Globus sensation is a subjective feeling of a lump or foreign body in the throat without interfering swallowing of food. It is a persistent and distressing sensation in throat. It affects about 6% of population. But cause of globus is still unknown. Exact aetiology of globus is considered to be multifactorial. Some other studies also show association between globus and psychological distress including anxiety and depression. As there is no established pharmacological treatment, adequate investigations with negative result could reassure patients and improve their symptoms. In this prospective study consecutive patients with globus symptoms examined by upper GIT endoscopy with attention to larynx, epiglottis, base of tongue, both pyriform fossa and hypo-pharynx using Olympus forward viewing video Gastroscope (GIF Q-150 & GIF Q-170) to exclude organic lesion and was conducted in the department of Gastroenterology, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) and North East Medical College, Sylhet from 1st July 2014 to 31 December 2016. Their psychological status and epidemiological information including personal and family history were noted in a pre-designed data sheet. Total 104 patients were examined, among them definite anxiety was found in 36(34.95%) and borderline feature of anxiety was found in 19(18.44%) and 48(46.60%) were free of anxiety. Incidence of anxiety was significantly higher among females and was more prevalent among housewife, married people and people from rural community. In this series, 13(12.5%) patients had definite depression and 29(27.9%) patients had borderline depression, while 61(59.2%) patients had no feature of depression. Incidence of depression was significantly higher among females, housewife and married people. Organic lesion is rare in patients with globus symptoms. Globus sensation is more common among females. Psychological factors like anxiety and depression are frequently associated with globus sensation.

Nitrogen removal and N2O emission of biochar-sludge amended subsurface wastewater infiltration systems (SWISs) with/without intermittent aeration under different organic surface loading rates (OSLRs) were investigated. Under OSLR, between 8.5 and 54.6 g COD/(m2 d), average chemical oxygen demand (COD),>, and total nitrogen (TN) removal rates decreased with OSLR increasing in non-aerated SWISs amended with/without biochar-sludge; increasing OSLR hardly affected COD and> removal in biochar-sludge amended SWIS with intermittent aeration; N2O emission rate decreased with influent OSLR increasing in the SWISs. Biochar-sludge amended SWIS with intermittent aeration obtained higher removal rates for COD (94.9 to 95.5%),> (90.5 to 93.7%), TN (86.5 to 89.9%) and lower N2O emission rates [13.4 to 14.7 mg/(m2 d)] under high influent OSLR of 36.2 and 54.6 g COD/(m2 d) were compared with non-aerated SWISs with/without biochar-sludge. Furthermore, the abundances of amoA, nxrA, napA, narG, nirS, nirK, qnorB, and nosZ genes involved in nitrogen removal were enhanced under high influent OSLR in biochar-sludge amended SWIS with intermittent aeration.

The dominant modeling framework for understanding cortical computations are heuristic firing rate models. Despite their success, these models fall short to capture spike synchronization effects, to link to biophysical parameters and to describe finite-size fluctuations. In this opinion article, we propose that the refractory density method (RDM), also known as age-structured population dynamics or quasi-renewal theory, yields a powerful theoretical framework to build rate-based models for mesoscopic neural populations from realistic neuron dynamics at the microscopic level. We review recent advances achieved by the RDM to obtain efficient population density equations for networks of generalized integrate-and-fire (GIF) neurons - a class of neuron models that has been successfully fitted to various cell types. The theory not only predicts the nonstationary dynamics of large populations of neurons but also permits an extension to finite-size populations and a systematic reduction to low-dimensional rate dynamics. The new types of rate models will allow a re-examination of models of cortical computations under biological constraints.

