Writing Electronic Devices on Paper with Carbon Nanotube Ink

The normal paper used in any printer is among the cheapest flexible organic materials that exist. We demonstrate that we can print on paper high-frequency circuits tunable with an applied dc voltage. This is possible with the help of an ink containing functionalized carbon nanotubes and water. After the water is evaporated from the paper, the nanotubes remain steadily imprinted on paper, showing a semiconducting behaviour and tunable electrical properties

Prevalence and Associated Factors of Peer Victimization (Bullying) among Grades 7 and 8 Middle School Students in Kuwait

Background. Peer victimization (bullying) is a universal phenomenon with detrimental effects. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence and factors of bullying among grades 7 and 8 middle school students in Kuwait. Methods. The study is a cross-sectional study that includes a sample of 989 7th and 8th grade middle school students randomly selected from schools. The Revised Olweus Bully/Victim Questionnaire was used to measure different forms of bullying. After adjusting for confounding, logistic regression identified the significant associated factors related to bullying. Results. Prevalence of bullying was 30.2 with 95% CI 27.4 to 33.2% (3.5% bullies, 18.9% victims, 7.8% bully victims). Children with physical disabilities and one or both non-Kuwaiti parents or children with divorced/widowed parents were more prone to be victims. Most victims and bullies were found to be current smokers. Bullies were mostly in the fail/fair final school grade category, whereas victims performed better. The logistic regression showed that male gender (adjusted odds ration = 1.671, p=0.004), grade 8 student (adjusted odds ratio = 1.650, p=0.004), and student with physical disabilities (adjusted odds ratio = 1.675, p=0.003), were independently associated with bullying behavior. Conclusions. There is a need for a school-wide professional intervention program and improvement in the students’ adjustment to school environment to control bullying behavior

Design of Cationic Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes as Efficient siRNA Vectors for Lung Cancer Xenograft Eradication

Polo-Like Kinase (PLK1) has been identified as a potential target in cancer gene therapy via chemical or genetic inhibitory approaches. The biomedical applications of chemically functionalized carbon nanotubes (f-CNTs) in cancer therapy have been studied due to their ability to efficiently deliver siRNA intracellularly. In this study, we established the capacity of cationic MWNT-NH3+ to deliver the apoptotic siRNA against PLK1 (siPLK1) in Calu6 tumor xenografts by direct intratumoural injections. A direct comparison with cationic liposomes was made. This study validates the PLK1 gene as a potential target in cancer gene therapy including lung cancer, as demonstrated by the therapeutic efficacy of siPLK1:MWNT-NH3+ complexes and their ability to significantly improve animal survival. Biological analysis of the siPLK1:MWNT-NH3+ treated tumors by RT-PCR and Western blot, in addition to TUNEL staining confirmed the biological functionality of the siRNA intratumourally, suggesting that tumor eradication was due to PLK1 knockdown. Furthermore, by using a fluorescently labelled, non-coding siRNA sequence complexed with MWNT-NH3+, we established for the first time that the improved therapeutic efficacy observed in f-CNT-based siRNA delivery is directly proportional to the enhanced siRNA retention in the solid tumor and subsequent uptake by tumor cells after local administration in vivo

