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Acyclothymidine alleviates intestinal toxicity of 5'-deoxy-5-fluorouridine without loss of antitumor activity in mice. To reduce the intestinal toxicity of orally administered 5'-deoxy-5-fluorouridine (5'-DFUR) in mice, we co-administered 5'-DFUR with acyclothymidine [AcyT, 5-methyl-(2'-hydroxyethoxymethyl) uracil], a potent inhibitor of pyrimidine nucleoside phosphorylase (PyNPase). Orally administered 5'-DFUR alone caused intestinal toxicity and severe damage to the intestinal villi, while 5'-DFUR with AcyT reduced the intestinal toxicity, and prevented damage to the intestinal villi. This toxicity arising from orally administered 5'-DFUR could not be reduced by intravenous administration of AcyT, but was alleviated by oral administration. Orally co-administered AcyT showed little effect on antitumor activity of 5'-DFUR toward subcutaneously implanted Lewis lung carcinoma, though the intestinal toxicity was reduced in the tumor-bearing mice. This finding suggests that orally co-administered AcyT may prevent the undesirable conversion of 5'-DFUR to 5-FU by PyNPase during the process of absorption in the intestinal tract.
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Credit cards and interest rates: theory and institutional factors--a critical view When the government issues its own nonconvertible currency--also known as a flexible exchange rate policy--the central bank, as monopoly supplier of net reserves to its member banks, is the (exogenous) source of the risk-free yield curve. Furthermore, in the case of government member bank deposit insurance, the banking system is in no case reserve-constrained. In the context of Professor Stauffer's paper, this renders his entire analysis of available funds and demand for balances inapplicable. Only with a fixed exchange rate regime, such as a gold standard, a currency board, or government "peg" of some sort, are interest rates endogenous and subject to the forces Stauffer alludes to.
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Fuel Adulteration in Nigeria and its Consequencies. Adulteration of petrol and diesel fuel with kerosene is very common in Nigeria. It increases the tailpipe emissions of harmful pollutants from vehicles. These leads to this study, which tends to show the rate of emission of CO (carbon II oxide) and PM (Particulate matters) from engines when they are run on adulterated fuel. Also the effects of adulteration on the environment and on human health were discussed and possible solutions to combat adulteration of fuel highlighted.
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Shear Failure of Patched Reinforced Concrete Beam without Web Reinforcements Degradation of reinforced concrete (RC) element could lead to a reduction of its strength and serviceability. The degradation may be identified in the form of spalling of concrete cover. For the case of RC beam, spalling of concrete cover could occur at the web of the shear span due to corrosion of the web reinfocements. The shear strength of the damaged-RC beam possibly will become less conservative compared to the corresponding flexural strength with a risk of brittle failure. Patch repair could be a choice to recover the size and strength of the damaged-RC beam. This research investigates the shear failure of patched RC beam without web reinforcements with a particular interest to compare the shear failure behaviour of patched RC beam and normal RC beam. The patch repair material used in this research was unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) mortar. The results indicate that the initial diagonal cracks leading to shear failure of patched RC beam occur at a lower level of loading. However, the patched RC beam could carry a greater load before the diagonal crack propagates in length and width causing the beam to fail in shear.
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Multi-view Configuration of Flight Dynamic Playback Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have proven to be highly capable in reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, as well as a possible future operation platform for weapons. Currently UAVs are supervised or piloted remotely, meaning that their behavior is not autonomous throughout the flight [1]. Consequently, instructions are being passed to the UAVs commanding the maneuvers to execute and perform to pursue their adversary or to evade being targeted. In recent years, the security level of these aircrafts has become a critical issue because these aircraft are used for combat missions and other secure operations. For this reason and many others, designing a dual display of the pursuer/evader of UAVs using a flight simulator and displaying in a singular window, appears to be a good idea. In this paper, we give a description of how the data is being collected and transformed into friendly data for viewing its actual maneuvers as a three dimension weapon using a flight simulator and why it is important and safe to do so.
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Cavity-hollow cathode-sputtering source for titanium films Abstract A cavity-hollow cathode was investigated as low-cost sputtering source for titanium. An argon discharge is produced inside a hollow cathode consisting of two specifically formed disks of titanium. An additional cavity further enhances the pendulum effect of the electrons. Measurements with small Langmuir probes yielded evidence for the formation of a space charge double layer above the cathode. The sputtered atoms form negatively charged clusters. After further acceleration by the double layer the clusters impinge on the substrates. Titanium thin films were produced on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite. The films were investigated by a scanning tunnel microscope and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.
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[Direct secretory expression of active microbial transglutaminase in Pichia pastoris]. Direct secretory expression of active microbial transglutaminase (MTG) using heterologous hosts is a promising strategy, although its production level still needs to be improved for industrial production. Pichia pastoris is one of the most efficient expression systems developed in recent years. In this study, secretory expression of active MTG was successfully achieved by co-expressing the pro sequence and mature MTG genes in P. pastoris. Furthermore, we optimized the copy number of pro/MTG expression cassettes and the fermentation conditions. MTG production level reached 7.3 U/mL in 1-liter fermentor through high density fermentation, providing the feasiblity for industrial scale preparation of MTG.
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A case of frequently relapsing nephrotic syndrome combined with Perthes disease. Orally-administered steroids often induce osteonecrosis of the femoral head. In cases of Perthes disease, osteonecrosis of the femoral head occurs in children due to an unknown cause. Our subject was a 4-year-old boy who had to be given large amounts of steroids because of frequently relapsing nephrotic syndrome (FRNS) developed after the onset of Perthes disease. One month earlier, he would limp with his right leg, but his radiographs were normal. Later, facial edema appeared and he was brought to our hospital with heavy proteinuria. He was diagnosed with NS and prescribed prednisolone for 2 months. As he would limp occasionally during the treatment, he had an orthopedic examination at our hospital, and shrinkage of the right femoral head was disclosed. Perthes disease was diagnosed on the basis of his MRI and clinical history. Meanwhile, NS relapsed twice over a half year, and he was diagnosed as having FRNS. Cyclophosphamide was administered for 12 weeks. Four years later, MRI indicated that the femoral head slowly improved and he was able to walk without prosthetic support. These results suggest that in the course of healing from Perthes disease, the conventional method of using prednisolone has little impact on the femoral head.
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Steep increases in fentanyl-related mortality west of the Mississippi River: synthesizing recent evidence from county and state surveillance Background and Aims: Overdose deaths from synthetic opioids (e.g., fentanyl), increased 10-fold in the United States from 2013-2018, despite 88% of deaths occurring east of the Mississippi River. Public health professionals have long feared that further spread of fentanyl could greatly exacerbate the opioid epidemic. We aimed to measure and characterize recent fentanyl deaths in jurisdictions west of the Mississippi River. Design: Systematic search of states and counties in the Western U.S. for publicly available data on fentanyl-related deaths since the most recently published Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics, which cover through December 2018. Longitudinal study using 2019 and 2020 mortality records to identify changes in fentanyl-involved mortality since most recent CDC statistics. Settings: U.S. states west of the Mississippi River. Measurements: Annual rate of fentanyl-involved deaths per 100,000 population. Proportion of fatal heroin-, stimulant, and prescription pill overdoses also involving fentanyl. Findings: We identified nine jurisdictions with publicly available fentanyl death data through December 2019 or later: State of Arizona, Denver County, CO, Harris County, TX, Humboldt County, CA, King County, WA, Los Angeles County, CA, San Francisco County, CA, Siskiyou County, CA, Dallas-Fort Worth, TX metro area (Denton, Johnson, Parker, Tarrant counties. Fentanyl deaths increased in each jurisdiction. Their collective contribution to national synthetic narcotics mortality tripled from 2017 to 2019. First quarter 2020 data (available from all but San Francisco County) showed a 33% growth in fentanyl-mortality over 2019. Fentanyl-involvement in heroin,
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stimulant, and prescription pill deaths has grown substantially over time. Conclusions: Fentanyl has spread westward, which could dramatically worsen the already severe opioid epidemic in the United States. Increasing standard-dose of naloxone, expanding Medicaid, improving coverage of addiction treatment, and public health educational campaigns should be prioritized.
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Representation and computation of geographic dynamics If the geographic domain is defined as the surface and near-surface of the Earth, then geographic dynamics describes all time-dependent aspects of that domain, including the results of processes that transform and modify it. This is a vast field, encompassing both social and physical phenomena. GIScience traditionally focuses on the scientific issues that lie behind GIS. In the context of geographic dynamics, it seems appropriate that GIScience focus similarly on the generic: the tools, data models, software, and other resources that facilitate analysis and modeling of dynamic phenomena. Fields and objects provide a useful framework for further discussion, since processes can be identified as field-based, object-based, or based on both conceptualizations. We review the currently available resources, and identify some significant gaps. The example of flow-like phenomena provides a case study of the development of generic data-modeling tools. Five gaps are discussed in detail, as the basis for a research agenda on geographic dynamics for GIScience.
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The Adaptive SPAM Mail Detection System using Clustering based on Text Mining Spam mail is one of the most general mail dysfunctions, which may cause psychological damage to internet users. As internet usage increases, the amount of spam mail has also gradually increased. Indiscriminate sending, in particular, occurs when spam mail is sent using smart phones or tablets connected to wireless networks. Spam mail consists of approximately 68% of mail traffic; however, it is believed that the true percentage of spam mail is at a much more severe level. In order to analyze and detect spammail, we introduce a technique based on spam mail characteristics and text mining; in particular, spam mail is detected by extracting the linguistic analysis and language processing. Existing spam mail is analyzed, and hidden spam signatures are extracted using text clustering. Our proposed method utilizes a text mining system to improve the detection and error detection rates for existing spam mail and to respond to new spam mail types.
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Disability certifications in adult workers: a practical approach. Family physicians are frequently asked to complete disability certification forms for workers. The certification process can be contentious because of the number of stakeholders, the varying definitions of disability and the nature of the administrative systems. Insufficient training on disability during medical school and residency complicates this process. Disability systems discussed include workers' compensation, private disability insurance, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Strategies that help the physician complete disability certification forms effectively include identification of disability type, ascertainment of the definition of disability being applied, evaluation of workplace demands and essential job functions, assessment of worker capacity, and accurate and timely completion of the forms in their entirety.