<b>High-dimensional statistics deals with statistical inference when the number of parameters or features</b> <i>p</i> <b>exceeds the number of observations</b> <i>n</i> <b>(i.e.,</b> <math><mi>p</mi><mo>≫</mo><mi>n</mi></math><b>). In this case, the parameter space must be constrained either by regularization or by selecting a small subset of</b> <math><mi>m</mi><mo>≤</mo><mi>n</mi></math> <b>features. Feature selection through</b> <math><msub><mrow><mstyle><mi>l</mi></mstyle></mrow><mrow><mn>1</mn></mrow></msub></math><b>-regularization combines the benefits of both approaches and has proven to yield good results in practice. However, the functional relation between the regularization strength</b> <math><mi>λ</mi></math> <b>and the number of selected features</b> <i>m</i> <b>is difficult to determine. Hence, parameters are typically estimated for all possible regularization strengths</b> <math><mi>λ</mi></math><b>. These so-called regularization paths can be expensive to compute and most solutions may not even be of interest to the problem at hand. As an alternative, an algorithm is proposed that determines the</b> <math><msub><mrow><mstyle><mi>l</mi></mstyle></mrow><mrow><mn>1</mn></mrow></msub></math><b>-regularization strength</b> <math><mi>λ</mi></math> <b>iteratively for a fixed</b> <i>m</i><b>. The algorithm can be used to compute leapfrog regularization paths by subsequently increasing</b> <i>m</i><b>.</b>

<strong class="sub-title"> Keywords: </strong> LARS; feature selection; <math altimg="eq-00008.<em>gif</em>" display="inline"><msub><mrow><mstyle mathvariant="script"><mi>l</mi></mstyle></mrow><mrow><mn>1</mn></mrow></msub></math>-regularization; orthogonal matching pursuit.

We compared voluntary oscillatory sway for eight subjects tested in 1.8g and 1g gravito-inertial force (GIF) levels of parabolic flight. Subjects performed voluntary forward-backward (FB) and lateral left-right (LR) swaying as the forces and moments under the soles of each foot were measured. We calculated the experimental values of three parameters - two ankle stiffness parameters K_S^AP and K_S^ML acting in orthogonal FB and LR directions, and one parameter K_ED related to leg pivot shifting. Simulations of the Engaged Leg Model (Bakshi et al. 2019a; b) correctly predicted the experimentally determined stability bounds of upright balance and also the scaling of the postural parameters as a function of GIF magnitude. The effective stiffness, K_S^AP, at the ankles played the primary role to prevent falling in FB swaying and both model predictions and experimental data showed K_S^AP to scale up in proportion to GIF magnitude. For LR swaying, the model predicted a 3:4 scaling of AP stiffness to change in GIF magnitude, which was borne out by the experimental data. Simulations predict stability (non-falling) not to depend on lateral stiffness, K_S^ML, which was experimentally found not to depend on the GIF magnitude. Both model and experiment showed that the geometry dependent pivot shift parameter K_ED was invariant to a change in GIF magnitude. Thus the ELM explains voluntary sway and balance in altered GIF magnitude conditions, rotating environments with Coriolis perturbations of sway, as well as normal terrestrial conditions.

Keywords: Artificial gravity; Asymmetry; Bi-pedal balance; Hypergravity Parabolic flight; Stiffness.

Although polyploid plants have larger leaves than their diploid counterparts, the molecular mechanisms underlying this difference (or trait) remain elusive. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between triploid and full-sib diploid poplar trees were identified from two transcriptomic data sets followed by a gene association study among DEGs to identify key leaf growth regulators. Yeast one-hybrid system, electrophoretic mobility shift assay, and dual-luciferase assay were employed to substantiate that PpnGRF5-1 directly regulated PpnCKX1. The interactions between PpnGRF5-1 and GRF-interacting factors were experimentally validated and a multilayered hierarchical regulatory network (ML-hGRN)-mediated by PpnGRF5-1 was constructed with Top-down GGM algorithm by combining RNA-seq data from its overexpression (OE) lines and DAP-seq data. PpnGRF5-1 is a negative regulator of PpnCKX1. OE of PpnGRF5-1 in diploid transgenic lines resulted in larger leaves resembling those of triploids, and significantly increased zeatin and isopentenyladenine in the apical buds and third leaves. PpnGRF5-1 also interacted with GIFs to increase its regulatory diversity and capacity. An ML-hGRN-mediated by PpnGRF5-1 was obtained and could largely elucidate larger leaves. PpnGRF5-1 and the ML-hGRN-mediated by PpnGRF5-1 were underlying the leaf growth and development.