Pieloectazia la copii

Summary The algorithm of diagnostics was produced on the basis of inspection 1241 children which allows to determine the reason and level of obstruction of the urinary system. Introducere . Pieloectazia provocată de dereglări urodinamice ale tractului urinar, în prezent se întâlneşte frecvent şi necesită un diagnostic diferenţial pentru aprecierea cauzei şi a nivelului de obstrucţie. Material şi metodă. Studiul a fost efectuat în baza evaluării a 1241 copii cu pieloectazie pe parcursul anilor 2000-2005. Sau analizat datele examinării clinico-paraclinice: examen clinic, ecografie, sonografie diuretică, urografie excretorie, cistouretrografie micţională, scintigrafie, inclusiv diuretică, raport calice-parenchim, cistometrie, cistografie, etc. Rezulate şi discuţii. De obicei, copiii se internează cu diagnosticul „Pieloectazie. Hidronefroză”, depistate ecografic, iar în faţa urologului apar mai multe întrebări: - este o dilatarea a cavităţilor renale sau diverse chisturi renale; - ce a provocat pieloectazia: obstrucţia tractului urinar, refluxul vezico-renal (RVR), diabetul insipid, etc.; - dacă este obstrucţie - la ce nivel (joncţiunea pielo-ureterală, vezico-uretrală, uretră sau vezica neurogenă); - în caz de obstrucţia joncţiunii pielo-ureterale - e funcţională sau organică, e necesar şi când trebuie aplicat tratamentul chirurgical. Am elaborat un algoritm de diagnostic diferenţial al pieloectaziei, în rezultatul implementării căruia, în lotul de 1241 copii - hidronefoza s-a depistat la 189, megaureterohidronefroza obstructivă - la 143, RVR - la 464, vezica neurogenă - la 174 copii. În caz de obstrucţiajoncţiunii pielo-ureterale (OJPU), pentru a diferenţia obstrucţia funcţională, am recurs la ecografie şi scintigrafie diuretică pe vezica goală (sonda vezicală) exlusă gravitaţia de cea organică. Din 189 copii cu OJPU, la 23 s-a depistat obstrucţia funcţională cauzată de inmaturitatea JPU. Pieloectazia la aceşti copii se menţine ani la rând, fără a progresa şi fără a afecta funcţia renală. La 156 copii s-a depistat obstrucţia organică care a necesitat intervenţie chirurgicală. La 22 pacienţi cu hidronefroză avansată s-a efectuat nefrectomia. În perioada pre- şi postoperatorie s-a apreciat raportul calice-parenchim. Concluzii: 1. Pentru un diagnostic precoce al pieloectaziei este necesar a efectua ecografia intrauterină, precum şi în primele 3 luni de viaţă ale copilului. 2. Copiii cu pieloectazie necesită un examen riguros, cu utilizarea mai multor metode diagnostice, ca: ecografia şi scintigrafia diuretică, urografia, cistouretrografia, raportul caliceparenchim, etc. 3. În perioada pre- şi postoperatorie în OJPU, aprecierea raportului calice-parenchim e un indice mai adecvat decât raportul bazinet-parenchim, deoarece mărimea bazinetului depinde de particularităţile anatomice şi de metodele de tratament chirurgical aplicate

Challenges in QCD matter physics --The scientific programme of the Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

Substantial experimental and theoretical efforts worldwide are devoted to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. At LHC and top RHIC energies, QCD matter is studied at very high temperatures and nearly vanishing net-baryon densities. There is evidence that a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was created at experiments at RHIC and LHC. The transition from the QGP back to the hadron gas is found to be a smooth cross over. For larger net-baryon densities and lower temperatures, it is expected that the QCD phase diagram exhibits a rich structure, such as a first-order phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter which terminates in a critical point, or exotic phases like quarkyonic matter. The discovery of these landmarks would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the strong interaction and is therefore in the focus of various high-energy heavy-ion research programs. The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will play a unique role in the exploration of the QCD phase diagram in the region of high net-baryon densities, because it is designed to run at unprecedented interaction rates. High-rate operation is the key prerequisite for high-precision measurements of multi-differential observables and of rare diagnostic probes which are sensitive to the dense phase of the nuclear fireball. The goal of the CBM experiment at SIS100 (sNN= 2.7--4.9 GeV) is to discover fundamental properties of QCD matter: the phase structure at large baryon-chemical potentials (μB> 500 MeV), effects of chiral symmetry, and the equation of state at high density as it is expected to occur in the core of neutron stars. In this article, we review the motivation for and the physics programme of CBM, including activities before the start of data taking in 2024, in the context of the worldwide efforts to explore high-density QCD matter

Comparison of SMOS and SMAP Soil Moisture Retrieval Approaches Using Tower-based Radiometer Data over a Vineyard Field