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Glasgow’s Jewish Institute players and their narratives of Scottish-Jewish identity ABSTRACT The Glasgow Jewish Institute Players was an innovative community theatre group whose work explored the many facets of Jewish identity in inter- and post-war Britain. This essay provides an overview of the company’s production history and repertoire, including plays by its inspirational founder, the playwright and director Avrom Greenbaum (1903–1963). It argues that the group’s output reflected the identities and self-image of a Glasgow Jewish community that was seeking to consolidate and rationalise its place in Scottish and British society in the inter- and post-war periods.
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Resection or transplant-listing for solitary hepatitis C-associated hepatocellular carcinoma: an intention-to-treat analysis. OBJECTIVES The relative roles of liver resection (LR) and liver transplantation (LT) in the treatment of a solitary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain unclear. This study was conducted to provide a retrospective intention-to-treat comparison of these two curative therapies. METHODS Records maintained at the study centre for all patients treated with LR or listed for LT for hepatitis C-associated HCC between January 2002 and December 2007 were reviewed. Inclusion criteria required: (i) an initial diagnosis of a solitary HCC lesion measuring ≤ 5 cm, and (ii) Child-Pugh class A or B cirrhosis. The primary endpoint analysed was intention-to-treat survival. RESULTS A total of 75 patients were listed for transplant (LT-listed group) and 56 were resected (LR group). Of the 75 LT-listed patients, 23 (30.7%) were never transplanted because they were either removed from the waiting list (n = 13) or died (n = 10). Intention-to-treat median survival was superior in the LR group compared with the LT-listed group (61.8 months vs. 30.6 months), but the difference did not reach significance. Five-year recurrence was higher in the LR group than in the 52 LT patients (71.5% vs. 30.5%; P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS In the context of limited donor organ availability, partial hepatectomy represents an efficacious primary approach in properly selected patients with hepatitis C-associated HCC.
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Technological Literacy: A Framework for Teaching Technical Communication Software Tools ABSTRACT Understanding technological literacy for technical communicators is crucial for effective pedagogy in technical and professional communication. Challenges of teaching technical communication students the functions and concepts of workplace software include the number of rapidly changing applications, a desire to focus on education over training, limited faculty expertise in software, limited resources for teaching software, and a desire to focus on technical communication principles. To address these challenges, the authors explore how to use a four-level framework of technological literacy along with existing resources to design a course to help students use, understand, and evaluate technical communication technology.
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A Constructive Self-Organizing Network Applied to a Discrete Optimization Problem Most discrete optimization problems belong to the NP-complete or NP-hard classes. A benchmark problem to assess the performance of new heuristics to solve these classes of problems is the traveling salesman problem (TSP). This paper proposes some modifications on a self-organizing network, named RABNET- TSP, to solve TSP problems. The modified algorithm is compared, with encouraging results, to other proposals from the literature on a number of different TSP instances.
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Ph.D. Forum Abstract: Increasing Robustness in WSN Using Software Defined Network Architecture With the advent of Internet of Things (IoT) Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) seem to play key a role in the connectivity of smart objects. The limited resources of WSN devices and the increased demand for new and more sophisticated services call for new and more efficient architectures. The new architectures should ensure energy-efficiency, flexibility, reliability and robustness. We believe that using SDN principles in WSN will improve many important features, such as routing, robustness and reconfiguration of the networking as well as the applications. In this research, We will find ways to increase the robustness of WSN using an SDN inspired architecture and a statistical model. The initial plan is to use statistical machine learning to look for periodic interference and other periodic behaviour in typical WSN networks.
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Predator-Mediated Indirect Effects of Snowshoe Hares on Dall's Sheep in Alaska Abstract Indirect interactions among species can strongly influence population dynamics and community structure but are often overlooked in management of large mammals. We estimated survival of Dall's sheep (Ovis dalli) in the central Alaska Range, USA, during years of differing snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) abundance to test whether indirect interactions with a cyclic hare population affect Dall's sheep either negatively, by subsidizing predators (apparent competition), or positively, by diverting predation (apparent commensalism). Annual survival of adult female sheep was consistently high (0.85 for all yr and age classes combined). In contrast, annual estimates of lamb survival ranged from 0.15 to 0.63. The main predators of lambs were coyotes (Canis latrans) and golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos), which rely on hares as their primary food and prey on lambs secondarily. Coyotes and eagles killed 78% of 65 radiocollared lambs for which cause of death was known. Lamb survival was negatively related to hare abundance during the previous year, and lamb survival rates more than doubled when hare abundance declined, supporting the hypothesis of predator-mediated apparent competition between hares and sheep. However, stage-specific predation and delays in predator responses to changes in hare numbers led to a positive relationship between abundance of adult Dall's sheep and hares. Lacking reliable estimates of survival, a manager might erroneously conclude that hares benefit sheep. Thus, support for different indirect effects can be obtained from different types of data, which demonstrates the need to determine the mechanisms that create indirect interactions. Long-term
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survey data suggest that predation by coyotes is limiting this sheep population below levels typical when coyotes were rare or absent. Understanding the nature of indirect interactions is necessary to effectively manage complex predator–prey communities.
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Accounting for Dropouts in Evaluations of Social Experiments This paper considers the statistical and economic justification for one widely-used method of adjusting data from social experiments to account for dropping-out behavior due to Bloom (1984). We generalize the method to apply to distributions not just means, and present tests of the key identifying assumption in this context. A reanalysis of the National JTPA experiment base vindicates application of Bloom's method in this context.
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Usability-supporting architectural patterns Software architects have techniques to deal with many quality attributes such as performance, reliability, and maintainability. Usability, however, has traditionally been concerned primarily with presentation and not been a concern of software architects beyond separating the user interface from the remainder of the application. In this paper, we present usability-supporting architectural patterns. Each pattern describes a usability concern that is not supported by separation alone. For each concern, a usability-supporting architectural pattern provides the forces from the characteristics of the task and environment, the human, and the state of the software to motivate an implementation independent solution cast in terms of the responsibilities that must be fulfilled to satisfy the forces. Furthermore, each pattern includes a sample solution implemented in the context of an overriding separation based pattern such as J2EE Model View Controller.
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Yealands Wine Group Holdings Limited: A case study 1 Abstract Yealands Wine Group Holdings Limited has an exciting future and Peter Yealands (founder) and Jason Judkins (CEO) were celebrating. They felt that Yealands was in a strong position going forward and the new partnership with Marlborough Lines offered exciting future possibilities. However, they knew that the company faced many strategic issues that needed to be addressed. They also wanted to ensure that they were able to achieve their growth plans by 2020: lifting sales from 1 to 2 million cases a year, wine processing capacity from 20,000 tonnes to 30,000 tonnes and turnover from $100 million to $150 million. To meet their intended projections, what direction should they grow in? And how?
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Neurogenesis: Study Sparks Controversy Over Whether Humans Continue to Make New Neurons Throughout Life McDade, DO, assistant professor in the department of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “It would have been nice to see more information on the age effect of these findings — specifically, did the associations between exercise level and dementia show different effects at different age levels?” he said. Dr. McDade also pointed out that including only women in the study restricts the generalizability to men, but it also overcomes a common source of heterogeneity that may have lessened the strength of the associations identified between fitness and dementia. Another concern relates to uncertainty about the differences in the dropout rate (refusal and death) between the exercise groups. Major differences in the dropout rate could affect the results, particularly for those who declined at follow-up. For instance, if a large number of high-activity participants refused at follow-up, a number of them could have been experiencing dementia without a formal diagnosis, so it would not have been detected in the study, Dr. McDade said. “It is also not certain whether those with the highest exercise tolerance level had other unique attributes that both make them more able to exercise at higher levels and which might also protect them against cognitive decline, unrelated to the effects of exercise on the brain,” he said. The new study continues to support efforts aimed at motivating people to maintain a regular level of physical exercise throughout adulthood, Dr. McDade said, while cautioning, “Whether
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or not more intensive exercise programs vs moderate levels should be encouraged, as this work would suggest, remains uncertain.” Dr. Launer noted that distinguishing between physical activity and fitness is an important consideration as well. Most public health messages focus on physical activity, whereas both clinicians and individuals would benefit from better ways to gauge fitness. In the Swedish study, the ergometer cycle test endpoint emphasized fatigue as the indirect measure of maximum oxygen consumption per unit time. “Since the health-related components of physical fitness are cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, body composition, and flexibility, multiple aspects can be translated into new technologies, or from combining other easily obtainable measures,” Dr. Launer said. While clinical trials can contribute to identifying only the short-term benefits of fitness in a life stage, she stressed the need for studies and markers that can help bridge between life stages. One such example is the CARDIA study, published in 2015 in Neurology, which followed participants from young adulthood to midlife and demonstrated a cognitive benefit of high fitness. Specifically, Dr. Launer said, high cardiorespiratory fitness — measured by maximal duration of symptom-limited exercise on a treadmill at the average age of 25 years — was associated 25 years later with higher brain volume and better performance on cognitive tests, which are basic measures of brain health. Nonetheless, Dr. Yaffe, who is also chief of neuropsychiatry and director of the Memory Disorders Clinic at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, said the study boosts the premise that “greater fitness seems to
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confer a lot of advantages.” While neurologists continue to make that case to their patients, she added that “there really needs to be a big public health campaign that explains to people why exercise is not only good for the heart, but it’s also good for the brain.” • Dementia, Midlife Fitness Continued from page 61 NEUROG ENE SIS
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“Are You One of Us?” Points of Social Exclusion amongst Youths of Diverse Religious Groups in Indonesia Deriving from basis of the social identity theory and its development, the research aimed to explore the points of exclusion and how individuals and groups perceived themselves as experiencing victimhood of social injustice. The rise of intolerance in Indonesia was alarming and threatened the diversity and inclusivity of the nation. Throughout several political milestones such as gubernatorial and presidential elections, identity had been used as one of the most efficient ways to segregate and discriminate against people belonging to different groups. Applying a qualitative approach, data were mined from two focus group discussions of university student respondents with various religious and ethnic backgrounds representing the majority and minority groups in Indonesia. Groups sessions were strictly differentiated between majority and minority representatives to minimize the risk of potential conflict. The findings suggest that both groups’ initial perceptions towards members of outgroups are heavily influenced by transferred stereotypes and prejudices from the older generations. While the majority group struggles to counter the prejudices and perceived victimhood through direct exposure, the minority group, on the other hand, takes language into account as a subtle gesture of exclusion.
