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a trend toward recovery is seen few mo after transplant. 12/13 evaluable (1 is too early) pts (92%) achieved CR and 1 PR. Relapse occurred in 2 (mo 5 and 12). 11 are alive and 10 disease-free at 9 mo (2-24) after transplant with a projected overall survival (OS) of 64% at 2 ys. The median survival of the entire series (25 pts) from the study entry was 17 mo with a projected OS of 46% at 2 ys (f-up 12 mo (3-42)). CONCLUSIONS Our data confirm on a multiinstitutional basis that HDT and PBSC transplantation is feasible and active as salvage therapy in HIV-Ly in unselected HAART responding patients. No significant financial relationships to disclose.
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ParaDiSE: Efficient Threshold Authenticated Encryption in Fully Malicious Model Threshold cryptographic algorithms achieve robustness against key and access compromise by distributing secret keys among multiple entities. Most prior work focuses on threshold publickey primitives, despite extensive use of authenticated encryption in practice. Though the latter can be deployed in a threshold manner using multi-party computation (MPC), doing so incurs a high communication cost. In contrast, dedicated constructions of threshold authenticated encryption algorithms can achieve high performance. However to date, few such algorithms are known, most notably DiSE (distributed symmetric encryption) by Agrawal et al. (ACM CCS 2018). To achieve threshold authenticated encryption (TAE), prior work does not suffice, due to shortcomings in definitions, analysis, and design, allowing for potentially insecure schemes, an undesirable similarity between encryption and decryption, and insufficient understanding of the impact of parameters due to lack of concrete analysis. In response, we revisit the problem of designing secure and efficient TAE schemes. (1) We give new TAE security definitions in the fully malicious setting addressing the aforementioned concerns. (2) We construct efficient schemes satisfying our definitions and perform concrete and more modular security analyses. (3) We conduct an extensive performance evaluation of our constructions, against prior ones. Work done while at Visa Research.
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A receptor for the import of proteins into human mitochondria. We have characterised a 16.3-kDa human protein that functions as a receptor for the import of preproteins into mitochondria. Based on amino acid sequence alignments, the protein (hMas20p) is 41% similar to Mas20p (20-kDa mitochondrial assembly protein) from yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and 38% similar to MOM19 (19-kDa mitochondrial outer-membrane protein) from Neurospora crassa. hMas20p has a putative N-terminal transmembrane sequence of 29 amino acids and an acidic C-terminus. A 13-kDa fragment [des-(1-29)-hMas20p], which lacks the 29-amino acid putative N-terminal transmembrane domain, is soluble when expressed in Escherichia coli. Antibodies produced against this domain crossreacted with a protein of 16 kDa in outer membranes of mitochondria from rat liver and inhibited import of protein into isolated mitochondria from rat liver. In addition, the recombinant soluble domain folds into a functional structure as it competes with hMas20p on the mitochondrial surface for precursor binding, confirming the functional role of hMas20p in the import of preproteins into mitochondria.
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41307011
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Microfluidic Investigation of the Effect of Liposome Surface Charge on Drug Delivery in Microcirculation. Nano-carrier drug transport in blood microcirculation is one of the hotspots of current research in drug development due to many advantages over traditional therapies, such as reduced sideeffects, target delivery, controlled release, improved pharmacokinetics and therapeutic index. Despite the substantial efforts made in the design of nanotherapeutics, the big majority of the used strategies failed to overcome the biological barriers to drug transport encountered in human microvasculature, such as transport by blood flow via the microcirculatory network and margination, the mechanism according to which particles migrate along vessel radius to the wall. In fact, drug transport efficiency in microvasculature is affected by both the particulate nature of blood and drug carrier properties, such as size, shape and surface charge. In this work, the effect of the surface charge of liposomes on their margination in blood flow in microcapillaries was experimentally evaluated. By high-speed video microscopy and image analysis it was found that the two custom-made liposomes (one neuter and the other positively charged) tend to drift laterally, moving towards the wall and accumulating in the cell-free layer. In particular, neuter and cationic liposomes showed a comparable margination propensity, suggesting that the presence of blood cells governs the flow behavior independently on liposome surface charge.
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EU Reference Laboratory for Honey Bee Health By law, the EU reference laboratory has to coordinate, in consultation with the Commission, the methods employed in the Member States for diagnosing the relevant honey bee diseases. The experiments run by the laboratory aim at the harmonisaton of the protocols used to study honey bee pathogens within the European Union.
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Accurate Location of Faults in Transmission Lines by Compensating for the Electrical Distance Accurately locating faults is quite important, especially when the geographical environment is complicated. If the exact location of the fault is not given, wrong route would be chosen, which will greatly slow down repair. This paper proposes an improved traveling wave method by compensating the electrical distance of transmission lines. The catenary model is constructed that considers parameters of the tower and the actual temperature. The actual line length is also derived by the catenary model. A 500 kV transmission line model is established by PSCAD/EMTDC. Various fault simulations are conducted and the results demonstrate that the presented method effectively reduces the error ratio of faulty segment positioning and locates faults with high accuracy.
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You can always compute maximally permissive controllers under partial observation when they exist The maximal permissivity property of controllers is an optimal criterion that is often taken for granted as the result of synthesis algorithms; the algorithms are designed for frameworks where the existence and the uniqueness of a maximal permissive controller is demonstrated apart, as it fulfills sufficient hypotheses; these algorithms precisely compute this object. Still, maximally permissive solutions might exist in circumstances which do not fall into such identified frameworks, but there is no way to ensure that the algorithms deliver an optimal solution. In this paper, we propose a general synthesis procedure which always computes a maximal permissive controller when it exists.
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Tuning the bandwidth and center frequency of micromechanical acoustic resonators As the radio frequency (RF) spectrum has become more crowded, the need for adaptable RF components, especially filters, has grown. Recently, aluminum nitride (AlN) microresonator filters have been reported. These filters/resonators are small (<;1mm3), have the high quality factors (>1000) desired for steep filter roll-off, can achieve many filters covering a very wide frequency span (kHz to GHz) on a single chip and can be monolithically integrated with CMOS transistors for reconfiguring the filter array. Using AlN microresonator on CMOS technology, miniature, adaptable RF filters based on banks of switched filters have recently been reported.
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Modelling of the advection–diffusion equation with a meshless method without numerical diffusion A comprehensive study is presented regarding the stability of the forward explicit integration technique with generalized finite-difference spatial discretizations, free of numerical diffusion, applied to the advection–diffusion equation. The modified equivalent partial differential equation approach is used to demonstrate that the approximation is free of numerical diffusion. Two-dimensional results are obtained using the von Neumann method of stability analysis. Numerical results are presented showing the accuracy obtained.
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5649561
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Design considerations and experimental results of a 100 W, 500 000 rpm electrical generator Mesoscale gas turbine generator systems are a promising solution for high energy and power density portable devices. This paper focuses on the design of a 100 W, 500 000 rpm generator suitable for use with a gas turbine. The design procedure selects the suitable machine type and bearing technology, and determines the electromagnetic characteristics. The losses caused by the high frequency operation are minimized by optimizing the winding and the stator core material. The final design is a permanent-magnet machine with a volume of 3 cm3 and experimental measurements from a test bench are presented.
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Morphometrics and pelage characterization of longtailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) from Pulau Bintan, Indonesia; Singapore; and Southern Vietnam. Cynomolgus (or longtailed) macaques (Macaca fascicularis) are used extensively as laboratory animals in biomedical research. Their use in Singapore, an emerging biomedical hub in Southeast Asia, is now increasing widely, with research subjects currently originating from Singapore, Vietnam, and Pulau Bintan, Indonesia. Limited data exist on the genetic and phenotypic polymorphisms and phylogenetic relationships of these groups, and the animals are used as research subjects without regard to potential differences or homogeneity. Here we characterize their phenotypes by using established primatology tools to detail morphometrics and pelage erythrism and saturation. Pelage analyses supported the Gloger rule, in which heavily pigmented forms predominate near the equator, with Singaporean and Bintan macaques having darker pelage than Vietnamese macaques. Morphometric variation patterns suggest a tendency toward insular dwarfism and correlate generally with the Bergmann rule, in which body mass increases with latitude and colder climate. Although the 3 populations all belong to the nominotypical subspecies M. f. fascicularis, phenotypic differences are evident and are valuable tools to analyze their phylogeographic history and phylogenetic relationships.
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39401961
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Characterization of Paulownia elongata x fortunei (BIO 125 clone) Roundwood from Plantations in Northern Italy The growth performance and technological quality of roundwood from a Paulownia elongata x fortunei hybrid (BIO 125 clone) was assessed in three plantations in Northern Italy. Dendrometric features (diameter at several heights, volume, and growth rate) and defects for industrial use were assessed on 20 standing trees and four logs per plantation. Compared to previously published literature, Paulownia trees have shown a high growth rate during the first three years after coppicing. Growth rate sharply decreased starting from the fourth year, suggesting an increased competition between trees and the need for greater planting spacing. At the end of the first year of growth, trees were pruned up to a height of 5 m, allowing the production of defect-free and high-quality roundwood. Log features were assessed according to European standards EN-1309-2:2006 and EN 1309-3:2018 and then compared with the EN 1316-2:2012 standard for poplar roundwood quality. Paulownia wood has shown to be of excellent quality, ranking in the best class (Po-A) for all parameters except diameter. A larger diameter could be easily obtained with longer growth cycles or greater planting spacing. A relevant problem for the industrial exploitation of Paulownia small-diameter logs would be the large empty pith that could drastically reduce timber yields.
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CLINICAL IMPLICATION OF RETINAL NERVE FIBER LAYER SCHISIS AND MACULAR FLUORESCEIN LEAKAGE IN PRIMARY IDIOPATHIC EPIRETINAL MEMBRANE Supplemental Digital Content is Available in the Text. Preoperative macular leakage was associated with preoperative retinal nerve fiber layer schisis. Patients with macular leakage and retinal nerve fiber layer schisis showed worse postoperative best-corrected visual acuity than those without both factors. Purpose: We evaluated the relationship between macular fluorescein leakage and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) schisis and investigated the visual prognostic values after pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) and idiopathic epiretinal membrane removal. Methods: We analyzed the correlations between preoperative optical coherence tomography (OCT) parameters and macular leakage. The final best-corrected visual acuity and central macular thickness were compared according to the presence or absence of macular leakage and RNFL schisis. Results: In 80 eyes with idiopathic epiretinal membrane treated with PPV and membrane peeling, preoperative macular leakage was associated with the presence of preoperative RNFL schisis and inner nuclear layer microcysts. Eyes with both macular leakage and RNFL schisis showed worse postoperative best-corrected visual acuity than those without both factors. Conclusion: In the presence of macular fluorescein leakage and RNFL schisis, postoperative best-corrected visual acuity is worse, and improvements in the central macular thickness are greater than those in the absence of both factors.
