compared to normal subjects is consistent with results in the literature for COPD [9,10]. The P/A gradient in MSE follows the expected gravity dependence of ventilation in the supine position that is well established physiologically and in other imaging techniques such as hyperpolarized gas MRI [11]. However, the small sample size and high technical failure rate limit the significance of these results. CONCLUSION: OE MRI with 3D radial UTE SPGR shows promise for detecting changes in ventilation associated with obstructive disease both in whole lung and regional measures. The gravity dependence of OE MRI was readily demonstrated owing to the availability of 3D volumetric data intrinsic to the isotropic resolution 3D approach. Ongoing studies of both normal and asthmatic subjects will address the noted technical and sample size limitations of the current study. REFERENCES: [1] Hatabu, Eur J Radiol 1999, [2], Fain, JMRI 2007, [3] Edelman, Nature Medicine 1996, [4] Togao, JMRI 2011, [5] Kruger, ISMRM 2012 poster #1344, [6] Jakob, JMRI 2001, [7] Klein, IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 2010, [8] v7.9.0, the MathWorks Inc. 2010, [9] Ohno, AJR 2001, [10] Molinari, JMRI 2007, [11] Van Beek, JMRI 2004 Fig. 2: Whole lung MSE for 5 normal subjects and 4 asthma subjects. Individual points are averages of intrasubject repeat measures; error bars represent the weighted group mean and standard deviation. Fig. 3: MSE of posterior (P) and anterior (A) regions of all 14 OE volumes from all 9 included subjects. | 5012861 |
4,508,715 | Data points are color coded by subject. A trend toward lower MSE in anterior regions is evident. Fig. 1: Sequential coronally oriented slices from posterior to anterior (P/A) of masked oxygen enhanced lung in a normal volunteer. The scale is in units of percent change. | 5012861 |
4,508,716 | Monetary Policies and Exchange Rates In this paper we set out to do three things. First we present a general, and somewhat simple, theory of the relationship between monetary policies and exchange rates. Second we present some evidence relating to the theory. Third we use the theory to discuss current relationships between European currencies and in particular examine the prospects for the European Monetary System and for the pound sterling.The following account does not attempt to provide a realistic theory of short-term movements in the exchange rate but sets out a general approach which describes the longer-term tendencies of exchange rates. It has been described by a distinguished commentator as « naive instant monetarism ». « Naive », presumably, in the sense that it pays no attention to institutional problems and « instant » in the sense that the adjustments appear to occur instantaneously. The sense in which it is monetarist should become clear although we draw attention to one theoretical objection to the monetarist approach. We make no claim for originality for the theoretical framework. | 158540061 |
4,508,717 | Book Review: The Rhetoric of the Reformation decree of conversion or expulsion for different reasons in 1610. In neither decision did the Holy Office officially take the initiative, but later it always monitored the activities of the recent Conversos among the intellectuals. However, K. finds fault with Amerigo Castro's famous thesis that the "suffering Converse*" was a key to literary genius. For other reasons he finds the Index ineffective. For example, the failure of humanism to develop a large Spanish following was not, according to K., due to censorship of pagan classics but to a decline of interest among the elite in the study of Latin itself, and even more of Greek. Furthermore, while Erasmus had success in the Spanish Low Countries, aside from the Castilian court there was hostility to his writings among the Spanish monastic orders. Censorship was abused clearly in the notorious process against the catechism of Carranza, the primate of Spain, under dubious charges of heresy brought by his personal rivals. The Inquisition remained a bureaucracy of the crown more than a service to the Church, with its activities in the hands of laity, trained in law, rather than of theologians. Quarreling with bishops over its immunities and jurisdiction, it could be manipulated by influential personages with a vindictive agenda. A common theme in this book is the criticism of the Inquisition by contemporaries, particularly outside of Castile. In Catalonia and Valencia both the higher clergy and civilian leaders protested the intrusion of Castilian inquisitors in their affairs and denounced their legal | 170760311 |
4,508,718 | procedures, such as a reliance on anonymous accusers or lengthy imprisonments without trial. In Milan and southern Italy the resentment was even more intense, but K. compares the evidence alongside of contemporary oppressive northern European systems of justice in a favorable balance. Even a notorious auto-da-fe occurred far less often and ended up finally as an occasional festivity. In a stimulating final essay entitled "Inventing the Spanish Inquisition," K. traces the creation of its draconian image, starting in the bitter acrimony of the northern reformation and continuing through the Enlightenment into the recent past, where it was mistakenly conceived to be the source of "the decline of Spain." The book is by no means an apologia, but documents and statistics are here to assist an informed appraisal based on current research. Students of early modern Spanish religion should welcome this impressive amount of new evidence. | 170760311 |
4,508,719 | Delineation of Late Onset Hypoventilation Associated with Hypothalamic Dysfunction Syndrome Late Onset Central Hypoventilation Syndrome associated with Hypothalamic Dysfunction (LO-CHS/HD) is a distinct entity among the clinical and genetic heterogeneous group of patients with late onset central hypoventilation. Here we report a series of 13 patients with LO-CHS/HD. Rapid onset obesity is the first symptom of HD followed by hypoventilation with a mean delay of 18 mos. The outcome remains poor for this group of patients and would benefit from early diagnosis to anticipate ventilation and possible metabolic disorders. Tumor predisposition is more frequent than initially suspected and as high as 40% in this series. These tumors of the sympathetic nervous system (TSNS) are usually differentiated and do not significantly worsen the prognosis. We report a familial case with recurrence in siblings. The cause underlying LO-CHS/HD remains poorly understood although recurrence in siblings argues for a monogenic disorder. We ruled out PHOX2B, ASCL1, and NECDIN as disease-causing genes by direct sequencing in our series of patients and discuss possible disease-causing mechanisms. | 22650561 |
4,508,720 | Exploiting chromatic aberration to spectrally encode depth in reflectance confocal microscopy We present chromatic confocal microscopy as a technique to axially scan the sample by spectrally encoding depth information to avoid mechanical scanning of the lens or sample. We have achieved an 800 μm focal shift over a range of 680-1080 nm using a hyperchromat lens as the imaging lens. A more complex system that incorporates a water immersion objective to improve axial resolution was built and tested. We determined that increasing objective magnification decreases chromatic shift while improving axial resolution. Furthermore, collimating after the hyperchromat at longer wavelengths yields an increase in focal shift. | 137399411 |
4,508,721 | Home-Tutoring Services Assisted with Technology: Investigating the Role of Artificial Intelligence Using a Randomized Field Experiment Despite a rising interest in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, research in services marketing has not evaluated its role in helping firms learn about customers’ needs and increasing the adaptability of service employees. Therefore, the authors develop a conceptual framework and investigate whether and to what extent providing AI assistance to service employees improves service outcomes. The randomized controlled trial in the context of tutoring services shows that helping service employees (tutors) adapt to students’ learning needs by providing AI-generated diagnoses significantly improves service outcomes measured by academic performance. However, the authors find that some tutors may not utilize AI assistance (i.e., AI aversion), and factors associated with unforeseen barriers to usage (i.e., technology overload) can moderate its impact on outcomes. Interestingly, tutors who significantly contribute to the firm's revenue relied heavily on AI assistance but unexpectedly benefited little from AI in improving service outcomes. Given the wide applicability of AI assistance in a variety of services marketing contexts, the authors suggest that firms should consider the potential difficulties employees face in using the technology rather than encourage them to use it as it is. | 246085861 |
4,508,722 | Study on Evaluation System of Aircraft Carbon Emissions for China Civil Aviation Aircraft carbon emissions because of their special status led to the spatial vertical distribution of pollution significantly different from other stationary sources and ground transportation. This paper will research on the Great Circle Distance (GCD) between the origin and destination airports, in order to get the fuel used from the CORINAIR database, and thus base on the Fuel Consumption Method (FCM) to estimate the CO2 emissions for a single fight or certain fleet. A carbon emissions evaluation system was developed, which based on the CORINAIR database, airport location database, and flight schedule database. After enter the origin and destination airports, the calculation for a single flight has been analysis, and from the statistic data of civil aviation in China, as the end of 2010, 175 transportation airports, 1880 scheduled routes of China's civil aviation industry had been included in the database of system, to achieve the regional carbon emissions evaluation. However, at present, the real-time monitoring the aircraft emissions in flight conditions is not possible, so, this paper will also give some advice on how to resolve this problem for further researcher. | 110574761 |
4,508,723 | Photonic Architectures for High-Performance Data Centers Over the next decade, significant progress must be made in research on computer architectures that enable unprecedented improvements in the efficiency of large-scale computing systems, particularly to support applications that require exascale algorithmic performance. Here, we review the performance requirements for both high-performance computing systems and data centers, and show that it will be critical to exploit photonic devices for interconnect applications to meet these expectations. In the long term, CMOS-compatible fabrication technologies promise a “Moore's Law for photonics” that could completely change the economics of integrated optics and high-performance computing for defense, security, scientific, and consumer applications. | 7979111 |