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Into the Abyss of Standard-Setting: An Analysis of Procedural and Substantive Guarantees within ISO Continuous innovation and a growing consumer demand for better and safer products has led to an increase of technical standards in recent years. The World Trade Organization (WTO) exercises a high level of deference towards international standards, requiring their use. However, practice shows that several international standards are adopted through opaque and exclusionary processes. In line with this observation, in its recent US-Tuna II ruling, the Appellate Body adopted a more critical approach regarding international standards. Against this backdrop, this paper focuses on an analysis of the properties and mechanics of international standard-setting processes within the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), discussing procedural and substantive guarantees regarding transparency, openness, deliberation and participation. As the WTO becomes the de facto arbiter of the legitimacy of international standards, much-needed institutional reform in international standard-setting is bound to occur, in line with emerging demands for a more inclusive global legal order.
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Creation of multimedia support study material and administration of LMS systems in virtual education environment Multimedia support, a professional courses, presentation are involved in all virtual learning systems. They are part of the virtual learning environment of the university. This whole issue is quite clear and structured solved in commercial products with a view of the economic profit. In the university environment specific situation occurs. The aim of the multimedia support is professional quality, effective and quality learning management system and management skills.
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Flexible redundancy insertion in a polyphase down sampling multiple description image coding In this paper we address the problem of image transmission over unreliable networks. The system is based on multiple description coding, that introducing redundancy in the produced stream is able to guarantee a useful quality reconstruction also in presence of high percentage of packet losses. The target of this work is providing a flexible redundancy insertion in order to make the system robust for any packet loss situation over different networks (the Internet or mobile). The simulation results show the capability of the system to achieve the optimal image quality reconstruction according to network behavior.
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Insight into the heterogeneity of breast cancer through next-generation sequencing. Rapid and sophisticated improvements in molecular analysis have allowed us to sequence whole human genomes as well as cancer genomes, and the findings suggest that we may be approaching the ability to individualize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. This paradigmatic shift in approach will require clinicians and researchers to overcome several challenges including the huge spectrum of tumor types within a given cancer, as well as the cell-to-cell variations observed within tumors. This review discusses how next-generation sequencing of breast cancer genomes already reveals insight into tumor heterogeneity and how it can contribute to future breast cancer classification and management.
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The conceptual design research of integrating the current electric vehicles' public charging service by applications Taking Shanghai city for example to work out a service blueprint, which will meet the charging requirements of the EV users, this design research focuses on the User Experience. Using the internet survey method and then furtherly developed an App named EV charge. EV charge involves four main functions: real - name registration and login system, locating function to the EV charging stations, online control of EV charging procedures and online payment. All these four functions form an online closed loop of ‘stations-locating’, ‘charging’ and ‘payment’.
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Africa's energy future will pose challenges Subject The social and environmental implications of Africa's rising energy demand. Significance Africa’s energy development poses fundamental social and environmental challenges. Rapid population growth combined with industrialisation and urbanisation imply large increases in energy demand, much of which is expected to be met by fossil fuels, undermining sustainability goals. Yet increased energy use is critical for the economic development of a continent much of which still has to move away from a dependence on traditional biomass and gain modern levels of access to electricity. Impacts The poor state of electricity infrastructure will retard large-scale electrification, encouraging recourse to off-grid renewables. Weak infrastructure will also increase the degree to which future energy demand is met by fossil fuels. Distributed solar and micro-solar use will expand most rapidly where mobile banking has already penetrated.
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To measure or not to measure?An empirical investigation of social impact measurement in UK social enterprises ABSTRACT Social enterprises (SE) – organizations with a dual mission to generate economic and social value – have become important players in the delivery of public services in the UK and elsewhere. While public sector value-for-money imperatives encourages these hybrid organizations to provide estimates of their social and economic impact, relatively little is known about who does so. Using institutional perspectives and large-sample data produced by Social Enterprises UK, we empirically document the uptake of social impact measurement in this sector and the extent to which context, the nature of the impact and stakeholders involvement explain differences in participation rates.
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EFFICIENCY EVALUATION OF A CATHODIC PROTECTION DEVICE FOR MARINE STRUCTURES USING POWER FROM SOLAR PANELS The operability of a cathodic protection device for marine structures powered only by a solar panel without the use of other direct current sources is experimentally studied. A quantitative assessment of the corrosion protection ability of such a device is carried out at four current densities of cathodic protection for low-alloy metals. To determine the possibility of using such protection of objects that may have corrosion products on their surface in comparison with objects that immediately after immersion in sea water are protected by cathodic protection, four test samples have a clean surface before testing, and the other four have corrosion products of low-alloy steel. It is shown that the protective effect of pure samples reaches 64% at a current density of 0,387 Amperes per square meter, and the protective effect of samples with corrosion products reaches 70% and 95% at protection current densities of 0,203 and 0,387 Amperes per square meter respectively. In order to ensure maximum protection of steels, cathodic current densities of more than 0,2 Amperes per square meter are required, which are easily achieved by using solar panels. The protective ability of such modes to protect the marine structures from corrosion is achieved by the formation of coatings of calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide in the daytime, which are able to protect objects in the night, currentless period of time. The using possibility of cathodic protection for protecting metals in seawater using solar panels when other direct
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current sources are not used is proved. Obviously, it is advisable to use such devices to protect offshore structures in the areas located away from stationary sources of electricity and human resources, while saving significant material resources.
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Generating Reforms and Reforming Generations: Military Politics in Indonesia's Democratic Transition and Consolidation This article examines the importance of the internal structural dynamics of the military in the analysis of transitions from nondemocratic rule and in democratic consolidation. The authors argues that factors endogenous to the military—including variations in the size of the officer corps, solidarity among graduating classes from the military academy, and promotional prospects—are important determinants of the political behavior of militaries. As a case study, military structure and politics during Indonesia's recent transition from nondemocratic rule and current consolidation of democracy are explored in detail. While the ongoing interaction between civilians and the military is acknowledged, systematic structural features are identified as being important for understanding the behavior of the Indonesian military between 1998 and 2001. The authors compare and contrast the study of Indonesia with other cases in the literature on transitions—including Ghana, Nigeria, Portugal, and Thailand—and discuss resulting implications for the study of transitions and consolidations.
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The Role of Visualization in Data Mining Visual data exploration allows faster data exploration and generally provides a better result than automatic data mining algorithms. The classification of VDM techniques are done in three dimensions: data type to be visualized, visualization technique, and interaction and distortion. There exist a large number of different visualization techniques all depending on the suitability to the type of data that are to be visualized. The two major driving forces behind visualizing data mining models are understanding and trust. In general leads good understanding to trust. Exploratory data analysis is used to find systematic relations between variables when there are little or no knowledge of what the forthcoming result may be. That is why exploratory analysis only works as a first step of the prediction of a model.
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Investigation of the Influence of Resonator Losses and Coupling Coefficient on the Characteristics of an Optical Resonator Gyroscope with a Mach-Zehnder Modulator The previously proposed approach to the construction and principle of operation of a resonator micro-optical gyroscope is considered. It does not require scanning the resonator by frequency and is implemented by using a Mach-Zehnder modulator, to one of the arms of which a passive ring resonator is connected. The application of this approach makes it possible to simplify the design of a micro gyro, to obtain a reciprocal configuration and to reduce the actual size of the gyroscope. As studies have shown, the described approach allows obtaining measurement information by two methods. The first involves measuring the angular velocity from the values of the maxima and minima at the output of the Mach-Zander modulator. The second one is based on the displacement of these maxima and minima relative to the phase of the signal supplied to the modulator. The influence of losses and the coupling coefficient of the resonator on the characteristics of the gyroscope when determining the angular velocity by both methods is investigated.
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Preparing for the Future: How Asset Management Will Evolve in the Age of the Smart Grid Most utilities struggle to organize information about their distribution network assets. Operations, engineering, accounting, and other business functions all use different tools and systems, forcing grid operators to synchronize separate databases. This paper presents an improved approach to managing grid assets by establishing a ‘single source of the truth,’ eliminating special-purpose databases, utilizing spatial databases, and incorporating a workflow management tool to support database updates.
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[The property of radiation in low doses and of low-intensity ionizing radiation to cause metallothionein induction]. The effect of the increase in metallothionein content in hepatocytes of white mice located in conditions of chronic low dose rate and low-dose irradiation. In this work an opportunity of participation of metallothioneins, as the natural radioprotector and factor of nonspecific resistance, in adaptation of organisms to adverse environmental conditions was discussed.
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Engineered macroporous hydrogel scaffolds via pickering emulsions stabilized by MgO nanoparticles promote bone regeneration. Hydrogels are appealing biomaterials for regenerative medicine since biomimetic modifications of their polymeric network can provide unique physical properties and emulate the native extracellular matrix (ECM). Meanwhile, therapeutic metal ions, such as magnesium ions (Mg2+), not only regulate cellular behaviours but also stimulate local bone formation and healing. However, the absence of a meaningful macroporous structure and the uncompromising mechanical strength are still challenges. Herein, we designed a macroporous composite hydrogel based on mild and fast thiol-ene click reactions. The Pickering emulsion method was adopted to form a macroporous structure and introduce MgO nanoparticles (NPs). The results show that the composite hydrogel possesses good mechanical strength and an evenly distributed macroporous structure. MgO NPs stabilized at the oil/water interface not only function as effective emulsion stabilizers, but also enhance the mechanical properties of hydrogels and mediate the sustained release of Mg2+. In vitro cell experiments demonstrated that the composite hydrogel displays good biocompatibility. More importantly, the release of Mg2+ ions from hydrogels can effectively promote the osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs. Furthermore, an in vivo study showed that macroporous hydrogels can provide a good extracellular matrix microenvironment for in situ osteogenesis and accelerate bone tissue regeneration.