Keywords: Populus; cytokinin; gene regulatory network; growth-regulating factor; leaf growth; leaf size; triploid.

This research used the detailed activated sludge model (ASM) to investigate the effect of parameter uncertainty on nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from biological wastewater treatment systems. Monte Carlo simulations accounted for uncertainty in the values of the microbial growth parameters and in the volumetric mass transfer coefficient for dissolved oxygen (kLaDO), and the results show that the detailed ASM predicted N2O emission of less than 4% (typically 1%) of the total influent> loading. Uncertainties in kLaDO were further investigated in experiments, which showed that lower values of kLaDO generated higher soluble N2O levels. The detailed ASM likely requires revision to account for abiotic reactions and other factors that cause higher levels of N2O emission.

With the growing use of smart cellular devices for entertainment purposes, audio and video streaming services now offer an increasingly wide variety of popular mobile applications that offer portable and accessible ways to consume content. The user interfaces of these applications have become increasingly visual in nature, and are commonly loaded with dense multimedia content such as thumbnail images, animated GIFs, and short videos. To efficiently render these and to aid rapid download to the client display, it is necessary to compress, scale and color subsample them. These operations introduce distortions, reducing the appeal of the application. It is desirable to be able to automatically monitor and govern the visual qualities of these small images, which are usually small images. However, while there exists a variety of high-performing image quality assessment (IQA) algorithms, none have been designed for this particular use case. This kind of content often has unique characteristics, such as overlaid graphics, intentional brightness, gradients, text, and warping. We describe a study we conducted on the subjective and objective quality of images embedded in the displayed user interfaces of mobile streaming applications. We created a database of typical "billboard" and "thumbnail" images viewed on such services. Using the collected data, we studied the effects of compression, scaling and chroma-subsampling on perceived quality by conducting a subjective study. We also evaluated the performance of leading picture quality prediction models on the new database. We report some surprising results regarding algorithm performance, and find that there remains ample scope for future model development.

BDF1 [(C57BL/6 X DBA/2)F1] mice were primed with alum-absorbed ovalbumin, and their spleen cells were cultured with ovalbumin to activate antigen-primed T cells. The activated T cells were then propagated in interleukin 2-containing medium in the presence or absence of affinity-purified glycosylation-inhibiting factor (GIF). Upon incubation with ovalbumin-pulsed macrophages, T cells propagated in the absence of GIF produced IgE-potentiating factor and glycosylation-enhancing factor. In contrast, T cells propagated in the presence of GIF produced IgE-suppressive factor and GIF. The ovalbumin-primed T cells propagated in the presence of GIF constitutively produced the 13-kDa GIF that lacked affinity for ovalbumin. However, stimulation of the same T cells with ovalbumin-pulsed macrophages resulted in the production of 80- and 35-kDa GIF that had affinity for ovalbumin. Both the antigen-specific GIF and nonspecific GIF from the activated BDF1 T cells had I-Jb determinants. Since the ovalbumin-specific GIF is derived from Lyt-2+, I-J+ ovalbumin-specific suppressor T cells and suppresses the anti-hapten antibody response to dinitrophenyl-coupled ovalbumin, the results strongly suggest that the presence of GIF during the propagation of antigen-primed T cells facilitates the generation of antigen-specific suppressor T cells.

This paper presents a numerical analysis of the role of asymptotic dynamics in the design of hardware-based implementations of the generalised integrate-and-fire (gIF) neuron models. These proposed implementations are based on extensions of the discrete-time spiking neuron model, which was introduced by Soula et al., and have been implemented on Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) devices using fixed-point arithmetic. Mathematical studies conducted by Cessac have evidenced the existence of three main regimes (neural death, periodic and chaotic regimes) in the activity of such neuron models. These activity regimes are characterised in hardware by considering a precision analysis in the design of an architecture for an FPGA-based implementation. The proposed approach, although based on gIF neuron models and FPGA hardware, can be extended to more complex neuron models as well as to different in silico implementations.