4,508,724 | Florida Agricultural Handbook of Solid and Hazardous Waste Regulation: Hazardous Materials Transportation Authorization Act (HMTAA) Revised! Circular 1139, a multi-part handbook by Michael T. Olexa and Ian Goldfarb, helps Floridians recognize which agricultural and household activities may involve solid and hazardous wastes. It also provides an introduction to the agencies and statutes that govern solid and hazardous waste disposal. Published by the UF Department of Food and Resource Economics, November 2008. Ask IFAS: Florida Agricultural Handbook of Solid and Hazardous Waste (2008) (ufl.edu) | 245049361 |
4,508,725 | Gray Scale Image Restoration Using Advanced Atmospheric Light Estimation Visibility of scene is often degraded by different atmospheric phenomena which results in failure of many computer vision applications like outdoor object recognition systems, barrier detection systems, visual surveillance systems, intelligent transportation systems etc. Light coming out from the source and scattered by atmospheric particles towards the camera is the atmospheric light. In many existing image restoration algorithms the results depend on this light. So this paper introduces a image restoration method applied for fog removal which search atmospheric light in a superior way by dividing an image into blocks. Fog decreases slowly from infinite sky regions to the nearer camera regions horizontally downward direction. Consequently atmospheric light is estimated locally in each blocks from upper to lower. The global atmospheric light is the weighted average of all the local atmospheric light. The weight is calculated from histogram of each block. There are many algorithms which suffer from halo effects and edge hammering at the output. In this paper it is rectified by nonlinear filtering which is a pre-processing step. A new edge preserving transmission is also produced using this nonlinear filtering to reduce halo effects. Experimental results are verified and compared qualitatively and quantitatively with the existing haze removal methods. Comparison results shows a better performance in terms of saturated pixels and visual evaluation of different real time scenes. | 211121011 |
4,508,726 | The study of the influence of Al and Sn doping on the optical and electrical properties of ZnO thin films ZnO thin films on glass substrates were obtained by thermal oxidation of vacuum evaporated Zn films. The evaporated metalic films with Al/Zn, Sn/Zn and (Al+Sn)/Zn in different weight ratios were annealed for 2 h at 450 o C to obtain Al-doped, Sn-doped and Al+Sn–doped ZnO films. The optical properties, evaluated by UV-VIS (350-1300 nm) showed that the obtained thin films were highly transparent, with a transmission coefficient between 65 – 90 % depending on the dopant type and the ammount of doping. For the same ammount of doping the electrical resistivity of Al doped films is lower than for Sn doped films but in both cases it is higher than the electrical resistivity of Al, Sn - doped films. | 98597961 |
4,508,727 | Measurement of dissolved reactive phosphorus using the diffusive gradients in thin films technique with a high-capacity binding phase. Measurement of dissolved reactive phosphorus (DRP) by the diffusive gradients in thin films (DGT) technique was investigated using a new binding phase. Half-dried amorphous zirconium oxide (with 50 ± 5% of water content) was mixed with acrylamide solution for the preparation of the new binding phase. The resulting binding gel had a high binding capacity (223 μg P cm(-2)) for phosphate. The solution of NaOH (1 M) was used for elution of phosphate from the gel, and an elution efficiency of 0.95 was obtained. A test of DGT uptake with this gel showed its dependence on temperature, and there was no influence of pH (3 to 10) and ionic strength (10 nM to 0.1 M). Its capacity for DGT response exceeded 100 μg P cm(-2), corresponding to a DRP concentration of more than 20 mg L(-1) for a 24 h deployment with a standard DGT device at 25 °C, which was at least 50 times of the Fe-oxide gel commonly used in the present DGT technique. Measurements with this high-capacity DGT technique in a laboratory microcosm of homogeneously mixed sediments gave smooth and reproducible mass-depth profiles. This technique was well demonstrated by in situ measurements in algal- and macrophyte-dominated regions of Lake Taihu. The DGT-measured concentrations of DRP were on average 20% and 40% of the DRP concentrations in pore waters, respectively, indicating a partial resupply of the sediments to the pore waters with DRP. | 3119961 |
4,508,728 | Genetic Analysis of Resistance to Pod Shattering in Soybean Pod shattering (dehiscence) is a major constraint to soybean (Glycine max. (L) Merrill) production in the northern savanna zones of Ghana, but research on improving soybean for resistance to shattering is scanty. Genetic analysis of resistance to pod shattering was undertaken on three soybean crosses involving resistant and susceptible varieties to determine broad-sense (h2 bs) and narrow-sense (h2 ns) heritability, minimum number of genes (MNG) involved cytoplasmic inheritance, and allelic relationship between shattering and non-shattering. Mean h2 bs was 0.92 (range 0.90–0.95), and mean h2 ns was 0.46 (range 0.40–0.53), indicating the importance of both additive and non-additive variances and that shattering resistance can be improved through breeding. Mean MNG controlling shattering resistance was 2 (range 1–3), indicating that genes for shattering resistance differed among parental lines. There was no difference between the mean of any F1 population and it's reciprocal, indicating lack of maternal/cytoplasmic influence and that the character was under nuclear gene control. Observed F2 ratios revealed that inheritance of resistance to pod shattering in soybean was qualitative in nature and under the influence of either duplicate recessive or dominant and recessive epistasis, depending on the parental genotypes used in the cross. | 86377361 |
4,508,729 | Microprocessor Design with a Direct Bluetooth Connection in 45 nm Technology Using Microwind This paper presents the full-custom design of a 45 nm microprocessor using the electronic design automation (EDA) software, Microwind. The design consists of fundamental modules: the arithmetic logic unit (ALU), memory, counter and an integrated Bluetooth (BT) port working at the 2.4 GHz. This design is validated by simulation under a process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) testing. The microprocessor can handle up to 4 bit since its purpose is focused on specific applications such as the internet of things (IoT). In order to communicate to the external world and with other devices, a strong input/output data interface and radio frequency (RF) transmission modules are implemented. Moreover, the RF module also contains a Bluetooth communication, which allows the wireless data transmission from/to the microprocessor. | 84187011 |
4,508,730 | Biopolymer Nanocomposites for Sustainable UV Protective Packaging The development of green, eco-friendly and sustainable packaging materials is a major challenge in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology. Advancements in the designing biopolymeric nanocomposites for packaging applications have been established by considering features like biodegradability, environmental friendliness, mechanical properties, cost, safety, etc. Other properties such as thickness, weight, transparency, practicability, recyclability, antimicrobial, porosity, leaching effect, light protective capability, etc. need to be considered during the fabrication of next-generation packing materials for multifaceted applications. Of these, the ultraviolet (UV) protective properties of the designed nanocomposites for sustainable packaging applications are extremely important. The UV protective properties of the packaging materials can be modulated by adding a minute amount of biocompatible nanomaterials with maximum absorption properties in the UV region (200–400 nm). UV light absorption is very important to avoid loss or changes in intrinsic chemical, physical, and biological properties/content of foods, pharmaceuticals, beverages, and so forth during storage and transportation. In the current review, we highlight the principle of UV light protection, the selection of nanomaterials, and the design of nanocomposite films, including the properties and applications of biopolymeric nanocomposite materials for UV protective sustainable packaging. Lastly, the current challenges and prospects of sustainable UV protective packaging are also discussed to provide insights into the future of next-generation packaging technologies. | 248398111 |
4,508,731 | A REVIEW OF IoT ENABLED NETWORKS’ ARCHITECTURE AND\r\nACCESS CONTROL Current IP and other networks such as Power Smart Grids are fast evolving, thus resulting in diverse connectivity challenges. This has led to the emergence of "the Internet of Things” (IoT) network transforming the legacy networks towards Device-to-Device (D-2-D) communication standards. By 2022, IoT will seamlessly interconnect the globe via intelligent devices and sensors of varying types and in the process large volumes of data will be generated. The resultant network structure will benefit mankind by helping in making complex decisions. In this paper, we overview both IoT enabled network architecture as well as and access and control framework for various services and applications. We commence with a review of a generalized IoT enabled network's security architecture as well as how the various elements constituting them interact. The paper then describes an access control framework applicable to the various would be applications and services. | 218791761 |
4,508,732 | Conformation-specific antibodies to target amyloid β oligomers and their application to immunotherapy for Alzheimer’s disease Amyloid β-protein (Aβ) oligomers, intermediates of Aβ aggregation, cause cognitive impairment and synaptotoxicity in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Immunotherapy using anti-Aβ antibody is one of the most promising approaches for AD treatment. However, most clinical trials using conventional sequence-specific antibodies have proceeded with difficulty. This is probably due to the unintended removal of the non-pathological monomer and fibrils of Aβ as well as the pathological oligomers by these antibodies that recognize Aβ sequence, which is not involved in synaptotoxicity. Several efforts have been made recently to develop conformation-specific antibodies that target the tertiary structure of Aβ oligomers. Here, we review the recent findings of Aβ oligomers and anti-Aβ antibodies including our own, and discuss their potential as therapeutic and diagnostic tools. Graphical Abstract Toxic conformer of amyloid β42 protein with turn structure at Glu22 and Asp23 and C-terminal core, and its intraneuronal depositions in Alzheimer’s disease-affected brain. | 25259561 |
4,508,733 | 3D multi‐resolution deep learning model for diagnosis of multiple pathological types on pulmonary nodules To accurately diagnose multiple pathological types of pulmonary nodules based on lung computed tomography (CT) images, a multi‐resolution three‐dimensional (3D) multi‐classification deep learning model (Mr‐Mc) was proposed. The Mr‐Mc model was constructed by using our own constructed lung CT image dataset of pulmonary nodules with clinical pathological information (LCID‐CPI), which can accurately diagnose inflammation, squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and other benign diseases. In order to process nodules with different sizes, a multi‐resolution extraction method was proposed to extract 3D volume data with different resolutions from lung CT images. The Mr‐Mc was composed of three different resolution networks, each of which has input volume data of a specific resolution. Experiments showed that the constructed Mr‐Mc model can achieve an average accuracy of 0.81 on LCID‐CPI. Besides, the Mr‐Mc model can also achieve a high accuracy of 0.87 on the Lung Image Database Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative dataset. | 238807711 |