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Leveling the Ice: The Discrepancy Between Male and Female Athletics at Boston College This paper explores multiple published articles regarding the societal assumption that women’s sports are less competitive and less engaging than men’s sports. Some articles, such as Women’s Sports Foundation (2010) and Carpenter & Acosta (2005),cite lack of funds and media visibility as to why women’s sports are not as highly regarded as men’s sports. Other articles, such as Messner (2000) and NWLC (2012), explain that the disproportion in coverage of men’s and women’s sports is based onsociety’s expectations of women and the assumption feminine“weaknesses” This paper examines the men’s and women’s ice hockey teams at Boston College and details the issues surrounding team schedules, fan attendance, university support, and media presence in an attempt to determine whether BC Women’s Ice Hockey receives different levels of support and investment from BC compared to the BC Men’s Hockey team, and whether this differential investment leads to a unique spectator experience that may explain the lack of spectator attendance at BC women’s hockey games.
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Quantitative analysis of large amounts of journalistic texts using topic modelling The huge collections of news content which have become available through digital technologies both enable and warrant scientific inquiry, challenging journalism scholars to analyse unprecedented amounts of texts. We propose Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modelling as a tool to face this challenge. LDA is a cutting edge technique for content analysis, designed to automatically organize large archives of documents based on latent topics, measured as patterns of word (co-)occurrence. We explain how this technique works, how different choices by the researcher affect the results and how the results can be meaningfully interpreted. To demonstrate its usefulness for journalism research, we conducted a case study of the New York Times coverage of nuclear technology from 1945 to the present, partially replicating a study by Gamson and Modigliani. This shows that LDA is a useful tool for analysing trends and patterns in news content in large digital news archives relatively quickly.
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Palestine Country Profile: The Road Ahead for Palestine: Fiscal Policy and Performance Various bodies participated in offering public services besides the Palestinian National Authority government, such as the UNRWA agency, the NGOs which have a significant role in offering social, health and educational free or subsidized services, and finally, international aids and UN firms render funds for the purpose of enhancing infrastructure of the PNA. To find ways and means of financing the needed public services, the PNA has its own internal and external sources of funds. The revenues of PNA come from various resources including local revenues as well as international aids, the first contributed item of PNA budget was the VAT tax, followed by customs, then the international aids recorded as the third important source of PNA budget. To examine the performance of the PNA fiscal policy, various features that include positive as well as negative aspects may be found. The number of recruited employees to the public sector increased more than three times since the PNA emerged and reached about 133, 000 employees, besides the emergency programs attached to the PNA budget which absorbs an average of about 13,000 employees yearly, in the job creation projects implemented in the last few years. Moreover, there are about thirty thousands jobs included in the UNRWA, local governments and the NGOs, which raises the number of total of public services employees to about 176,0000 employees, which form about 31% of the total workers in Palestine 2005. Finally, it may be stated that there is a need
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to reform the fiscal policy of the PNA. This includes reorganizing and legalizing of indirect taxes, unifying local taxes imposed in local councils, implementing the new law of retirement issued in 2005, and to unifying budget financial transactions in one currency.
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Could Physician-Assisted Suicide be Classified as a Service Under Article 49 of the European Community Treaty? This paper considers whether it is possible to classify physician assisted suicide (PAS) as a ‘service’ for the purposes of Article 49 of the European Community Treaty. It suggests that if PAS were to be formally recognised as a ‘service’ for the purposes of European Community (EC) Law, it is unlikely that the UK Government would be able to deny terminally ill Britons from exercising their rights as EU Citizens to obtain PAS in the more permissive jurisdictions of Member States. This paper will demonstrate that the provision of PAS in a Member State by a Dignitas-type organisation could easily fulfil the requirements of Article 49 and be recognised as a service under Community Law. Owing to the considerable rights that the classification of PAS as a ‘service’ under EC Law would afford terminally ill individuals, the paper will examine the case law of the European Court of Justice relating to the free movement of services. This jurisprudential analysis will contend that it is unlikely that a Member State could invoke any of the agreed exceptions to Article 49 as a method of restricting the availability of PAS as a service within its jurisdiction.
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On the asymptotic growth of Birkhoff integrals for locally Hamiltonian flows and ergodicity of their extensions We consider smooth area-preserving flows (also known as locally Hamiltonian flows) on surfaces of genus $g\geq 1$ and study ergodic integrals of smooth observables along the flow trajectories. We show that these integrals display a \emph{power deviation spectrum} and describe the cocycles that lead the pure power behaviour, giving a new proof of results by Forni (Annals 2002) and Bufetov (Annals 2014) and generalizing them to observables which are non-zero at fixed points. This in particular completes the proof of the original formulation of the Kontsevitch-Zorich conjecture. Our proof is based on building suitable \emph{correction operators} for cocycles with logarithmic singularities over a full measure set of interval exchange transformations (IETs), in the spirit of Marmi-Moussa-Yoccoz work on piecewise smooth cocycles over IETs. In the case of symmetric singularities, exploiting former work of the second author (Annals 2011), we prove a tightness result for a finite codimension class of observables. We then apply the latter result to prove the existence of ergodic infinite extensions for a full measure set of locally Hamiltonian flows with non-degenerate saddles in any genus $g\geq 2$.
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Security Strength of RSA and Attribute Based Encryption for Data Security in Cloud Computing Cloud computing is an emerging technology that is still uncertain to many security problems. Ensuring the security of stored data in cloud servers is one of the most challenging issues in such environments. RSA provide secure transmission over transmission channel. Main advantage of RSA is prime factorization. With the ever increasing number of connected devices and the over abundance of data generated by these devices, data privacy has become a critical concern in the Internet of Things. One promising privacy-preservation approach is Attribute-Based Encryption (ABE), a public key encryption scheme that enables fine-grained access control, scalable key management and flexible data distribution. The main aim of this exertion is to discuss the security strength of RSA and Attribute based encryption (ABE).
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Trends in Facial Fracture Treatment Using the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Database Background: Facial fractures are commonly encountered scenarios for surgeons in the emergency room. The aim of this study was to assess epidemiology and complication rates of facial fractures and the impact of surgical specialty on facial fracture repair using the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database. Methods: The authors performed a retrospective review of prospectively collected data from the 2005 to 2011 American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program databases using Current Procedural Terminology codes to identify patients undergoing facial fracture repair. Demographic data, postoperative complications, comparison between single and multiple facial fractures, and surgical specialty were accessed. Chi-square tests or Fisher’s exact test were used for comparing categorical variables and t tests for continuous variables. Results: A total of 1170 patients were analyzed. The mean age was 38.7 ± 17.0, and the male-to-female ratio was 3.72:1. The most prevalent facial fracture was mandibular fracture in the single-fracture group and zygomatic fracture in the multiple-fracture group. Mandibular fractures were more prevalent in males and orbital fractures in females. Wound complication, morbidity, and mortality rates were 1.8, 1.3, and 0.1 percent, respectively. Multiple facial fractures and orbital fractures were more frequently treated by plastic surgeons among all surgeons. Conclusions: Epidemiologic analysis of facial fractures identifies the most affected patient populations and the characteristics of their fractures. Comparison of complication rates and surgical specialty may permit broad insight into how patients are currently managed. CLINICAL
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QUESTION/LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Therapeutic, III.
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Cost-effectiveness of PD-L1 testing and tumor mutational burden testing of immune checkpoint inhibitors for non-small cell lung cancer. e20689 Background: Immunotherapy that targeted programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–programmed death 1 (PD-1) pathway showed great benefit on survival compared with other therapies, especially with certain assessments before. However, the high costs limit its use. This cost-effectiveness analysis aimed to measure the significance of various assessments in immunotherapy. Methods: A decision-tree model was established based on the data of OAK study, we compared the economic benefit between immunotherapy and chemotherapy in no test group, PD-L1 test group and tumor mutational burden(TMB) test group respectively with a willingness-to-pay threshold of 3× the per capita gross domestic product ($29307/quality-adjusted life year [QALY]). Besides, we also balanced the benefit of immunotherapy among different groups. Furthermore, we also considered different costs of TMB tests due to the various methods of detection. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to evaluate the stability. Results: Immunotherapy was cost-effective compared with chemotherapy in all groups. Immunotherapy with PD-L1 test achieved economic benefit when comparing with both TMB test group and no test group. However, TMB test group was not cost-effective compared with no test group. The results from average CE and net benefit were consistent. Tissue-based TMB test was the most cost-effective TMB detection methods. One-way sensitivity analyses reflected the impact of utilities. Conclusions: Immunotherapy was cost-effective compared with chemotherapy. PD-L1 test was the most cost-effective immunotherapy test. [Table: see text]
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Dual‐Priming Oligonucleotide‐Based Multiplex PCR for the Detection of Helicobacter pylori and Determination of Clarithromycin Resistance with Gastric Biopsy Specimens Background: Assessment of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) clarithromycin resistance has rarely been performed routinely despite an increasing resistance rate. Our aim was to develop and evaluate the use of dual‐priming oligonucleotide (DPO)‐based multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect point mutations in the 23S rRNA gene responsible for clarithromycin resistance of H. pylori.
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Investigating the Tool Life, Cutting Force Components, and Surface Roughness of AISI 302 Stainless Steel Material Under Oblique Machining The aim of this work is to investigate the machinability of austenitic AISI 302 stainless steel under oblique cutting. This can be achieved by studying the cutting forces, analysis of tool life, and investigation of the surface roughness at different cutting conditions and nose radius. A factorial experiment and analysis of variance technique are used in which several factors are evaluated for their effects on each level. The machinability experiments are based on design of experiments to obtain empirical equations for machinability values for machining conditions such as speed, feed, depth of cut, and nose radius. The parameters considered in the experiments were optimized to attain maximum tool life using a response graph and a response table. Based on the response models, dual response contours (tool life and surface roughness as a response and metal removal rate) have been plotted in cutting speed-feed planes. Evaluating the effect of the predominant variables influencing the value of tool life is very important for improving the machined product quality.
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Impact of Irrigation Method on Root Rot and Wilt Diseases in Tomato Under Net Greenhouse in the State of Qatar. The study involved the relationship among two irrigation methods; Subsurface Buried Diffuser (SBD) and Conventional Drip irrigation (DI) and their impact on the survival of healthy tomato plant . Tomato plant irrigated with SBD and DI methods were subjected to survey of root or shoot systems fungal diseases and infected vs. healthy Tomato plant survival incidence percentage were recorded. Surveyed tomato plant showing, root rot and wilt symptoms were subjected to isolation trails for the purpose of isolation of the causal organisms. Rhizospheric samples of different healthy and diseased plants were collected at flowering growth stage for determining the frequency occurrence of different fungi associated with the root region of healthy and infected roots of tomato plants under both irrigation methods. It was observed that the Tomato plants irrigated under DI method were more prone to fungal infection than that of SBD method. Pathogenic fungi that contributed in reducing the survival of tomato plant were high in rhizospheric soil irrigated with DI irrigation Method as compared to SBD irrigation method. The root fungal pathogens isolated from rhizospheric soil were Fusarium solani, Fusarium oxysporum, Aspergillus spp., and Pythium spp., which recorded in high frequency comparing with other microorganisms. The genus Fusarium represented in highest records followed by the genus Rhizoctonia and Pythium respectively at all assayed samples.