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[Neurohumoral changes in acute intestinal obstruction]. Neurohumoral changes were studied in 431 patients with acute intestinal obstruction and in experiments in 165 small laboratory animals with the model of small intestine ileus. The results were obtained on the basis of estimation of the concentration of catecholamines, acetylcholine-like substances, serotonine, histamine, their metabolism products in blood plasma and of the cardiointervalography data. The neurohumoral changes were shown to appear as early as the initial stage of the disease and to be progressing when the disease period became longer. The prevailing sympathetic activity was dependent on the decreased acetylcholine-like substances in blood plasma and tissues. The serotonine and histamine metabolism changed depending on the stage of the disease.
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MP67-03 IMPROVEMENT IN FUNCTIONAL AND ONCOLOGICAL OUTCOME IN LOCALLY ADVANCED PROSTATE CANCER BY ROBOT-ASSISTED RADICAL PROSTATECTOMY WITH 3D-CANCER MAPPING GUIDANCE INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE: MRI/US fusion biopsy has shown to improve the localization of index lesion and 3D-Cancer mapping can be created to display index lesions in the prostate whether they are attaching or bulging to the prostatic capsule. 3D-Cancer mapping navigation during robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) has shown to improve oncological outcome in pT3 disease (Kamoi et al, EAU 2017). The aim of this study was to evaluate the functional and histological outcomes in patients who are suspected to have T3 lesions treated by RARP. METHODS: 3D-Cancer mapping was constructed using Trinity (Koelis, France), which was applied to diagnose prostate cancer by MR/US fusion technique. Histological data was added to the 3D-Cancer mapping to display index lesions of the prostate whether they are attaching or bulging to the prostatic capsule and was shown in the “Tile-pro display” during RARP. The information of index tumor was applied to RARP by selection of dissection layer especially near the neurovascular and apical area. A total of 76 patients (38 with pT3 and 38 with pT2) were enrolled to this study to compare postoperative early continence and surgical margin status. RESULTS: All patients were applied nerve-sparing procedure in the side without index lesion attaching to the prostatic capsule. Bilateral, hemi-lateral, and non nerve sparing approach were applied to 56, 18 and 2 case, respectively. Among 38 patients with pT3 disease, 3 patients had positive surgical margin (8%) and all 38
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patients with pT2 disease had negative surgical margin. An early continence just after catheter removal (0-1 pad per day) was achieved 23/38 (61%) patients with pT3 disease and 30/38 (79%) patients with pT2 disease (p[0.133). CONCLUSIONS: 3D-Cancer mapping correctly provided location and risk of extra-prostatic extension during dissection of the prostate. 3D-Cancer mapping navigation during RARP could secure a safety margin while maintaining an early continence after surgery in pT3 disease.
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4,510,016 |
Quinoa Flour, the Germinated Grain Flour, and Sourdough as Alternative Sources for Gluten-Free Bread Formulation: Impact on Chemical, Textural and Sensorial Characteristics The demand for gluten-free breads has increased in the last years, but important quality and nutritional challenges remain unsolved. This research evaluated the addition of quinoa in whole quinoa grain flour, germinated quinoa flour, and quinoa sourdough, as a functional ingredient in the formulation of a rice flour-based bread. Twenty percent (w/w) of the rice flour was replaced with quinoa flour alternatives in bread formulations. The chemical composition, shelf-life, and sensory attributes of the rice-quinoa breads were analyzed. The addition of quinoa in sourdough resulted in breads with a significantly improved protein content at 9.82%, relative to 2.70% in the control breads. The amino acid content in quinoa sourdough breads also was also 5.2, 4.4, 2.6, 3.0, and 2.1 times higher in arginine, glutamic acid, leucine, lysine, and phenylalanine, respectively, relative to control breads with rice flour only. The addition of quinoa sourdough in rice breads also improved the texture, color, and shelf-life (up to 6 days), and thus they became moderately accepted among consumers. Although the germinated quinoa flour addition also resulted in a higher protein (9.77%) and amino acid content, they had a reduced shelf-life (4 days). Similarly, the addition of quinoa flour resulted in a higher protein content (9.61%), but the breads had poor texture attributes and were the least preferred by the consumers.
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237757861
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4,510,017 |
The Fluorine Effect in Zwitterionic Half-Sandwich Iridium(III) Anticancer Complexes. The rational design by the introduction of fluorine into a compound has achieved success in the development of organic anticancer drugs. However, the fluorine effect in metal-based anticancer complexes has rarely been reported. In this contribution, we report the synthesis, characterization, chemical reactivity, and biological activity of a series of half-sandwich zwitterionic iridium(III) complexes containing different substituents in the η5-CpR ring. The molecular structures for complexes Ir1-Ir4 and Ir7 were determined by single-crystal X-ray crystallography techniques. Notably, the asymmetrically substituted fluoro complexes Ir4 and Ir6 in solution show two conformational isomers. These complexes have sufficient stability, exhibit fluorescence emission, and show potent catalytic activity in converting NADH to NAD+. The effect of the substituents in the η5-CpR ring for these zwitterionic complexes on their anticancer activity was systematically investigated. Surprisingly, the presence of fluorinated substituents gives rise to a significant increase in the anticancer activity. The lipophilicity and cellular uptake levels of these complexes appeared to be the primary factors for their cytotoxicity in this system. A microscopic mechanism study showed that the typical complex Ir4 entered A549 cancer cells through an energy-dependent pathway and was mainly located in lysosomes. Furthermore, an increase in ROS level, apoptosis induction, and cell-cycle perturbation together contribute to the anticancer potency of these zwitterionic complexes.
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Diagnosis of human granulocytic ehrlichiosis: state of the art. Human granulocytic ehrlichiosis is an emerging zoonosis caused by Anaplasma phagocytophilum and transmitted through the bite of infected Ixodes scapularis. It is prevalent in the Midwest and Northeast United States and also in Europe, and it presents as a nonspecific febrile illness a few days after a tick bite usually between late spring and fall. Most cases present in adult patients with a mild form of the disease, although it can be severe with multiorgan failure, particularly in the elderly and in the immunocompromised. Routine laboratory abnormalities include leukopenia with a left shift, lymphopenia, and thrombocytopenia. These abnormalities are more frequently present during the first week of illness and then tend to normalize; therefore their absence should not exclude the diagnosis. Specific tests to confirm the diagnosis during the acute phase include microscopic detection of morulae in granulocytes, culture of A. phagocytophilum, and polymerase chain reaction. Of these methods, culture appears to have the greatest sensitivity during the acute phase prior to antimicrobial treatment. Serology has an important role in the confirmation of the diagnosis when used in paired specimens and when high cutoff titers by indirect fluorescence antibody assay (> or = 640) are used to diagnose a recent infection.
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Samuel Johnson and the Aesthetics of Complex Dynamics After Bertrand Bronson, Johnsonians have been aware of the double tradition beginning in the 1700s and lasting into the twenty-first century. (1) One side argues for Johnson the Tory conservative, dogmatist, defender of classicism, church tradition, and the social order. The other depicts him as a progressive whose skepticism exists in tension with his religious faith and respect for tradition. Many critics have followed Bronson's suggestion that the latter conception of Johnson is more accurate, but some late modern readers of Johnson have suggested that this tension is an uneasy one which leads not to balance but to irreconcilable contradiction. Steven Lynn cites a number of critics who have underscored Johnson's incoherency and tendency to reverse "polarities" in a list that includes such notables as Earl Wasserman, Irvin Ehrenpreis, Charles Hinnant, Boyd White, Jean Hagstrum, and others. (2) Indeed, a new generation of Johnsonians has pointed to strong affinities between Johnson's skepticism and poststructuralism. Alex Segal and Helen Deutsch offer deconstructive readings of The Life of Savage--readings which support Raman Selden's contention that if we read Johnson deconstructively, "we arrive at a more acute perception of the uncertainty ... of his writing, an uncertainty which is sometimes expressed and sometimes repressed." (3) As Selden notes, this tendency to link Johnson with the postmodern seems a logical development from Bronson's readings which argued that in Johnson's writings, a "radical energy went hand in hand with a concern for order and authority." (4) But to read Johnson deconstructively also problematizes
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Johnson's double focus on order and disorder--and increases the likelihood that, ultimately, the debate underlying the double tradition will return to its starting point and perhaps reinforce the image of Johnson the dogmatist that Bronson and others like W. J. Bate have challenged. For example, Thomas Reinert's postmodern reading of Johnson insists that Johnson is indeed a conservative, whose politics do "not so much follow from his conservatism as offer imaginary consolation for" a potentially nihilistic skepticism. (5) Thus Reinert disagrees with Greene's interpretation of Johnson as a progressivist "gadfly" and insists that the tension between faith and empirical skepticism often leads to "simple" authoritarianism. (6) If this is true, then Johnson's focus is not double but shifting and perhaps evidence of a retreat--Johnson's skeptical, deconstructive tendencies may lead him to embrace dogma and conservatism, in quest of what Lynn calls a "transcendent Other." (7) Reinert's findings may seem harsh to those who view Johnson through the lens of more traditional critical paradigms, but the relationship between Johnson's skeptical, apparently deconstructive tendencies and his respect for tradition has proven as difficult to explain in a postmodern context as it was in earlier twentieth-century criticism. Nevertheless, in this essay, I suggest another way, in the wake of postmodernism, to contextualize Johnson's double focus on order and disorder, on universal global norms and localized deviance--at least with particular regard to his literary criticism and lexicography, wherein we find his most lucid discussion of an uncertainty principle informing his epistemology and aesthetics. Within the context of eighteenth-century and postmodern
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conceptions of complex dynamic systems, we can see that Johnson is neither a dogmatist nor a nihilist, but is instead an early modern chaologist, a student of chaos whose response to the perturbations introduced by science and philosophy in the eighteenth century lead him to describe in his aesthetics a complex mimetic system tracing emergent structures in the field of literary criticism implicated by the interplay between classical tradition and the new empirical skepticism. Thus, Johnson emerges as a writer and a thinker whose significance as a major figure of the eighteenth century and as a contributor to modern discourse on aesthetics and chaos, demonstrates how Johnson's extraordinary grasp of the intimate relation between order and disorder in complex systems of literature as described in his literary criticism prefigures current developments in critical theory and the study of chaos or complex dynamics. …
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The use of external monitoring committees in clinical trials of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Randomized clinical trials are being conducted and/or sponsored by all scientific divisions of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). External committees to review the progress of ongoing trials and to make recommendations to the Institute concerning continuation or termination are an integral part of many of these trials. These committees have evolved considerably from the ad hoc committees, called together when a need arose, which were used beginning in the mid 1970s. Currently, there are many monitoring committees operating for NIAID-sponsored trials. They function in a variety of ways, based partially on historical precedent and partially on the specialized requirements of the particular trial; there is no 'standard operating procedure' for the Institute, or even for divisions within the Institute. One of the major issues faced in establishing the data and safety monitoring board for AIDS treatment trials was access to the meetings of this board and to the reports of interim data that the board reviewed. After much discussion, procedures were established that restrict such access to a very limited group of programme and statistical centre staff. These procedures, while remaining controversial, appear necessary to ensure confidentiality and the integrity of the clinical trials process.