4,508,734 | Design of environmentally and socially conscious water metering tariffs for the UK Abstract England is one of the few industrialised countries where water metering is not compulsory. Most households instead pay a fixed charge regardless of use. Yet water consumption is already at the limit of resources and beyond them in some regions. Despite the need to control demand, compulsory water metering has not been implemented largely because of concerns about the regressive impact on poorer households. This research analysed new data from Anglian Water on household water consumption and income to examine the distributional impacts of ten different hypothetical tariff designs. It was found that it was possible to design revenue-neutral metered tariffs that would cause only a small percentage of low-income households to lose and most to gain. With sensitive design, the social concerns about compulsory water metering can be dealt with. | 154281561 |
4,508,735 | On zeros of an entire function coinciding with exponential typequasi-polynomials, associated with a regular third-order differential operator on an interval In this paper, we consider the question on study of zeros of an entire function of one class, which coincides with quasi-polynomials of exponential type. Eigenvalue problems for some classes of differential operators on a segment are reduced to a similar problem. In particular, the studied problem is led by the eigenvalue problem for a linear differential equation of the third order with regular boundary value conditions in the space W^3_2(0, 1). The studied entire function is adequately characteristic determinant of the spectral problem for a third-order linear differential operator with periodic boundary value conditions. An algorithm to construct a conjugate indicator diagram of an entire function of one class is indicated, which coincides with exponential type quasi-polynomials with comparable exponents according to the monograph by A.F. Leontyev. Existence of a countable number of zeros of the studied entire function in each series is proved, which are simultaneously eigenvalues of the above-mentioned third-order differential operator with regular boundary value conditions. We determine distance between adjacent zeros of each series, which lies on the rays perpendicular to sides of the conjugate indicator diagram, that is a regular hexagon on the complex plane. In this case, zero is not an eigenvalue of the considered operator, that is, zero is a regular point of the operator. Fundamental difference of this work is finding the corresponding eigenfunctions of the operator. System of eigenfunctions of the operator corresponding in each series | 244212711 |
4,508,736 | is found. Adjoint operator is constructed. | 244212711 |
4,508,737 | Analysis of three-dimensional structure of AROM protein from Sclerotinia sclerotiorum Arom gene from Scleortinia sclerotiorum,encoding AROM protein,has been cloned and sequenced.According to the putative amino acid sequence,the teritiary structure of the domains,the functional sites and the possible assembled mode of AROM protein were discussed by the method of homology modeling and ab initio folding.The results showed that dehydroquinate synthase of Scleortinia sclerotiorum was further composed of a N-terminal α/β domain containing a Rossmann fold and a C-terminal α-helical domain;5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase was made up of two similar domains and each domain had different copies of α helices and β sheets;three β sheets constituted the N-terminus of shikimate kinase;dehydroquinate dehydratase was a(α2/β2)3 peptide,of which a pair of anti-parallel β-strands existed in the N-terminus and a loop in the C-terminus;shikimate dehydrogenase contained a α/β catalysis domain and a NADPH binding domain which had a Rossmann fold. | 86981661 |
4,508,738 | [Analysis of misdiagnoses for femoral shaft fracture with ipsilateral femoral neck or femoral fractures]. OBJECTIVE To analyze the misdiagnoses of femoral shaft fracture combined with ipsilateral femoral neck or femoral fractures. METHODS Over the past six years, eight misdiagnosed cases of ipsilateral femoral neck or femoral fractures missed patients, aged 25 to 59 years old (mean: 41.7), were treated at our department. An initial diagnosis of femoral shaft fracture was later revised as ipsilateral femoral shaft with supra-condylar fracture of femoral neck or femur. Femoral shaft fracture was fixed with armor plate, 3-screw hollow compression fixation of femoral neck; two cases of femoral condylar fractures of distal femoral condyle with anatomical plate fixation and 1 case of intraoperative change into the retrograde femoral intramedullary nail fixation. RESULTS The mean post-operative follow-up was 3.5 years. All fractures healed with excellent hip and knee functions. CONCLUSION For those with a strong reverse and torsional violence, femoral shaft fracture combined with ipsilateral femoral neck or femoral fractures may be easily misdiagnosed. A preoperative conventional hip-knee X-ray film is an effective way to avoid a misdiagnosis. | 27864111 |
4,508,739 | Ex Vivo Study Comparing Three Cold Atmospheric Plasma (CAP) Sources for Biofilm Removal on Microstructured Titanium In vivo titanium discs (n = 40) mounted on splints worn for 72 h by eight volunteers. Specimens were direct plasma application, CAP III received microwave-driven pulsed plasma application (90 s of a control group received no treatment. After treatment, all specimens were rinsed for 10 s using a dental air/water spray (2 bar). The vitality of microorganisms was detected by cultivation on t test, p and CAP III ( p bial therapies for peri-implantitis. | 139255111 |
4,508,740 | Organizational badge collecting Whenever a Boy Scout masters a new Scouting skill, he earns a merit badge. On ceremonial occasions, he wears the badges as a visible certificate of proficiency granted by a world-class authority. Internationally, 95,000 or so organizations wear the badge of ISO 9000 [1] conformance. To them it's an important accomplishment in a highly competitive marketplace. Furthermore, it's just the first of a chest-full of badges that serious software developers will soon be wearing as they complete their own youthful rites of passage toward software engineering as a profession rather than an ideal. | 20212861 |
4,508,741 | Varieties of developmental dyslexia in Greek children The current study aimed to investigate in a group of nine Greek children with dyslexia (mean age 9.9 years) whether the surface and phonological dyslexia subtypes could be identified. A simple regression was conducted using printed word naming latencies and nonword reading accuracy for 33 typically developing readers. Ninety per cent confidence intervals were established and dyslexic children with datapoints lying outside the confidence intervals were identified. Using this regression-based method three children with the characteristic of phonological dyslexia (poor nonword reading), two with surface dyslexia (slow word naming latencies) and four with a mixed profile (poor nonword reading accuracy and slow word naming latencies) were identified. The children were also assessed in spelling to dictation, phonological ability, rapid naming, visual memory and multi-character processing (letter report). Results revealed that the phonological dyslexia subtype children had difficulties in tasks of phonological ability, and the surface subtype children had difficulties in tasks of multi-character simultaneous processing ability. Dyslexic children with a mixed profile showed deficits in both phonological abilities and multi-character processing. In addition, one child with a mixed profile showed a rapid naming deficit and another showed a difficulty in visual memory for abstract designs. Overall the results confirm that the surface and phonological subtypes of developmental dyslexia can be found in Greek-speaking children. They also indicate that different subtypes are associated with different underlying disorders. | 35474261 |
4,508,742 | Use of Pyrolysis Mass Spectrometry with Superv ised Learn ing for the Assessment of the Adulteration of Milk of Different Species ROYSTON GOODACRE Binary m ixtures of 0± 20% cows’ m ilk with ewes’ m ilk, 0± 20% cows’ m ilk with goats’ m ilk, and 0± 5% cow s’ m ilk with goats’ m ilk were subjected to pyrolysis mass spectrom etry (PyMS). For an alysis of the pyrolysis mass sp ectra so as to determ ine the p ercentage adulteration of either caprine or ov ine m ilk w ith bov ine m ilk, par tial least-squares regression (PLS), p rincipal com ponents regression (PCR) and fully interconnected feed-forward ar ti® cial neural networks (ANNs) were studied. In the latter case, the w eights were mod i® ed by u sing the standard back-prop agation algor ithm , and the nodes u sed a sigm oidal squash ing function . It was fou nd that each of the methods could be u sed to prov id e calibration models which gav e excellent pred ictions for the p ercentage adulteration with cows’ m ilk to , 1% for sam ples, w ith an accuracy of 6 0.5% , on which they had not been trained. Scaling the in dividual nodes on the inpu t layer of ANNs sign i® cantly d ecreased the tim e taken for the ANNs to learn, com pared with scaling across the whole mass range; however in one case this approach resulted in poor generalization for th e estimates | 16937511 |
4,508,743 | of percentage cows’ m ilk in ewes’ m ilk. To assess whether the calibration models had learned th e differences between the m ilk species or th e d ifferences due to the different fat conten t of in each of the m ilk types, we also analyzed pu re m ilk sam ples varyin g in fat conten t by PyMS. Cluster an alysis showed unequiv ocally that th e m ajor var iation between the d ifferent m ilk species was not due to var iab le fat conten t. Sin ce an y biological mater ial can be pyrolyzed in this way, the com bination of PyMS with superv ised learning constitu tes a rap id , powerful, an d novel approach to the quantitativ e assessm ent of food ad ulteration generally. | 16937511 |