Binary tree predictive coding (BTPC) is an efficient general-purpose still-image compression scheme, competitive with JPEG for natural image coding and with GIF for graphics. We report the extension of BTPC to video compression using motion estimation and compensation techniques which are simple, efficient, nonlinear and predictive. The new methods, binary tree recursive motion estimation coding (BTRMEC), and binary tree residue coding (BTRC) exploit the hierarchical structure of BTPC, in the first case giving progressively refined motion estimates for increasing numbers of pels and in the second case providing efficient residue coding. Compression results for BTRMEC and BTBC are compared against conventional block-based motion compensated coding as provided by MPEG. They show that both BTRMEC and BTRC are efficient methods to code video sequences.

Neuronal growth inhibitory factor (GIF), also known as metallothionein (metallothionein-3), impairs the survival and neurite formation of cultured neurons. It is known that the alpha-beta domain-domain interaction of hGIF is crucial to the neuron growth inhibitory bioactivity although the exact mechanism is not clear. Herein, the beta(MT3)-beta(MT3) mutant and the hGIF-truncated Delta33-35 mutant were constructed, and their biochemical properties were characterized by pH titration, EDTA, and DTNB reactions. Their inhibitory activity toward neuron survival and neurite extension was also examined. We found that the Delta33-35 mutant alpha-domain containing beta-domain-like M(3)S(9) cluster exhibits the function of alpha-domain with M(4)S(11) cluster in hGIF. These results showed that the stability and solvent accessibility of the metal-thiolate cluster in beta-domain is very significant to the neuronal growth inhibitory activity of hGIF and also indicated that the particular primary structure of alpha-domain is pivotal to domain-domain interaction in hGIF.

The validity of glottal inverse filtering (GIF) to obtain a glottal flow waveform from radiated pressure signal in the presence and absence of source-filter interaction was studied systematically. A driven vocal fold surface model of vocal fold vibration was used to generate source signals. A one-dimensional wave reflection algorithm was used to solve for acoustic pressures in the vocal tract. Several test signals were generated with and without source-filter interaction at various fundamental frequencies and vowels. Linear Predictive Coding (LPC), Quasi Closed Phase (QCP), and Quadratic Programming (QPR) based algorithms, along with supraglottal impulse response, were used to inverse filter the radiated pressure signals to obtain the glottal flow pulses. The accuracy of each algorithm was tested for its recovery of maximum flow declination rate (MFDR), peak glottal flow, open phase ripple factor, closed phase ripple factor, and mean squared error. The algorithms were also tested for their absolute relative errors of the Normalized Amplitude Quotient, the Quasi-Open Quotient, and the Harmonic Richness Factor. The results indicated that the mean squared error decreased with increase in source-filter interaction level suggesting that the inverse filtering algorithms perform better in the presence of source-filter interaction. All glottal inverse filtering algorithms predicted the open phase ripple factor better than the closed phase ripple factor of a glottal flow waveform, irrespective of the source-filter interaction level. Major prediction errors occurred in the estimation of the closed phase ripple factor, MFDR, peak glottal flow, normalized amplitude quotient, and Quasi-Open Quotient. Feedback-related nonlinearity (source-filter interaction) affected the recovered signal primarily when f _o was well below the first formant frequency of a vowel. The prediction error increased when f _o was close to the first formant frequency due to the difficulty of estimating the precise value of resonance frequencies, which was exacerbated by nonlinear kinetic losses in the vocal tract.

Keywords: Glottal Inverse Filtering; Linear Predictive Coding; Source-Filter Interaction; Speech Synthesis.

BACKGROUND

The structural-enhancement (SE) function electronically improves the video-endoscopic signal of Olympus processors (EXERA CV-160 or greater), enabling an increase in relief that may help in the detection of flat or ulcerated and raised lesions, especially those of small size. We assessed the diagnostic impact of this technique in the screening of lesions during basic video colonoscopy.

METHODS

Maximum-level SE was programmed into processors on alternate weeks, and endoscopy dates were planned by an assistant unaware of the SE schedule, thus ensuring randomization. The endoscopists-senior practitioners with 3-29 years of digestive endoscopy practice-were informed of the experiment >3 weeks before it began and were not told about it again either before or during the study. This was to ensure that endoscopy examinations were performed without over-awareness of the technical conditions. GIF-100 to -160 Olympus endoscopes were used.