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Viral resistance, clinical experience. Over 1500 herpes simplex virus isolates from over 600 patients have been examined in the Wellcome Research Laboratories during the past 5 years using the dye uptake method in Vero cells to determine acyclovir sensitivity. No significant change in sensitivity of those isolates to acyclovir has been noted during that period, and the few isolates whose sensitivity significantly diminished during therapy were generally not associated with a clinical lack of response to therapy. In patients who were severely immunocompromised and who had received prolonged or repeated courses of therapy, however, less sensitive viruses were occasionally associated with poorly healing ulcers. The significance of these findings are discussed, as are problems in the interpretation of results of in vitro antiviral sensitivity testing and their extrapolation to clinical practice.
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41535211
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[The dynamics of [3H]-cholesterol incorporation into the liver and aortic tissue of guinea pigs on long-term ethanol administration]. The effect of ethanol administration to guinea pigs (4 g/kg, per os) on the dynamics of [3H]-cholesterol incorporation into the liver and aorta tissues was studied for 3 months. It has been discovered that specific radioactivity of the control animals linearly increased during 24 hours in the blood serum. Ethanol reduced it as compared with the control only 0.5 h after a label has been introduced. Cholesterol renovation in the liver remained unchanged under the prolonged effect of ethanol. In the aorta the ethanol effect was characterized by a decrease of [3H]-cholesterol specific radioactivity 0.5 h after its administration. However, in this case the ratio of aorta/blood serum radioactivity increased. A day after the labelled cholesterol administration to alcoholized animals the radioactivity calculated per 1 mg of cholesterol and per unit of tissue weight and referred to the blood serum radioactivity was lower as compared to the control level.
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Recurrent Kernel Machines: Computing with Infinite Echo State Networks Echo state networks (ESNs) are large, random recurrent neural networks with a single trained linear readout layer. Despite the untrained nature of the recurrent weights, they are capable of performing universal computations on temporal input data, which makes them interesting for both theoretical research and practical applications. The key to their success lies in the fact that the network computes a broad set of nonlinear, spatiotemporal mappings of the input data, on which linear regression or classification can easily be performed. One could consider the reservoir as a spatiotemporal kernel, in which the mapping to a high-dimensional space is computed explicitly. In this letter, we build on this idea and extend the concept of ESNs to infinite-sized recurrent neural networks, which can be considered recursive kernels that subsequently can be used to create recursive support vector machines. We present the theoretical framework, provide several practical examples of recursive kernels, and apply them to typical temporal tasks.
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15825561
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The association of yogurt starters with Lactobacillus casei DN 114.001 in fermented milk alters the composition and metabolism of intestinal microflora in germ-free rats and in human flora-associated rats. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of milk and of various fermented milks on the composition and metabolic activities of the intestinal microflora. Groups of eight rats were fed for 6 wk a diet containing 30% nonfermented milk (M), yogurt (Y), milk fermented with Lactobacillus casei (LcFM) or milk fermented with the association of L. casei DN 114.001 and yogurt starters (LcYFM). In the first study, the survival of the lactic acid bacteria from the fermented milks was assessed by bacterial enumeration in feces of germ-free rats (GF rats) fed milk or fermented milks. The metabolic activities of the lactic acid bacteria were studied in these rats by the measurement of glycolytic activities and products of bacterial fermentation, i.e., acetate and lactate (isoforms L and D). In a second study, the effects of fermented milks on the composition and metabolism [gas, glycolytic activities, short-chain fatty acids (SCFA), alcohol and ammonia] of human flora were studied using human flora-associated rats (HF rats). In GF rats, the survival of L. casei in the feces did not differ between those fed the LcFM and LcYFM diets. L. bulgaricus was detected in the feces of the rats fed Y, whereas Streptoccus thermophilus was found in the feces of the LcYFM group. In HF rats, fecal concentration of Bifidobacteria was greater in the LcFM group than in the
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others. beta-Glucuronidase (EC 3.2.1.31) activity was lower in rats fed LcFM and Y than in those fed M and LcYFM, whereas beta-galactosidase (3.2.1.23), alpha-glucosidase (EC 3.2.1 20) and beta-glucosidase (EC 3.2.1.21) activities were higher in the LcYFM group compared with the others. Methane excretion was higher in rats fed Y than in other groups. Cecal SCFA concentrations did not differ in LcFM, Y and M groups, but total SCFA, acetate, propionate and butyrate were significantly greater in the LcYFM group. These results suggest that milk fermented with the combination of L. casei and yogurt starters leads to specific effects that are different from the simple addition of the effects found with yogurt and milk fermented with L. casei. These specific effects are potentially beneficial to human health.
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4440661
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A Semi-Supervision Fault Diagnosis Method Based on Attitude Information for a Satellite The various faults that inevitably occur represent a primary issue in satellite on-orbit operation. Fault diagnosis is the first step in the fault control process. As a means to perform this step, a semi-supervision fault diagnosis method via attitude information is proposed for a satellite. This method combines static fusion with dynamic updating. The evidence concept is employed to obtain the fault information. It not only allows the detection of the slow change and failure with interference, but also confirms the optimal fusion and updating parameters via historical data. Numerical simulations, including static fusion diagnosis and dynamic updating diagnosis, are all presented with the proposed semi-supervision diagnosis methods to compare and prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
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20230761
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Orbital Complications of Pediatric Sinusitis: Treatment of Periorbital Abscess Twenty-six children requiring surgical intervention for orbital complications of acute sinusitis were treated at our institutions between 1985 and 1995. Twenty patients were successfully treated surgically utilizing endoscopic/microscopic endonasal surgery, or traditional external ethmoidectomy. However, six patients failed to respond to initial surgical attempts and ultimately required a revision. In one of these six patients the development of an intracranial abscess also necessitated a craniotomy for surgical drainage. Analysis of these six failures was performed with special attention given to the reasons for initial surgical failure and possible means for preventing revision surgeries.
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30220361
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An alternative method for DNA extraction and PCR identification of Entamoeba histolytica and E. dispar in fecal samples SUMMARY Since it is known that Entamoeba dispar is non-pathogenic and morphologically similar to E. histolytica, there are many targets used in PCR for differentiating these species. However, obtaining high quality DNA from fecal samples is fundamental for PCR. Most methods are laborious or use kits that make diagnosis expensive. In the present work, a new simple, fast and cheap technique of DNA extraction from fecal samples was combined with a PCR for an episomal target in order to identify E. histolytica and E. dispar in feces.
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Molecular evidence indicates the existence of multiple lineages of Sperata species in Indian Rivers Sperata seenghala (Giant river-catfish) and Sperata aor (Long-whiskered catfish) are commercially important freshwater catfishes of India, belongs to family Bagridae. Due to high nutritional significance and the low number of intramuscular bones, both fishes have considerable demand in South Asian countries. Both of the Sperata species are morphologically close and well adapted to the same habitat. In this study, we have assessed the level of genetic diversity and differentiation of S. seenghala and S. aor in the Ganga River based on the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region and compared with the other major Indian rivers. We found high haplotypes diversity for both the species in the Ganga. However, it was comparatively low for S. seenghala in Mahanadi and Brahmaputra populations. The phylogenetic and median-joining network strongly indicated the presence of two distinct maternal lineages of S. seenghala from the Ganga river. Interestingly, the genetic differentiation between S. seenghala of Ganga-Brahmaputra was much higher (~25.3%) than the S. seenghala and S. aor (~17%), whereas it was comparatively low between Ganges-Mahanadi (~8.0%). Our finding provided evidence that all the three rivers: Ganga, Mahanadi, and the Brahmaputra sustain a highly diverse and genetically distinct stock of giant river catfish; therefore, all populations should be considered as a different management unit for the protection of stocks. Our findings indicated that Brahmaputra lineages qualify the species level variations. This study can be further used as a reference database for proper lineage identification of S. seenghala and S.
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aor that could formulate the appropriate conservation and management plans.
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Roles of prolactin‐releasing peptide and RFamide related peptides in the control of stress and food intake Subsequent to the isolation of the first recognized RFamide neuropeptide, FMRFamide, from the clam, a large number of these peptides have been identified. There are now five groups of RFamide peptides identified in mammals. RFamide peptides show diversity with respect to their N‐terminal sequence and biological activity. RFamide peptides have been implicated in a variety of roles, including energy metabolism, stress and pain modulation, as well as effects in the neuroendocrine and cardiovascular systems. In the present minireview, we focus on prolactin‐releasing peptide (PrRP) and RFamide related peptide (RFRP) with respect to their roles in the control of energy metabolism and stress responses. Both food intake and stressful stimuli activate PrRP neurons. The administration of PrRP affects energy metabolism and neuroendocrine systems. PrRP‐deficient or PrRP receptor‐deficient mice show abnormal energy metabolism and/or stress responses. On the other hand, RFRP neurons are activated by stressful stimuli and the administration of RFRP induces neuroendocrine and behavioral stress responses. Taken together, these data suggests that PrRP and RFRP neurons play a role in the control of energy metabolism and/or stress responses.
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Very low dose hepatitis B vaccination in the newborn: Anamnestic response to booster at four years Seventy‐eight children who had received three very low doses (1 or 2 μg) of Merck, Sharp, and Dohme (MSD) plasma‐derived vaccine (PDV) in early infancy were followed to approximately four years of age. Of the 70 who had responded to the initial course of vaccine with measurable anti‐HBs, levels had fallen to below 10 mlU/ml in 38% of subjects given 1 μg doses and in 17% of those who had been given 2 μg doses. None of the children were positive for anti‐HBc. Two weeks after a 2 μg dose of MSD recombinant DNA (rDNA) vaccine all subjects had more than 10 mlU/ml of anti‐HBs, with 90% exceeding 1,000 mlU/ml. A response to hepatitis B vaccine in infancy is followed by an effective immunological memory for serveral years, even if anti‐HBs falls to low levels. The rDNA hepatitis B vaccine (MSD) in 2 μg doses is an effective booster following a primary course of plasma derived vaccine.
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Patient Safety Culture Survey in Pediatric Complex Care Settings: A Factor Analysis Objectives Children with complex medical needs are increasing in number and demanding the services of pediatric long-term care facilities (pLTC), which require a focus on patient safety culture (PSC). However, no tool to measure PSC has been tested in this unique hybrid acute care–residential setting. The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture tool slightly modified for use in the pLTC setting. Methods Factor analyses were performed on data collected from 239 staff at 3 pLTC in 2012. Items were screened by principal axis factoring, and the original structure was tested using confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify the best model fit for the pLTC data, and factor reliability was assessed by Cronbach alpha. Results The extracted, rotated factor solution suggested items in 4 (staffing, nonpunitive response to mistakes, communication openness, and organizational learning) of the original 12 dimensions may not be a good fit for this population. Nevertheless, in the pLTC setting, both the original and the modified factor solutions demonstrated similar reliabilities to the published consistencies of the survey when tested in adult nursing homes and the items factored nearly identically as theorized. Conclusions This study demonstrates that the Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture with minimal modification may be an appropriate instrument to measure PSC in pLTC settings. Additional psychometric testing is recommended to further validate the use of this instrument in this setting,
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including examining the relationship to safety outcomes. Increased use will yield data for benchmarking purposes across these specialized settings to inform frontline workers and organizational leaders of areas of strength and opportunity for improvement.