4,508,744 | Learning from High Dimensional fMRI Data using Random Projections The term “the Curse of Dimensionality” refers to the difficulty of organizing and applying machine learning to data in a very high dimensional space. The reason for this difficulty is that as the dimensionality increases, the volume between different training examples increases rapidly and the data becomes sparse and difficult to classify. So, the predictive power of a machine learning algorithm decreases as the dimensionality increases with a fixed number of training examples, which is known as the Hughes effect. One way of dealing with the curse of dimensionality is by projecting data into a lower-dimensional subspace. The statistically optimal way to do this (assuming the data is on or near a linear subspace) is PCA, which projects the data into a subspace that preserves as much of the variation as possible. However, PCA is computationally expensive for high-dimensional data compared to the method of dimensionality reduction through random projections. In fact, the distortion of the data when it is compressed via random projections can be bound by the JL lemma. However, empirical testing of this technique will demonstrate how well it performs in practical machine learning problems. The major benefit of using random projections are that they are a computationally less expensive than PCA particulary when the dimensionality of the data becomes too large for matrix diagonalization to be feasible, as is the case for very high-dimesionality data such as fMRI. The main focus of this paper is applying machine learning algorithms to classify fMRI data | 17175661 |
4,508,745 | and attempting to empirically and theoretically predict the feasibility of applying random projections to the supervised classifying of fMRI data. To that end, we first give a review of some of the applicable theory for random projections, then we empirically examine how logistic regression classification error varies when the data is compressed via random projections. We then explain a theoretical method for estimating an assymptotic bound on the generalization error, estimated using k-fold cross validation. | 17175661 |
4,508,746 | A Self-Management Approach to Reducing Aids Risk in Sexually Active Heterosexual College Students This study investigated the effectiveness of a self-management skills training (SMST) program in modifying at-risk sexual behaviors among a group of 51 college-aged heterosexual, sexually active, males and females. The frequency of condom use and related responses were self-monitored before, during, and after participation. In addition, pre- and post-test treatment measures were used to analyze attitudes and beliefs related to issues such as risk of HTV and AIDS, sexual communication skills, and condoms. The SMST program focused on identifying antecedent variables, planning appropriate response sequences, and arranging positive consequences. These skills were then practiced in the program sessions and via home work assignments. Results showed significant increases in reported condom use, condom purchase.and in condom-use dialogue with sexual partners. The findings of this study may be useful in developing effective intervention programs to reduce the risk of AIDS on college campuses. | 43867661 |
4,508,747 | Effect of nut geometries on screw thread stress distribution: Photoelastic results Abstract The structural merits of lip-type nuts engaging with ordinary bolts are assessed experimentally by means of frozen-stress photoelasticity. Thread pitch, lip radial thickness, and lip length are selected as design variables and scanned for possible effect on the maximum stress within the connection. In this respect, the length of lip is shown to play a major role while the other parameters have no decided effect. It is found that a nut with a lip covering 60 percent of total height reduces the stress concentration in the screw by nearly 40 percent with respect to a standard nut of equal height and outside diameter. This improvement is achieved without producing higher stresses in the nut than in the screw. | 136702761 |
4,508,748 | Simple, compact, high-performance permanent-magnet Faraday isolator. The design of a Faraday isolator that uses a short glass rotator rod and produces highly uniform rotation across its clear aperture is presented. The rotator rod is 19.5 mm long, and at a wavelength of 633 nm the rotation angle is 45 deg and the isolation ratio is >45 dB. | 35271711 |
4,508,749 | Preparation of CeO/sub 2/-buffer layers for large-area MOD-YBCO films (10/spl times/30 cm/sup 2/) with high-J/sub c/ Epitaxial cerium oxide (CeO/sub 2/; thickness: 40 nm) buffer layers were deposited on large area (maximum size 10/spl times/30 cm/sup 2/) R-cut single-crystal sapphire (/spl alpha/-Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/) substrates by double electron-beam guns. Substrate heater-and-holder system was modified to maintain the substrate temperature uniform over the large area during deposition. Oxygen gas of a pressure 4/spl times/10/sup -2/ Pa was introduced to keep radio frequency plasma. When the substrate temperature was controlled in the range 640/spl deg/-700/spl deg/C, the CeO/sub 2/ buffer showed a complete [001] orientation and very smooth surfaces by x-ray diffraction analysis and atomic force microscopic observations, respectively, in the whole area of the large size substrates. These buffer layers without post-deposition annealing were quite suitable for preparing YBa/sub 2/Cu/sub 3/O/sub 7/ (YBCO) films by a metal-organic deposition (MOD) using a metal acetylacetonate-based solution. The average critical current density of the 210-nm-thick MOD-YBCO film was in excess of 2.6 MA/cm/sup 2/ measured by an inductive method at 77.3 K. | 38057461 |
4,508,750 | The Mother of all isomorphism conjectures via DG categories and derivators We describe a fundamental additive functor E fund on the orbit category of a group. We prove that any isomorphism conjecture valid for E fund also holds for all additive functors, like K-theory, (topological) Hochschild or cyclic homology, etc. Finally, we reduce this universal isomorphism conjecture to K-theoretic ones, at the price of introducing some coefficients. | 5684561 |
4,508,751 | Diarrhea Care in Private Practice In Reply.— I applaud Dr Tochen, Mr Tsukamaki, and Ms Feil for developing such a thoughtful, practical and relatively inexpensive approach to acute diarrhea in their practice. We also have incorporated an educational program on the assessment and treatment of acute diarrhea as one of the core components of our well-child clinic teaching.1 The use of packets of oral rehydration salts has a number of advantages cited by Dr Tochen, Mr Tsukamaki, and Ms Feil, and packets have been used with great success in more than 100 countries. | 245156911 |
4,508,752 | Hybrid Renewable Energy Fed Battery Electric Vehicle Charging Station The demand for energy is growing much faster and perhaps the consumption from conventional resources have infected the environment conversely. Now, the electrical technology is in the microgrid generation where it supports to access the distributed energy sources practically. This paper presents the integration of renewable energy into the public ported battery electric vehicle (EV) via microgrid technology. EV charging station fuelled by the hybrid microgrid system ensures the smooth control and active power flow in the modern distributed systems. But the clumsy and heterogeneous charging of EVs in the migrogrid system leads to the ineffectual exploitation of renewable resources under some vital circumstances. The transition towards EV promotes the development in charging station via charging architecture with multiport configurations, which will impose complexity to the microgrid further. The issues associated with the utilization of renewable resources and in-line charging of EVs in the distributed microgrid systems is addressed in this paper. Solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy (WE) forms the hybrid renewable system with energy storage, EVs, power electronic interface and private loads to constitute a distributed network in this ace research. The phenomena of EV charging are analyzed briefly and the generated power is exercised in a systematic way for various load conditions respectively. The validation of the research is carried out in PSCAD/EMTDC simulation platform. | 237620111 |
4,508,753 | MODUS PONENS AND MODUS TOLLENS: THEIR VALIDITY/INVALIDITY IN NATURAL LANGUAGE ARGUMENTS Abstract The precedent studies on the validity of Modus ponens and Modus tollens have been carried out with most regard to a major type of conditionals in which the conditional clause is a sufficient condition for the main clause. But we sometimes, in natural language arguments, find other types of conditionals in which the conditional clause is a necessary or necessary and sufficient condition for the main clause. In this paper I reappraise, on the basis of new definitions of Modus ponens and Modus tollens, their validity/invalidity in natural language arguments in consideration of all types of conditionals. | 125634911 |
4,508,754 | Development of a compact optical absolute frequency reference for space with 10-15 instability. We report on a compact and ruggedized setup for laser frequency stabilization employing Doppler-free spectroscopy of molecular iodine near 532 nm. Using a 30 cm long iodine cell in a triple-pass configuration in combination with noise-canceling detection and residual amplitude modulation control, a frequency instability of 6×10-15 at 1 s integration time and a Flicker noise floor below 3×10-15 for integration times between 100 and 1000 s was found. A specific assembly-integration technology was applied for the realization of the spectroscopy setup, ensuring high beam pointing stability and high thermal and mechanical rigidity. The setup was developed with respect to future applications in space, including high-sensitivity interspacecraft interferometry, tests of fundamental physics, and navigation and ranging. | 46835911 |
4,508,755 | Secure contactless smartcard ASIC with DPA protection A 10% ASK smartcard ASIC achieves 3e-10 BER in the presence of digital noise. A 2000 times reduction in digital signature amplitude greatly improves security against DPA attack. Voltage compliance is maintained for more than two decades of received power. The 2.8-mm/spl times/2.9-mm ASIC is fabricated in a 0.6 micron CMOS process with EEPROM. | 62413611 |
4,508,756 | Short-wave ultraviolet light (UVB) treatment of allergic contact dermatitis of the hands. 7 out of 10 patients with long-standing allergic contact dermatitis of their hands were successfully treated with short-wave ultraviolet light (UVB) and the contact dermatitis healed completely. To maintain this result they had to receive UVB therapy regularly once a week. The last 3 patients also showed improvement, but they had periods with vesiculation during the treatment. UVB treatment seems to be a valuable supplement for the treatment of contact dermatitis. | 20836811 |
4,508,757 | Loco-regional morbidity after breast conservation and axillary lymph node dissection for early breast cancer with or without regional nodes radiotherapy, perspectives in modern breast cancer treatment: the Skagen Trial 1 is active Abstract Background: Axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) and adjuvant radiotherapy (RT) in early breast cancer are associated with a risk of morbidity, including lymphedema and impaired shoulder mobility. The aim of this study was to evaluate loco-regional morbidity after breast conserving surgery (BCS), ALND, taxane-based chemotherapy and whole breast irradiation (WBI) with or without regional nodes RT. Material and methods: Eligible patients had BCS and ALND from 2007 to 2012 followed by adjuvant taxane-based chemotherapy and if indicated, trastuzumab and endocrine treatment. The RT consisted of WBI and regional nodes RT in case of ≥ pN1 disease (group 1) and WBI only in case of pN0-1(mic) disease (group 2). The dose was 50 Gy in 25 fractions. The patients were invited to participate in a cross-sectional study evaluating morbidity. Results: Of the 347 eligible patients, 277 patients (79%) accepted the invitation. Of these, 185 patients (67%) belonged to group 1 and 92 patients (33%) to group 2. The median time from RT to evaluation of morbidity was 3.3 years (group 1) and 4.3 years (group 2). In group 1, 34 patients (18%) and in group 2, 15 patients (16%) had ≥2 cm enlargement in circumference of ipsilateral upper or lower arm (p = .67). The frequence of impairment of ipsilateral shoulder abduction to ≤120° was 3% in both groups and of shoulder flexion to | 205540011 |
