Environmentally Benign Stab Detonators

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gash, A E

2006-07-07

The coupling of energetic metallic multilayers (a.k.a. flash metal) with energetic sol-gel synthesis and processing is an entirely new approach to forming energetic devices for several DoD and DOE needs. They are also practical and commercially viable manufacturing techniques. Improved occupational safety and health, performance, reliability, reproducibility, and environmentally acceptable processing can be achieved using these methodologies and materials. The development and fielding of this technology will enhance mission readiness and reduce the costs, environmental risks and the necessity of resolving environmental concerns related to maintaining military readiness while simultaneously enhancing safety and health. Without sacrificing current performance, we will formulate new impact initiated device (IID) compositions to replace materials from the current composition that pose significant environmental, health, and safety problems associated with functions such as synthesis, material receipt, storage, handling, processing into the composition, reaction products from testing, and safe disposal. To do this, we will advance the use of nanocomposite preparation via the use of multilayer flash metal and sol-gel technologies and apply it to new small IIDs. This work will also serve to demonstrate that these technologies and resultant materials are relevant and practical to a variety of energetic needs of DoD and DOE. The goal will be to produce an IID whose composition is acceptable by OSHA, EPA, the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Resource Recovery Act, etc. standards, without sacrificing current performance. The development of environmentally benign stab detonators and igniters will result in the removal of hazardous and toxic components associated with their manufacturing, handling, and use. This will lead to improved worker safety during manufacturing as well as reduced exposure of Service personnel during their storage and or use in operations. The

Ultraviolet Light Surface Treatment as an Environmentally Benign Process for Production, Maintenance and Repair of Military Composite Structures

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Drzal, Lawrence T

2002-01-01

The principal objective of this work is to develop a low-cost, high-speed, environmentally benign, dry surface treatment method for production, and repair of military composite structures using ultraviolet (UV...

Can laboratory and pilot recycling trials predict adhesive removal in commercial recycling systems? : results from the USPS environmentally benign stamp project

Science.gov (United States)

Carl Houtman; Daniel Seiter; Nancy Ross Sutherland; Donald Donermeyer

2002-01-01

The ultimate goal of the US Postal Service (USPS) Environmentally Benign Stamp Program is to develop stamp laminates, i.e., face paper, adhesive and siliconized liner, that do not cause difficulties in recycling mills. The criterion for success, and the USPS definition of benignity, is the avoidance of process and product quality hardships when such PSA laminates are...

The Empowerment Of Role Of The Family In Developing Character Of Environmental Awareness In Elementary School-Age Children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kadek Aria Prima Dewi PF

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This research aims to see the empowerment process of role of the family through Waste Bank media to develop character of environmental awareness in elementary school-age children. The qualitative descriptive research methodology is used. The result of this research shows that the empowerment of role of the family in developing character of environmental awareness in elementary school-age children in State Elementary School 1 Padangsambian is determined by the role of waste bank media through intervention of school to students' parents. The initial stage of intervention activity is performed with parenting activity in school with the theme of environmental awareness. Furthermore, all forms of activities or moral actions of environmental awareness are guided by Waste Bank community. The family becomes active in the environmental awareness activity and the control process is implemented together by school and Waste Bank community.

Evolution of phenotypic plasticity and environmental tolerance of a labile quantitative character in a fluctuating environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Lande, R

2014-05-01

Quantitative genetic models of evolution of phenotypic plasticity are used to derive environmental tolerance curves for a population in a changing environment, providing a theoretical foundation for integrating physiological and community ecology with evolutionary genetics of plasticity and norms of reaction. Plasticity is modelled for a labile quantitative character undergoing continuous reversible development and selection in a fluctuating environment. If there is no cost of plasticity, a labile character evolves expected plasticity equalling the slope of the optimal phenotype as a function of the environment. This contrasts with previous theory for plasticity influenced by the environment at a critical stage of early development determining a constant adult phenotype on which selection acts, for which the expected plasticity is reduced by the environmental predictability over the discrete time lag between development and selection. With a cost of plasticity in a labile character, the expected plasticity depends on the cost and on the environmental variance and predictability averaged over the continuous developmental time lag. Environmental tolerance curves derived from this model confirm traditional assumptions in physiological ecology and provide new insights. Tolerance curve width increases with larger environmental variance, but can only evolve within a limited range. The strength of the trade-off between tolerance curve height and width depends on the cost of plasticity. Asymmetric tolerance curves caused by male sterility at high temperature are illustrated. A simple condition is given for a large transient increase in plasticity and tolerance curve width following a sudden change in average environment. © 2014 The Author. Journal of Evolutionary Biology © 2014 European Society For Evolutionary Biology.

Trehalose and Trehalose-based Polymers for Environmentally Benign, Biocompatible and Bioactive Materials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mitsuhiro Shibata

2008-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract: Trehalose is a non-reducing disaccharide that is found in many organisms but not in mammals. This sugar plays important roles in cryptobiosis of selaginella mosses, tardigrades (water bears, and other animals which revive with water from a state of suspended animation induced by desiccation. The interesting properties of trehalose are due to its unique symmetrical low-energy structure, wherein two glucose units are bonded face-to-face by 1→1-glucoside links. The Hayashibara Co. Ltd., is credited for developing an inexpensive, environmentally benign and industrial-scale process for the enzymatic conversion of α-1,4-linked polyhexoses to α,α-D-trehalose, which made it easy to explore novel food, industrial, and medicinal uses for trehalose and its derivatives. Trehalosechemistry is a relatively new and emerging field, and polymers of trehalose derivatives appear environmentally benign, biocompatible, and biodegradable. The discriminating properties of trehalose are attributed to its structure, symmetry, solubility, kinetic and thermodynamic stability and versatility. While syntheses of trehalose-based polymer networks can be straightforward, syntheses and characterization of well defined linear polymers with tailored properties using trehalose-based monomers is challenging, and typically involves protection and deprotection of hydroxyl groups to attain desired structural, morphological, biological, and physical and chemical properties in the resulting products. In this review, we will overview known literature on trehalose’s fascinating involvement in cryptobiology; highlight its applications in many fields; and then discuss methods we used to prepare new trehalose-based monomers and polymers and explain their properties.

Waste minimization and the goal of an environmentally benign plutonium processing facility: A strategic plan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pillay, K.K.S.