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Linearity and RF Power Handling on Capacitive RF MEMS Switches Linearity characteristics of capacitive tuners under large radio frequency (RF) power have become an important issue for today’s cellphone industry. The use of these devices as antenna tuners has become critically important due to the RF spectrum opening in the low-frequency range. Capacitive tuners connected directly to the antenna to change the RF voltage/current pattern and tune lower frequencies are subjected to suffer large voltage swings, especially in the isolation state or minimum capacitance. In this article, we analyze the effects of the large RF power or equivalent rms voltage to capacitive micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) switches. The theoretical analysis combined with Coventor MEMS+ simulations will allow us to study the capacitance change and MEMS mechanical frequency response. This article evaluates two types of measurement setups to investigate the RF power effects on nominal capacitance and mechanical frequency response. Measurements up to 6 W were completed with two capacitive MEMS tuner products, confirming the modeling predictions and demonstrating the robustness of this technology under large RF power or voltage swings.
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Turnover of 131I-labelled albumin in horses with gastrointestinal disease. Four horses with a history of chronic diarrhoea and weight loss were studied. Three of them revealed malabsorption, as indicated by decreased absorption of D(+)-xylose. Three patients had distinct hypoalbuminaemia, and 131I-albumin turnover rates of these three horses were increased, compared to two normal control horses. However, the increases were not very marked, probably because actual signs of enteric disease were few in the patients, all of which were studied during convalescence. It is suggested that the observed hypoalbuminaemia is due to a gastrointestinal protein loss during the chronic diarrhoeal disease.
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Cultivated co-production: Sexual health, human rights, and the revision of the ICD STS scholars frequently have shown how science and sociopolitical arrangements are ‘co-produced’, typically tracing how scientific actors themselves keep ‘science’ and ‘politics’ far apart. Revealing co-production is therefore deemed the work of the STS analyst, who unearths linkages that the actors might be unaware of, or might ignore or deny. By contrast, the creation of a new chapter on ‘sexual health’ in the recent revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) offers a case of what might be termed ‘cultivated co-production’. Neither oblivious to the linkages between science and politics nor invested in obscuring them, the designers of the sexual health chapter sought support for their work by demonstrating, transparently, how science, ethics, and human rights might properly be aligned. The intentional and visible character of co-production in this case indicates awareness of the need to manage the contested nature of gender and sexuality at a transnational level. It also reflects two changes in the organization of medical politics and medical classification: a widespread recognition of the necessity of reaching out to lay stakeholders and advocates, and the rise of an emphasis on ‘conventions’ as the backbone of transnational biomedical consensus processes.
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[Celiac disease and its endocrine and nutritional implications on male reproduction]. The problem of the interference of celiac disease (CD) with the male reproductive system is made evident both by the recognized adverse effects on female reproduction and by the multifactorial nature of the disease. It is important to consider CD as a multifactorial condition since its diverse effects can be modulated, besides gluten, by different concurrent genetic and environmental factors. The male CD patient has a greater risk of infertility and other reproductive disturbances, as well as a greater incidence of hypoandrogenism. In this paper the problems of CD associated to endocrine disorders and to deficiencies of micronutrients are discussed. Affected males show a picture of tissue resistance to androgens. Moreover, attention should be paid to increases of FSH and prolactin; these are not associated to infertility and/or impotence, but they may indicate an imbalance at hypothalamus-pituitary level, with general effects on health: an example is the increased risk of male osteoporosis in CD patients. Hormone alterations are reversible upon start of the gluten-free diet, emphasizing the importance of early diagnosis; this should be performed in the case of clinical suspicion, e.g., unexplained hypoandrogenism. As regards nutritional aspects, the folic acid deficiency of CD can affect rapidly proliferating tissues, such as the embryo and the seminiferous epithelium. More attention should be paid to deficiencies of fat-soluble vitamins, such as A and E, observed in CD. Vitamin A is important for Sertoli cell function as well as for early spermatogenetic phases. Vitamin E supports the correct
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differentiation and function of epidydimal epithelium, spermatid maturation and secretion of proteins by the prostate. Therefore, CD male patients should be considered as vulnerable subjects; thus, the detection of early biomarkers of andrological or endocrinological dysfunctions should trigger timely strategies for prevention and treatment.
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Orbital angular momentum density and spiral spectra of Lorentz–Gauss vortex beams passing through a single slit Based on the Hermite–Gaussian expansion of the Lorentz distribution and the complex Gaussian expansion of the aperture function, an analytical expression of the Lorentz–Gauss vortex beam with one topological charge passing through a single slit is derived. By using the obtained analytical expressions, the properties of the Lorentz–Gauss vortex beam passing through a single slit are numerically demonstrated. According to the intensity distribution or the phase distribution of the Lorentz–Gauss vortex beam, one can judge whether the topological charge is positive or negative. The effects of the topological charge and three beam parameters on the orbital angular momentum density as well as the spiral spectra are systematically investigated respectively. The optimal choice for measuring the topological charge of the diffracted Lorentz–Gauss vortex beam is to make the single slit width wider than the waist of the Gaussian part.
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[Immunoglobulin and T-cell receptor gene rearrangements in patients with autoimmune diseases]. Immunoglobulin-(Ig-) and T-cell-receptor-(TcR-)gene rearrangements were investigated in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) of patients with various autoimmune disorders. In patients with SLE there was no predominant Ig- or TcR-gene rearrangement. This was also true in patients with a long disease duration and with excessive hypergammaglobulinemia. These results lead us to suggest that B cells are activated polyclonally in these patients. In those cases, where predominantly rearranged Ig- or TcR-genes were found, the autoimmune disorder was associated with a low-grade non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). This coherence of B-cell malignancy and autoimmunity was only found in patients with cryoglobulinemia (KG), cold agglutinin disease (KA), and hemolytic anemia (AIHA).
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Unroll-based register coalescing Aggressive instruction scheduling leaves behind many renaming copy instructions that cannot be coalesced due to interferences. These copies take resources, and more seriously, they may cause a stall if they are generated for renaming of multi-latency instructions. This paper proposes a code transformation technique based on loop unrolling which makes those copies coalescible. Two unique features of the technique are its method of determining the precise unroll amount based on an idea of extended live range, and its insertion of special bookkeeping copies at loop exits. In fact, the technique provides a more general and simpler solution for the cross-iteration register overwrite problem in software pipelining which works for loops with control flows as well as for straight-line loops. In addition, it is applicable to other optimizations including path length reduction and redundant subscripted reference elimination. Our empirical study performed on a 16-ALU VLIW testbed with a two-cycle load latency shows that 86% of the otherwise uncoalescible copies in innermost loops become coalescible when unrolled 2.2 times on average. In addition, it is demonstrated that the unroll amount obtained is precise and the most efficient. The unrolled version of the VLIW code includes fewer no-op VLIWs caused by stalls, improving the performance by a geometric mean of 18%.
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Decline of the relative risk of death associated with low employment grade at older age: the impact of age related differences in smoking, blood pressure and plasma cholesterol STUDY OBJECTIVE To explore whether the observed age related decline in the relative risk of death associated with low employment grade can be explained by the profiles of smoking, blood pressure and plasma cholesterol changing differently with age between the employment grades. DESIGN Prospective cohort study with 25 years of mortality follow up. SETTING Whitehall study. PARTICIPANTS There were 16 984 men aged 40 to 69 years at baseline with complete information on smoking, blood pressure and plasma cholesterol. MAIN RESULTS The relative risk of death associated with low employment grade decreased from 2.1 at 55–59 years of age to 1.3 at 85–89 years of age. Adjustment for smoking status and blood pressure, attenuated the age related decline of the relative risk by 18% and 3% respectively; adjustment for plasma cholesterol increased the decline by 3%. Taken together, these risk factors explain 20% of the observed age related decline. CONCLUSIONS A small part of the observed age related decline in the relative risk of death associated with low employment grade can be explained by differential changes in the profiles of smoking, blood pressure and plasma cholesterol with age between the employment grades.
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A comparative study of 11 local health department organizational networks. CONTEXT Although the nation's local health departments (LHDs) share a common mission, variability in administrative structures is a barrier to identifying common, optimal management strategies. There is a gap in understanding what unifying features LHDs share as organizations that could be leveraged systematically for achieving high performance. OBJECTIVE To explore sources of commonality and variability in a range of LHDs by comparing intraorganizational networks. INTERVENTION We used organizational network analysis to document relationships between employees, tasks, knowledge, and resources within LHDs, which may exist regardless of formal administrative structure. SETTING A national sample of 11 LHDs from seven states that differed in size, geographic location, and governance. PARTICIPANTS Relational network data were collected via an on-line survey of all employees in 11 LHDs. A total of 1062 out of 1239 employees responded (84% response rate). OUTCOME MEASURES Network measurements were compared using coefficient of variation. Measurements were correlated with scores from the National Public Health Performance Assessment and with LHD demographics. Rankings of tasks, knowledge, and resources were correlated across pairs of LHDs. RESULTS We found that 11 LHDs exhibited compound organizational structures in which centralized hierarchies were coupled with distributed networks at the point of service. Local health departments were distinguished from random networks by a pattern of high centralization and clustering. Network measurements were positively associated with performance for 3 of 10 essential services (r > 0.65). Patterns in the measurements suggest how LHDs adapt to the population served. CONCLUSIONS Shared network patterns across
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LHDs suggest where common organizational management strategies are feasible. This evidence supports national efforts to promote uniform standards for service delivery to diverse populations.