4,508,758 | ≤120° was 1% and 2% (group 1 versus 2). No difference in patient reported outcome measure (PROM) data regarding heaviness or enlargement of ipsilateral upper and lower arm or mobility and sensory disturbances. Conclusion: The risk of lymphedema was low in patients after ALND and not related to use of regional nodes RT. Impairment of shoulder function was rare, and no differences in PROM were detected regarding use or not of regional nodes RT. | 205540011 |
4,508,759 | Flight testing a V/STOL aircraft to identify a full-envelope aerodynamic model Flight-test techniques are being used to generate a data base for identification of a full-envelope aerodynamic model of a V/STOL fighter aircraft, the YAV-8B Harrier. The flight envelope to be modeled includes hover, transition to conventionally flight and back to hover, STOL operation, and normal cruise. Standard V/STOL operation, and normal cruise. Standard V/STOL procedures such as vertical takeoff and landings, and short takeoff and landings are used to gather data in the powered-lift flight regime. Long (3-5-min) maneuvers which include a variety of input types are used to obtain large-amplitude control and response excitations. The aircraft is under continuous radar tracking; a laser tracker is used for V/STOL operations near the ground. Tracking data are used with state-estimation techniques to check data consistency and to derive unmeasured variables, for example, angular accelerations. A propulsion model of the YAV-8B's engine and reaction control system is used to isolate aerodynamic forces and moments for model identification. Representative V/STOL flight data are presented. The processing of a typical short-takeoff and slow-landing maneuver is illustrated. | 111344361 |
4,508,760 | Comment on ‘Finite-time synchronization of Lorenz chaotic systems: theory and circuits’ In a recent paper, Louodop et al (2013 Phys. Scr. 88 045002), a family of feedback couplings which accomplish the synchronization of Lorenz chaotic systems was proposed based on Lyapunov stability theory. We point out that there is an error which is fundamental to the main result of the paper. Furthermore, the controller u = kh ( e 1 ) ?> is complex and can be replaced by u = e 1 ?> , where h ( &xgr; ) ?> = ∑ i = 0 n a 2 i + 1 &xgr; 2 i + 1 ?> . | 123991511 |
4,508,761 | Hemodynamic and clinical limitations of long-term inotropic therapy with amrinone in patients with severe chronic heart failure. To determine the hemodynamic and clinical effects of long-term positive inotropic stimulation on the myocardium, we treated 31 patients with severe chronic heart failure with oral amrinone (600 mg daily) and performed invasive hemodynamic studies during short- and long-term treatment with the drug. Stroke volume and stroke work indexes increased markedly during the first 48 hr of therapy (p less than .01) but returned to pretreatment values after 2 to 10 weeks; upon drug withdrawal, both variables deteriorated rapidly to values significantly lower than those observed before treatment with amrinone (p less than .01), despite similar values for left ventricular filling pressure, mean arterial pressure, and systemic vascular resistance. This pattern of response indicated that progression of the underlying heart disease had occurred during treatment with amrinone and contributed importantly to its failure to produce long-term benefits. Progression of left ventricular dysfunction was associated with a progressive increase in heart rate and plasma renin activity and a decline in serum sodium concentration. Clinically, amrinone therapy was complicated by sustained symptomatic ventricular tachycardia in four patients, worsening myocardial ischemia in four patients, and worsening congestive heart failure in eight patients, all of whom had been stable before entry into the study; only three of the 31 patients improved clinically. Ten patients died during the first 2 weeks of treatment, and 16 (52%) were dead within 3 months, a mortality rate twice as great as that seen during comparable trials with | 6325011 |
4,508,762 | vasodilating drugs. Although noncardiac adverse effects were frequent, they were not the primary reason for drug failure. In conclusion, long-term therapy with amrinone may accelerate progression of left ventricular dysfunction, exacerbate myocardial ischemia, and provoke life-threatening ventricular tachyarrhythmias, thereby shortening survival in patients with severe chronic heart failure. Prolonged administration of inotropic drugs may achieve short-term gains at the expense of long-term detrimental effects on the myocardium. | 6325011 |
4,508,763 | Switchable Bifunctional Bistate Reusable ZnO–Cu for Selective Oxidation and Reduction Reaction Herein we disclosed the utilization of copper loaded zinc oxide (ZnO–Cu) for its stimuli (O2/light) responsive switchable performance between its reduced (S-1) and oxidized (S-2) state for two antagonistic reactions, namely oxidation of alkyl arenes/heteroarenes to aldehydes/ketones and reduction of nitro arenes/heteroarenes to corresponding amines. The two states of the catalyst showed its switchable performance as highly active and poorly active catalyst for oxidation and reduction, and both reactions could be turned “off” and “on” by changing the stimuli (light and O2/N2). The switching efficiency between the states and their relative reactivity were found to be consistent under variety of reaction conditions and remain unaltered irrespective of oxidation–reduction (or vice versa) sequence and substrates used in the reaction. The photo catalysts (S-1 and S-2) demonstrated good catalytic activity, multiple reusability, broad substrate scope, and reasonable functional group tolerance for both the reactio... | 104343761 |
4,508,764 | Ageing and employment: are patients ever too old to work? In the UK more over-50s are in employment than ever before; the employment rate of older people is increasing; and over 1.2 million people are working beyond age 65.1 Several factors contribute to this. The baby boomer generation is aged 50 to 70. Falling birth rates and increased lifespans require people to work longer to meet staffing needs and provide adequate retirement income as they live longer. The default retirement age was abolished in 2011, making it unlawful to retire someone compulsorily because of age, unless justified objectively. From 2020, the state pension age will be 66, increasing to 67 between 2026 and 2028, and linked to life expectancy thereafter. Although health is a determinant of how long people continue to work, there are emotional, personal, financial, and occupational factors. Work brings benefits including self-esteem, companionship, and income. Caring responsibilities, hobbies and interests, relationships in and outside of work, a partner’s employment status, and financial security all influence decisions to retire or to continue working. Occupational factors include the availability of work that satisfies personal needs, and the fit between job demands, working environment, individual circumstances, and capability.2 A new comprehensive report considers current evidence on the impact of age on ability to work, and examines perceptions, myths, and strategies that employers, doctors, and their ageing patients might utilise to maintain meaningful employment.3 Many systems of the body demonstrate age-related changes. The special senses are affected by hearing loss (presbycusis), balance problems (presbystasis), and visual impairment | 10900761 |
4,508,765 | (presbyopia). Presbyopia and presbycusis need not affect job performance and in most cases are overcome by hearing aids, corrective eyewear, … | 10900761 |
4,508,766 | Teacher education for diversity: afterword ABSTRACT This final contribution offers an overview of issues that arise in the earlier papers. It makes a commentary on what has been established about teacher education for diversity in Anglophone countries, by considering three themes that emerge from a reading of the papers collectively: policy as the context for teacher education for diversity, what it means to be a teacher in diversity, and how diversity can be conceptualised in educational contexts. | 242144961 |
4,508,767 | Interaction Between the Contractual and Legal Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and Subdivisions of Legal Support of Territorial Internal Affairs Agencies The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia is one of the main bodies of executive power that implements the law enforcement function of the state. The highest level of the organizational structure of the internal affairs bodies is represented by the Central Office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, which, in the person of its structural divisions, manages and organizes activities in certain service areas, which subsequently oversees. Interaction and assistance by the higher legal unit to the lower legal levels of the law enforcement system allows us to implement the tasks assigned by the state at the highest level. However, at the present time, in this direction, there are a number of features that need additional research and regulatory regulation. | 234569711 |
4,508,768 | Reversible binding of polymyxin B and neomycin to the solid part of faeces. Previous studies have shown that polymyxin B and neomycin were bound to the solid part of human faeces. In the present study, the faecal binding of polymyxin B and neomycin was studied, using a wide range of concentrations of drugs and faecal dilutions. Up to 25 mg of polymyxin B and 15 mg of neomycin could bind to 1 g of faeces but the binding was found to be reversible. With faeces of rats it was found that polymyxin B was mainly bound to the non-bacterial part of faeces, whereas neomycin was bound to the bacterial as well as the non-bacterial part. The implications of the reversible binding of antibiotics to intestinal contents for selective decontamination are discussed. | 20602011 |
4,508,769 | An Interesting Case of a Large Cystic Mesothelioma of the Omentum in a Pediatric Patient We present an interesting case of a large intra-abdominal cystic lesion in a 14-year-old girl who presented with abdominal discomfort and pain. The patient was evaluated with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and found to have a large septated cystic lesion arising from the gastrohepatic omentum. She underwent surgery, and the diagnosis of cystic mesothelioma was confirmed in the histopathology. To the best of our knowledge, only a few cases of benign omental mesothelial cysts have been reported. | 198373611 |
