State and prospects for development of modern shopping malls

In 2006, in terms of stabilizing market environment and the growing diversity of market opportunities, in entrepreneurship radar penetrates investment allocation in major shopping and entertainment centers. Appropriate market environment indicators and the construction booms are followed by savage blows of economic crisis and the unpleasant consequences for many of the projects which are placed in phase retention or failure. The effects of excessive growth and saturation of the market with gross leasable area in large shopping centers poses numerous challenges for their effective management. This requires searching for new alternatives for development in times of crisis such as more compact and sophisticated developments in smaller settlements with economic potential and market opportunities for more specialized shopping centers

Characterization of the staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec insertion site in 108 isolates lacking the mecA gene and identified as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus by the Xpert MRSA assay.

During a 3-year period, 848 patients were detected as carriers of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) by the Xpert MRSA assay (Cepheid). Among them, 108 patients (12.7 %) were colonized with strains showing methicillin-susceptible phenotypes and absence of the mecA gene, despite being positive with the rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay. DNA sequences of the staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) insertion site of these "false-positive" strains was determined by direct sequencing of the genomic DNA. More than half (53.7 %) of the strains had DNA sequences unrelated to either SCC or SCCmec and one-third had DNA sequences related to non-mec SCC. Only 10.2 % of the strains carried sequences related to SCCmec, suggesting that a sequence containing the mecA gene was lost from an SCCmec. These findings differ from the general idea that all methicillin-susceptible S. aureus having positive Xpert MRSA assay results are essentially MRSA that lost the mecA gene

Expression of SCCmec cassette chromosome recombinases in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis

Objectives Methicillin resistance in staphylococci is mediated by the mecA gene, which is carried on the staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec). SCCmec is responsible for vertical and horizontal transfer of methicillin resistance. Horizontal transfer implies first SCCmec excision from the chromosome. Site-specific excision is catalysed by the Ccr recombinases, which are encoded by ccrAB genes located on the cassette. The aim of this study is to determine the promoter activity of ccrAB genes in individual cells of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (N315, COL and MW2) and Staphylococcus epidermidis (RP62A). One mutant cured of its SCCmec (N315EX) was also used. Exposure to various stresses was included in the study. Methods For each strain, translational promoter-green fluorescent protein (gfp) fusions were used to assess the levels of ccr promoter activity in individual cells. Analyses were performed using epifluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry. Results ccr promoter activity was observed in only a small percentage of cell populations. This ‘bistable' phenotype was strain dependent (GFP was expressed in N315 and RP62A, but not in COL and MW2) and growth dependent (GFP-expressing cells decreased from approximately 3% to 1% between logarithmic and stationary growth phases). The ccr promoter of strain N315 displayed normal promoter activity when expressed in SCCmec-negative N315EX. Likewise, the ccr promoter of strain COL (which was inactive in COL) showed normal N315-like activity when transformed into N315 and N315EX. Conclusions SCCmec excision operates through bistability, favouring a small fraction of cells to ‘sacrifice' their genomic islands for transfer, while the rest of the population remains intact. Determinants responsible for the activity of the ccr promoter were not located on SCCmec, but were elsewhere on the genome. Thus, the staphylococcal chromosome plays a key role in determining SCCmec stability and transferabilit

Excision of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus assessed by quantitative PCR.

BACKGROUND: Methicillin-resistance in staphylococci is conferred by the mecA gene, located on the genomic island Staphylococcal Cassette Chromosome mec (SCCmec). SCCmec mobility relies on the Ccr recombinases, which catalyze insertion and excision form the host's chromosome. Although being a crucial step in its horizontal transfer, little is known about the dynamics of SCCmec excision. RESULTS: A quantitative PCR-based method was used to measure the rate of SCCmec excision by amplifying the chromosome-chromosome junction and the circularized SCCmec resulting from excision. SCCmec excision rate was measured in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strain N315 at various growth times in broth cultures. In the present experimental settings, excision of SCCmec occurred at a rate of approximately 2 × 10(-6) in MRSA N315. CONCLUSION: This work brings new insights in the poorly understood SCCmec excision process. The results presented herein suggest a model in which excision occurs during a limited period of time at the early stages of growth

Hausdorff dimension of three-period orbits in Birkhoff billiards

We prove that the Hausdorff dimension of the set of three-period orbits in classical billiards is at most one. Moreover, if the set of three-period orbits has Hausdorff dimension one, then it has a tangent line at almost every point.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figur

Clinical and functional characterisation of a novel TNFRSF1A c.605T > A/V173D cleavage site mutation associated with tumour necrosis factor receptor-associated periodic fever syndrome (TRAPS), cardiovascular complications and excellent response to etanercept treatment.