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15201900
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Volumetric analysis of the tympanic isthmus in human temporal bones. A volumetric study on the tympanic isthmus and its relationship to temporal bone pneumatization was conducted in 110 serially sectioned temporal bones with and without middle ear pathology. With a microcomputer and digitizing tablet, the area of the tympanic isthmus and the degree of pneumatization in sample sections were calculated. Nonpathologic temporal bones showed a significant correlation between the volume of the tympanic isthmus and the degree of pneumatization. The narrowest area of the tympanic isthmus and the degree of pneumatization were also highly correlated. The result indicated a definite inhibition of pneumatization due to chronic middle ear infection when compared with nonpathologic temporal bones.
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12872000
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Three Series-Connected Transistor Model for a Recess-Channel-Array Transistor and Improvement of Electrical Characteristics by a Bottom Fin Structure A three series-connected transistor model is introduced to understand the electrical characteristics of conventional recess-channel-array transistors (RCATs) and modified RCATs. An RCAT is considered to be a serial connection of three transistors consisting of one bottom transistor and two vertical transistors. The electrical characteristics of a cell transistor are explained by a balance of those transistors. A newly modified fin-RCAT which has a fin structure at the bottom of a silicon recess is proposed to improve cell transistor characteristics. This design improves cell current by 70% while maintaining retention characteristics.
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109861600
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Inhaling beta(2)-agonist with heliox-driven in bronchial asthma. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of a helium-oxygen mixture (79%He- 21%O(2)) as an aerosolizing compressed gas for beta(2)-agonist therapy in patients with an asthma exacerbation. METHODS Twenty-four patients in the outpatient department with a mild to moderate exacerbation of asthma were enrolled. The patients were randomly divided into an experimental group (13 cases) and a control group (11 cases). The experimental group inhaled Berotec with heliox-driven, and the control group inhaled Berotec with compressed air-driven. Eight hospitalized patients in the respiratory department with severe exacerbation of asthma were enrolled. The patients inhaled Berotec with heliox-driven or compressed air-driven in a random order. RESULTS The results of spirometric parameters and arterial blood-gas analysis were measured. In the mild to moderate asthma patients, no statistical differences between the two groups for forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expired volume in one second (FEV(1)), and expiratory flow in 50% forced vital capacity (FEF(50)) were presented. But the severe patients showed significant differences between heliox-driven and compressed air-driven for FVC, FEV(1), FEF(50) and partial pressure of oxygen (PaO(2)). CONCLUSIONS Compared with the traditional inhalation of beta(2)-agonist therapy using compressed air-driven, the method of inhaling beta(2)-agonist with heliox-driven has more obvious benefits for those suffering from severe asthma. This is likely due to the cooperative effects between inhaling heliox on its physical gas properties and improving delivery of beta(2)-agonist in the treatment of exacerbation of severe asthma.
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Porous plasma sprayed bioceramic (Ca10 (PO4).6(OH)2) coated Ti6Al4V: morphological, adhesion and tribological studies Hydroxyapatite (HAp) has been used for several decades in the biomedical industry for dental and orthopedic implants owing to it being the basic component of bone (about 70%). The effect of load on the tribological behavior of highly porous plasma sprayed Ca10 (PO4).6(OH)2 (HAp) deposited onto a Ti6Al4V alloy substrate has been investigated. The tribological and scratch wear tests performed on the samples showed that the coating exhibited excellent cohesive and adhesive appearance, as well as an excellent wear resistance. The influence of porosity on tribological behavior revealed that the presence of pores was responsible for the reduction of the coefficient of friction and resistance to wear. Wear traces analyzed by scanning electron microscopy revealed abrasive wear being the dominant mechanism. The cytotoxicity test carried out indicates the non-toxicity of the hydroxyapatite powder used as a coating on the Ti6Al4V alloy to bone cells. The results obtained also demonstrated that the proposed HAp/Ti6Al4V possesses excellent characteristics and could therefore be a potential and promising implant for orthopedic surgery.
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Coalescence methods reveal the impact of vicariance on the spatial genetic structure of Elephantulus edwardii (Afrotheria, Macroscelidea) Within the Macroscelidea 15 species of elephant‐shrews are recognized, of which nine occur in the southern African subregion. The Cape rock elephant‐shrew (Elephantulus edwardii) is the only strictly endemic South African elephant‐shrew species. Recent distribution data suggest that E. edwardii is continuously distributed from Namaqualand in the Western Cape Province to Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Province. Molecular sequences from the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene and variable control region indicate significant substructure within the Cape rock elephant‐shrew across its distribution. Our data unequivocally showed the presence of a northern Namaqua and central Fynbos clade with four evolutionary lineages identified within the latter. The geographical delimitation of the northern and central clades corresponds closely with patterns reported for other rock‐dwelling vertebrate species, indicating a shared biogeographical history for these taxa in South Africa. A coalescent method revealed the effects of ancestral polymorphism in shaping the Namaqua and Fynbos populations since their divergence ~1.7 million years ago. Furthermore, our analyses uncovered a distinct Karoo lineage(s) that does not correspond to any of the previously described and/or currently recognized species, and we therefore argue for the possible recognition of a new sister taxon to E. edwardii. The taxonomic affinities of this clade were examined by sequencing corresponding regions from the type specimens of species described in the past, but which presently are synonimized within E. edwardii. Our results reveal the morphological misidentification of one of these types, accentuating the problems of
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field identification.
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Association of Helicobacter pylori with acid peptic disease in Karachi. The prevalence of H. pylori infection in 200 dyspeptic patients undergoing upper G.I. endoscopy was investigated by histology and rapid urease test. H. pylori was associated with 86% cases of chronic gastritis, 84.6% cases of duodenal ulcers and 78.5% of gastric ulcers. None of the 15 histologically normal gastric biopsies showed H. pylori.
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Interferon-gamma-dependent inhibition of late allergic airway responses and eosinophilia by CD8+ gammadelta T cells. We have previously shown that CD8(+)gammadelta T cells decrease late allergic airway responses, airway eosinophilia, T helper 2 cytokine expression and increase interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) expression. We hypothesized that the effects of CD8(+)gammadelta T cells were IFN-gamma mediated. Brown Norway rats were sensitized to ovalbumin on day 1. Cervical lymph node CD8(+)gammadelta T cells from sensitized animals were treated with antisense oligodeoxynucleotide (5 micromol/l) to inhibit IFN-gamma synthesis or control oligodeoxynucleotide and 3.5 x 10(4) CD8(+)gammadelta T cells were injected intraperitoneally into sensitized recipients on day 13. Rats were challenged with aerosolized ovalbumin on day 15 and lung resistance was monitored over an 8 hr period, after which bronchoalveolar lavage was performed. Control oligodeoxynucleotide treated gammadelta T cells decreased late airway responses and eosinophilia in bronchoalveolar lavage. There was a complete recovery of late airway responses and a partial recovery of airway eosinophilia in recipients of antisense oligodeoxynucleotide treated cells. Macrophage ingestion of eosinophils was frequent in rats administered gammadeltaT cells but reduced in recipients of antisense oligodeoxynucleotide treated cells. These results indicate that CD8(+)gammadelta T cells inhibit late airway responses and airway eosinophilia through the secretion of IFN-gamma. Defective or altered gammadelta T-cell function may account for some forms of allergic asthma.
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28560100
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Suppressed Pedophilia in Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Little Annie's Ramble" In his 1840 review of Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales, Edgar Allan Poe imposed a distinction between tales and essays which has haunted Hawthorne scholarship for more than a century and a hale Now we rarely discuss Hawthorne's "essays," and one of the reasons that we don't is Poe's emphasis on "their discrepancy with that marked precision and finish by which the body of [Twice-Told Tales] is distinguished" (133). In the essays ... [Poe continues] the absence of effort is too obvious to be mistaken, and a strong under-current of suggestion runs continuously beneath the upper stream of the tranquil thesis. In short, these effusions of Mr. Hawthorne are the product of a truly imaginative intellect, restrained, and in some measure repressed by fastidiousness of taste, by constitutional melancholy, and by indolence" (134). For Poe the "strong under-current of suggestion" that escapes repression is like the pathetic remnants of what could have been a tale if only Hawthorne wasn't so lazy. But I feel that the strong undercurrent of suggestion that escapes repression is the essence of Hawthorne's art, and I'd like to suggest that Poe is making three mistakes here. First, he doesn't seem to appreciate how important suggestion is to art. Hawthorne does--or at least Hilda in The Marble Faun does. "Nobody [she says] ought to read [poems] who cannot find in them a great deal more than the artist has expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness" (4:379). Not only is Poe unable to appreciate the merit of
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suggestiveness, he is also unable to appreciate the distance between Hawthorne and Hawthorne's narrators. It's not Hawthorne who restrains and represses; it's Hawthorne's narrators. And that's why Poe's wrong again when he suggests that repression restricts Hawthorne's art. "Little Annie's Ramble," for example, is not the "pure essay" that Poe dismisses it as; it's a complexly crafted psychological tale of narrative repression and suggestion--neither an essay nor pure. Nor studied. The few critics who haven't shied away from such an "imprecise" work, still end up sounding too much like Poe. Mary M. Van Tassel's "Hawthorne, His Narrator, and His Readers, in 'Little Annie's Ramble,'" the only detailed study of Hawthorne's tale, is paradigmatic. Even though Van Tassel is well aware of Hawthorne's narrators, she still, like Poe, doesn't realize their capacity for suppression: "Hawthorne's suppression of visual detail [she says] throws the weight of his sketches onto the narrative persona" (169). But in "Little Annie's Ramble," the very sketch Van Tassel focuses on, the visual detail which is suppressed is suppressed by the narrative persona so that he can assume the weight of his tale. Van Tassel also seems appreciative of the tale's suggestions: she advocates "close reading" (170), and she herself looks closely at Hawthorne's imagery, concluding, for example, that "[f]ood is the object of an almost sexual fantasy--the pastry shop displays 'sweet' little circlets, sweetly named kisses [...]' "(174). But Van Tassel still misses many of Hawthorne's suggestions, especially those of a deeper darkness. We will soon see that since Annie herself is frequently
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called little and sweet, and since the narrator goes out of his way to introduce Little Red Riding Hood's wolf, "sweet little circlets, sweetly called kisses" makes suggestions much darker than "food is the object of an almost sexual fantasy." But first we must note that while Van Tassel laments the lack of psychological insight in "Little Annie's Ramble,"--"whereas we admire the psychological insight of 'Roger Malvin's Burial,' we deplore the moral prosings of 'Little Annie's Ramble'" (168)--, it is her own focus on morality and the brighter realms of allegory which keep her from the dark psychological insights of "Little Annie's Ramble." Even when she touches on the horror, she retreats to--and reduces Hawthorne's tale to--an allegory depicting the frustrations of the creative writer. …
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Synthesis of Responsive Motion Using a Dynamic Model Synthesizing the movements of a responsive virtual character in the event of unexpected perturbations has proven a difficult challenge. To solve this problem, we devise a fully automatic method that learns a nonlinear probabilistic model of dynamic responses from very few perturbed walking sequences. This model is able to synthesize responses and recovery motions under new perturbations different from those in the training examples. When perturbations occur, we propose a physics‐based method that initiates motion transitions to the most probable response example based on the dynamic states of the character. Our algorithm can be applied to any motion sequences without the need for preprocessing such as segmentation or alignment. The results show that three perturbed motion clips can sufficiently generate a variety of realistic responses, and 14 clips can create a responsive virtual character that reacts realistically to external forces in different directions applied on different body parts at different moments in time.