RESULTS

During the study, 606 patients underwent upper digestive video-endoscopy, 305 with and 301 without the use of the SE function. Of 645 patients who underwent video colonoscopy, 593 were included in the study and 52 were excluded due to poor cleansing (8%); of those included, 330 were analyzed with and 263 without the SE function. We observed no differences in the detection of lesions (small or large) by either upper digestive endoscopy or video colonoscopy.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first study comparing video-endoscopy diagnosis with or without SE during upper digestive endoscopy and colonoscopy. The SE function available on Olympus video-endoscopy processors had no impact on the detection of lesions, not even on those of very small size.

To improve the diagnosis of the diseases of the pylorus and prepyloric region in patients with duodenal peptic ulcer based on the study of the mucous membrane folds

Endoscopic examination of 208 patients without diseases of the gastroduodenal transition (healthy) and 112 patients with duodenal peptic ulcer of three age groups from 35 to 90 years. Men were 72 and 61, women - 136 and 51 respectively groups. Endoscopic examinations were performed by endoscopes EVIS GIF-130, XP-150 N, GIF H-180 and instruments of the company «Olympus» (Japan).

Individual differences were revealed in the formation of mucous membrane folds of the pylorus and prepyloric region, in the frequency of participation of the walls in healthy people and patients with duodenal peptic ulcer. Age differences were revealed. Gender differences were not revealed. The clinical case of the patient with duodenal peptic ulcer and maltoma in prepyloric region was presented.

The features of the formation of mucous membrane folds, the relief of the mucous membrane of the pylorus and prepyloric region in healthy people and patients with peptic ulcer of the duodenum are necessary to consider. It is important to perform a biopsy, histological, c.

100 patients with gastric peptic ulcer and 100 patients with duodenal peptic ulcer in an active with well expressed pain syndrome were studied clinically and gastroscopically. These two groups of patients were compared by several indices with a group of 81 patients with gastric peptic ulcer and 243 patients with duodenal peptic ulcer admitted to hospital because of acute bleeding from the ulcer. All patients were examined endoscopically with a fibroscope "Olimpus--GIF--Q 10". The results were processed by the semiquantitative statistical method--U criterion. It was established that the peptic ulcer patients over 60 years of age bleed more often than the younger ones. The incidences of bleeding increase with the duration of the ulcer. Comparatively more often bleed the ulcers on the posterior wall of the duodenal bulb and the larger ulcers. Preceding drug induced lesions are found more often in the bleeding ulcer patients than in the non-bleeding ones with an expressed pain syndrome only. The results lead to the conclusion that advanced age, use of ulcerogenic drugs and greater size of the ulcer are unfavourable risk factors for bleeding in the patients with peptic ulcer.

To investigate the usefulness of gastrointestinal fiberscope examination (GIF) for peptic ulcer in the health care station (station), a cost-benefit analysis was performed from the standpoint of the company, the health insurance society (insurance society), and workers. Before the analysis, the clinical course of the peptic ulcer, direct cost of the examination, and indirect cost due to time taken for the examination at the station were compared with those in a private hospital (hospital). In 1994, 202 cases of gastric ulcer (GU) (194 male cases, 8 female cases) and 199 cases of duodenal ulcer (DU) (195 male cases, 4 female cases) underwent GIF examination at the station. Cases of admission and emergency operation due to GU and DU at the station were less than those at the hospital. The benefits obtained for the company, the insurance society and the workers were as follows: we saw a decrease in the loss of working time, a decrease in the medical care cost, a decrease in patient cost sharing and a prevention of income loss due to admission (or prevention of the loss of a paid holiday). The time spent for GIF at the station was also less than at the hospital. This was a direct benefit for the company (a decrease in the loss of working time) and for the workers (prevention of the loss of a paid holiday). A further benefit for the company was a decrease in the cost of the miniature gastrointestinal mass survey of the workers who were followed up by GIF examination at the station. Total of more than 30 million yen in cost benefits was obtained. The economic evaluation of follow-up studies at the station was necessary to demonstrate the importance of health care to the company, and to the workers. A cost-benefit analysis was suited to this purpose, creating easily understandable results even if productivity did not count.

