The effect of radiotherapy and chemotherapy on osmotic fragility of red blood cells and plasma levels of malondialdehyde in patients with breast cancer

Background: Gamma radiation effects on the erythrocyte membrane from three different functional parts, lipid bilayer, cytoskeleton and protein components. When the red cell membrane is exposed to radiation, it loses its integrity and hemoglobin leaks out. In addition, irradiation leads to lipid peroxidation and the products of this process, leading to hemolysis. The aim of the present study was to measure osmotic fragility (OF) of red blood cells and malondialdehyde (MDA) levels as a marker of oxidative injury in breast cancer patients treated with radiation and chemotherapy. Materials and Methods: The OF test was performed using different concentrations of a salt solution. The measurement of MDA was done with chemical methods.11 The sampling was taken during three stages of treatment: first sample was taken before starting chemotherapy, the second sample was taken before radiation therapy and the third sample was taken after radiotherapy. Results: No statistically significant differences between levels of MDA in these three stages of treatment were observed. However, the comparison of mean levels of MDA showed an increase after radiotherapy. The OF rate did not show significant difference (P > 0.05) during the stages of treatment. Conclusion: In a standard treatment program of radiotherapy and chemotherapy lipid peroxidation level and OF do not significantly increase. © 2014 Greater Poland Cancer Centre

Students' sense of self-efficacy in searching information from the Web: A PLS approach

The role of self-efficacy in different task and organizational settings has largely been highlighted, especially in searching for information by web users. The current research was conducted to reemphasize the mentioned role and also to show possible relationship existing between the sense of self-efficacy and success in information searching. A survey was conducted in a sample of post-graduate students at Shahed University, Tehran, Iran. Factor analysis using Structural Equation Modeling by PLS software showed high factor loadings related to all of the items indicating goodness of fit for all of them. The scale was validated according to the structural and overall goodness of fit indicating a high quality of measuring the variable in the context studied. The results of the study reflect the importance of studying the students’ searching behavior as it is now possible to help them improve their information searching and evaluating skills, which are largely related to their sense of efficacy. The more self-efficacy they have, the more success in information searching could be expected. Designers of information systems, managers of instructional programs related to information searching, psychologists and the like could find the research results of interest in their professional operations

The influence of lime powder on the behaviour of clay soil

Visoka cijena zemljišta i značenje graditeljstva u modernom svijetu uvjetovali su potrebu za ojačanjem glinovitog tla slabe nosivosti. Stabilizacija takvog tla provodi se dodavanjem raznih aditiva. Zbog svoje niske cijene, dostupnosti i pozitivnog utjecaja na čvrstoću, vapno se tradicionalno koristi za stabilizaciju slabo nosivih i osjetljivih vrsta tla. U ovom se radu vapnena prašina u udjelu od 0, 2, 4, 8 i 16 % od težine suhog tla miješa s kaolinitnim glinovitim tlom te se istražuju razni inženjerski parametri u razdoblju njege tijekom 90 dana. U tom razdoblju njege, za razne postotke vapnene prašine istražuje se promjena pH-vrijednosti, Atterbergove granice, optimalan udio vode i maksimalna suha jedinična težina modificirane gline. U okviru određivanja optimalnog udjela vapnene prašine, provode sei ispitivanja jednoosne tlačne čvrstoće (UCS) te kalifornijskog indeksa nosivosti (CBR). Youngov modul određuje se na temelju pokusa UCS i definicije krivulje naprezanja i deformacija. Rezultati pokazuju znatan porast efektivne učinkovitosti vapna dodanog u tlo te znatan porast maksimalne tlačne čvrstoće (qu), kohezije i Youngovog modula.High price of land and importance of modern construction has imposed the need to strengthen weak clay soils. The stabilization of these soils has been conducted using various additives. Due to its low cost, availability, and positive impact on resistance, lime has traditionally been applied for stabilisation of poor and sensitive types of soils. In this research, lime powder, added in the percentages of 0, 2, 4, 8 and 16 of the dry soil weight, was mixed with kaolinite clay soil and its various engineering parameters were investigated during the curing time of 90 days. PH change, Atterberg Limits, optimum water content, and the modified clay maximum dry unit weight, were determined at different percentages of lime during the curing time. In the scope of determination of an optimum lime powder content, the Unconfined Compressive Strength tests (UCS) and CBR tests were conducted. The Young’s modulus was determined based on UCS testing and definition of stress-strain curve. The results showed a significant increase in the effective, responsive performance of lime in the soil and a remarkable increase in the maximum compressive strength (qu), cohesion, and Young’s modulus