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THERE IS NO SINGLE SOLUTION TO THE ‘INSIDER’ PROBLEM BUT THERE IS A VALUABLE WAY FORWARD The threat posed by insiders deliberately or inadvertently misusing their knowledge and access to sensitive information is a major security challenge. Finding effective, acceptable and affordable ways to manage the insider threat is non-trivial, involving the use of controls that range from technical to procedural. To make matters worse, insider activities range from inadvertent or accidental disclosure, through deliberate damage caused by disgruntled employees, to the pre-positioned mole who may undermine the organisation’s viability or purpose. The same controls will have different levels of effectiveness for each of these insider types. Based on these factors, attempting to find a single, optimised, universal solution to insider threats is illogical. However, the literature still contains statements such as ‘deterrence is the best approach for insiders’. There are dangers for security managers in drawing broad conclusions across the insider threat spectrum based on statements like these. Insider threats typically have a distribution of incidents where there are many of small consequence coexisting with a small number of incidents with very large consequences. This suggests that risk management techniques are a relevant, and arguably the most appropriate, framework for insider management. We have developed and applied a risk-based framework to model the spectrum of insider threat types, to enable the decision maker to determine the relative security effectiveness of alternative solutions. It allows decision makers to prioritise security investment to achieve the greatest benefit-cost using residual risk as the performance metric. Our framework provides
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a traceable and accountable method for organisations to balance their investments in controls, according to the complex spectrum of insider activity they are dealing with. They may also extend the approach, using robust analysis, to manage their uncertainties. Our framework supports security managers in customising security for their organisation based on its unique requirements.
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Endoscopic ultrasound-guided real-time fine-needle aspiration biopsy of the pancreas in cancer patients with pancreatic lesions. BACKGROUND Endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) is an important new tool in the staging of pancreatic malignancies. Using new curved linear-array instruments, real-time fine-needle aspiration biopsy (RTFNA) of pancreatic lesions can be performed. METHODS Forty-five patients with pancreatic lesions (22 males and 23 females) underwent staging with the Olympus EUM-20 (Olympus America Corp, Melville, NY) followed by EUS-RTFNA with the Pentax FG-32PUA (Pentax-Precision Instrument Corp, Orangeburg, NY) and the 22-gauge GIP needle (GIP Medizin Technik, Grassau, Germany). RESULTS EUS tumor stages were as follows: TO, n = 1; T1, n = 8; T2, n = 9; and T3 n = 27. Aspiration attempts were unsuccessful in four patients (two technical failures and two inadequate specimens). The remaining 41 lesions (mean size, 3.3 cm) were aspirated under EUS guidance (median passes, three) and the cytologic diagnoses were 25 definite adenocarcinoma, five suspicious for adenocarcinoma (three subsequently confirmed and two clinical course consistent with adenocarcinoma), and 11 negative for malignancy. Of 11 negatives, two were found to have adenocarcinoma, seven were confirmed benign at surgery (four cystadenomas and three inflammatory), one had a benign pseudocyst, and one had abundant inflammatory cells on RTFNA and follow-up time greater than 12 months with computed tomographic (CT) scans consistent with resolving inflammation. There were no false-positive RTFNAs. There were no procedure-related complications. Among those with diagnostic EUS-RTFNA (91%), the sensitivity for malignancy (confirmed plus suspicious) was 94% and negative predictive value 82%. CONCLUSION EUS-guided RTFNA is a safe
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and accurate method for performing pancreatic biopsy. It should be considered in patients with suspected pancreatic malignancies in whom a tissue diagnosis is required or when other modalities have failed. EUS-RTFNA allows for local staging and tissue diagnosis in one procedure.
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INTERIOR DESIGN IN THE RESTORATION OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF PLASTIC ARTS OF MOLDOVA This paper presents a scientific analysis of interior design in the restoration process of the National Museum of Arts of Moldova. The interior design segment is historically researched through the genre of architecture, from the historical compartment of the XIX-XX century. In the same context, several works of various architects who designed important constructions in Kishinev are analyzed. The study highlights the role and responsibility of interior design in the process of restoration and capitalization of the national cultural heritage. It also analyzes the correspondence or synchronization of new implementations in design with the stylistic concept achieved in the historical period.
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Development of grain structure during friction-stir welding of Cu–30Zn brass High-resolution electron backscatter diffraction was employed to study the evolution of microstructure during friction stir welding of a typical low stacking fault energy material (Cu–30Zn brass) over a wide range of welding temperatures. In all cases, microstructure evolution was found to be governed by discontinuous recrystallization that occurred via grain-boundary bulging and subsequent recrystallization nucleation. This promoted drastic grain refinement and significant strengthening. The crystallographic textures that evolved were typically dominated by a simple shear texture.
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Unravelling the Chemistry of the [Cu(4,7-Dichloroquinoline)2Br2]2 Dimeric Complex through Structural Analysis: A Borderline Ligand Field Case Large dark prismatic crystals (P 1 ¯ ) consisting of closely packed centrosymmetric [Cu(4,7-dichloroquinoline)2]2Br4 binuclear units are formed when 4,7-dichloroquinoline (DCQ, C9H5NCl2) binds copper(II). Cu2+ adopts a strongly distorted square pyramidal coordination geometry, perturbed by electrostatic interactions with two axial μ–Br ligands acting as highly asymmetric bridges. It is shown that, as electronic states of ligands are higher in energy than the metal ones, antibonding orbitals bear significant ligand-like character and electronic charge is partially transferred from inner-sphere coordinated halogen atoms to copper. Overall, the title compound sits on the Hoffman’s border between main group and transition chemistry, with non-negligible contributions of the ligands to the frontier orbitals. The relative energy placement of metal and ligand states determines an internal redox process, where the metal is slightly reduced at the expense of partial oxidation of the bromide ligands. In fact, the crystal structure is partially disordered due to the substitution of some penta-coordinated Cu(II) centers with tetra-coordinated Cu(I) ions. The geometry of the complex is rationalized in terms of electrostatic-driven distortions from an ideal octahedral prototype. Implications on the reactivity of Cu(II)–quinoline complexes are discussed.
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Molecular Mechanisms for the Functionality of Lubricant Additives Wear limits the life-span of many mechanical devices with moving parts. To reduce wear, lubricants are frequently enriched with additives, such as zinc phosphates, that form protective films on rubbing surfaces. Using first-principles molecular dynamics simulations of films derived from commercial additives, we unraveled the molecular origin of how antiwear films can form, function, and dissipate energy. These effects originate from pressure-induced changes in the coordination number of atoms acting as cross-linking agents to form chemically connected networks. The proposed mechanism explains a diverse body of experiments and promises to prove useful in the rational design of antiwear additives that operate on a wider range of surface materials, with reduced environmental side effects.
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Chaotic dynamics of cylindrical roller bearing supported by unbalanced rotor due to localized defects This article presents a nonlinear vibration signature study of high-speed defective cylindrical roller bearings under unbalance rotor conditions. Qualitative analysis is conducted considering a spall defect of a specific size on major elements such as outer race, inner race, and rollers. A spring-mass model with nonlinear stiffness and damping is formulated to study the dynamic behavior of the rotor-bearing model. The set of nonlinear differential equations are solved using the fourth-order Runge–Kutta method to predict the characteristics of the discrete spectra and analyze the stability of the system. The results show that higher impulsive forces are generated because of outer race defects than defects in the inner race and roller. This can be explained as every time the roller passes through the defect in the outer race during rotation, the energy is released. However, in the case of both the roller and inner race defects, the impulsive force generated in the load zone is averaged because of the force generated in the unloading zone. The route to chaos from periodic to quasiperiodic response has been observed and analyzed that vibration signature is very much sensitive not only to the defects of bearing components but also to the rotor speed.
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Mutually Exclusive Queries in Logic Programming Logic programming has traditionally lacked devices for expressing mutually exclusive goals and queries. We address this limitation by adopting choice-disjunctive goal formulas of the form $G_1 + G_2$ where $G_1, G_2$ are goals and + is a linear logic connective. These goals has the following operational semantics: choose and solve a true disjunct $G_i$ where i (= 1 or 2) is chosen by the machine. It is worth noting that our operational semantics obtains mutual exclusion by choosing one between two disjuncts. Thus, our operational semantics of + corresponds well to its declarative semantics known as the machine's choice.
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Robust design under cumulative damage due to dynamic failure mechanisms The purpose of this paper is to broaden the practical notion of Taguchi's Quality Loss Function (QLF) from a static, one‐stage concept into a dynamic time‐varying tool. Taguchi challenged the old‐age notion of engineering tolerance and proposed a quadratic QLF that quantifies loss to society, caused by deviation of products and systems from their target values. Accordingly, design engineers attempt to set each technical parameter to minimize such systems' losses. Traditionally, failure mechanisms are assumed to affect systems' performance stochastically under a steady state. So often, technical parameters are set at the mid‐point between the lower and upper specification limits where they are least likely to cause a system failure. However, in reality, many failure mechanisms affect systems over time in a predictable and directional manner rather than stochastically. Such mechanisms are designated as “Directional Degrading Failure Mechanisms”. The paper describes an optimized robust design method based on setting the operating points of technical parameters to explicitly counteract the effects of such failure mechanisms. Then, the paper describes how to minimize the lifetime societal loss of a given system utilizing a cardiac pacemaker system. The consequence of this approach suggests an extension to the Taguchi's QLF from its current static confines to a dynamic, time‐varying concept achieving, in our example, ≈65% reduction in lifetime societal losses.