The effect of short- and long-term somatostatin (GIF) administration on haemostatic function in man was investigated. The dosage programme applied in this study was 250 mug GIF as a bolus injection and 250 mug GIF/h by way of infusion. In five healthy volunteers a short-term (3h) treatment resulted in a statistically significant drop of platelet count and impairment of platelet aggregation at the end of infusion. However, these changes were within the physiologically normal range and disappeared after two hours on all subjects. Other parameters such as bleeding time, thromboplastin and partial thromboplastin time, fibrinogen, fibrin/fibrinogen split products, plasma factor XIII, ethanol gelation test were not affected. In two patients with gastric haemorrhage and persistent amylasaemia a 67 or 120-h treatment induced no remarkable haemostatic defect. By contrast, peptic ulcer bleeding in one patient stopped 60 min after starting the GIF infusion. These studies indicated that somatostatin administration in man at the dosage programme used neither results in clinical evidence indicating bleeding tendency nor does it influence laboratory parameters in an apparent way.

We describe a case of an esophageal injury caused by insertion of a transesophageal cardiac echo probe in a 66-year-old man with an aberrant right subclavian artery, who was scheduled for Bentall surgery for aortic regurgitation and annuloaortic ectasia. Preoperative CT scan showed an aberrant right subclavian artery compressed from the back of the esophagus. General anesthesia was induced with midazolam and fentanyl, and maintained with midazolam, remifentanil and fentanyl. After induction of anesthesia, a transesophageal cardiac echo probe was inserted without abnormal resistance. The operation was performed uneventfully. On the second day after surgery, gastrointestinal bleeding was suspected and the upper gastrointestinal endoscopy (GIF) was performed. GIF revealed ulceration at the mid-esophagus and gastroesophageal junction, and a large amount of fresh blood in the stomach. The location of the ulcer at mid-esophagus was likely to be over the aberrant right subclavian artery. Ulcers were treated conservatively. GIF on the postoperative day 16 revealed that ulcers had healed. Transesophageal echo probe insertion is potentially hazardous in a patient with an aberrant right subclavian artery. Although aberrant right subclavian artery is rare, transesophageal echocardiography should be performed with extreme caution.

The specificity and mode of action of a growth inhibitory factor (GIF) isolated from human plasma-derived serum (PDS) was examined with cell lines established from malignant and nonmalignant human tissues. The mammary cell line, MCF-7, was used in previous work to monitor purification of GIF from serum. The current study showed that, of 9 mammary cell lines, 5 (MDA-MB-415, BT-474, MCF-7, T47D, ZR-75) were inhibited by GIF partially purified from a single serum source. The degree of cell line sensitivity to DEAE-purified GIF was directly related to the amount of inhibition observed with unfractionated PDS. The growth of cells established from other malignancies (lung, colon, melanoma, cervix) and normal diploid fibroblasts was not inhibited. MCF-7 cell growth inhibition was fully reversible following 3 days incubation in GIF but was not reversible after 5 days. Inhibition represented a cytostatic effect. Among the macromolecular synthetic events assayed, DNA and RNA remained unaffected by GIF whereas protein synthesis per cell was markedly elevated. Fluorescence-activated cell sorter analysis of treated and control populations showed no differences in G1, S-, and G2 phase distributions.

This note describes the use of Microsoft Excel macros (programs written in Excel's internal language, Visual Basic for Applications) to create simple onscreen animations of transient ground water data within Excel. Compared to many specialized visualization software packages, the use of Excel macros is much cheaper, much simpler, and can rapidly be learned. The Excel macro can also be used to create individual GIF files for each animation frame. This series of frames can then be used to create an AVI video file using any of a number of graphics packages, such as Corel PhotoPaint. The technique is demonstrated through a macro that animates changes in the elevation of a water table along a transect over several years.