1994-02-01

To maintain capabilities in nuclear weapons technologies, the Department of Energy (DOE) has to maintain a plutonium processing facility that meets all the current and emerging standards of environmental regulations. A strategic goal to transform the Plutonium Processing Facility at Los Alamos into an environmentally benign operation is identified. A variety of technologies and systems necessary to meet this goal are identified. Two initiatives now in early stages of implementation are described in some detail. A highly motivated and trained work force and a systems approach to waste minimization and pollution prevention are necessary to maintain technical capabilities, to comply with regulations, and to meet the strategic goal

Improved Methods for Production Manufacturing Processes in Environmentally Benign Manufacturing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yan-Yan Wang

2011-09-01

Full Text Available How to design a production process with low carbon emissions and low environmental impact as well as high manufacturing performance is a key factor in the success of low-carbon production. It is important to address concerns about climate change for the large carbon emission source manufacturing industries because of their high energy consumption and environmental impact during the manufacturing stage of the production life cycle. In this paper, methodology for determining a production process is developed. This methodology integrates process determination from three different levels: new production processing, selected production processing and batch production processing. This approach is taken within a manufacturing enterprise based on prior research. The methodology is aimed at providing decision support for implementing Environmentally Benign Manufacturing (EBM and low-carbon production to improve the environmental performance of the manufacturing industry. At the first level, a decision-making model for new production processes based on the Genetic Simulated Annealing Algorithm (GSAA is presented. The decision-making model considers not only the traditional factors, such as time, quality and cost, but also energy and resource consumption and environmental impact, which are different from the traditional methods. At the second level, a methodology is developed based on an IPO (Input-Process-Output model that integrates assessments of resource consumption and environmental impact in terms of a materials balance principle for batch production processes. At the third level, based on the above two levels, a method for determining production processes that focus on low-carbon production is developed based on case-based reasoning, expert systems and feature technology for designing the process flow of a new component. Through the above three levels, a method for determining the production process to identify, quantify, assess, and optimize the

Toward environmentally-benign utilization of nonmetallic fraction of waste printed circuit boards as modifier and precursor.

Science.gov (United States)

Hadi, Pejman; Ning, Chao; Ouyang, Weiyi; Xu, Meng; Lin, Carol S K; McKay, Gordon

2015-01-01

Electronic waste, including printed circuit boards, is growing at an alarming rate due to the accelerated technological progress and the shorter lifespan of the electronic equipment. In the past decades, due to the lack of proper economic and environmentally-benign recycling technologies, a major fraction of e-waste generated was either destined to landfills or incinerated with the sole intention of its disposal disregarding the toxic nature of this waste. Recently, with the increasing public awareness over their environment and health issues and with the enaction of more stringent regulations, environmentally-benign recycling has been driven to be an alternative option partially replacing the traditional eco-unfriendly disposal methods. One of the most favorable green technologies has been the mechanical separation of the metallic and nonmetallic fraction of the waste printed circuit boards. Although metallic fraction, as the most profitable component, is used to generate the revenue of the separation process, the nonmetallic fraction (NMF) has been left isolated. Herein, the recent developments in the application of NMF have been comprehensively reviewed and an eco-friendly emerging usage of NMF as a value-added material for sustainable remediation has been introduced. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Environmentally benign destruction of waste energetic materials (EMs)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schneider, R. L.; Donahue, B. A.

1998-01-01

Studies by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers during 1991-1997 involving various methods for the destruction of waste generated by pyrotechnic, explosive and propellant materials are described. The methods assessed and evaluated include controlled incineration (CI), wet air oxidation (WAO), and hydrothermal oxidation (HTO), using a U.S. Army triple-base propellant as the initial common standard for all destructor comparative testing. All three of these methods has special feed line restrictions requiring mechanical diminution and comminution of the energetic material which, for safety reasons, cannot be used with contaminated heterogeneous production wastes. Supercritical fluid extraction with carbon dioxide, alkaline hydrolysis, electrolysis and fluid cutting with very high pressure water jets and liquid nitrogen are alternate technologies that were evaluated as pre-treatment for production wastes. Wet air oxidation and electrochemical reduction studies were conducted using the U.S. Navy double propellant NOSIH-AA2, which contains a lead-based ballistic modifier. Wet air oxidation and hydrothermal oxidation studies were done using potassium dinitramide phase-stabilized nitrate as an oxidizer. All of these technologies are considered to be suitable for the environmentally benign destruction of pyrotechnic materials, including fireworks. 17 refs., 8 tabs., 4 figs

Toward environmentally-benign utilization of nonmetallic fraction of waste printed circuit boards as modifier and precursor

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hadi, Pejman; Ning, Chao; Ouyang, Weiyi; Xu, Meng [Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay Road, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong); Lin, Carol S.K. [School of Energy and Environment, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong); McKay, Gordon, E-mail: kemckayg@ust.hk [Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay Road, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Hong Kong); Division of Sustainable Development, College of Science, Engineering and Technology, Hamad bin Khalifa University, Doha (Qatar)

2015-01-15

Highlights: • Environmental impacts of electronic waste and specifically waste printed circuit boards. • Review of the recycling techniques of waste printed circuit boards. • Advantages of physico-mechanical recycling techniques over chemical methods. • Utilization of nonmetallic fraction of waste printed circuit boards as modifier/filler. • Recent advances in the use of nonmetallic fraction of waste printed circuit boards as precursor. - Abstract: Electronic waste, including printed circuit boards, is growing at an alarming rate due to the accelerated technological progress and the shorter lifespan of the electronic equipment. In the past decades, due to the lack of proper economic and environmentally-benign recycling technologies, a major fraction of e-waste generated was either destined to landfills or incinerated with the sole intention of its disposal disregarding the toxic nature of this waste. Recently, with the increasing public awareness over their environment and health issues and with the enaction of more stringent regulations, environmentally-benign recycling has been driven to be an alternative option partially replacing the traditional eco-unfriendly disposal methods. One of the most favorable green technologies has been the mechanical separation of the metallic and nonmetallic fraction of the waste printed circuit boards. Although metallic fraction, as the most profitable component, is used to generate the revenue of the separation process, the nonmetallic fraction (NMF) has been left isolated. Herein, the recent developments in the application of NMF have been comprehensively reviewed and an eco-friendly emerging usage of NMF as a value-added material for sustainable remediation has been introduced.

Toward environmentally-benign utilization of nonmetallic fraction of waste printed circuit boards as modifier and precursor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hadi, Pejman; Ning, Chao; Ouyang, Weiyi; Xu, Meng; Lin, Carol S.K.; McKay, Gordon

2015-01-01

Highlights: • Environmental impacts of electronic waste and specifically waste printed circuit boards. • Review of the recycling techniques of waste printed circuit boards. • Advantages of physico-mechanical recycling techniques over chemical methods. • Utilization of nonmetallic fraction of waste printed circuit boards as modifier/filler. • Recent advances in the use of nonmetallic fraction of waste printed circuit boards as precursor. - Abstract: Electronic waste, including printed circuit boards, is growing at an alarming rate due to the accelerated technological progress and the shorter lifespan of the electronic equipment. In the past decades, due to the lack of proper economic and environmentally-benign recycling technologies, a major fraction of e-waste generated was either destined to landfills or incinerated with the sole intention of its disposal disregarding the toxic nature of this waste. Recently, with the increasing public awareness over their environment and health issues and with the enaction of more stringent regulations, environmentally-benign recycling has been driven to be an alternative option partially replacing the traditional eco-unfriendly disposal methods. One of the most favorable green technologies has been the mechanical separation of the metallic and nonmetallic fraction of the waste printed circuit boards. Although metallic fraction, as the most profitable component, is used to generate the revenue of the separation process, the nonmetallic fraction (NMF) has been left isolated. Herein, the recent developments in the application of NMF have been comprehensively reviewed and an eco-friendly emerging usage of NMF as a value-added material for sustainable remediation has been introduced

Efficient absorption of SO_2 with low-partial pressures by environmentally benign functional deep eutectic solvents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Kai; Ren, Shuhang; Hou, Yucui; Wu, Weize