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A Lot of Heartburn, a Little Cancer ABSTRACTThis is a well-designed, population-based, case-control, epidemiological study to determine if individuals with symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux disease are at increased risk for the development of adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and gastric cardia. Over a 3-yr period, from 1994 to 1997, all newly diagnosed cases of adenocarcinoma of the esophagus and gastric cardia in Sweden were identified via a comprehensive countrywide network of contact individuals soon after diagnosis and before surgery. Cases were matched for age and sex with case controls. Of 618 eligible patients with adenocarcinoma of the esophagus or gastric cardia, 451 (85%) participated. At index esophagogas-troduodenoscopy, biopsies were obtained at 2-cm intervals beginning at the cardia and extending proximally until normal squamous epithelium was reached. In addition, biopsies were taken of the tumor and surrounding tissue. A total of 424 of the patients underwent surgery, and 97% of biopsy and surgical specimens were reviewed by a single pathologist. All subjects and controls underwent an extensive interview where questions (range 161–553) were asked concerning the frequency, severity, and duration of heartburn symptoms as well as other potential confounding factors.The results of this study indicate that persons who experience symptoms of heartburn and regurgitation at least once a week are nearly 8 times (odds ratio = 7.7) more likely to develop esophageal adenocarcinoma than those without these symptoms. Furthermore, the risk was found to be “dose dependent” where those who had the most severe reflux symptoms were associated with the highest risk. Persons with particularly long-standing and frequent
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heartburn symptoms were found to be 43 times more likely to develop esophageal adenocarcinoma than asymptomatic individuals. The authors emphasized that the heartburn-cancer association was independent of the presence of Barrett's esophagus. They based this statement on the fact that only 62% of those with esophageal adenocarcinoma had Barrett's tissue detected. Also of note, the risk of esophageal adenocarcinoma was 3 times higher among those who had used medications for symptomatic reflux compared to those who had not taken medications even after adjusting both groups for severity of symptoms. Reflux symptoms were also associated with a higher risk of adenocarcinoma of the gastric cardia though not nearly as strongly (odds ratio 2.0). As expected, squamous cell cancer was not associated with reflux symptoms (odds ratio 0.9). (Am J Gastroenterol 1999; 94:3061–3062. © 1999 by Am. Coll. of Gastroenterology)
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A Nativity Sermon in the 13th Century Tolstovskiy Sbornik: Textology and Language Features The paper focuses on the composition, lexical, and grammatical features of a Nativity sermon in the 13 th century Old Russian Tolstovskiy Sbornik (National Library of Russia, F.p.I.39). The author considers its Byzantine sources, principles of editorial work, and the differences from original rhetorical structures. Attributed to John Chrysostom, the sermon turns out to be a complicated compilation from various early Byzantine sermons. The compilation is based both on rearranging fragments of the same source and on combining excerpts from different sermons in a small context. Such transformations indicate the lack of cohesion in sermon texts, due to their independence from the causation and time factor. Non-attributed parts of the Old Russian text may be original since they demonstrate a certain similarity with Kirill Turovskiy orations in the same anthology. The lexical level of the sermon contains non-standard solutions that reinterpret the Greek source text, which may indicate either the missionary nature of the translation or a tendency to the poetic decoration. In some cases, the semantic mismatch of lexical units within Greek-Slavonic correlations is due to errors. At the grammatical level, there are also grammatical inconsistencies of Slavonic and Greek units; they affect the categories of time, number, gender, as well as parts-of-speech status.
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Preparation and Characterization of Artemether Solid Dispersion by Spray Drying Technique Introduction: Artemether, a BCS class IV drug (poorly water soluble and poorly permeable, less bioavailability) but is found to be effective against falciparum malaria. Preparation of water soluble formulation could be the technique to improve bioavailability of such drug. The most ideally used technique to enhance the solubility and dissolution of poorly water soluble drugs is Solid dispersion method.
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Effect of elevated levels of hemoglobin F on HbA1c measurements: Evaluation of three HbA1c assays Introduction: Accurate measurement of HbA1c is crucial in the diabetic control and diagnosis. Elevated levels of HbF are reported to falsely decrease the HbA1c result and effect is very much method dependent. Material & Methods: Commercial assay methods G8 HPLC analyzer and DCA 2000 were evaluated. G8 is an ion exchange, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method that measures the HbA1c as a percentage of total amounts of hemoglobin present in the sample. Two whole blood EDTA patient pools were prepared with HbA1c concentrations in the normal (5% to 7%) and abnormal range (7% to 8%). All chromatograms from G8 were reviewed for any change in the peak resolution time due HbF concentrations. Results: The mean value for normal and abnormal pool was 5.8% and 7.5% resp. HbF showed no interference on Tosoh HbA1c results up to 30% in normal pool and up to 25% in abnormal pool. Observed difference between G8 and both Dimension EXL and DCA 2000 was clinically significant beyond 10% HbF. Conclusion: Accurate measurement of HbA1c is crucial for the decision making for diabetic control and diagnosis. The allowable error proposed by College of American Pathologist (CAP) is 6% therefore, appropriate knowledge about factors interfering with HbA1c results is absolutely important.
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A concept of integrated environmental approach for building upgrades and new construction: Part 1—setting the stage This article highlights the need for an active role for building physics in the development of near-zero energy buildings while analyzing an example of an integrated system for the upgrade of existing buildings. The science called either Building Physics in Europe or Building Science in North America has so far a passive role in explaining observed failures in construction practice. In its new role, it would be integrating modeling and testing to provide predictive capability, so much needed in the development of near-zero energy buildings. The authors attempt to create a compact package, applicable to different climates with small modifications of some hygrothermal properties of materials. This universal solution is based on a systems approach that is routine for building physics but in contrast to separately conceived sub-systems that are typical for the design of buildings today. One knows that the building structure, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and moisture management all need to be considered to ensure durability of materials and control cost of near-zero energy buildings. These factors must be addressed through contributions of the whole design team. The same approach must be used for the retrofit of buildings. As this integrated design paradigm resulted from demands of sustainable built environment approach, building physics must drop its passive role and improve two critical domains of analysis: (i) linked, real-time hygrothermal and energy models capable of predicting the performance of existing buildings after renovation and (ii) basic methods of
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indoor environment and moisture management when the exterior of the building cannot be modified.
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Special Education Students: To Be (Tested) or Not To Be (Tested)? That's a Good Question. AUTHOR Wilkinson, L. David; Matter, M. Kevin TITLE Special Education Students: To Be (Tested) or Not To Be (Tested)? That's a Good Question. INSTITUTION Austin Independent School District, Tex. REPORT NO AISD-RR-85.38 PUB DATE Apr 86 NOTE 45p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeti_ of the American Educational Research Association (67th, San Francisco, CA, April 16-20,_1986). PUB TYPE Speeches/Conference Papers (150) -Reports Descriptive (141)
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Determination of the radical-scavenging activities and identification of anthocyanins from Hexalobus monopetalus ripe fruits A wild fruit from classified forest of Dindéresso was analyzed for total phenolics, flavonoids, anthocyanins compounds using the Folin-Ciocalteu reagent, spectrophotometric method of Zhishen and colleagues and by the differential pH method respectively. Free radical-scavenging activities of studied fruits extracts were estimated using diammonium 2,2'-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonate) salt method. Three major anthocyanins were identified using high performance liquid chromatography coupled with spray ionization interface mass spectrometry. Three identified anthocyanins in fruit were reported to be cyanidin 3-O-(p-coumaroyl) glucoside, pelargonidin 3-O-glucoside and pelargonidin 3-O-rutinoside. In addition, H. monopetalus fruit contained of about 1165±3.1 mg of GAE per 100 g of fresh fruit, 4490±20.2 mg of QE per 100 g of fresh fruit, and 36±0.17 mg of cyanidin 3-O-glucoside equivalents per 100 g of fresh fruit. Total anthocyanin extract had an EC50 = 4.24 mg per mL and a TEC50 time of 21 minutes (intermediate reaction). This free radical-scavenging activity was very low compared to those of the references used (0.024 and 0.034 mg/mL respectively for ascorbic acid and Trolox). The low antiradical activity and reactivity of the H. mucronata extract could be explained by several factors. In any case, fruits of this species were potential sources of natural bioactive substances having beneficial effects on the health of consumers.
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An Application of MDL Principle for Indian Resource Poor Language Stemmer is very important and required module for any morphological system. Stemming process is language dependent, which separates stem and suffix from a given word. Even after notable growth, specifically work at morphological level for Indian resource poor languages like Sanskrit, Assamese, Bengali, Bishnupriya, Manipuri, Bodo etc. are less attended. Standard resources (corpus, data set) for experiment are very scarce for such languages. Many famous unsupervised approaches are tested for European languages only. It is the requirement to see how well famous approach works for other inflective and resource poor languages. In this study, Minimum Description Length principle (MDL) is applied to Sanskrit (resource poor and inflective) language. Initially, all corpus lexicon are split in to substring, which is followed by calculating frequency and length of each sub string. A higher probability split is considered as best split for stem and suffix. Next, multiple iteration is taken until result improved. With 72 % result MDL works well for Indian language. MDL principle is extended to improve performance of Sanskrit stemmer by adding rule based approach. MDL based hybrid approach improves result by 17 %. As no direct Sanskrit stemmer or evaluation is available to compare, therefore, we compare our work with Lovin, Porter and Paice stemmers. Word stemmed factor is highest compared which to all three stemmer. Our results are also comparable to Gujarati and Punjabi language stemmer. Stemmer strength is more as it reduces under stemming errors.
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Hyperbolic-like Properties of Popp's Attractor We compare typical properties of the hyperbolic and quasi-hyperbolic attractors with the properties of the particular attractor observed in the classical dry friction oscillator excited by external harmonic drive [Popp & Stelter, 1990a; Hinrichs et al., 1998; Oestreich et al., 1996]. Our analysis shows that the main common feature of these attractors is their structural stability (in spite of their chaotic nature), which is manifested by a low sensitivity of system dynamics and the structure of the phase-space for changes of parameters in differential equations.
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