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The Economic Costs of a Market-based Climate Policy Executive Summary Effort to develop a mandatory climate policy is accelerating and it seems likely that a national market-based strategy for dealing with climate change is on the near term horizon. Key provisions are likely to include a cap on selected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, an institutional framework for creating a nationwide emissions permit market, a welcoming integration of abatement opportunities from external domestic and international sources, and recognition of a broad range of features designed to soften economic impacts or promote economic efficiency. Prompted by a national sense of urgency, businesses, states and regions also are actively engaged in designing and implementing their own variations on these themes. Together, it is clear that there is growing support for a market-based complement to the technology orientation that characterizes current U.S. policy. In the parlance of finance, climate change policy poses the ultimate present value problem. The benefits of current policy actions may not materialize for a very long time and discounting them to the present, even at very low discount rates, may not compensate today's costs. However, the continuing atmospheric accumulation of greenhouse gases is projected to have far reaching consequences for the earth's climate in coming decades. Although knowledge of the direct and indirect impacts of climate change is currently incomplete, damages to the environment and economy are inevitable, if not occurring provides the ultimate justification for policy intervention. There are two failures of the market economy that justify public initiatives on climate change. The first is
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a technological problem in that firms cannot capture all of the returns on their knowledge and technology investments which results in an economy-wide underinvestment in mitigation options. This underinvestment is compounded by the uncertainty that leads to thresholds on minimum financial performance or potential market size below which firms will not launch R&D or technological initiatives. The second problem arises from the divergence between " private " and " social " prices. Greenhouse gas emissions are related to the patterns of products and processes in production and consumption and these are strongly influenced by prevailing market prices. Emissions are too high because market prices fail to internalize climate-related damages. When emissions-generating goods and services are priced properly, the benefits of avoided damages are reflected correctly in market prices and, so, reflect their social opportunity cost in use. The pricing arena calls for more direct emissions initiatives because the technology policies designed to …
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Education data mining: Mining MOOCs videos using metadata based approach Due to the growing interest in data mining and the educational system, educational data mining is the emerging topic for research community. The various techniques of data mining like classification and clustering can be applied to bring out hidden knowledge from the educational data. Web video mining is retrieving the content using data mining techniques from World Wide Web. There are two approaches for web video mining using traditional image processing (signal processing) and metadata based approach. In this paper, we focus on the education data mining and precisely MOOCs which constitute a new modality of e-learning and clustering techniques. We present a methodology that can be used for mining Moocs videos using metadata as leading contribution for knowledge discovery.
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The Predication Semantics Model: The Role of Predicate: Class in Text Comprehension and Recall This paper presents and tests the predication semantics model, a computational model of text comprehension. It goes beyond previous case grammar approaches to text comprehension in employing a propositional rather than a rigid hierarchical tree notion, attempting to maintain a coherent set of propositions in working memory. The authors' assertion is that predicate class contains semantic information that readers use to make generally accurate predictions of a given proposition. Thus, the main purpose of the model-which works as a series of input and reduction cycles-is to explore the extent to which predicate categories play a role in reading comprehension and recall. In the reduction phase of the model, the propositions entered into the memory during the input phase are decreased while coherence is maintained among them. In an examination of the working memory at the end of each cycle, the computational model maintained coherence for 70% of cycles. The model appeared prone to serial dependence in errors: the coherence problem appears to occur because (unlike real readers) the simulation docs not reread when necessary. Overall, the experiment suggested that the predication semantics model is robust. The results suggested that the model emulates a primary process in text comprehension: predicate categories provide semantic information that helps to initiate and control automatic processes in reading, and allows people to grasp the gist of a text even when they have only minimal background knowledge. While needing refinement in several areas presenting minor problems-for example, the
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lack of a sufficiently complex memory to ensure that when the simulation of the model goes wrong it does not, as at present, stay wrong for successive intervals-the success of the model even at the current restrictive level of detail demonstrates the importance of the semantic information in predicate categories.
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Line adsorption in a mean-field density-functional model Recent ideas about the analogue for a three-phase contact line of the Gibbs adsorption equation for interfaces are illustrated in a mean-field density-functional model. With d τ the infinitesimal change in the line tension τ that accompanies the infinitesimal changes dμ i in the thermodynamic field variables μ i and with Λ i the line adsorptions, the sum , unlike its surface analogue, is not 0. An equivalent of this sum in the model system is evaluated numerically and analytically. A general line adsorption equation, which the model results illustrate, is derived.
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Reconstruction of the burned thumb. The thumb accounts for 40 to 50% of hand function. Reconstruction of soft-tissue contractures include release and coverage with skin grafts or various local, regional, distant, or free flaps. Thumb length, so important for prehension and opposition, can be restored by phalangealization, pollicization, or toe-to-thumb transfer. Secondary techniques such as metacarpal distraction-lengthening or osteoplastic reconstruction are rarely indicated.
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Synthesis and evaluation of a 18F-labeled 4-ipomeanol as an imaging agent for CYP4B1 gene prodrug activation therapy. We report the development of a (18)F-labeled 4-ipomeanol (4-IM), which is metabolized by the CYP4B1 enzyme, to image tumors and monitor enzyme-activating anticancer prodrugs. The fluorine-substituted derivative, 1-(3-furyl)-4-hydroxy-5-fluoro-1-pentanone (F-4-IM, 1), was synthesized from 3-furaldehyde. [(18)F]F-4-IM ([(18)F]1) was prepared in 20%-35% radiochemical yield by a fluorine-18 displacement reaction, followed by reduction and deprotection of the ketal group, and was shown to be stable (>96% at 2 hours) in human serum at 37°C. The biodistribution of [(18)F]F-4-IM in normal rats was high in the lung, where CYP4B1 gene is preferentially expressed. We transduced C6-glioma cells with a retrovirus-expressing CYP4B1 (C6-CYP4B1). Evaluation of CYP4B1 expression was confirmed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and MTT assay. Cell assays were carried out using C6 and C6-CYP4B, and the uptake of [(18)F]F-4-IM in these cells was compared with that in parental controls. The uptake ratio of [(18)F]F-4-IM was 2.8-fold higher in C6-CYP4B1 compared with that in parental cells at 1 hour, whereas [(3)H]4-IM was taken up at similar rates in both cell lines after 6 hours. These results suggest that [(18)F]F-4-IM could be a promising PET imaging agent with potential to be used for imaging of CYP4B1-transfected tumor cells, as well as for monitoring CYP4B1 enzyme/prodrug interactions.
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Somatomedin-C levels in healthy young and old men: relationship to peak and 24-hour integrated levels of growth hormone. We investigated the relationship between growth hormone secretion and somatomedin levels as a function of age in normal healthy men. There was a substantial decrease with age in somatomedin levels from 0.95 +/- 0.06 (M +/- SEM) units/ml in young (23 to 27 years) men to 0.68 +/- 0.07 in old (58 to 82 years) men. The blood samples were taken throughout a 24-hour period, so it was possible to analyze the data for correlations between average somatomedin levels and various aspects of growth hormone secretion. There was a significant correlation of somatomedin level with the 24-hour integrated growth hormone level, and a nearly significant correlation with the sum of the highest three peaks, but no correlation with the highest nighttime peak or the basal level of growth hormone. These lower blood levels of somatomedin in the aged may be responsible, at least in part, for the catabolic effects on muscle and bone frequently associated with aging.
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7350011
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Low-Level Loop Analysis and Pipelining of Applications Mapped to Xilinx FPGAs In this paper we investigate using low-level loop analysis to identify common loop patterns in the netlist generated by the synthesis flow and use loop optimization techniques to increase Fmax of applications implemented on Xilinx FPGAs. Ordinarily, feed-forward paths in the netlist can be easily pipelined. The focus of this study is only sequential loops (with feedback cycles) that are more challenging to optimize. We show using low-level loop analysis, we can improve Fmax on average by 57% and achieve an average Fmax of 714MHz across seven industrial designs. Using aggressive loop combining, we also show that we can save 18% area on average while still improving the Fmax by 15% to 41% on four of the seven designs.
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The coupling of elastic, surface-wave modes by a slow, interfacial inclusion A layer of homogeneous, isotropic, elastic material overlays a substrate of similar material. The shear wavespeed within the layer is less than that of the substrate causing waves to be trapped within the layer. At the interface a long inclusion, that grows gradually until it reaches a constant thickness, is introduced. The inclusion is composed of a material whose shear wavespeed is less than that in the layer; it is described as slow. It is imagined that the lowest surface-wave mode of the structure is incident to the growing inclusion. Numerical calculations show that the growth of the slow inclusion brings the wavenumber of this lowest mode into an interval where it is close to that of the second mode, thus exciting it. This process is repeated when the wavenumber of the second mode is brought close to that of the third. Within these intervals, energy is exchanged among the coupling modes. Outside of these localized intervals, the modes propagate independently of one another and their amplitudes vary such that the flux of energy in each mode is conserved; they are said to propagate adiabatically. Reflections are also excited, but are shown to be very small in magnitude.
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Egypt: Emotive speech masks a complicated reality Egypt reacted in an unexpectedly quick and professional approach at the start of the pandemic. It preceded other European countries in applying tougher measures to tackle the global pandemic, such as closing the borders, shutting schools, closing places of worship and imposing a curfew. Yet this professionalism was undermined by several factors, such as political polarisation, a weak health system, prevailing culture and economic problems. These factors combined led to a dramatic change in the government strategy as it changed from prevention and containment strategies to relaxing the measures before reaching the peak of the disease. Despite fluctuations in government performance, it managed to adopt an empathetic tone and cut through the polarised and politicised information environment. It also succeeded in presenting a new technocratic civilian leadership, in opposition to the single leadership and security apparatus Egyptians are used to. However, while it gained important experience throughout the crisis - that may pave the way for changes in future crisis management methods - it failed to learn from other nations and remains in a parlous position dealing with COVID-19. © 2021 selection and editorial matter, Darren Lilleker, Ioana A. Coman, Milos Gregor and Edoardo Novelli.
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La théorie autrichienne de la bureaucratie de Mises: une perspective critique The bureaucratic organisations became key actors in our contemporary societies. To develop an appropriate theory to understand how these organisations work and their implications constitute true stakes. This article deals with Mises’ theory of bureaucracy, which differs radically from the traditional approaches. The first part presents the definition of the Misesian bureaucracy, which shares some common points with Wéber’s version and shows also true strong disagreements. The absence of economic calculation constitutes the main key idea to understand the Misesian theory. Mises shows also that bureaucracy reflects the governmental interventions, which can be combined with different types of political systems. The second part deals with the consequences of bureaucracy. This part proposes a detailed analysis of the economic, social, political and psychological effects. The third part raises some critical points for the theory. It seems that the conception of bureaucrat and its place inside the bureaucratic organisation is not sufficiently analysed. Moreover, the modelling of the bureaucratic expansion deserves a more refined research. Finally, the justifications given by Mises to justify a minimal bureaucracy emphasize the necessity to think the place and the role of the State.