2017-01-01

Graphical abstract: Environmentally benign deep eutectic solvents (DESs) based on betaine or L-carnitine with ethylene glycol were designed with a function and used to efficiently capture SO_2 with low partial pressures. - Highlights: • Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were designed with a function to absorb low-conc. SO_2. • Betaine(Bet) and L-carnitine(L-car) with a functional group were used as H-bond acceptor. • Bet + ethylene glycol (EG) DES and L-car + EG DES are environmentally benign. • L-car + EG DES can absorb 0.644 mol SO_2 per mole L-car (0.37% SO_2). • L-car + EG DES is a promising absorbent for SO_2 capture. - Abstract: Sulfur dioxide (SO_2) emitted from the burning of fossil fuels is one of the main air contaminants. In this work, we found that environmentally benign solvents, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) could be designed with a function to absorb low-partial pressure SO_2 from simulated flue gas. Two kinds of biodegradable functional DESs based on betaine (Bet) and L-carnitine (L-car) as hydrogen bond accepters (HBA) and ethylene glycol (EG) as a hydrogen bond donor (HBD) were prepared with mole ratios of HBA to HBD from 1:3 to 1:5, and they were investigated to absorb SO_2 with different partial pressures at various temperatures. The results showed that the two DESs could absorb low-partial pressure SO_2 efficiently. SO_2 absorption capacities of the DESs with HBA/HBD mole ratio of 1:3 were 0.332 mol SO_2/mol HBA for Bet + EG DES and 0.820 mol SO_2/mol HBA for L-car + EG DES at 40 °C with a SO_2 partial pressure of 0.02 atm. In addition, the regeneration experiments demonstrated that the absorption capacities of DESs did not change after five absorption and desorption cycles. Furthermore, the absorption mechanism of SO_2 by DESs was studied by FT-IR, "1H NMR and "1"3C NMR spectra. It was found that there are strong acid–base interactions between SO_2 and −COO"− on HBA.

Towards Environmentally-benign Nanoengineering: Antimicrobial Nanoparticles Based on Silver-infused Lignin Cores

Science.gov (United States)

Richter, Alexander Philipp

Engineered nanomaterials are capable of solving challenges in industries important to society such as energy, agriculture, and health care. Antimicrobial silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) are the most widely used nanoparticles by number of commercial products in commerce today. However, the increased introduction of AgNPs in industrial applications may lead to discharge of persistent nanoparticles in the environment and undesired impacts on living organisms. This dissertation will present a new class of antimicrobial environmentallybenign nanoparticles (EbNPs) designed with green chemistry principles, which can serve as highly efficient microbicide substitutes of the AgNPs. The EbNP core is made of biodegradable lignin, and is infused with an optimal amount of silver ions. We report on the fabrication of environmentally benign nanoparticles (EbNPs) using two types of lignin precursors with simple, inexpensive, and non-toxic processes, (i) by employing a solvent exchange precipitation method at room temperature and (ii) by applying an environmentally friendly water-based acid precipitation method. The synthesis of Organosolv (High Purity Lignin) nanoparticles via antisolvent flash precipitation method in water resulted in particles in the size range of 45 to 250 nm in diameter. We investigate the synthesis parameters of Kraft (Indulin AT) lignin nanoparticles by flash precipitation induced by pH drop in ethylene glycol. Furthermore, we evaluate the ionic strength and pH stability of both lignin nanoparticle suspensions and highlight differences in the systems. After silver ion infusion of Indulin AT nanoparticles followed by surface modification, we show that the EbNPs exhibit higher antimicrobial activity towards Gram-negative human pathogens Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Gram-positive human pathogens Staphylococcus epidermidis in direct comparison with silver nanoparticles and silver nitrate solution, and that the particles are effective against

Efficient absorption of SO{sub 2} with low-partial pressures by environmentally benign functional deep eutectic solvents

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Kai; Ren, Shuhang [State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029 (China); Hou, Yucui [Department of Chemistry, Taiyuan Normal University, Taiyuan, 030031 (China); Wu, Weize, E-mail: wzwu@mail.buct.edu.cn [State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029 (China)

2017-02-15

Graphical abstract: Environmentally benign deep eutectic solvents (DESs) based on betaine or L-carnitine with ethylene glycol were designed with a function and used to efficiently capture SO{sub 2} with low partial pressures. - Highlights: • Deep eutectic solvents (DESs) were designed with a function to absorb low-conc. SO{sub 2}. • Betaine(Bet) and L-carnitine(L-car) with a functional group were used as H-bond acceptor. • Bet + ethylene glycol (EG) DES and L-car + EG DES are environmentally benign. • L-car + EG DES can absorb 0.644 mol SO{sub 2} per mole L-car (0.37% SO{sub 2}). • L-car + EG DES is a promising absorbent for SO{sub 2} capture. - Abstract: Sulfur dioxide (SO{sub 2}) emitted from the burning of fossil fuels is one of the main air contaminants. In this work, we found that environmentally benign solvents, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) could be designed with a function to absorb low-partial pressure SO{sub 2} from simulated flue gas. Two kinds of biodegradable functional DESs based on betaine (Bet) and L-carnitine (L-car) as hydrogen bond accepters (HBA) and ethylene glycol (EG) as a hydrogen bond donor (HBD) were prepared with mole ratios of HBA to HBD from 1:3 to 1:5, and they were investigated to absorb SO{sub 2} with different partial pressures at various temperatures. The results showed that the two DESs could absorb low-partial pressure SO{sub 2} efficiently. SO{sub 2} absorption capacities of the DESs with HBA/HBD mole ratio of 1:3 were 0.332 mol SO{sub 2}/mol HBA for Bet + EG DES and 0.820 mol SO{sub 2}/mol HBA for L-car + EG DES at 40 °C with a SO{sub 2} partial pressure of 0.02 atm. In addition, the regeneration experiments demonstrated that the absorption capacities of DESs did not change after five absorption and desorption cycles. Furthermore, the absorption mechanism of SO{sub 2} by DESs was studied by FT-IR, {sup 1}H NMR and {sup 13}C NMR spectra. It was found that there are strong acid–base interactions between SO{sub 2} and

Genetic and environmental influences underlying the relationship between autistic traits and temperament and character dimensions in adulthood.

Science.gov (United States)

Picardi, Angelo; Fagnani, Corrado; Medda, Emanuela; Toccaceli, Virgilia; Brambilla, Paolo; Stazi, Maria Antonietta

2015-04-01

In recent years, several twin studies adopted a dimensional approach to Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and estimated the contribution of genetic and environmental influences to variation in autistic traits. However, no study was performed on adults over 18 years of age and all but two studies were based on parent or teacher ratings. Also, the genetic and environmental contributions to the interplay between autistic traits and adult personality dimensions have not been investigated. A sample of 266 complete twin pairs (30% males, mean age 40 ± 12 years) drawn from the population-based Italian Twin Register was administered the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-125), and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Genetic structural equation modelling was performed with the Mx program. Estimates were adjusted for gender, age, and GHQ-12 score. Genetic factors accounted for 44% and 20%-49% of individual differences in autistic traits and TCI dimensions, respectively. Unshared environmental factors explained the remaining proportion of variance. Consistently with the notion of a personality profile in ASD characterised by obsessive temperament, autistic traits showed significant phenotypic correlations with several TCI dimensions (positive: HA; negative: NS, RD, SD, C). Genetic and unshared environmental correlations between AQ and these TCI dimensions were significant. The degree of genetic overlap was generally greater than the degree of environmental overlap. Despite some limitations, this study suggests that genetic factors contribute substantially to individual differences in autistic traits in adults, with unshared environmental influences also playing an important role. It also suggests that autistic traits and the majority of temperament and character dimensions share common genetic and environmental aetiological factors. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An efficient method for synthesis of bis(indolylmethane and di-bis(indolylmethane derivatives in environmentally benign conditions using TBAHS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seyed Hossein Siyadatifard

2016-05-01

Full Text Available An efficient procedure for the synthesis of bisindolylmethanes (BIMs from condensation of indole and aromatic aldehydes or ketones is described. The aromatic electrophilic substitution reactions of indole with aromatic aldehydes and ketones are achieved in the presence of tetrabutylammonium hydrogen sulfate (TBAHS as a mild and efficient solid acid catalyst. This methodology offers several advantages such as good yields, simple procedure, mild and environmentally benign conditions.