4,508,770 | The importance of crown dimensions to improve tropical tree biomass estimates. Tropical forests play a vital role in the global carbon cycle, but the amount of carbon they contain and its spatial distribution remain uncertain. Recent studies suggest that once tree height is accounted for in biomass calculations, in addition to diameter and wood density, carbon stock estimates are reduced in many areas. However, it is possible that larger crown sizes might offset the reduction in biomass estimates in some forests where tree heights are lower because even comparatively short trees develop large, well-lit crowns in or above the forest canopy. While current allometric models and theory focus on diameter, wood density, and height, the influence of crown size and structure has not been well studied. To test the extent to which accounting for crown parameters can improve biomass estimates, we harvested and weighed 51 trees (11-169 cm diameter) in southwestern Amazonia where no direct biomass measurements have been made. The trees in our study had nearly half of total aboveground biomass in the branches (44% +/- 2% [mean +/- SE]), demonstrating the importance of accounting for tree crowns. Consistent with our predictions, key pantropical equations that include height, but do not account for crown dimensions, underestimated the sum total biomass of all 51 trees by 11% to 14%, primarily due to substantial underestimates of many of the largest trees. In our models, including crown radius greatly improves performance and reduces error, especially for the largest trees. In addition, over the full data set, crown radius | 1582711 |
4,508,771 | explained more variation in aboveground biomass (10.5%) than height (6.0%). Crown form is also important: Trees with a monopodial architectural type are estimated to have 21-44% less mass than trees with other growth patterns. Our analysis suggests that accounting for crown allometry would substantially improve the accuracy of tropical estimates of tree biomass and its distribution in primary and degraded forests. | 1582711 |
4,508,772 | STUDY OF EFFECTIVENESS OF SEWAGE TREATMENT IN MEDIUM SAND WITH A SUPPORTIVE SMALL COAL LAYER Aim of the study The aim of the study was to laboratory determine whether introducing a supportive small coal layer with a granulation of 0.02–5 mm will improve the effectiveness of removal of nitrogen and phosphorus compounds from domestic sewage. The study concerned a layer that improves effectiveness of domestic sewage treatment in a household sewage treatment plant under an infiltration drainage system. | 216119361 |
4,508,773 | A Continuum Approach to the Nonlinear In-Plane Galloping of Shallow Flexible Cables The aeroelastic stability of horizontal, suspended, shallow, iced cables is studied via a continuum model. Both external and internal damping, consistent with the Rayleigh model, are taken into account. The quasi-static theory of the aerodynamic forces is applied. An in-plane nonlinear model of galloping is formulated, displaying the importance of internal damping, both on the critical velocity and on the limit-cycle amplitude. A perturbation procedure is developed for nonlinear analysis in nonresonant conditions (monomodal galloping). The modification of the galloping mode due to quadratic nonlinearities is studied, and its real or complex character is discussed. | 126895611 |
4,508,774 | Blood coagulation sensing at the point of care We describe a new optical coagulation sensing approach termed Optical Thromboelastography (OTEG) that measures a patient's coagulation status using a drop of blood. In OTEG, laser speckle intensity fluctuations are analyzed during clotting to measure the viscoelastic properties of blood during coagulation and recover information about multiple coagulation metrics within minutes. This technology addresses the critical unmet need to identify and manage patients with an elevated risk of life-threatening hemorrhage, the major cause of in-hospital preventable death. In addition, this innovation may enable rapid coagulation testing for patients who routinely receive oral anticoagulants to prevent venous and arterial thrombosis, the world's number one killer. | 20803411 |
4,508,775 | Estimation of pre- and posttreatment average treatment effects with binary time-varying treatment using Stata In this article, we describe tvdiff, a community-contributed command that implements a generalization of the difference-in-differences estimator to the case of binary time-varying treatment with pre- and postintervention periods. tvdiff is flexible and can accommodate many actual situations, enabling the user to specify the number of pre- and postintervention periods and a graphical representation of the estimated coefficients. In addition, tvdiff provides two distinct tests for the necessary condition of the identification of causal effects, namely, two tests for the so-called parallel-trend assumption. tvdiff is intended to simplify applied works on program evaluation and causal inference when longitudinal data are available. | 204204911 |
4,508,776 | Intravenous administration of pulsatile gonadotropin-releasing hormone in hypothalamic amenorrhea: effects of dosage. Eighteen women with well characterized hypothalamic amenorrhea underwent 30 cycles of pulsatile GnRH treatment in an effort to examine the role of GnRH dosage in pituitary and ovarian responses. GnRH was administered iv at 2 doses (25 and 100 ng/kg bolus) at a physiological range of frequencies (90 and 60 min) in the follicular phase of the induced cycles. After demonstration of ovulation by ultrasound and clinical parameters, the frequency of GnRH administration was progressively slowed from every 60 min to every 90 min and then to every 240 min to mimic the slowing of endogenous LH secretion that occurs during the luteal phase in normal women. The results of these induced cycles were compared to those of 62 ovulatory cycles from normal women. Overall clinical and biochemical results revealed the following. Patients receiving doses of 25 ng/kg GnRH successfully ovulated only 80% of the time, with recruitment of a single dominant follicle. Two of 5 patients became pregnant. Peak estradiol levels were significantly lower than normal [261 +/- 33 (+/- SE) vs. 342 +/- 11 pg/ml, respectively; P less than 0.02]. Integrated luteal phase progesterone production was also significantly reduced in the 25 ng/kg group compared to normal (78 +/- 17 vs. 145 +/- 8 ng/ml/entire luteal phase, respectively; P less than 0.02). All women receiving bolus doses of 100 ng/kg GnRH ovulated; maturation of multiple follicles occurred in 5 of 20 cycles, and 6 of 7 women conceived. Peak estradiol values were | 10990511 |
4,508,777 | significantly higher than those in either normal women or the 25 ng/kg group (478 +/- 48 pg/ml; P less than 0.02 for both), with integrated luteal phase progesterone levels significantly higher than those in patients receiving the 25 ng/kg dose (196 +/- 25 ng/ml/luteal phase; P less than 0.02). This study demonstrates that ovulation and fertility can be achieved with a physiological frequency regimen of pulsatile GnRH administration using bolus doses of both 25 and 100 ng/kg in women with hypothalamic amenorrhea; the 25 ng/kg dose of GnRH may represent a threshold of stimulation of the pituitary-ovarian axis and recreates cycles with an inadequate luteal phase; and a 100 ng/kg dose of GnRH may well cause a supraphysiological stimulation of the pituitary-gonadal axis. | 10990511 |
4,508,778 | Comparison of subjective and objective measurement of sweat transfer rate. Sweat absorption is investigated using the subjective and objective methods. The subjective investigation analyses the physiological responses of male and female volunteers wearing two kinds of textile fabrics (cotton and polyester) during certain physical activity. The subjects were exposed to the different conditions of ambient temperature (23, 26, 29 and 32 degrees C) and constant relative humidity of 67 +/- 3%. In the objective investigation the sweating guarded hotplate (SGHP) system was used that stimulates the processes of sweat transfer between the human skin, textile material and environment. The results of mass absorption obtained from the objective measurement on the sweating guarded hotplate show the similar trend as the results obtained during the subjective measurement. | 10677011 |
4,508,779 | How to situate cognition: Letting nature take its course 1. The Situation in Cognition The situated cognition movement in the cognitive sciences, like those sciences themselves, is a loose-knit family of approaches to understanding the mind and cognition. While it has both philosophical and psychological antecedents in thought stretching back over the last century (see Gallagher, this volume, Clancey, this volume,), it has developed primarily since the late 1970s as an alternative to, or a modification of, the then predominant paradigms for exploring the mind within the cognitive sciences. For this reason it has been common to characterize situated cognition in terms of what it is not, a cluster of "anti-isms". Situated cognition has thus been described as opposed to Platonism, Cartesianism, individualism, representationalism, and even | 9486811 |
4,508,780 | Multiple Dendritic Cell (DC) Subpopulations in Human Gingiva and Association of Mature DCs with CD4+ T-cells in situ Gingival epithelium is a site of active trafficking of Langerhans cells (LCs), while the lamina propria in chronic periodontitis (CP) contains CD83+ mature dendritic cells (mDCs) and CD4+ T-cells. The immune cells that contribute to the mDCs, and whether mDCs engage with T-cells in situ, are unclear. Using several immunohistochemical approaches, combined with fluorescence-, light-, and scanning laser confocal-microscopy, we show that, in addition to LCs, the gingiva contains dermal DCs (DDCs) in the lamina propria; moreover, DDCs increase in number during CP. Furthermore, DDCs, LCs, and B-cells co-express CD83 in CP and contribute to the mDC pool. Double-staining for CD83 and CD4 revealed that mDCs associate with clusters of CD4+ T-cells in the lamina propria. Analysis of these data suggests that multiple DC subsets mature in the gingiva and that mature DCs engage in antigen presentation with T-cells in chronic periodontitis. | 24025361 |
4,508,781 | Robust H/sub 2/ vibration control of beams with piezoelectric sensors and actuators This paper studies vibration control of a beam with bonded piezoelectric sensors and actuators. Basic equations for piezoelectric sensors and actuators are presented. The equation of motion for the beam structure is derived by using the Hamilton's principle. A robust H/sub 2/ controller is designed. The numerical simulation shows that the vibration can be significantly suppressed by the proposed controller. | 61606561 |