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Er-Based Luminescent Nanothermometer to Explore the Real-Time Temperature of Cells under External Stimuli. Temperature as a typical parameter, which influences the status of living creatures, is essential to life activities and indicates the initial cellular activities. In recent years, the rapid development of nanotechnology provides a new tool for studying temperature variation at the micro- or nano-scales. In this study, an important phenomenon is observed at the cell level using luminescent probes to explore intracellular temperature changes, based on Yb-Er doping nanoparticles with special upconversion readout mode and intensity ratio signals (I525 and I545 ). Further optimization of this four-layer core-shell ratio nanothermometer endows it with remarkable characteristics: super photostability, sensitivity, and protection owing to the shell. Thus this kind of thermal probe has the property of anti-interference to the complex chemical environment, responding exclusively to temperature, when it is used in liquid and cells to reflect external temperature changes at the nanoscale. The intracellular temperature of living RAW and CAOV3 cells are observed to have a resistance mechanism to external stimuli and approach a more favorable temperature, especially for CAOV3 cells with good heat resistance, with the intracellular temperature 4.8 °C higher than incubated medium under 5 °C environment, and 4.4 °C lower than the medium under 60 °C environment.
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[Sequence analysis of G glycoprotein gene of human respiratory syncytial virus]. OBJECTIVE To understand the variation of G glycoprotein gene of human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) obtained from Sichuan in 2010 and determine the dominant genotypes. METHODS G glycoprotein gene of seven cases of subtype A and eleven cases of subtype B of HRSV were amplified by RT-PCR and sequenced. The phylogenetic trees were constructed to determine the subtype of samples. And then, the genetic variations of the second hypervariable region of G glycoprotein gene were studied. RESULTS The nucleotide genetic distances of G glycoprotein gene in subtype A and subtype B HRSV were 0.022 +/- 0.005 and 0.073 +/- 0.010, respectively. Transitions were more prevalent than transversions, GA -AG were the most frequent transitions detected among group A viruses, while UC+CU transitions were the most among group B. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that 7 subtype A virus could be clustered into one genotype, genotype GA2, and 11 subtype B virus could be clustered into two genotypes, GB2 and BA. The length of G protein gene in group A was all 298aa, but in group B included 295aa, 312aa and 315aa. Selective pressure was purifying selection in both subtypes. 9 positively selected sites in group A and 1 in group B on the second hypervariable region of G protein were identified. CONCLUSION GA2, GB2 and BA were the main genotype. The changes may favor virus escape from the host immune response including the variation of the G protein gene length, frequency of nucleotide changes and selective pressure.
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Cross-species surveillance and risk factors associated with Avian Coronavirus in North-Central and South West Regions of Nigeria. Infectious bronchitis viral (IBV) (Avian coronavirus) diseases is among the major reproductive diseases affecting the avian production in Africa. There is scanty information on its current status and vaccination compliance among captive wild birds (CWB) and indigenous chickens (LC) in Nigeria. This study aimed to assess the exposure and the risk factors associated with IBV in CWB and LC from North-central and South west regions of Nigeria. Sera samples from 218 LC and 43 CWB were examined for IBV IgG using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Also, owners of LC and managers of CWB were interviewed using a pre-tested structured checklist. An overall IBV prevalence of 42.9% (112/261) was obtained. Captive wild birds and indigenous chickens had 11.6% (5/43) and 49.1% (107/218) prevalence respectively with a significant difference (p< 0.0001, OR= 7.3, 95% CI= 2.8-19.3). Also, geo-location indicated significant difference in IBV exposure among birds (p<=0.034). Furthermore, the study showed that there had never been laboratory screening on all acquired wild birds for exposure to infectious agents in the study location while none of these birds (LB/CWB) had history of vaccination. Since IBV is endemic in Nigeria, the use of vaccine for prophylactic measure should be advocated among LC and CWB owners in order to avoid unnecessary losses. Also, the essence of screening for infectious agents in newly acquired wild birds should be considered crucial for health sustenance and public safety.
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Adapting buildings to climate changes Attic floors are a favoured solution in refurbishing/rehabilitating residential buildings as well as for new buildings in Romania, under the conditions of climate changes and especially for adapting to the global warming phenomenon. Optimizing the thermal protection during the hot season can be made by a layer of ventilated air disposed directly under the roof covering. In order to analyse the ventilation process, and to establish design recommendations the authors have used a physical small scale model, in laboratory conditions, according the Grashof criterion. The paper is presenting a profitable utilization of similitude conditions leading to opportunities of analysing the indoor ventilation in passive system for a better energy efficiency.
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Junior doctor contract: BMA to hold vote on new changes Junior doctors in England will be asked to vote on proposed improvements to their contract, after terms were agreed between the BMA, NHS Employers, and the Department of Health and Social Care. The BMA’s Junior Doctors Committee said it had endorsed the offer, which would see changes leading to a total of £90m (€100m; $115m) worth of investment over four years for junior doctors. Key elements of the deal include:
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Slowing of pulsatile luteinizing hormone secretion in men after forty-eight hours of fasting. To determine whether short periods of fasting can suppress the activity of the reproductive axis in normal healthy men, eight men were studied on a fed day and again after 48 h of fasting. Subjects were between 20-32 yr of age and ranged from 84-119% of normal body weight. Blood samples were collected on day 1 (a fed day) and day 3 (after 48 h of fasting) at 15-min intervals from 0800-1600 h through indwelling venous catheters. Fasting for 48 h resulted in a significant decrease in mean LH, FSH, and testosterone concentrations. The mean LH concentration decreased from 2.94 +/- 0.59 IU/L on the fed day to 1.07 +/- 0.14 IU/L after 48 h of fasting, and there was an accompanying decrease in LH pulse frequency (from 5.13 +/- 0.29 to 2.63 +/- 0.62 pulses/8 h) and mean baseline LH concentration (from 1.83 +/- 0.52 to 0.51 +/- 0.07 IU/L), but no significant decrease in LH pulse amplitude. In a second study, blood samples were collected from five subjects who were allowed to eat normally between days 1 and 3; these individuals showed no difference in LH secretion. To begin to examine the possibility that an activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis leads to the suppression of reproductive hormone levels that occurred after 48 h of fasting, cortisol levels were measured in all plasma samples. There was no significant difference in mean cortisol concentrations on fed vs. fasted days or when cortisol concentrations
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were examined as hourly means across the 2 days. These results indicate that activity of the reproductive axis can be suppressed in normal healthy men by 48 h of fasting. It appears unlikely that activation of the adrenal axis is the cause of this suppression of reproductive axis activity.
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Clocking and synchronization in sub-90 nm system-on-chip (SoC) designs Sub-90 nm designs create many challenging problems for VLSI designers. A key challenge is the unpredictable behavior of the interconnect characteristics resulting in delay variations. New techniques such as current-mode interconnection scheme and results from other circuit domain could be helpful in dealing with this problem. Also, prevention and correction both should be considered in achieving signal and function integrity. This article presents some solutions for the clocking and synchronization problem for the design of SoCs specifically in asynchronous design, GALS, and current-mode interconnects.
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Three approaches to the coordination of multiagent systems The engineering of the social aspects has been acknowledged as one of the principal issues in the realization of real-world multiagent systems. The literature proposes a number of solutions to this problem and in this paper we consider three of them and we discuss their relationships. First, we take into account hybrid coordination models based on tuple centres. Then, we consider interaction protocols as a means to coordinate multiagent systems. Finally, we address the implicit coordination that the semantics of classic agent communication languages propose. We base our discussion on the common ground of coordination models and we sketch a comparison between such approaches.
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Disorder and the superfluid transition in liquid 4He. The influence of quenched disorder on the critical behavior of superfluid /sup 4/He is studied by confinement of the helium to the pores of three different porous media: Vycor, xerogel, and aerogel glass. In each case a well defined power-law behavior for the superfluid density is observed as the transition temperature is approached. In Vycor the superfluid critical exponent is bulklike, whereas strikingly different critical exponents are seen in the other two media.
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115-OR: Microbiome Antigens as a Vaccination Strategy in Type 1 Diabetes Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disorder that results from T cell-mediated destruction of the insulin-producing β cells of the pancreatic islets. Accumulating evidence from both human and animal studies points to the gut microbiome, the 100 trillion microbes inhabiting our intestinal tract, as a key component driving the inflammatory processes leading to T1D. However, the mechanisms therein are poorly understood. We propose that this inflammatory milieu occurs in the pancreas, where microbes or microbial fragments that translocate from their usual luminal, mucosal sites persist and induce the cytokine and chemokine signals needed for destructive, autoimmune cellular and humoral responses that destroy the insulin producing β cells. By controlling this inflammation via vaccination against a highly conserved microbial surface antigen, poly-N-acetyl glucosamine (PNAG), we can decrease the inflammatory response such that vaccination prevents diabetes. In analyses of human and murine pancreatic islets, we have found that PNAG is readily detectable within diabetic, but not healthy, pancreases and associated with both T cells and polymorphonuclear cells (PMNs). This finding suggests that inducing an effective immune response that can clear PNAG-containing microbes or microbial fragments may be critical in counteracting the microbiota-driven inflammation leading to autoimmunity. We report that NOD female mice vaccinated against PNAG exhibited a drastic reduction in diabetes incidence from in 70% of 21 controls to 17% of 18 PNAG-immune mice. Immunophenotyping on these mice indicates that PNAG vaccination dramatically increases Foxp3+ Tregs as well as CD4+ and CD4- IL-10-producing cells. Taken together,
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our work provides evidence that the translocation of microbial antigens to the pancreas may drive inflammation leading to T1D, and that vaccination against one particular microbial antigen, PNAG, may lead to protection against this disease. Disclosure A. Kostic: Other Relationship; Self; DeepBiome Therapeutics, Inc., FitBiomics, Inc. Funding American Diabetes Association/Pathway to Stop Diabetes (1-17-INI-13 to A.K.)
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Principles of Economic Sociology List of Tables and Figures ix Preface xi Chapter I. The Classics in Economic Sociology 1 Chapter II. Contemporary Economic Sociology 32 Chapter III. Economic Organization 53 Chapter IV. Firms 74 Chapter V. Economic and Sociological Approaches to Markets 104 Chapter VI. Markets in History 131 Chapter VII. Politics and the Economy 158 Chapter VIII. Law and the Economy 189 Chapter IX. Culture and Economic Development 218 Chapter X. Culture, Trust, and Consumption 241 Chapter XI. Gender and the Economy 259 Chapter XII. The Cat's Dilemma and Other Questions for Economic Sociologists 283 References 305 Index 357
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Maximum-likelihood estimation of the entropy of an attractor. In this paper, a maximum-likelihood estimate of the (Kolmogorov) entropy of an attractor is proposed that can be obtained directly from a time series. Also, the relative standard deviation of the entropy estimate is derived; it is dependent on the entropy and on the number of samples used in the estimation.