Leadership, character and its development: A qualitative exploration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Roslyn de Braine

2007-11-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to explore (1 what organisational leaders consider to be character elements of leaders within the workplace, (2 what influences leaders’ character development, and (3 how an organisation can continue the process of character development. The literature review and findings revealed that leadership, integrity, industriousness, empathy, loyalty, optimism, fairness and compassion are the most sought after character elements within leaders in the workplace. Leadership and integrity were found to be the most supported character elements. The findings also indicate that work environmental factors, a person’s own efforts, and the daily experiences of work life contribute towards character development.

Environmentally benign synthesis of sydnone containing 1,3,4 ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

TECS

lop benign synthetic methods for sydnone deriva- tives,. 9 we report here a new series of sydnone containing 1,3,4-thiadiazines by microwave irradia- tion under solvent-free conditions. 2. Experimental. 2.1 General remarks. Melting points were determined by open capillary method and are uncorrected. All compounds were.

The study of mucin histochemistry in benign and malignant lesions of prostate

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Durgaprasad N Agrawal

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: To evaluate the usefulness of mucin stains in differentiating benign and malignant lesions of prostate. Materials and Methods: Sections were obtained from archival paraffin blocks which included randomly selected 70 cases of benign hyperplasia and 30 cases of carcinoma prostate. After confirming the diagnosis, sections were stained for Periodic Acid Schiff (PAS to study neutral mucins, Alcian blue (2.5 pH to study acidic mucins and combined Alcian blue - PAS to study the mucin character. Results: Benign hyperplasia of prostate showed positivity for neutral mucins (98.57% but not for acidic mucins, whereas prostatic carcinomas showed positivity for acidic mucins (46.66% in addition to the positivity for neutral mucins (56.66%. All the cases of low grade prostatic carcinomas showed positivity for acidic mucins but none of the high grade carcinomas showed positivity for the same. Conclusion: Positivity for acidic mucins with Alcian Blue (2.5 pH technique can be used to differentiate well differentiated adenocarcinomas of prostate from benign hyperplasia especially in those cases where prostatic lesion is a questionable malignancy either because it is so well differentiated histologically or have altered architecture so as to make it cytologically un diagnosable (P = 0.001.

Benign positional vertigo

Science.gov (United States)

Vertigo - positional; Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo; BPPV: dizziness- positional ... Benign positional vertigo is also called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). It is caused by a problem in the inner ear. ...

Synthesis and characterization of environmentally benign calcium-doped Pr2Mo2O9 pigments: Applications in coloring of plastics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

George, Giable; Sandhya Kumari, L.; Vishnu, V.S.; Ananthakumar, S.; Reddy, M.L.P.

2008-01-01

A new class of environmentally benign rare earth pigments of general formula Pr 2-x Ca x Mo 2 O 9-δ (x ranges from 0 to 1.0) displaying colors ranging from green to yellow were synthesized by traditional solid-state route, as alternatives to lead, cadmium and chromium colorants. The products were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, UV-vis spectroscopy and CIE-L*a*b* 1976 color scales. The coloring mechanism is based on the strong absorptions of the pigments in the blue and red regions due to electronic transitions between 4f 2 →4f 1 5d 1 states of Pr 3+ . The designed pigments consist of non-toxic elements and further found to be thermally and chemically stable. The yellow-green pigments were found to be interesting alternatives to existing toxic pigments for coloration of plastics. - Graphical abstract: A new class of environmentally benign rare earth pigments of general formula Pr 2-x Ca x Mo 2 O 9-δ (x ranges from 0 to 1.0) displaying colors ranging from green to yellow were synthesized by traditional solid-state route, as alternatives to lead, cadmium and chromium colorants. The yellow-green pigments were found to be interesting alternatives to existing toxic pigments for coloration of plastics. Display Omitted

Future directions for environmental policy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

O' Riordan, T

1984-01-01

Environmentalism is an elusive concept with many meanings. Its changing character is examined together with an analysis of how it is likely to influence public policy across a broad front. The paper also reviews the major environmental issues which QECD countries are likely to face nationally, regionally and globally over the next twenty years and discusses the type of politics that may emerge within the new environmentalism. The overriding global issue will be the tragic interconnection between poverty and environmental damage in the underdeveloped countries. In the developed but de-industrialising economies of the 'north' greatest attention will be placed on devising means for creating jobs and providing satisfying occupations for people forced out of a job or never in employment. Environmental rehabilitation can create jobs, but it will involve the denial of resources otherwise available to create jobs elsewhere. It will therefore be necessary to consider the 'next job effectiveness' of environmental policies. Another policy area that requires new thinking is the management of environmental hazards, notably how to dispose of toxic wastes in a manner acceptable to a majority of people. Finally serious efforts will have to be made, not only to infuse environmental principles within all policy arenas, but also to ensure that departmental responsibilities and budgets are properly linked. The principle that those who exploit environmental resources should subsidise those who use environmental resources frugally and benignly by means of transfer taxes and payments should also become established. (orig.).

Design of an Extractive Distillation Column for the Environmentally Benign Separation of Zirconium and Hafnium Tetrachloride for Nuclear Power Reactor Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Le Quang Minh

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Nuclear power with strengthened safety regulations continues to be used as an important resource in the world for managing atmospheric greenhouse gases and associated climate change. This study examined the environmentally benign separation of zirconium tetrachloride (ZrCl4 and hafnium tetrachloride (HfCl4 for nuclear power reactor applications through extractive distillation using a NaCl-KCl molten salt mixture. The vapor–liquid equilibrium behavior of ZrCl4 and HfCl4 over the molten salt system was correlated with Raoult’s law. The molten salt-based extractive distillation column was designed optimally using a rigorous commercial simulator for the feasible separation of ZrCl4 and HfCl4. The molten salt-based extractive distillation approach has many potential advantages for the commercial separation of ZrCl4 and HfCl4 compared to the conventional distillation because of its milder temperatures and pressure conditions, smaller number of required separation trays in the column, and lower energy requirement for separation, while still taking the advantage of environmentally benign feature by distillation. A heat-pump-assisted configuration was also explored to improve the energy efficiency of the extractive distillation process. The proposed enhanced configuration reduced the energy requirement drastically. Extractive distillation can be a promising option competing with the existing extraction-based separation process for zirconium purification for nuclear power reactor applications.