4,508,782 | Holter Functions of the Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator: What is Still Missing? The technology of the implantable Cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) offers the opportunity to overcome the present limits of the invasive and noninvasive approaches of clinical electrophysiology. The invasive approach enables us to reproduce severe arrhythmias if they are inducible, but does not give information concerning the way they spontaneously arise. The noninvasive approach (Holter) gives this information, but it usually concerns only trivial arrhythmias with different therapeutic targets. One hopes in the future, by means of an important extension to ICD technology, which is not technically possible for the time being, to have access to pertinent information and to a better understanding of the circumstances leading to severe spontaneous arrhythmias, potentially lethal. For the moment, we only have the diagnostic certainty leading to the therapeutic intervention. It is based on an ECG and on the sequence of cardiac cycles preceding the rhythmic controlled accident. These data allow verification of but not explanation of the events. To have a chance to be understood and explained, these “events” must be replaced in the context of the “nonevents.” Ideally, one should have all the gross information concerning the last 24 hours and subsequently analyze them. It is already a big step, thanks to the defibrillators the right to therapeutic error has been gained, a unique and fatal accident has been transformed into a repeatable event, and therefore, access is gained to the evolution of the responsible disease. I PACE 1995; 18[Pt. II].560–568) | 30177511 |
4,508,783 | Fetal Hyperinsulinemia and Protein Turnover in Fetal Rat Tissues The effects of fetal hyperinsulinemia on protein turnover in various tissues of fetal rats were determined after transuteral injection of insulin to rat fetuses at day 19 of gestation. Tissue protein content was measured on the subsequent days of gestation (days 20–22), and protein synthesis was determined at day 20 of gestation in fetal tissues after intravenous injection of [3H]phenylalanine into the maternal circulation, followed by measurements of tissue free and protein-bound phenylalanine specific radioactivity in fetal diaphragm, brain, heart, and liver. Rates of protein degradation in these fetal tissues were calculated by subtracting protein accretion rates from rates of protein synthesis. The injection of insulin to rat fetuses at day 19 of gestation resulted in relative macrosomia versus saline-injected controls from the same litter (body wt at day 20 of gestation, 3.26 ± 0.15 g for saline-injected fetuses and 3.60 ± 0.25 g for insulin-injected fetuses, P < 0.001) and increased protein and RNA content of brain, heart, and liver. Although fractional rates of protein synthesis were not significantly elevated in tissues from the hyperinsulinemic fetuses, absolute rates of protein synthesis were increased in brain, heart, and liver of hyperinsulinemic fetuses. Hyperinsulinemia did not reduce calculated rates of protein breakdown in fetal brain, heart, or liver but did in fetal diaphragm. We conclude that the major effect of fetal hyperinsulinemia on protein turnover in rats is to increase protein synthesis in selected tissues without simultaneously affecting protein breakdown. | 41100211 |
4,508,784 | [Current best surgical procedure for reconstruction after cervical esophagectomy]. Currently, chemoradiotherapy offers the possibility of larynx-preserving treatment. Therefore, the surgical procedure for reconstruction involves not only reconstruction of the alimentary tract but also needs to be selected considering postoperative swallowing function. In larynx-preserving surgery, it is necessary to pay attention to the elevation of the larynx and the prevention of reflux, considering the narrow space of recipient laryngeal space. Free jejunal interposition is the best method for cervical esophageal reconstruction and the free jejunum plus gastric roll or ileocolic reconstruction technique is appropriate for total esophageal substitution. In patients undergoing combined resection of the larynx, there is no need to consider aspiration, but it is important for postoperative quality of life to prevent reflux. Therefore, the free jejunum plus gastric roll or ileocolic reconstruction technique is used for total esophageal substitution. For cervical esophageal reconstruction, the free jejunal graft is slightly better than the free colon graft in terms of simplicity and lower rates of postoperative infection. | 32803261 |
4,508,785 | Application of a Fluorescent PCR Method for Molecular Diagnosis of Posttransplant Lymphoproliferative Disorders on Routine Tissue Sections Molecular detection of monoclonality can play an important role in the diagnosis of posttransplantation lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLD). To permit accurate molecular diagnosis of PTLD even on very small amounts of DNA extracted from routinely embedded histologic material, we adapted a commercially available PCR protocol (for FR-1, -2 and -3 regions), originally designed for use on fresh/frozen samples. We applied this approach on routine biopsy/surgical material of 10 PTLD (from nine patients). All three FR regions were always amplified, indicating that the extracted DNA was of medium quality. All five PTLD morphologically classified as lymphomas were monoclonal in at least one FR region. Thus, using the WHO histologic, immunohistochemical, and clinical criteria as the reference standard, the approach provided 100% sensitivity for detection of monoclonal malignancies, supporting the validity of the method. Of five specimens classified morphologically as polymorphic PTLD, three displayed a solitary IgH gene rearrangement peak, consistent with the presence of a monoclonal B-cell population (ie, monoclonal polymorphic PTLD). This rapid and straightforward procedure, which allows identification of a wide range of IgH rearrangements, could facilitate molecular analysis of PTLD in routine practice, while limiting consumption of valuable diagnostic material. | 22417111 |
4,508,786 | Evaluating Kanopy Access Models in Academic Libraries: Balancing Demand and Budget Constraints Abstract Many academic libraries make streaming video content available to their users on the Kanopy platform. This article explores how libraries have approached Kanopy’s various access models, of which the most common are a patron driven acquisition (PDA) access model and a mediated access model. The author examines her institution’s switch in models in light of budgetary concerns and concludes that the change to mediate access has not led to significant delays in providing access to requested materials. | 238787861 |
4,508,787 | Phase II trial of aprepitant on days 1 to 7 for patients with germ cell tumors having cisplatin on days 1 to 5. e19577 Background: There is no established aprepitant-containing anti-emetic regimen for multi-day, cisplatin-based chemotherapy. The aim of this single-arm, multi-centre, phase II trial was to determine the efficacy of giving aprepitant for 7 days to patients having 5 days of cisplatin and etoposide as first line chemotherapy for germ cell tumors (BEP, accelerated BEP, or EP). METHODS Patients received oral aprepitant 125 mg day 1 and 80 mg days 2 to 7, a 5HT3 antagonist days 1 to 5, and dexamethasone 8 mg days 1 to 8. The primary endpoint was "nil emesis" during days 1 to 7 of cycle 1 assessed by patients with a self-completed diary. Key secondary endpoints are listed in the table. RESULTS 50 patients recruited from May 2009 to December 2010 had a median age of 30 years and ECOG performance status 0 or 1. Compliance rates for anti-emetics during cycle 1 were 92% for aprepitant, 86% for dexamethasone, and 96% for 5HT3 antagonist. There were no serious unexpected adverse events attributed to aprepitant. Efficacy results are tabulated. CONCLUSIONS The nil emesis rate during days 1 to 7 of 84% (95% CI 70%, 93%) was substantially better than the historical control rate of 50%. These results support the safety, efficacy and further consideration of using aprepitant on days 1 to 7 for patients with germ cell tumours having cisplatin on days 1 to 5. Supported in part by supply | 19899411 |
4,508,788 | of drug from Investigator-Initiated Studies Program of Merck and Co. and research grant from Merck Sharp & Dohme (Australia) Pty Limited. [Table: see text]. | 19899411 |
4,508,789 | Multi-attribute strict two-sided matching methods with interval-valued preference ordinal information ABSTRACT In the study of two-sided matching decision problems, preference ordinal information is a key factor. However, in real life, it is often difficult to ascertain complete preference ordinal information, and in most cases we can only obtain an interval-valued preference ordinal information. In this paper, a strict two-sided matching based on multi-attribute interval-valued preference ordinal information is discussed. As a generalised decision model, the strict two-sided matching adequately considers the requirement of satisfaction degree of two-sided agents. Firstly, the ranking method of probability degree is introduced to deal with the information of various interval numbers. Then, in the case of multiple attributes, we propose two methods for strict two-sided matching problem. The one is to aggregate multi-attribute satisfaction degree and then construct the decision model. The another is to separately deal with the interval-valued preference ordinal information of each attribute and then design the corresponding model. Finally, in the context of Internet finance, we adopt an example of the venture capital two-sided matching problem to illustrate our proposed methods and confirm the effectiveness. | 234882961 |
4,508,790 | Validation of the Virtual Reality Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL): An Immersive Virtual Reality Neuropsychological Battery with Enhanced Ecological Validity Abstract Objective: The assessment of cognitive functions such as prospective memory, episodic memory, attention, and executive functions benefits from an ecologically valid approach to better understand how performance outcomes generalize to everyday life. Immersive virtual reality (VR) is considered capable of simulating real-life situations to enhance ecological validity. The present study attempted to validate the Virtual Reality Everyday Assessment Lab (VR-EAL), an immersive VR neuropsychological battery, against an extensive paper-and-pencil neuropsychological battery. Methods: Forty-one participants (21 females) were recruited: 18 gamers and 23 non-gamers who attended both an immersive VR and a paper-and-pencil testing session. Bayesian Pearson’s correlation analyses were conducted to assess construct and convergent validity of the VR-EAL. Bayesian t-tests were performed to compare VR and paper-and-pencil testing in terms of administration time, similarity to real-life tasks (i.e., ecological validity), and pleasantness. Results: VR-EAL scores were significantly correlated with their equivalent scores on the paper-and-pencil tests. The participants’ reports indicated that the VR-EAL tasks were significantly more ecologically valid and pleasant than the paper-and-pencil neuropsychological battery. The VR-EAL battery also had a shorter administration time. Conclusion: The VR-EAL appears as an effective neuropsychological tool for the assessment of everyday cognitive functions, which has enhanced ecological validity, a highly pleasant testing experience, and does not induce cybersickness. | 221099611 |