Objectives: To study the clinical outcome, treatment response, T-cell subsets and functional consequences of a novel tumour necrosis factor (TNF) receptor type 1 (TNFRSF1A) mutation affecting the receptor cleavage site. Methods: Patients with symptoms suggestive of tumour necrosis factor receptor-associated periodic syndrome (TRAPS) and 22 healthy controls (HC) were screened for mutations in the TNFRSF1A gene. Soluble TNFRSF1A and inflammatory cytokines were measured by ELISAs. TNFRSF1A shedding was examined by stimulation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate followed by flow cytometric analysis (FACS). Apoptosis of PBMCs was studied by stimulation with TNFa in the presence of cycloheximide and annexin V staining. T cell phenotypes were monitored by FACS. Results: TNFRSF1A sequencing disclosed a novel V173D/ p.Val202Asp substitution encoded by exon 6 in one family, the c.194–14G.A splice variant in another and the R92Q/p.Arg121Gln substitution in two families. Cardiovascular complications (lethal heart attack and peripheral arterial thrombosis) developed in two V173D patients. Subsequent etanercept treatment of the V173D carriers was highly effective over an 18-month follow-up period. Serum TNFRSF1A levels did not differ between TRAPS patients and HC, while TNFRSF1A cleavage from monocytes was significantly reduced in V173D and R92Q patients. TNFa-induced apoptosis of PBMCs and T-cell senescence were comparable between V173D patients and HC. Conclusions: The TNFRSF1A V173D cleavage site mutation may be associated with an increased risk for cardiovascular complications and shows a strong response to etanercept. T-cell senescence does not seem to have a pathogenetic role in affected patients

Unsupervised 3D Pose Estimation with Geometric Self-Supervision

We present an unsupervised learning approach to recover 3D human pose from 2D skeletal joints extracted from a single image. Our method does not require any multi-view image data, 3D skeletons, correspondences between 2D-3D points, or use previously learned 3D priors during training. A lifting network accepts 2D landmarks as inputs and generates a corresponding 3D skeleton estimate. During training, the recovered 3D skeleton is reprojected on random camera viewpoints to generate new "synthetic" 2D poses. By lifting the synthetic 2D poses back to 3D and re-projecting them in the original camera view, we can define self-consistency loss both in 3D and in 2D. The training can thus be self supervised by exploiting the geometric self-consistency of the lift-reproject-lift process. We show that self-consistency alone is not sufficient to generate realistic skeletons, however adding a 2D pose discriminator enables the lifter to output valid 3D poses. Additionally, to learn from 2D poses "in the wild", we train an unsupervised 2D domain adapter network to allow for an expansion of 2D data. This improves results and demonstrates the usefulness of 2D pose data for unsupervised 3D lifting. Results on Human3.6M dataset for 3D human pose estimation demonstrate that our approach improves upon the previous unsupervised methods by 30% and outperforms many weakly supervised approaches that explicitly use 3D data

Energy loss distributions of 7 TeV protons channeled in a bent silicon crystals

The energy loss distributions of relativistic protons axially channeled through the bent <100> Si crystals, with the constant curvature radius, R = 50 m, are studied here. The proton energy is 7 TeV and the thickness of the crystal is varied from 1 mm to 5 mm, which corresponds to the reduced crystal thickness, L, from 2.1 to 10.6, respectively. The proton energy was chosen in accordance with the large hadron collider project, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Geneva, Switzerland. The energy loss distributions of the channeled protons were generated by the computer simulation method using the numerical solution of the proton equations of motion in the transverse plane. Dispersion of the proton scattering angle caused by its collisions with the crystal’s electrons was taken into account. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. III 45006

Postpartum hemorrhage risk is driven by changes in blood composition through pregnancy.

The extent to which women differ in the course of blood cell counts throughout pregnancy, and the importance of these changes to pregnancy outcomes has not been well defined. Here, we develop a series of statistical analyses of repeated measures data to reveal the degree to which women differ in the course of pregnancy, predict the changes that occur, and determine the importance of these changes for post-partum hemorrhage (PPH) which is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality. We present a prospective cohort of 4082 births recorded at the University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland between 2009 and 2014 where full labour records could be obtained, along with complete blood count data taken at hospital admission. We find significant differences, at a [Formula: see text] level, among women in how blood count values change through pregnancy for mean corpuscular hemoglobin, mean corpuscular volume, mean platelet volume, platelet count and red cell distribution width. We find evidence that almost all complete blood count values show trimester-specific associations with PPH. For example, high platelet count (OR 1.20, 95% CI 1.01-1.53), high mean platelet volume (OR 1.58, 95% CI 1.04-2.08), and high erythrocyte levels (OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.01-1.57) in trimester 1 increased PPH, but high values in trimester 3 decreased PPH risk (OR 0.85, 0.79, 0.67 respectively). We show that differences among women in the course of blood cell counts throughout pregnancy have an important role in shaping pregnancy outcome and tracking blood count value changes through pregnancy improves identification of women at increased risk of postpartum hemorrhage. This study provides greater understanding of the complex changes in blood count values that occur through pregnancy and provides indicators to guide the stratification of patients into risk groups