High fidelity nuclear energy system optimization towards an environmentally benign, sustainable, and secure energy source

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tsvetkov, Pavel Valeryevich; Rodriguez, Salvador B.; Ames, David E. II; Rochau, Gary Eugene

2009-01-01

The impact associated with energy generation and utilization is immeasurable due to the immense, widespread, and myriad effects it has on the world and its inhabitants. The polar extremes are demonstrated on the one hand, by the high quality of life enjoyed by individuals with access to abundant reliable energy sources, and on the other hand by the global-scale environmental degradation attributed to the affects of energy production and use. Thus, nations strive to increase their energy generation, but are faced with the challenge of doing so with a minimal impact on the environment and in a manner that is self-reliant. Consequently, a revival of interest in nuclear energy has followed, with much focus placed on technologies for transmuting nuclear spent fuel. The performed research investigates nuclear energy systems that optimize the destruction of nuclear waste. In the context of this effort, nuclear energy system is defined as a configuration of nuclear reactors and corresponding fuel cycle components. The proposed system has unique characteristics that set it apart from other systems. Most notably the dedicated High-Energy External Source Transmuter (HEST), which is envisioned as an advanced incinerator used in combination with thermal reactors. The system is configured for examining environmentally benign fuel cycle options by focusing on minimization or elimination of high level waste inventories. Detailed high-fidelity exact-geometry models were developed for representative reactor configurations. They were used in preliminary calculations with Monte Carlo N-Particle eXtented (MCNPX) and Standardized Computer Analysis for Licensing Evaluation (SCALE) code systems. The reactor models have been benchmarked against existing experimental data and design data. Simulink(reg s ign), an extension of MATLAB(reg s ign), is envisioned as the interface environment for constructing the nuclear energy system model by linking the individual reactor and fuel component sub

Prevalence and heritability of psoriasis and benign migratory glossitis in one Brazilian population*

Science.gov (United States)

Jorge, Maria Augusta; Gonzaga, Heron Fernando de Sousa; Tomimori, Jane; Picciani, Bruna Lavinas Sayed; Barbosa, Calógeras Antônio

2017-01-01

Background An oral condition associated to psoriasis is benign migratory glossitis. The review of the literature does not show any publication about heritability in both soriasis and benign migratory glossitis and prevalence of psoriasis in the Brazilian population. Objective This research was carried out in order to determine the prevalence of psoriasis and benign migratory glossitis in the Brazilian population from a Brazilian sample, as well as the heritability in these conditions. Methods Six thousand patients were studied from the records of the outpatient dermatology department. The sample had 129 patients with cutaneous psoriasis, 399 with benign migratory glossitis without psoriasis and a control group with 5,472 patients. After data collection, the statistical analysis was made using Woolf, Chi-square and Falconer tests. Results The prevalence of psoriasis was 2.15% and the benign migratory glossitis was 7.0%. The prevalence of benign migratory glossitis in the psoriasis group was high (16.3%), and that was statistically significant. Family history in the psoriasis group was 38% for the condition itself and 2,75% for benign migratory glossitis and in the benign migratory glossitis group was 17.54% for the condition itself and 1.5% for psoriasis. The study of heritability was 38.8% for psoriasis and 36.6% for benign migratory glossitis, both with medium heritability. Study limitations This study was only in the state of São Paulo. Conclusion This is the first publication that quantifies how much of these conditions have a genetic background and how important the environmental factors are in triggering them. PMID:29364438

Microbial Character Related Sulfur Cycle under Dynamic Environmental Factors Based on the Microbial Population Analysis in Sewerage System.

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Qian; Shi, Hanchang; Liu, Yanchen

2017-01-01

The undesired sulfur cycle derived by microbial population can ultimately causes the serious problems of sewerage systems. However, the microbial community characters under dynamic environment factors in actual sewerage system is still not enough. This current study aimed to character the distributions and compositions of microbial communities that participate in the sulfur cycle under the dynamic environmental conditions in a local sewerage system. To accomplish this, microbial community compositions were assessed using 454 high-throughput sequencing (16S rDNA) combined with dsrB gene-based denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis. The results indicated that a higher diversity of microbial species was present at locations in sewers with high concentrations of H 2 S. Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria were dominant in the sewerage system, while Actinobacteria alone were dominant in regions with high concentrations of H 2 S. Specifically, the unique operational taxonomic units could aid to characterize the distinct microbial communities within a sewerage manhole. The proportion of sulfate-reducing bacteria, each sulfur-oxidizing bacteria (SOB) were strongly correlated with the liquid parameters (DO, ORP, COD, Sulfide, NH 3 -N), while the Mycobacterium and Acidophilic SOB (M&A) was strongly correlated with gaseous factors within the sewer, such as H 2 S, CH 4 , and CO. Identifying the distributions and proportions of critical microbial communities within sewerage systems could provide insights into how the microbial sulfur cycle is affected by the dynamic environmental conditions that exist in sewers and might be useful for explaining the potential sewerage problems.

Design of environmentally benign processes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hostrup, Martin; Harper, Peter Mathias; Gani, Rafiqul

1999-01-01

because of environmental constraints are particularly suited for solution with the hybrid method. Application of the hybrid method is highlighted through two illustrative examples. The first example involves the determination of an optimal flowsheet for the removal of a chemical species from an azeotropic...

On the Way to Improve the Environmental Benignity of Chemical Processes: Novel Catalysts for a Polymerization Process

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvana F. Rach

2009-03-01

Full Text Available An example for a process that can, in principle, be improved by the application of a catalyst is the synthesis of poly(2-methyl-propenes (“polyisobutenes”, which are important for numerous industrial applications. Each year several 100,000 t are produced. The production of low-molecular weight polyisobutenes by means of cationic initiation by an excess of Lewis acids is well established. Typically, these initiators require the usage of solvents like chloroform, dichloromethane and ethylene and temperatures far below 0 °C (–100 °C in the case of ethylene as solvent. Solvent stabilized transition metal complexes with weakly coordinating counter anions overcome these drawbacks and thus are not only more efficient, but also more environmentally benign: they can be applied at ambient temperature and in non chlorinated solvents at low concentrations.

Family History of Cancer in Benign Brain Tumor Subtypes Versus Gliomas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ostrom, Quinn T. [Department of Anthropology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (United States); McCulloh, Christopher [Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH (United States); Chen, Yanwen; Devine, Karen; Wolinsky, Yingli, E-mail: qto@case.edu [Case Comprehensive Cancer Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH (United States)

2012-02-28

Purpose: Family history is associated with gliomas, but this association has not been established for benign brain tumors. Using information from newly diagnosed primary brain tumor patients, we describe patterns of family cancer histories in patients with benign brain tumors and compare those to patients with gliomas. Methods: Newly diagnosed primary brain tumor patients were identified as part of the Ohio Brain Tumor Study. Each patient was asked to participate in a telephone interview about personal medical history, family history of cancer, and other exposures. Information was available from 33 acoustic neuroma (65%), 78 meningioma (65%), 49 pituitary adenoma (73.1%), and 152 glioma patients (58.2%). The association between family history of cancer and each subtype was compared with gliomas using unconditional logistic regression models generating odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals. Results: There was no significant difference in family history of cancer between patients with glioma and benign subtypes. Conclusion: The results suggest that benign brain tumor may have an association with family history of cancer. More studies are warranted to disentangle the potential genetic and/or environmental causes for these diseases.