The objective of this study was to compare several approaches to soil moisture (SM) retrieval using L-band microwave radiometry. The comparison was based on a brightness temperature (TB) data set acquired since 2010 by the L-band radiometer ELBARA-II over a vineyard field at the Valencia Anchor Station (VAS) site. ELBARA-II, provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) within the scientific program of the SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity) mission, measures multiangular TB data at horizontal and vertical polarization for a range of incidence angles (30-60). Based on a three year data set (2010-2012), several SM retrieval approaches developed for spaceborne missions including AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS), SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive) and SMOS were compared. The approaches include: the Single Channel Algorithm (SCA) for horizontal (SCA-H) and vertical (SCA-V) polarizations, the Dual Channel Algorithm (DCA), the Land Parameter Retrieval Model (LPRM) and two simplified approaches based on statistical regressions (referred to as 'Mattar' and 'Saleh'). Time series of vegetation indices required for three of the algorithms (SCA-H, SCA-V and Mattar) were obtained from MODIS observations. The SM retrievals were evaluated against reference SM values estimated from a multiangular 2-Parameter inversion approach. The results obtained with the current base line algorithms developed for SMAP (SCA-H and -V) are in very good agreement with the reference SM data set derived from the multi-angular observations (R2 around 0.90, RMSE varying between 0.035 and 0.056 m3m3 for several retrieval configurations). This result showed that, provided the relationship between vegetation optical depth and a remotely-sensed vegetation index can be calibrated, the SCA algorithms can provide results very close to those obtained from multi-angular observations in this study area. The approaches based on statistical regressions provided similar results and the best accuracy was obtained with the Saleh methods based on either bi-angular or bipolarization observations (R2 around 0.93, RMSE around 0.035 m3m3). The LPRM and DCA algorithms were found to be slightly less successful in retrieving the 'reference' SM time series (R2 around 0.75, RMSE around 0.055 m3m3). However, the two above approaches have the great advantage of not requiring any model calibrations previous to the SM retrievals

Genetic load and transgenic mitigating genes in transgenic Brassica rapa (field mustard) × Brassica napus (oilseed rape) hybrid populations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>One theoretical explanation for the relatively poor performance of <it>Brassica rapa </it>(weed) × <it>Brassica napus </it>(crop) transgenic hybrids suggests that hybridization imparts a negative genetic load. Consequently, in hybrids genetic load could overshadow any benefits of fitness enhancing transgenes and become the limiting factor in transgenic hybrid persistence. Two types of genetic load were analyzed in this study: random/linkage-derived genetic load, and directly incorporated genetic load using a transgenic mitigation (TM) strategy. In order to measure the effects of random genetic load, hybrid productivity (seed yield and biomass) was correlated with crop- and weed-specific AFLP genomic markers. This portion of the study was designed to answer whether or not weed × transgenic crop hybrids possessing more crop genes were less competitive than hybrids containing fewer crop genes. The effects of directly incorporated genetic load (TM) were analyzed through transgene persistence data. TM strategies are proposed to decrease transgene persistence if gene flow and subsequent transgene introgression to a wild host were to occur.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In the absence of interspecific competition, transgenic weed × crop hybrids benefited from having more crop-specific alleles. There was a positive correlation between performance and number of <it>B. napus </it>crop-specific AFLP markers [seed yield vs. marker number (r = 0.54, P = 0.0003) and vegetative dry biomass vs. marker number (r = 0.44, P = 0.005)]. However under interspecific competition with wheat or more weed-like conditions (i.e. representing a situation where hybrid plants emerge as volunteer weeds in subsequent cropping systems), there was a positive correlation between the number of <it>B. rapa </it>weed-specific AFLP markers and seed yield (r = 0.70, P = 0.0001), although no such correlation was detected for vegetative biomass. When genetic load was directly incorporated into the hybrid genome, by inserting a fitness-mitigating dwarfing gene that that is beneficial for crops but deleterious for weeds (a transgene mitigation measure), there was a dramatic decrease in the number of transgenic hybrid progeny persisting in the population.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The effects of genetic load of crop and in some situations, weed alleles might be beneficial under certain environmental conditions. However, when genetic load was directly incorporated into transgenic events, e.g., using a TM construct, the number of transgenic hybrids and persistence in weedy genomic backgrounds was significantly decreased.</p