4,508,791 | IoT devices discovery and identification using network traffic data: poster The Internet of Things (IoT) has been erupting world widely over the decade. However, the security and privacy leakage issues from IoT devices are surfaced to a major flaw for IoT device operators. An attacker may use network traffic data to identify IoT devices and launch attacks on their target devices. To explore the severity and extent of this privacy threat, we design a hybrid ML-based IoT device identification framework. Our key insight is that typically an IoT device has a unique traffic signature and it is already embedded in its network traffic. Unlike other existing work using complex modeling, we show that the majority of IoT devices can be easily identified using our empirical models, and the other devices can also be correctly classified using our ML-based models. We instrument a smart IoT experiment environment to verify and evaluate our approaches. Our framework paves the way for operators of smart homes to monitor the functionality, security and privacy threat without requiring any additional devices. | 160010361 |
4,508,792 | Prediction of perinatal mortality in early pregnancy \ The detection of high-risk pregnancies has become one of the major concerns of physicians and midwives in charge of pregnant women. Detection must be made very early, and it would be highly desirable for certain factors of risk to be discovered before the beginning of pregnancy, and even before any pregnancy in any given woman. In the work reported here, our objective was to predict perinatal mortality during the first three months of pregnancy in order to discover the groups at risk requiring particular care. Predictions will be based not only on pathological findings, but also on characteristics, the importance of which is sometimes less well known, such as age, social and economic Status, and circumstances of life during pregnancy. On the basis of an analytical study of these factors, an attempt at predicting stillbirth and neonatal death is made. | 36977661 |
4,508,793 | Analysis of vessels in GF-3 quad-polarimetic SAR image In August, 2016, GaoFen-3 (GF-3) satellite of China was launched. It can provide C band and multi-polarization SAR data for scientific and commercial applications. In the paper, A GF-3 quad-polarimetric SAR image was acquired for vessel feature analysis. The imaging area is in the Yellow Sea. Some vessels can be found in the open water area. Four polarimetric channels, features based on polarimetric decomposition, and other features such as reflection symmetry etc. are investigated. The mean value of target to clutter ratio (MTCR) of different vessels are adopted to evaluate which descriptor can achieve the best of target to clutter ratio. Preliminary experiment results show that the polarimetric descriptor RS, or correlation between co- and cross polarized channels, has the best ability for vessel detection in the image. In future work, more data will be obtained and more features will be considered for further analysis. | 3433961 |
4,508,794 | Evaluating optimizations that reduce global memory accesses of stencil computations in GPGPUs This work compares the performance of optimizations that transform replicated global memory accesses into local memory accesses on 3D stencil computations in the NVIDIA Tesla K80 GPGPU. The optimizations reduce global memory contention caused by the set of multiprocessors. Evaluated optimizations are grid tiling, inserting spatial and temporal loops into kernels, register reuse, and some of their combinations. A standardized experiment evaluates performance variation with grid size and stencil size for each optimization. Experimental data show that codes that use these optimizations are up to 3.3 times faster than the classical stencil formulation. It also shows that the most profitable optimization varies with grid and stencil sizes. | 69701011 |
4,508,795 | The Potential Clinical Implications of Circulating Tumor Cells and Circulating Tumor Microemboli in Gastric Cancer. BACKGROUND Gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC) is the third deadliest malignant neoplasm worldwide, mostly because of late disease diagnosis, low chemotherapy response rates, and an overall lack of tumor biology understanding. Therefore, tools for prognosis and prediction of treatment response are needed. Quantification of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and circulating tumor microemboli (CTM) and their expression of biomarkers has potential clinical relevance. Our aim was to evaluate CTCs and CTM and their expression of HER2 and plakoglobin in patients with nonmetastatic GAC, correlating the findings to clinicopathological data. MATERIALS AND METHODS CTC enrichment was performed with isolation by size of epithelial tumor cells, and the analysis was performed with immunocytochemistry and microscopy. Two collections were made: one at diagnosis (55 samples before neoadjuvant treatment) and one after surgery and before adjuvant therapy (33 samples). RESULTS A high detection rate of CTCs (90%) was observed at baseline. We evaluated HER2 expression in 45/55 biopsy samples and in 42/55 CTC samples, with an overlap of 36 subjects. Besides the good agreement observed for HER2 expression in primary tumors and paired CTCs for 36 cases (69.4%; κ = 0.272), the analysis of HER2 in CTCs showed higher positivity (43%) compared with primary tumors (11%); 3/5 patients with disease progression had HER2-negative primary tumors but HER2-positive CTCs. A significant CTC count drop in follow-up was seen for CTC-HER2-positive cases (4.45 to 1.0 CTCs per mL) compared with CTC-HER2-negative cases (2.6 to 1.0 CTCs per mL). The same | 73497421 |
4,508,796 | was observed for CTC-plakoglobin-positive cases (2.9 to 1.25 CTCs per mL). CONCLUSION CTC analysis, including their levels, plakoglobin, and HER2 expression, appears to be a promising tool in the understanding the biology and prognosis of GAC. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE The analysis of circulating tumor cell levels from the blood of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma, before and after neoadjuvant treatment, is useful to better understand the behavior of the disease as well as the patients more likely to respond to treatment. | 73497421 |
4,508,797 | Ultradeep characterisation of translational sequence determinants refutes rare-codon hypothesis and unveils quadruplet base pairing of initiator tRNA and transcript Translation is a key determinant of gene expression and an important biotechnological engineering target. In bacteria, 5’-untranslated region (5’-UTR) and coding sequence (CDS) are well-known mRNA parts controlling translation and thus cellular protein levels. However, the complex interaction of 5’-UTR and CDS has so far only been studied for few sequences leading to non-generalisable and partly contradictory conclusions. Herein, we systematically assess the dynamic translation from over 1.2 million 5’-UTR-CDS pairs in Escherichia coli to investigate their collective effect using a new method for ultradeep sequence-function mapping. This allows us to disentangle and precisely quantify effects of known and hypothetical sequence determinants of translation. We find that 5’-UTR and CDS individually account for 53% and 20% of variance in translation, respectively, and show conclusively that, contrary to a common hypothesis, tRNA abundance does not explain expression changes between CDSs with different synonymous codons. Moreover, the obtained large-scale data clearly point to a base-pairing interaction between initiator tRNA and mRNA beyond the anticodon-codon interaction, an effect that is often masked for individual sequences and therefore inaccessible to low-throughput approaches. Our study highlights the indispensability of ultradeep sequence-function mapping to accurately determine the contribution of parts and phenomena involved in gene regulation. | 248518371 |
4,508,798 | How to measure cortical folding from MR images: a step-by-step tutorial to compute local gyrification index. Cortical folding (gyrification) is determined during the first months of life, so that adverse events occurring during this period leave traces that will be identifiable at any age. As recently reviewed by Mangin and colleagues(2), several methods exist to quantify different characteristics of gyrification. For instance, sulcal morphometry can be used to measure shape descriptors such as the depth, length or indices of inter-hemispheric asymmetry(3). These geometrical properties have the advantage of being easy to interpret. However, sulcal morphometry tightly relies on the accurate identification of a given set of sulci and hence provides a fragmented description of gyrification. A more fine-grained quantification of gyrification can be achieved with curvature-based measurements, where smoothed absolute mean curvature is typically computed at thousands of points over the cortical surface(4). The curvature is however not straightforward to comprehend, as it remains unclear if there is any direct relationship between the curvedness and a biologically meaningful correlate such as cortical volume or surface. To address the diverse issues raised by the measurement of cortical folding, we previously developed an algorithm to quantify local gyrification with an exquisite spatial resolution and of simple interpretation. Our method is inspired of the Gyrification Index(5), a method originally used in comparative neuroanatomy to evaluate the cortical folding differences across species. In our implementation, which we name local Gyrification Index (lGI(1)), we measure the amount of cortex buried within the sulcal folds as compared with the amount of visible | 15069071 |
4,508,799 | cortex in circular regions of interest. Given that the cortex grows primarily through radial expansion(6), our method was specifically designed to identify early defects of cortical development. In this article, we detail the computation of local Gyrification Index, which is now freely distributed as a part of the FreeSurfer Software (http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital). FreeSurfer provides a set of automated reconstruction tools of the brain's cortical surface from structural MRI data. The cortical surface extracted in the native space of the images with sub-millimeter accuracy is then further used for the creation of an outer surface, which will serve as a basis for the lGI calculation. A circular region of interest is then delineated on the outer surface, and its corresponding region of interest on the cortical surface is identified using a matching algorithm as described in our validation study(1). This process is repeatedly iterated with largely overlapping regions of interest, resulting in cortical maps of gyrification for subsequent statistical comparisons (Fig. 1). Of note, another measurement of local gyrification with a similar inspiration was proposed by Toro and colleagues(7), where the folding index at each point is computed as the ratio of the cortical area contained in a sphere divided by the area of a disc with the same radius. The two implementations differ in that the one by Toro et al. is based on Euclidian distances and thus considers discontinuous patches of cortical area, whereas ours uses a strict geodesic algorithm and include only the continuous patch of cortical | 15069071 |
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