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Aquaporin-5 expression, but not other peripheral lung marker genes, is reduced in PTH/PTHrP receptor null mutant fetal mice. Parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP) and the parathyroid hormone/parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTH/PTHrP) receptor are important developmental regulators of cell growth and differentiation in some organs. In lung, both the peptide and the receptor are expressed early in development and in alveolar cells in adults. In adult alveolar cells, PTHrP appears to promote the alveolar type II cell phenotype in vitro. Mice carrying null mutations in genes for either receptor or ligand die at birth of respiratory failure. To determine if absence of the PTH/PTHrP receptor alters morphogenesis or cellular differentiation of the distal lung, we analyzed the morphology and gene expression patterns in PTH/PTHrP receptor null mutant mice right before birth and compared them with wild-type and heterozygous null littermates. Using semiquantitative Northern blots, we observed that messenger RNA (mRNA) for aquaporin-5, the type I cell-specific water channel, was markedly decreased. The abundance of other marker mRNAs for type I and type II cell phenotypes, including T1alpha, surfactant proteins, and others, was unaltered. Gross morphology and lung pattern, assessed by in situ hybridization for surfactant protein C, were normal. We conclude therefore that, although signaling through this receptor may influence expression of specific lung genes, it does not play a major role in the general regulation of lung development and growth.
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High figure of merit magneto-optics from interfacial skyrmions on topological insulators In the Kerr rotation geometry, magneto-optic memory devices typically suffer from low figure-of-merit (FOM) and long write times. We show that skyrmions formed at the interface of a thin-film multiferroic and a topological insulator can give rise to high FOM magneto-optic Kerr effects (MOKEs). Huge differential MOKE can arise in parts of the phase diagram. Resonancelike features in the MOKE spectra arising from the induced low energy TI band gap, the multiferroic-film thickness, and the high energy Drude-like behavior are resolved and explained. The Fermi level dependence of the MOKE signatures is distinct for the different magnetic textures. This has broad implications for magnetic texture characterization, electro-optic modulators and isolators, and high density magnetic optic memory.
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Three-dimensional polarization algebra for all polarization sensitive optical systems. Using three-dimensional (3D) coherency vector (9 × 1), we develop a new 3D polarization algebra to calculate the polarization properties of all polarization sensitive optical systems, especially when the incident optical field is partially polarized or un-polarized. The polarization properties of a high numerical aperture (NA) microscope objective (NA = 1.25 immersed in oil) are analyzed based on the proposed 3D polarization algebra. Correspondingly, the polarization simulation of this high NA optical system is performed by the commercial software VirtualLAB Fusion. By comparing the theoretical calculations with polarization simulations, a perfect matching relation is obtained, which demonstrates that this 3D polarization algebra is valid to quantify the 3D polarization properties for all polarization sensitive optical systems.
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Thermal stability and dynamic mechanical behavior of functional multiphase boride ceramics/epoxy composites Abstract The thermal and dynamic mechanical properties of epoxy composites filled with zirconium diboride/nano-alumina (ZrB2/Al2O3) multiphase particles were investigated by means of differential scanning calorimetry, dynamic thermo-mechanical analysis, and numerical simulation. ZrB2/Al2O3 particles were surface organic functional modified by γ-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane for the improvement of their dispersity in epoxy matrix. The results indicated that the curing exotherm of epoxy resin decreased significantly due to the addition of ZrB2/Al2O3 multiphase particles. In comparison to the composites filled with unmodified particles, the modified multiphase particles made the corresponding filling composites exhibit lower curing reaction heat, lower loss modulus, and higher storage modulus. Generally speaking, the composites filled with 5 wt% modified multiphase particles presented the best thermal stability and thermo-mechanical properties due to the better filler-matrix interfacial compatibility and the uniform dispersity of modified particles. Finite element analysis also suggested that the introduction of modified ZrB2/Al2O3 multiphase particles increased the stiffness of the corresponding composites.
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Beyond the technology In this paper the authors discuss the accumulated incremental changes fostered by IT and how they change campus culture and life for all members of the campus community. This presentation is a user-centered perspective looking not at how infrastructure and resources have changed, but rather how IT changes make a differences (positive or negative) in teaching, learning, working and living on campus. A better understanding of the impact UCCs (University Computing Centers) have on all aspects of campus life can improve planning and training. This challenge arises from the ubiquitous presence of IT on campus affecting all aspects of campus life - learning, teaching, working, and living. Technology's capability, availability, reliability, and ease of use lead to changes in roles, responsibilities, expectations, access and relationships among and between faculty, staff, students and administrators. Computer center services play a significant role in identifying and addressing these issues as users' adoption or rejection of these resources is determined not by the power of the technology, but by user perceptions of how IT's power facilitates their accomplishing their objectives.
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A two stage fault location algorithm for locating faults on transmission lines A continuous and reliable electrical energy supply is the objective of any power system operation. Electricity is the driving force behind industry and subsequently economy. There are various types of faults appear in power system. Faults can appear due to bad weather conditions, equipment damage, equipment failure, environment changes and many other reasons. Any occurrence of a fault should be detected and cleared by the protective relaying devices. Fast and accurate fault location is a key task for accelerating system restoration, reducing outage times, and hence, improving system reliability. The aim of this project is to develop a two stage fault location algorithm that can determine the distance to the fault. The proposed two-stage fault-location algorithm is applicable for transposed and untransposed transmission lines and is independent of the fault resistance and source impedances. The synchronization angle is determined by using Newton-Raphson method. The maximum error reached from this algorithm is less than: 0.18% for LG faults, 0.20% for LL faults, and 0.26% for LLG faults.
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14519361
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4,510,070 |
Antithymocyte globulin for steroid resistant rejection in renal transplant recipients immunosuppressed with triple therapy Steroid resistant rejection, confirmed histologically, occurred in 35 of 187 consecutive cadaveric renal transplants treated with triple therapy (cyclosporin, azathioprine and prednisolone) in the Oxford Transplant Unit. Twenty-seven of these were treated with a rabbit antithymocyte globulin (ATG) and 19 showed recovery of function. The level of serum creatinine, the renal biopsy appearance and the requirement for dialysis at the start of ATG treatment did not predict which patients would respond to the therapy. One year after transplantation there was no significant difference between the mean plasma creatinine levels of those patients with steroid resistant rejection who had been given ATG and responded (151.6 μmol/l) and those who had responded to steroids alone (165.0 μmol/l). Adverse effects of ATG treatment included a mean fall in white cell count of 62.2% and a mean fall in platelet count of 45.1%. Two of the 27 patients who received ATG died (7.4% mortality). ATG would appear to be an effective treatment of steroid resistant rejection in patients receiving triple therapy immunosuppression, and graft function may subsequently be excellent in those patients who respond to treatment.
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22785911
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4,510,071 |
Production performance and milk composition of dairy cows fed whole or ground flaxseed with or without monensin. Eight multiparous Holstein cows averaging 570 +/- 43 kg of body weight and 60 +/- 20 d in milk were used in a double Latin square design with four 21-d experimental periods to determine the effects of feeding ground or whole flaxseed with or without monensin supplementation (0.02% on a dry matter basis) on milk production and composition, feed intake, digestion, blood composition, and fatty acid profile of milk. Intake of dry matter was similar among treatments. Cows fed whole flaxseed had higher digestibility of acid detergent fiber but lower digestibilities of crude protein and ether extract than those fed ground flaxseed; monensin had no effect on digestibility. Milk production tended to be greater for cows fed ground flaxseed (22.8 kg/d) compared with those fed whole flaxseed (21.4 kg/d). Processing of flax-seed had no effect on 4% fat-corrected milk yield and milk protein and lactose concentrations. Monensin supplementation had no effect on milk production but decreased 4% fat-corrected milk yield as a result of a decrease in milk fat concentration. Feeding ground compared with whole flaxseed decreased concentrations of 16:0, 17:0, and cis6-20:4 and increased those of cis6-18:2, cis9, trans11-18:2, and cis3-18:3 in milk fat. As a result, there was a decrease in concentrations of medium-chain and saturated fatty acids and a trend for higher concentrations of long-chain fatty acids in milk fat when feeding ground compared with whole flaxseed. Monensin supplementation increased concentrations of cis9 and trans11-18:2 and
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11218461
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4,510,072 |
decreased concentrations of saturated fatty acids in milk fat. There was an interaction between flaxseed processing and monensin supplementation, with higher milk fat concentration of trans11-18:1 for cows fed ground flaxseed with monensin than for those fed the other diets. Flaxseed processing and monensin supplementation successfully modified the fatty acid composition of milk fat that might favor nutritional value for consumers.
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11218461
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4,510,073 |
A Design and a Model for Investigating the Heterogeneity of Context Effects in Public Opinion Surveys Context effects on survey response, caused by the unobserved interaction between beliefs stored in personal memory and triggers generated by the structure of the survey instrument, are a pervasive challenge to survey research. The authors argue that randomized survey experiments on representative samples, when paired with facilitative primes, can enable researchers to model selection into variable context effects, revealing heterogeneity at the population level. The value of the design, and its associated modeling strategy, is demonstrated by its ability to deepen the interpretation of a treatment effect of international competitiveness framing on long-used items drawn from the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll and the General Social Survey about the quality of schooling in the United States, confidence in the leaders running public education, and support for spending to improve schools.
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631661
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4,510,074 |
Recent advances in the role of immunity in atherosclerosis. The immune system serves to protect the host from a diverse array of pathogens that evolve rapidly in an effort to breach immune security checkpoints. These defense mechanisms operate continuously to keep exogenous pathogens from propagating their own species, although this heightened security has unintended and detrimental consequences to the host.1 Although this maladaptive immune response is classically associated with noninfectious diseases, such as arthritis, gout, and lupus, uncontrolled inflammation is emerging as a causative factor in the development of cardiovascular disease as well. Atherosclerosis is a widely known condition in which the immune system causes harm to the host. Classically defined as a disease that is initiated by alterations in cholesterol metabolism and the subendothelial retention of low-density lipoproteins (LDL),2 we now know that activation of both innate and adaptive immunity participate in atherogenesis.3 Advanced atherosclerotic plaques are characterized by highly inflammatory lesions that can both impede blood flow and precipitate thrombosis because of plaque rupture, leading ultimately to the clinical manifestations of atherosclerosis: myocardial infarction, and stroke. The progression of atherosclerosis in humans is associated with increased circulating levels of proinflammatory C-reactive protein, as well as increased white blood cell count.3,4 A considerable amount of evidence implicates the innate immune system in the progression of atherosclerosis.5 Recent studies suggest that polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMNs) drive the accumulation of monocytes in atherosclerotic lesions in a manner dependent on PMN granule proteins, such as the cathelicidins (ie, cathelicidin-related antimicrobial peptide).6–9 Other comorbidities, such as hyperglycemia, also contribute to
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4,510,075 |
the mobilization of PMNs from the bone marrow during atherosclerosis progression.10 Interestingly, the PMN/lymphocyte ratio may have value in predicting future cardiovascular events over the white blood cell count alone.11 Although the role of PMNs in atherogenesis is emerging, the roles …
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18403411
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4,510,076 |
Factors of importance for the use of PAP-SMEAR in a Danish county without systematic screening. Do various General Practice factors influence the participation rate (PR) in the cytological investigation for preventing cancer of the cervix uteri in counties without systematized screening? This was studied in the county of Aarhus, Denmark, where there are no systematic cytological examinations (CE). We studied a random sample of 2023 women aged 27.5 years to 47.5 years. Essential differences in PR depended on various practice characteristics. Practices with the highest average use of CE services, as counted by the Regional Health Authorities, also had the best PR. The relative chance of being sufficiently examined was almost twice as great among patients in active practices compared with other practices. Furthermore, practices with at least one female practitioner and practices that wanted the introduction of systematic screening had a significantly higher PR. There was a slightly higher PR for patients in large practices. Type of practice, i.e. whether single or partnership, and the individual practitioner's attitude to the efficiency of the present opportunistic screening were not related to the PR. Finally, a slightly lower PR was found among patients in the city of Aarhus, whereas the PR in the major cities of the county as a whole did not differ from the coverage rate in the county in general. It is concluded that the Health Authorities' average figure for CE-use/1000 women in the individual practice is the most significant factor that determines the CE rate for any given patient. Variation in the PR
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22159461
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4,510,077 |
in different practices is unacceptably large if all the women are to receive a uniform CE screening offer.