Constraining the magnitude of the Chiral Magnetic Effect with Event Shape Engineering in Pb-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{\rm NN}} = 2.76$ TeV

In ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions, the event-by-event variation of the elliptic flow $v_2$ reflects fluctuations in the shape of the initial state of the system. This allows to select events with the same centrality but different initial geometry. This selection technique, Event Shape Engineering, has been used in the analysis of charge-dependent two- and three-particle correlations in Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{_{\rm NN}}} =2.76$ TeV. The two-particle correlator $\langle \cos(\varphi_\alpha - \varphi_\beta) \rangle$, calculated for different combinations of charges $\alpha$ and $\beta$, is almost independent of $v_2$ (for a given centrality), while the three-particle correlator $\langle \cos(\varphi_\alpha + \varphi_\beta - 2\Psi_2) \rangle$ scales almost linearly both with the event $v_2$ and charged-particle pseudorapidity density. The charge dependence of the three-particle correlator is often interpreted as evidence for the Chiral Magnetic Effect (CME), a parity violating effect of the strong interaction. However, its measured dependence on $v_2$ points to a large non-CME contribution to the correlator. Comparing the results with Monte Carlo calculations including a magnetic field due to the spectators, the upper limit of the CME signal contribution to the three-particle correlator in the 10-50% centrality interval is found to be 26-33% at 95% confidence level.Comment: 20 pages, 6 captioned figures, 1 tables, authors from page 15, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/382

471 Arrhythmia-free survival in early-persistent atrial fibrillation patients undergoing radiofrequency catheter ablation

Abstract Aims Despite advances in success rate of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF) ablation, outcomes of radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) in patients with persistent AF are highly variable. Early persistent AF (EPsAF) is defined as AF that is sustained beyond 7 days but is less than 3 months in duration. Arrhythmia-free survival data after RFCA in this specific population are still limited. We sought to report the outcomes of RFCA in the subgroup of patients with EPsAF, compared to those with PAF and with 'late' persistent AF (LPsAF) lasting between 3 and 12 months. Methods and results Data from 1143 consecutive AF patients receiving their first RFCA were prospectively collected. Patients with EPsAF (n = 190) were compared with PAF (n = 531) and LPsAF (n = 422) patients. All patients received pulmonary vein antrum isolation + posterior wall and sustained non-pulmonary vein (PV) trigger ablation. Non-sustained non-PV triggers were ablated based on operator discretion. Non-PV triggers were defined as sites of firing leading to sustained (&gt;30 s) or non-sustained arrhythmias (&lt;30 s, including premature atrial contractions ≥10 beats/min) with earliest activation outside the PVs. Mean age of the population was 64 ± 11 years. Female patients were more in PAF group (39%) compared to EPsAF (26%) and LPsAF (28%) (P &lt; 0.001). There was no difference in other clinical characteristics among populations. Non-PV triggers were detected more in EPsAF [127 (66.8%)], and LPsAF [296 (70.1%)] patients compared to PAF [185 (34.8%)] (P &lt; 0.001).One-year arrhythmia-free survival rate after a single procedure was 75.0% (398), 74.2% (141), and 64.5% (272) in PAF, EPsAF, and LPsAF, respectively. Success rate was significantly higher in PAF {[HR: 0.67 (0.53, 0.84), P = 0.001] and EPsAF [HR: 0.67 (0.49, 0.93)], P = 0.015} compared to LPsAF. Conclusions In patients with EPsAF, RFCA may result in significantly better freedom from atrial arrhythmias, compared to LPsAF. In this cohort, ablation might be reasonable as first line approach to improve outcomes and prevent AF progression