AN ASSESSMENT ON STABILIZATION OF EOLIAN FINE-GRAINED SOILS USING WIND TUNNEL

ABSTRACT: Control of soils wind erosion particularly in arid and semi-arid regions has been seriously paid into attention due to several causes including to prevent the destruction natural resources, reducing air pollution, reducing aerosol transmission and the problems it causes in transportation. Measurement of factors affecting on wind erosion in field conditions is difficult and uncontrollable. Hence, use of wind tunnel device is addressed as one of feasible methods. In fixed wind tunnels, in order to measure soil erosion, trays containing soil shall be placed in the tunnel floor and the wind blows with a given specification. Tray weight difference between the two times of weighing indicates erosion rate of a given level. In present research, wind tunnel was manufactured and launched in laboratory. Wind speed in the tunnel is in 0-40 km/h range. Experimental results showed that the rate of soil erosion and loss is reduced with increased other soil particles versus wind erosion. General and localized erosion phenomena on soil surface were investigated according to soil particles size and uniformity of the samples coating surface

Synthesis and Characterization of Co/Ni/CoNi-ZSM-5 Catalyst for Hydrogen Production

Nickel is commonly used as a catalyst in hydrogen production. However, the use of nickel catalysts in the steam reforming process has the disadvantage of coke formation and high cost. Therefore, in this research, Ni/ZSM-5 catalyst synthesis was used to reduce production cost and an addition of cobalt (Co) metal to avoid coke formation. The method consists of a synthesis of ZSM-5 catalyst using hydrothermal process. Furthermore, the crystalline product was impregnated with the metal cobalt, nickel and combination of cobalt-nickel as much as 2% by weight metal/weight of the catalyst. Then the XRD and EDX characterization of Co/ZSM-5, Ni/ZSM-5, and CoNi/ZSM-5 was done followed by catalytic testing in the production of hydrogen from glycerol using steam reforming process. From XRD characterization results showed that Co/ZSM-5 catalyst has a crystallinity of 78.69%, Ni/ZSM-5 catalyst has 70.04% crystallinity and CoNi/ZSM-5 catalyst has 76.99% crystallinity. Catalytic testing on hydrogen production showed that CoNi/ZSM-5 catalyst produced the highest hydrogen concentration of 1,756.33 ppm while Ni/ZSM-5 catalyst produces 1,240 ppm and Co/ZSM-5 catalyst produces 491 ppm

Progressives in present and past

This study investigates the relationship between progressive patterns and present and past time reference. First, it looks at the shared distribution of more than 90 progressives in two parallel corpora and discusses the characteristics of these contexts. It is shown that while progressives are used for dramatic and topical events in the present, they are typically used as backgrounding, supportive material in the past. Second, it is shown that progressives generally have more occurrences in contexts with present time reference than past, this is especially true for progressives with many uses, i.e. more grammaticalized progressives. And third, a number of progressives temporally restricted are presented. Two historical explanations for these restrictions are provided, both of which result from the higher frequency of present uses over past

Progressives in use and contact : A descriptive, areal and typological study with special focus on selected Iranian languages