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22159461
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4,510,078 |
Nuclear war in human perspective: a survivor's report. A first-hand account of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as it was experienced by a 13-year-old girl, is presented. The experience is considered in terms of the physical, social, and psychological consequences--and the interaction among them--for the survivors. The role of the survivors in the move to abolish nuclear weapons, and the significance of that role in their own psychological recovery, is emphasized.
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45384861
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4,510,079 |
STOCK PRICE TREND PREDICTION USING SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE AND CORAL REEF OPTIMIZATION ALGORITHM Financial market has been discovered to be complex, non-linear dynamical and evolutionary (Basher et al., 2012). There are several interacting factors in finance which include political events, general economic condiABSTRACT Due to non-linearity and non-stationary characteristics of stock market time series data, prior approaches have not been adequate enough for predicting stock market prices. Support vector machines are classifier that have been reported in the literature as having good recognition accuracy and have been applied in the area of predicting financial stock market prices and was found efficient. It is however noted that the performance of the SVM is affected by the values of the hyper-parameters used by the SVM. There is the need to find a way for searching for the best hyper-parameters that optimizes the performance of an SVM model. Coral Reef Optimization (CRO) is one of many nature-inspired algorithms used extensively to solve optimization problems. It is very effective in solving optimization problems because it is able to achieve global optimization. This paper’s contribution is the development of Coral Reef search algorithms for the improvement of the hyper-parameters of the SVM used for stock price trend prediction. The Algorithm is validated using stock data of two banks. The results obtained out-performed un-optimized SVM, and have the same performance as that of SVM optimized with the FireFly optimization algorithm.
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237430761
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4,510,080 |
Comparison of the antitumor activity of cisplatin, carboplatin, and iproplatin against established human testicular cancer cell lines in vivo and in vitro Cisplatin is a backbone of any combination chemotherapy currently in use for the treatment for nonseminomatous germ cell tumors. Recently new platinum analogs with lower toxicity have been developed. The antitumor activity of two analogs, carboplatin (JM8) and iproplatin (JM9) was compared to cisplatin in vitro and in vivo. The 3thymidine incorporation in three established human testicular cancer cell lines was significantly stronger inhibited by cisplatin than by JM8 or JM9. Cisplatin showed a significantly stronger antitumor activity against heterotransplanted human testicular cancer cell lines in the nude mouse than JM8 or JM9 when given at equitoxic doses. Although both analogs only moderately retarded the tumor growth, cisplatin produced a significant reduction of tumor volume in three of four cell lines. From these data it is concluded that the antitumor activity of cisplatin may be significantly superior to JM8 and JM9, and results of preclinical investigations should be awaited before replacement of cisplatin by JM8 or JM9 in the treatment of nonseminomatous germ cell tumors can be considered.
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35305811
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4,510,081 |
Proticin, a new phosphorus-containing antibiotic. II. Characterization and chemical studies. This article concerns itself with the purification and characterization of the new antibiotic, proticin (I). Hydrogenation with 8 moles of hydrogen and subsequent esterification of proticin (I) yields derivative (II). On the basis of this derivative and of several degradation products the molecular formula of proticin was found to be C31H44O7PNa. The functional groups of proticin include one OH capable of acetylation, one lactone group, and one monoester of phosphoric acid as enol ester. Proticin contains a conjugated triene. The presence of the triene and of a number of double bonds in the lactone ring as well as the 1, 4 positions of alcohol and phosphate will be discussed.
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20743761
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4,510,082 |
Differentiation of Bwamba and Pongola viruses by agar-gel diffusion and immunoelectrophoretic techniques. The agar-gel diffusion (AGD) and the immunoelectrophoretic (IEP) techniques were employed in the differentiation of virus strains of the Bwamba-Pongola group. These techniques were found to be more specific than either the complement fixation (CF) or the neutralization (N) test in the differentiation of Bwamba and Pongola viurses. Of 22 virus strains isolated in Nigeria and previously typed as strains of Bwamba virus by CF and N tests, 12 strains of mosquito origin were definitely classified as Pongola viruses and 10 of human origin as Bwamba viruses by the AGD and IEP techniques.
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4,510,083 |
Impact of ultrasound and optical biometry on refractive outcomes of cataract surgery after penetrating keratoplasty in keratoconus. AIM To analyse the impact of ultrasound and optical intraocular lens (IOL) calculation methods on refractive outcomes of cataract phacoemulsification performed after penetrating keratoplasty (PK) in keratoconus. METHODS Phacoemulsification cataract surgery was performed on 42 eyes of 34 patients with keratoconus who had previously undergone PK. The IOL power was determined by using both standard and corneal topography-derived keratometry using the SRK/T formula. We used two independent methods-ultrasound biometry (UB) and interferometry [optical biometry (OB)] for IOL calculation. The analysed data from medical records included demographics, medical history, best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) on Snellen charts, technique of IOL calculation and calculation formula and its impact on final refractive result. RESULTS BCVA ranged from 0.01 to 0.4 (mean 0.09±0.19) before surgery and ranged from 0.2 to 0.7 (mean 0.38±0.14) at 1mo and from 0.2 to 1.0 (mean 0.56±0.16) (P<0.05) at 3mo, postoperatively. The refractive aim differed significantly from the refractive outcome in both the UB and OB groups (P<0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the accuracy of the two biometry methods. CONCLUSION The refractive aim in keratoconus eyes post-PK is not achieved with either ultrasound or OB.
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195356761
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4,510,084 |
Aerosol optical depth (AOD) and Angstrom exponent of aerosols observed by the Chinese Sun Hazemeter Network from August 2004 to September 2005 500, and 650 nm were analyzed for the period of August 2004 to September 2005. The smallest mean AOD (0.15) was found in the Tibetan Plateau where a showed the largest range in value (0.06‐0.9). The remote northeast corner of China was the next cleanest region with AODs ranging from 0.19 to 0.21 and with the largest a (1.16‐1.79), indicating the presence of fine aerosol particles. The forested sites exhibited moderate values of AOD (0.19‐0.51) and a (0.97‐1.47). A surprising finding was that the AOD measured at a few desert sites in northern China were relatively low, ranging from 0.24 to 0.36, and that a ranged from 0.42 to 0.99, presumably because of several dustblowing episodes during the observation period. The AOD observed over agricultural areas ranges from 0.38 to 0.90; a ranges from 0.55 to 1.11. These values do not differ much from those observed at the inland urban and suburban sites where AOD ranges from 0.50 to 0.69 and a ranges from 0.90 to 1.48. Given the geographic heterogeneity and the rapid increase in urbanization in China, much longer and more extensive observations are required.
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16888961
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4,510,085 |
Novel genetic polymorphisms in the NR3C1 (glucocorticoid receptor) gene in a Japanese population. Glucocorticoid receptor, encoded by NR3C1, is a transcriptional regulator of many drug metabolizing enzymes and anti-inflammatory molecules. In order to identify genetic variations of the NR3C1 gene, genomic DNA from 265 Japanese individuals was sequenced. Fifty genetic polymorphisms were identified, including 32 novel ones [3 were in coding exons, 17 in the introns, 4 in the 5'-untranslated region (UTR), and 8 in the 5'-flanking region]. The novel nonsynonymous variation was 420G>T (Lys140Asn), and the allele frequency was 0.004. We did not detect any nonsynonymous polymorphism reported previously in other races, including a relatively frequent SNP Asn363Ser found in Caucasians and African-Americans. Thus, ethnic differences between Japanese and other races are suggested to exist in NR3C1.
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23040311
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4,510,086 |
Predictors of depressive symptoms among hospitalized COVID-19 patients with respiratory problems. COVID-19 patients and survivors quite often experience depressive symptoms, which can increase risk for lower immune system response and poorer recovery. Vulnerability to depressive symptoms may be elevated in those patients who have the most severe COVID-19 course of illness, that is, patients who require supplementary oxygen therapy or even intubation. The current study involved a unique sample of patients who were hospitalized due to COVID-19 and who required respiratory support (N = 34, 10 women) in which we investigated depressive symptoms as well as psychopathological personality traits (PID5) as predictors. The majority of patients (76.5%) presented some degree of depressive symptoms. Although we expected severe levels of depressive symptoms to be most prevalent, more patients showed rather moderate levels. At the same time, Negative Affectivity was most predictive of depressive symptoms. We suggest that medical care for patients with greater emotional sensitivity and vulnerability to stress be supplemented with psychological support in order to address depressive symptoms and foster recovery.
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252161211
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4,510,087 |
Lymph Node Count at Inguinofemoral Lymphadenectomy and Groin Recurrences in Vulvar Cancer Objective The objective of the study is to determine the risk factors for groin recurrence (GR) in patients with primary vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) after inguinofemoral lymphadenectomy (IFL) without lymph node metastases and/or adjuvant chemoradiotherapy. Methods The study is a multicenter retrospective review of clinical and histopathological data of patients with lymph node–negative vulvar SCC who underwent an IFL. Patients with and without GRs were compared to identify risk factors. Results In 134 patients, 252 groins were eligible for the analyses—16 patients underwent ipsilateral IFL and 118 patients underwent bilateral IFL. Groin recurrences occurred in 4 (1.6%) of the 252 dissected groins. Besides, 1 patient who underwent ipsilateral IFL had a recurrence in the nonoperated contralateral groin; this groin was left out of analysis. The median number of dissected nodes per groin was 9.8 (range, 1–38) in all patients and 6.5 (range, 5–8) in patients with GR. Multivariate analyses showed that GR was related to poor differentiation (P = 0.04), and node count less than 9 (P = 0.04), no association with age, tumor localization, tumor diameter, focality, invasion depth, or stage was found. Nineteen patients with both low node count and poor differentiation had 19% GRs. Survival analyses showed less favorable survival in patients with poor differentiation. Conclusions The overall risk of developing GR after negative IFL in patients with vulvar SCC is low (1.6% per groin) but significantly higher in patients with tumors with a poor differentiation and lymph node count
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39714861
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4,510,088 |
less than 9 at IFL. A large well-designed prospective study is needed to evaluate closer surveillance in patients at risk.