Family History of Cancer in Benign Brain Tumor Subtypes Versus Gliomas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ostrom, Quinn T.; McCulloh, Christopher; Chen, Yanwen; Devine, Karen; Wolinsky, Yingli

2012-01-01

Purpose: Family history is associated with gliomas, but this association has not been established for benign brain tumors. Using information from newly diagnosed primary brain tumor patients, we describe patterns of family cancer histories in patients with benign brain tumors and compare those to patients with gliomas. Methods: Newly diagnosed primary brain tumor patients were identified as part of the Ohio Brain Tumor Study. Each patient was asked to participate in a telephone interview about personal medical history, family history of cancer, and other exposures. Information was available from 33 acoustic neuroma (65%), 78 meningioma (65%), 49 pituitary adenoma (73.1%), and 152 glioma patients (58.2%). The association between family history of cancer and each subtype was compared with gliomas using unconditional logistic regression models generating odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals. Results: There was no significant difference in family history of cancer between patients with glioma and benign subtypes. Conclusion: The results suggest that benign brain tumor may have an association with family history of cancer. More studies are warranted to disentangle the potential genetic and/or environmental causes for these diseases.

Family history of cancer in benign brain tumor subtypes versus gliomas

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Quinn eOstrom

2012-02-01

Full Text Available Purpose: Family history is associated with gliomas, but this association has not ben established for benign brain tumors. Using information from newly diagnosed primary brain tumor patients, we describe patterns of family cancer histories in patients with benign brain tumors and compare those to patients with gliomas. Methods: Newly diagnosed primary brain tumor patients were identified as part of the Ohio Brain Tumor Study (OBTS. Each patient was asked to participate in a telephone interview about personal medical history, family history of cancer, and other exposures. Information was available from 33 acoustic neuroma (65%, 78 meningioma (65%, 49 pituitary adenoma (73.1% and 152 glioma patients (58.2%. The association between family history of cancer and each subtype was compared with gliomas using unconditional logistic regression models generating odds ratios (ORs and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI. Results: There was no significant difference in family history of cancer between patients with glioma and benign subtypes. Conclusions: The results suggest that benign brain tumor may have an association with family history of cancer. More studies are warranted to disentangle the potential genetic and/or environmental causes for these diseases.

Characters with personality!

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bosch, K. van den; Brandenburgh, A.; Muller, T.J.; Heuvelink, A.

2012-01-01

Serious games offer an opportunity for learning communication skills by practicing conversations with one or more virtual characters, provided that the character(s) behave in accordance with their assigned properties and strate-gies. This paper presents an approach for developing virtual characters

Temperament and character in the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (CATSS: comparison to the general population, and genetic structure analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danilo Garcia

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: The Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (CATSS is an on-going, large population-based longitudinal twin study. We aimed (1 to investigate the reliability of two different versions (125-items and 238-items of Cloninger's Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI used in the CATSS and the validity of extracting the short version from the long version, (2 to compare these personality dimensions between twins and adolescents from the general population, and (3 to investigate the genetic structure of Cloninger's model. METHOD: Reliability and correlation analyses were conducted for both TCI versions, 2,714 CATSS-twins were compared to 631 adolescents from the general population, and the genetic structure was investigated through univariate genetic analyses, using a model-fitting approach with structural equation-modeling techniques based on same-sex twin pairs from the CATSS (423 monozygotic and 408 dizygotic pairs. RESULTS: The TCI scores from the short and long versions showed comparable reliability coefficients and were strongly correlated. Twins scored about half a standard deviation higher in the character scales. Three of the four temperament dimensions (Novelty Seeking, Harm Avoidance, and Persistence had strong genetic and non-shared environmental effects, while Reward Dependence and the three character dimensions had moderate genetic effects, and both shared and non-shared environmental effects. CONCLUSIONS: Twins showed higher scores in character dimensions compared to adolescents from the general population. At least among adolescents there is a shared environmental influence for all of the character dimensions, but only for one of the temperament dimensions (i.e., Reward Dependence. This specific finding regarding the existence of shared environmental factors behind the character dimensions in adolescence, together with earlier findings showing a small shared environmental effects on character among young adults and no

Benign mixed tumor of the lacrimal sac

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jong-Suk Lee

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Neoplasms of the lacrimal drainage system are uncommon, but potentially life-threatening and are often difficult to diagnose. Among primary lacrimal sac tumors, benign mixed tumors are extremely rare. Histologically, benign mixed tumors have been classified as a type of benign epithelial tumor. Here we report a case of benign mixed tumor of the lacrimal sac.

Computer assisted diagnosis of benign bone tumours

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Samardziski, M.; Zafiroski, G.; Janevska, V.; Miladinova, D.; Popeska, Z.

2004-01-01

Background. The aim of this study is to determine the correlation between computer-assisted diagnosis (CAD) of benign bone tumours (BBT) and their histological type. Patients and method. Altogether 120 patients were included in two groups. The retrospective group comprised 68 patients in whom the histological type of BBT was known prior to computer analysis. The prospective group comprised 52 patients in whom the histological type of BBT was unknown prior to computer analysis. Computer program was efficient and easy to use. Results. Average percent of histological type confirmed with CAD in the retrospective and prospective groups was 72.06% and 76.92%, respectively. Histological confirmation of CAD in specific BBT was 91.42% for enchondroma, 96.15% for osteoid-osteoma, and 98.08% for osteochondroma. Significantly lower percentage of CAD confirmation of fibroma, chondromixoid fibroma, osteoclastoma, desmoplastic fibroma and osteobalstoma due to their adverse biological character or complex anatomic localization is understandable. Conclusions. The results speak in favour of the assumption that computer assisted diagnosis of bone tumours program may improve the diagnostic accuracy of the examiner. (author)

Differential evolution of asexual and sexual females in a benign culture environment

Science.gov (United States)

Snell, Terry W.

2013-01-01

Here we report one of the first investigations of evolvability of lifespan and reproduction in metazoans, examining both extrinsic and intrinsic factors. We tested effects on senescence of an environmental variable (simulated lake hydroperiod, the length of time an aquatic habitat is inundated), female reproductive physiology (asexual females that reproduce by ameiosis, versus sexual females reproducing by meiosis), and time in a benign culture environment (minimal, if any, external mortality factors). To do this we established chemostat cultures of the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis s.s., and maintained the cultures for 385 d. Hydroperiod alone or in interaction with the effects of time in the benign environment (season) or reproductive physiology had no significant effect on the net reproductive rate, generation time, or rate of aging. Yet combining animals from both ephemeral and permanent hydroperiods revealed a 26% increase in asexual female lifespan across seasons (23% decrease in the rate of aging) and a 56% increase in asexual fecundity, suggesting that maintenance in benign laboratory conditions leads to slower aging. The relative stasis of traits for sexual females implies an impact of reproductive physiology on evolvability. In addition we found a positive correlation between fecundity and lifespan, suggesting an absence of trade-offs in life history traits in the benign laboratory environment. PMID:24795527

Benign bone tumors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gilday, D.L.; Ash, J.M.