Progressives are grammatical patterns primarily used to refer to events that are ongoing at a specific time. This thesis investigates uses of such patterns in a number of languages as well as the interaction of a number of progressives in contact. The dissertation includes a typological study of the uses of 89 progressive patterns in two parallel corpora, an investigation of the uses and origin of the Persian dāštan progressive and an areal linguistic investigation of 50 Iranian varieties spoken around the Caspian Sea. The dissertation presents features that increase the likelihood that a progressive is used. Such features are 1) a focalized (punctual) reference point, 2) the engagement or ‘busyness’ of the agentive subject on the event, 3) an emotive component and 4) the desire to turn the attention of the addressee towards an ongoing event. The significance of these features is expected to weaken as progressives grammaticalize. There is a cross-linguistic tendency for progressives to occur more often with present time reference than with past time reference. In some cases, they are even restricted to the former. Among the varieties of the Iranian language Taleshi, on the other hand, we find asymmetric temporal paradigms as a consequence of former progressive patterns having expanded and lost their progressive character in the present but not in the past. The study also shows that progressives are used differently in the present and the past: while events with present time reference often have the features mentioned above in 1-4, events with past time reference are often, although not exclusively, background contexts to other events pushing the narration forward. The thesis also discusses various peripheral uses of progressives, such as uses in habitual and performative-like contexts, proximative, iterative and futurate uses, uses with stative verbs and temporary and subjective uses. Some of these tend to be found in patterns with higher frequencies and can be regarded as expansions towards the imperfective. Other uses are linked to the type of event to which the progressive applies: the proximative reading is shown to arise with achievements and the iterative use with repeated punctual events.   The data from the varieties of the Iranian languages Mazandarani, Gilaki, Taleshi and Tati, as well as from varieties under the influence of Persian, suggests that the progressive in these varieties is highly borrowable. Among the varieties discussed in Chapter 5, an areal cline is noted where constructional schemas used for ongoing events shift towards the imperfective. In the borrowing process, on occasion, a shift from progressive to proximative is also noted. As expected, the data from Caspian varieties shows that there are more progressive patterns than imperfective patterns

The Finite Independency : A study of the relevance of the notion of finiteness in Hdi.

This paper argues that there is a finiteness distinction in Hdi and that the notion is of value for a description of the language. The definition of finiteness suitable for the language has been suggested to be the one given by Anderson (2007) combined with Bisang (2007). The finite clauses are argued to be the pragmatically independent ones while the non-finite clauses are argued to be the pragmatically dependent. However, no morphological reductions were found in the non-finite clauses relative to the finite ones. What is more, negation in Hdi shows a nontypical behaviour regarding finiteness properties as there are aspectual distinctions made for dependent clauses that are not made for independent. Verbless clauses and imperatives may be viewed as finite and non-finite depending on their capacity to licence independent predication or, alternatively, they may be viewed as not displaying finiteness properties at all. The latter is argued to be preferred in order to avoid a redundant definition of finiteness

Breaking paradigms : A typological study of nominal and adjectival suppletion

Suppletion is a term used to describe the occurrence of unpredictable and irregular patterns. Although typological research has been devoted to verb suppletion, not as much attention has been given to suppletion in nominal and adjectival paradigms. The thesis presents the cross-linguistic distribution of nominal and adjectival suppletion. The lexical distribution as well as the features involved are presented. The results of nominal suppletion show that nouns referring to humans are most often suppletive, that number is the most common grammatical feature involved in nominal suppletion and that „child‟ is by far the most common noun to be suppletive cross-linguistically. The results on adjectival suppletion show that adjectival suppletion is well spread though not very common cross-linguistically. A study of 8 Semitic languages shows that „woman‟ versus „women‟ are stable suppletive forms in this language family

Typology of nominal and adjectival suppletion

This article presents a sample-based typological account of suppletion in nouns and adjectives. The distribution of the grammatical categories involved in the suppletive forms is presented along with the lexical meanings most commonly found to be suppletive. It is demonstrated that nominal suppletion is not a rare phenomenon and most commonly involves the feature number followed by possession. The noun ‘child’ is the most common suppletive noun. In general, nouns referring to humans are more likely to be suppletive than others. The investigation shows that adjectival suppletion is less common than nominal suppletion and affects frequent adjectives with general meanings of the types value and size