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39714861
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4,510,089 |
Exploring How the Terms "Black" and "African American" May Shape Health Communication Research. Several distinct terms are used to identify descendants of the African diaspora (DADs) as fellow members of a racialized population. However, "Black" and "African American" are the two labels most commonly used. Given the recent calls for examining institutionalized racism in the United States, health scholars must contemplate the problems that may arise when these two terms are used interchangeably, namely the extent to which mislabeling may reify already significant health disparities. This essay examines the histories and meanings of "Black" and "African American" as identity labels and explores their importance in relationship to the effective recruitment of DADs to health research and clinical trials. In this paper, we employ the communication theory of identity and critical race theory as lenses to call attention to the discursive challenges associated with recruitment of DADs in health research. We also encourage health communication scholars to explore and extend the scope of this research. We do this by first describing the unintended consequences in health research through disregard of DADs' chosen identity labels. We then use the various terms to describe DADs to illuminate existing tensions between "Black" and "African American." We describe how each moniker is used and perceived, broadly and in health contexts. Finally, we call for more research into the effects of mislabeling and propose a plan for researchers' next steps.
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240073961
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4,510,090 |
What's the use of 'triadic dialogue'?: an investigation of teacher-student interaction The fact that the spoken texts of classroom interaction -particularly those involving the teacher with the whole class- are co-constructed relatively smoothly, despite the number of participants involved, suggests that they are organized in terms of standard strategies, embodied in typical forms of discourse that have evolved for responding to recurring types of rhetorical situation (Miller 1984; Kamberelis 1995). That is to say that, like written texts, they can be thought of as being constructed according to one of a set of educational genre specifications. One such rhetorical structure, the ubiquitous 'triadic dialogue' (Lemke 1990), also known as the IRE or IRF sequence (Mehan 1979; Sinclair and Coulthard 1975). It has attracted considerable attention in recent years, and has variously been seen as, on the one hand, essential for the co-construction of cultural knowledge (Heap 1985; Newman et al. 1989) and, on the other, as antithetical to the educational goal of encouraging students' intellectual-discursive initiative and creativity (Lemke 1990; Wood 1992). Drawing on episodes of teacher-whole-class interaction collected during a collaborative action research project, this paper will show, however, that the same basic IRF structure can take a variety of forms and be recruited by teachers for a wide variety of functions, depending on the goal of the activity that the discourse serves to mediate and, in particular, on the use that is made of the follow-up move
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143968461
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4,510,091 |
Between Two Empires: Race, History, and Transnationalism in Japanese America This fascinating book sheds much needed new light on the complex history of early Japanese immigrants in the United States. Most studies on the first generations of Japanese Americans have focused on political and economic discrimination or presented narratives of the immigrant experience. This book, however, addresses issues of race, class, and both Japanese and American imperialism in the period just before and during World War II. Eiichiro Azuma is an assistant professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, and was an associate at the International Nikkei Research Project and Japanese American National Museum. He was a student at UCLA under the prominent Japanese American historian Yuji Ichioka. The ten years he spent in such a rich environment has paid off handsomely: he has assembled an impressive collection of private narratives, local and national political documents (in English and Japanese), and many other rare sources to make a book that tells the story of a Japan that hoped to use these immigrants to their nationalist advantage, and an America that likewise hoped to do so. Azuma takes “an inter-National perspective” (5). With this unconventional spelling, he wishes to stress the interstitial nature of the lives of these Japanese transnational migrants caught between two imperial nation-states. He criticizes the casual way the term “transnational” is often used, giving the impression that immigrant identity is simply a hybrid of the two national experiences, with the newcomers being deterritorialized or denationalized global citizens. Azuma argues, however, that Japanese
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4,510,092 |
transnational migrants have always resisted unilateral choice, taking a pragmatic and “eclectic approach to the presumed contradiction between things Japanese and American” when “faced with the need to reconcile simultaneous national belongings as citizen-subjects of one state and . . . resident members . . . another” (6). Azuma supports his inter-National argument by analyzing specific Japanese American issues in relation to nation-state hegemonic power. For example, Azuma believes that the early history of the Japanese in the United States was characterized by Japanese immigrant elites who wished to establish an Imperial Japanese social and political presence overseas. America resisted by prohibiting new Japanese immigration in 1924. However, in an effort to maintain a strong overseas diasporic society, many Japanese of the first generation sent their American-born children back to Japan for schooling instead of trying to assimilate. Azuma also describes how the ethnic conflicts among different Asian minorities were actually conflicts of social class as much as racism under white supremacy. There is really no other book that takes quite this perspective on Japanese American history or transnational labor migration. Azuma’s prose is dynamic, lively enough to capture the student’s interest, and sophisticated enough for the specialist. Many new stories are told and many old ones reinterpreted. Anyone interested in the chronicle of ethnic America will find much of value in this book.
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142771161
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4,510,093 |
Computed Tomography and Angiography in Carcinoid Liver Metastases Fifteen patients with carcinoid metastases in the liver were examined with computed tomography (CT). In 13 patients, liver metastases were demonstrated, while 2 patients had a normal liver at CT. The attenuation of the metastases was lower than that of the liver parenchyma in 12 patients, higher in one. Angiography was performed on 10 patients, and liver metastases were diagnosed in 9. Eight patients had hypervascular metastases with dense accumulation of contrast medium. In one patient, displacement of the intrahepatic arteries was the only sign of an expansive process. In one patient, previously treated with ligation of the common hepatic artery, no signs of liver metastases could be revealed at angiography but were evident at CT.
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40946511
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4,510,094 |
The effect of integrated course and faculty development: Experiences of a university chemistry department in the Philippines It is widely recognized that lectures continue to dominate college chemistry instruction, especially in developing countries, and that lectures limit student intellectual engagement. To address this concern, a General Chemistry course in a Philippine university was reconstructed to implement an instructional cycle consisting of three phases: a plenary or mini‐lecture, seatwork activity, and a summary or closure. An expert instructor coached the instructors to improve their teaching. Two instructors were involved in pilot implementation and 13 instructors in a large‐scale implementation. This article describes the instructors’ adoption of the instructional cycle using qualitative and quantitative methods that involved multiple data sources. The instructional cycle and intensive coaching enabled most instructors to change their practices, shift their focus from teaching to learning, and enhance their knowledge of student learning difficulties. Nine instructors were able to significantly change their teaching and apply meaningful student seatwork in their lessons. These nine instructors used student seatwork and activities 30–70% of the time, whereas previously 90% of the time involved lectures. Videotape records showed that more than 70% of the students were continuously on task. Four instructors had considerable difficulties in applying the new approach but also had difficulties with conventional lectures. The project constituted the start of a departmental reorientation with a focus on effectiveness of teaching and learning. Subsequently the faculty and course development model developed in this study was used to revise other courses. The theory of Rogan and Grayson proved
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97464411
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4,510,095 |
useful in describing the change processes.
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97464411
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4,510,096 |
Critical Tax Thinking This presentation considers the aims of critical tax studies and offers three suggestions. First, critical tax papers too often fixate on taxes as both the problem and the solution. In many cases, in particular when progressivity is the aim, public spending is the better policy lever. Second, one should not concede that taxation imposes an inexorable tradeoff between efficiency and equity goals. This again understates the importance of the spending side of things. Taxes are a necessary cost of funding spending, and spending in turn, by reaching places where markets are incomplete, can have efficiency payoffs greater than the deadweight loss of taxation. That is, even a leaky bucket can extinguish a fire. To this end, recent research has pointed to the role of well-designed government spending in encouraging an “inclusive economy,” in which growth is both faster and more broadly shared than would otherwise be the case. Finally, the presentation urges that more work be done on the rhetoric of public finance economics. Both the structure and the vocabulary of standard presentations contained unexamined biases that color the outcomes of policy debates.
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188691561
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4,510,097 |
The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path. By Robert Barron. New York: Orbis, 2002. 175 pages. $15.00 (paper). chapters address foundational issues; the final three, practical considerations. Sheldrake begins by reflecting on place in relation to culture, belonging, commitment, landscapes, memory, narrative, conflict and particularity. Chapter 2 focuses on the ways in which Christianity transferred the sense of the sacred to people—saints and martyrs. Chapter 3 reflects on the meaning of catholicity of place, especially as it relates to Eucharist. In Chapters 4 and 5, Sheldrake reflects on medieval monasticism and mysticism as they both ground and transcend a sense of place. And in a final chapter, “Re-placing the City,” the author laments what he sees as a crisis of urbanization (characterized by mobility and the consequent relativization of space and the dissolution of any “place identity.”) and suggests ways to resist this dissolution and recover a more humane city. In this short volume, Sheldrake covers a huge range of primary and secondary sources. It is an interdisciplinary work, touching on philosophy, archaeology, anthropology, architecture, sociology, and city planning, in addition to theology and spirituality. But there are a number of themes that run throughout and tie the many disparate strands together. Sheldrake keeps before the reader a nexus of tensions–the sacred and the secular; interior and exterior spaces; particularity and universality/ catholicity; stability and liminality. The book is also a conversation between traditional (patristic and medieval texts and especially the legacies of Duns Scotus and Ignatius of Loyola) and postmodern perspectives (Michel de Certeau, Michel
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Foucault, et al.), in which I sensed some nostalgia for earlier, better days. In an extensive reflection on utopias, Sheldrake defines them as expressions of a world of imagination and desire. In many ways, this is an apt description of Spaces for the Sacred because it offers not only analysis, but also a dream that we might create and dwell in more humane places. The contours of this dream are not naı̈ve—there is ample talk about inclusivity and ethics— but I wished for more testing in concrete realities. For example, in an extended analysis of the Eucharist as catholic, ethical, reconciling and committed to embracing the whole created order, there is no mention of the Roman Catholic practice of refusing Eucharist to Protestant brothers and sisters. I also wondered how these proposals for humane space might apply (or not) to cities of a hundred, ten thousand, or fifteen million inhabitants. The wide range of references will make for challenging reading for many undergraduates, but with guidance from someone knowledgeable in both the Christian tradition and strains of postmodern thought, Spaces for the Sacred would be an excellent choice for religious studies courses or adult groups focused on the topic of sacred/secular space. It should spark memories and rich discussion about the quality of the places in which we live.
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171130511
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4,510,099 |
Analysis of Angular Velocity Stabilization of Spacecraft After One Control Moment Gyroscope’s Failure The control characteristics after the failure of the control moment gyros, the actuators for satellite attitude control, were analyzed. In particular, the situation where one out of four failed was considered. For the most commonly used pyramids and box-90 structures, the singularities and singular surfaces after failure were analyzed and compared. Dynamic equations for the process of reducing the wheel speed after the failure were derived. The process of stabilizing the angular velocity of a satellite while absorbing the momentum of the faulty module by the three normal modules was analyzed. For singular shapes, the remaining CMGs may be locked or excessively shake. The authors proposed that it can be prevented by rearranging the gimbal angles.
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