1976-01-01

There is little information in the literature concerning the role of bone scanning in benign bone neoplasms except for sporadic reports. Since the advent of /sup 99m/Tc-polyphosphate, bone imaging has proven feasible and useful in locating the cause of bone pain, such as in osteoid osteomas, which are not always radiologically apparent, and in evaluating whether or not a radiologic lesion is indeed benign and solitary. Blood-pool images are particularly important in neoplastic disease, since the absence of hyperemia in the immediate postinjection period favors the diagnosis of a benign neoplasm, as does low-grade uptake on the delayed study. The scan, including pinhole magnification images, is especially valuable in diagnosing lesions in the spine and pelvis, which are poorly seen radiologically. We have studied various types of benign bone tumors, including simple and aneurysmal bone cysts, fibrous cortical defects, and nonossifying fibromas, all of which had minimal or no increased uptake of the radiopharmaceutical, unless traumatized. Although osteochondromas and enchondromas showed varied accumulation of activity, the scan was useful in differentiating these from sarcomatous lesions. All osteoid osteomas demonstrated marked activity, and could be accurately located preoperatively, as could the extent of fibrous dysplasia. The bone scan in the reticuloses also showed abnormal accumulation of activity, and aided in arriving at the prognosis and treatment of histiocytic bone lesions

Benign fibrous histiocytoma of the lumbar vertebrae

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Demiralp, Bahtiyar; Oguz, Erbil; Sehirlioglu, Ali; Kose, Ozkan; Sanal, Tuba; Ozcan, Ayhan

2009-01-01

Benign fibrous histiocytoma is an extremely rare spinal tumor with ten reported cases in the literature. Benign fibrous histiocytoma constitutes a diagnostic challenge because it shares common clinical symptoms, radiological characteristics, and histological features with other benign lesions involving the spine. We present a case of benign fibrous histiocytoma of the lumbar spine and discuss its differential diagnosis and management. (orig.)

The differentiation of the character of solid lesions in the breast in the compression sonoelastography. Part II: Diagnostic value of BIRADS-US classification, Tsukuba score and FLR ratio.

Science.gov (United States)

Dobruch-Sobczak, Katarzyna

2013-03-01

Sonoelastography is a dynamically developing method of ultrasound examination used to differentiate the character of focal lesions in the breasts. The aim of the Part II of the study is to determine the usefulness of sonoelastography in the differentiation diagnosis of focal breast lesions including the evaluation of the diagnostic value of Tsukuba score and FLR ratio in characterizing solid lesions in the breasts. Furthermore, the paper provides a comparison of classic B-mode imaging and sonoelastography. From January to July 2010 in the Ultrasound Department of the Cancer Centre, The Institute of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, 375 breast ultrasound examinations were conducted. The examined group included patients who in B-mode examinations presented indications for pathological verification. They were 80 women aged between 17 and 83 (mean age was 50) with 99 solid focal lesions in the breasts. All patients underwent: the interview, physical examination, B-mode ultrasound examination and elastography of the mammary glands and axillary fossae. The visualized lesions were evaluated according to BIRADS-US classification and Tsukuba score as well as FLR ratio was calculated. In all cases, the histopathological and/or cytological verification of the tested lesions was obtained. In the group of 80 patients, the examination revealed 39 malignant neoplastic lesions and 60 benign ones. The mean age of women with malignant neoplasms was 55.07 (SD = 10.54), and with benign lesions - 46.9 (SD = 15.47). In order to identify threshold values that distinguish benign lesions from malignant ones, a comparative analysis of statistical models based on BIRADS-US classification and Tsukuba score was conducted and the cut-off value for FLR was assumed. The sensitivity and specificity values for BIRADS-US 4/5 were 76.92% and 96.67% and for Tsukuba 3/4 - 64.1% and 98.33% respectively. The assumed FLR threshold value to differentiate between benign and malignant lesions in the breasts equaled 3

Benign core biopsy of probably benign breast lesions 2 cm or larger: correlation with excisional biopsy and long-term follow-up

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jung, Hyun Kyung; Moon, Hee Jung; Kim, Min Jung; Kim, Eun Kyung

2014-01-01

To evaluate the accuracy of benign core biopsy of probably benign breast lesions (category 3) 2 cm or larger on the basis of excisional biopsy and long-term follow-up. We retrospectively reviewed 146 category 3 lesions in 146 patients 2 cm or larger which were diagnosed as benign by ultrasound (US)-guided core biopsy. Patients were initially diagnosed as benign at core needle biopsy and then followed up with excisional biopsy (surgical excision, n=91; US-guided vacuum assisted excision, n=35) or breast ultrasonography (n=20). Of the 126 patients who underwent surgical excision or US-guided vacuum-assisted excision, 114 patients were diagnosed with benign lesions, 10 patients with borderline lesions (benign phyllodes tumor), and two patients with malignant phyllodes tumors. The probabilities of lesions being benign, borderline and malignant were 91.8% (134/146), 6.8% (10/146), and 1.4% (2/146), respectively. Of 13 patients who had growing masses on follow-up ultrasonography, three (23.1%) were non-benign (two benign phyllodes tumors and one malignant phyllodes tumor). US-guided core needle biopsy of probably benign breast mass 2 cm or larger was accurate (98.6%) enough to rule out malignancy. But, it was difficult to rule out borderline lesions even when they were diagnosed as benign.

Radical pancreaticoduodenectomy for benign disease.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Kavanagh, D O

2008-01-01

Whipple\\'s procedure is the treatment of choice for pancreatic and periampullary malignancies. Preoperative histological confirmation of malignancy is frequently unavailable and some patients will subsequently be found to have benign disease. Here, we review our experience with Whipple\\'s procedure for patients ultimately proven to have benign disease. The medical records of all patients who underwent Whipple\\'s procedure during a 15-year period (1987-2002) were reviewed; 112 patients underwent the procedure for suspected malignancy. In eight cases, the final histology was benign (7.1%). One additional patient was known to have benign disease at resection. The mean age was 50 years (range: 30-75). The major presenting features included jaundice (five), pain (two), gastric outlet obstruction (one), and recurrent gastrointestinal haemorrhage (one). Investigations included ultrasound (eight), computerised tomography (eight), endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (seven; of these, four patients had a stent inserted and three patients had sampling for cytology), and endoscopic ultrasound (two). The pathological diagnosis included benign biliary stricture (two), chronic pancreatitis (two), choledochal cyst (one), inflammatory pseudotumour (one), cystic duodenal wall dysplasia (one), duodenal angiodysplasia (one), and granular cell neoplasm (one). There was no operative mortality. Morbidity included intra-abdominal collection (one), anastomotic leak (one), liver abscess (one), and myocardial infarction (one). All patients remain alive and well at mean follow-up of 41 months. Despite recent advances in diagnostic imaging, 8% of the patients undergoing Whipple\\'s procedure had benign disease. A range of unusual pathological entities can mimic malignancy. Accurate preoperative histological diagnosis may have allowed a less radical operation to be performed. Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspirate (EUS-FNA) may reduce the need for Whipple\\'s operation

Radical Pancreaticoduodenectomy for Benign Disease

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. O. Kavanagh

2008-01-01

Full Text Available Whipple's procedure is the treatment of choice for pancreatic and periampullary malignancies. Preoperative histological confirmation of malignancy is frequently unavailable and some patients will subsequently be found to have benign disease. Here, we review our experience with Whipple's procedure for patients ultimately proven to have benign disease. The medical records of all patients who underwent Whipple's procedure during a 15-year period (1987–2002 were reviewed; 112 patients underwent the procedure for suspected malignancy. In eight cases, the final histology was benign (7.1%. One additional patient was known to have benign disease at resection. The mean age was 50 years (range: 30–75. The major presenting features included jaundice (five, pain (two, gastric outlet obstruction (one, and recurrent gastrointestinal haemorrhage (one. Investigations included ultrasound (eight, computerised tomography (eight, endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (seven; of these, four patients had a stent inserted and three patients had sampling for cytology, and endoscopic ultrasound (two. The pathological diagnosis included benign biliary stricture (two, chronic pancreatitis (two, choledochal cyst (one, inflammatory pseudotumour (one, cystic duodenal wall dysplasia (one, duodenal angiodysplasia (one, and granular cell neoplasm (one. There was no operative mortality. Morbidity included intra-abdominal collection (one, anastomotic leak (one, liver abscess (one, and myocardial infarction (one. All patients remain alive and well at mean follow-up of 41 months. Despite recent advances in diagnostic imaging, 8% of the patients undergoing Whipple'’s procedure had benign disease. A range of unusual pathological entities can mimic malignancy. Accurate preoperative histological diagnosis may have allowed a less radical operation to be performed. Endoscopic ultrasound–guided fine needle aspirate (EUS-FNA may reduce the need for Whipple's operation in

Character animation fundamentals developing skills for 2D and 3D character animation

CERN Document Server

Roberts, Steve

2012-01-01

Expand your animation toolkit and remain competitive in the industry with this leading resource for 2D and 3D character animation techniques. Apply the industry's best practices to your own workflows and develop 2D, 3D and hybrid characters with ease. With side by side comparisons of 2D and 3D character design, improve your character animation and master traditional principles and processes including weight and balance, timing and walks. Develop characters inspired by humans, birds, fish, snakes and four legged animals. Breathe life into your character and develop a characters personality w

Comparative study for environmental assessment by program characters

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Suk Chul; Lee, Young Soo; Park, Young Min; Park, Suk Soon; Chung, Kyung Tae; Cho, Hong Yun; Chae, Jang Won; Lee, Sang Don; Lee, Chan Ho; Choi, Joon Kyu; Kim, Kang Joo; Chung, Won Moo; Jin, Jae Yool [Korea Environment Institute, Seoul (Korea)

1998-12-01

The level of environmental assessment in Korea was diagnosed by examining the situation of its model for the entire environmental assessment implemented. Also, it proposed an improvement scheme for its problems to be able to advance. It is expected to be utilized as developing optimum model for Korea and establishing a systematic and concrete guideline for environmental assessment modeling. 244 refs., 65 figs., 28 tabs.

Specific features of cytological and colposcopical pattern in pregnant women with benign cervix uteri pathology in anamnesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Bysaha, Nataliya Yu

2016-01-01

a tendency of increasing incidence of the cervix uteri precancer and cancer in women of reproductive age is noticed recently being related to the growth of number of the sexually-transmitted infections. The cervix uteri pathology incidence in women of fertile age is 20-25%. to study the specific features of the cytological and colposcopical pattern in pregnant patients with benign cervix uteri pathology in the anamnesis and the character of its change post partum. we have examined 195 women during their pregnancy and 3-5 months post partum. All pregnant women, alongside with generally accepted clinical and laboratory examinations, were subjected to the simple and extended colposcopy, cytology of the targeted smears and, according to indications, the histological studies of bioptate. according to the results of the colcoscopical studies and the signs of the cervix uteri pathology found, the patients were divided into several groups. A control group included 49 pregnant women. The clinical and instrumental examination of 146 women with cervix uteri pathology has been carried out both during pregnancy and post partum. the structure of the clinical forms of benign and premalignant changes in the cervix uteri epithelium in pregnant patients has been found. Specific features of the cytological and colposcopical pattern in pregnant patients with benign cervix uteri pathology in anamnesis have been studied. The relationship between the parity of pregnancy, delivery, route of delivery and regress of both benign and premalignant changes in the cervix uteri epithelium 3-5 months post partum has been determined.

Osteoblastomatosis of bone. A benign, multifocal osteoblastic lesion, distinct from osteoid osteoma and osteoblastoma, radiologically simulating a vascular tumor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kyriakos, Michael; El-Khoury, Georges Y.; McDonald, Douglas J.; Buckwalter, Joseph A.; Sundaram, Murali; DeYoung, Barry; O'Brien, Michael P.

2007-01-01

Two adult patients are described with multifocal osteolytic lesions radiologically simulating a vascular tumor. One patient had multiple bones involved. Histologically, the individual lesions had the features of the nidus of osteoid osteoma/osteoblastoma. A review of the English language medical literature yielded only one other reported case with similar features. The process is designated as osteoblastomatosis to indicate its bone-forming character, prominent osteoblast proliferation, and multiplicity. The cases are distinguished from multifocal/multicentric osteoid osteoma and osteoblastoma, and from benign and malignant vascular tumors. (orig.)

[The cause and efficacy of benign tracheal stenosis].

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Zhu-quan; Wei, Xiao-qun; Zhong, Chang-hao; Chen, Xiao-bo; Luo, Wei-zhan; Guo, Wen-liang; Wang, Ying-zhi; Li, Shi-yue

2013-09-01

To analysis the causes of benign tracheal stenosis and evaluate the curative effect of intraluminal bronchoscopic treatment. 158 patients with benign tracheal stenosis in our hospital from September 2005 to September 2012 were collected to retrospectively analysis the causes and clinic features of tracheal stenosis. Interventional treatments through bronchoscopy were used to treat the benign tracheal stenosis and the curative effects were evaluated. 158 cases of benign tracheal stenosis were recruited to our study, 69.6% of them were young and middle-aged. The main causes of benign tracheal stenosis were as follows: secondary to postintubation or tracheotomy in 61.4% (97/158), tuberculosis in 16% (26/158), benign tumor in 5.1% (8/158) and other 27 cases. 94.3% patients improved in symptoms with alleviation immediately after bronchoscopic treatment, the average tracheal diameter increased form (4.22 ± 2.06) mm to (10.16 ± 2.99) mm (t = 21.48, P benign tracheal stenosis were increasing year by year. The most common cause of benign tracheal stenosis was postintubation and tracheotomy. Interventional treatments through bronchoscopy is effective in treating benign tracheal stenosis, but repeated interventional procedures may be required to maintain the favorable long-term effects.

Benign gastric filling defect

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Oh, K K; Lee, Y H; Cho, O K; Park, C Y [Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

1979-06-15

The gastric lesion is a common source of complaints to Orientals, however, evaluation of gastric symptoms and laboratory examination offer little specific aid in the diagnosis of gastric diseases. Thus roentgenography of gastrointestinal tract is one of the most reliable method for detail diagnosis. On double contract study of stomach, gastric filling defect is mostly caused by malignant gastric cancer, however, other benign lesions can cause similar pictures which can be successfully treated by surgery. 66 cases of benign causes of gastric filling defect were analyzed at this point of view, which was verified pathologically by endoscope or surgery during recent 7 years in Yensei University College of Medicine, Severance Hospital. The characteristic radiological picture of each disease was discussed for precise radiologic diagnosis. 1. Of total 66 cases, there were 52 cases of benign gastric tumor 10 cases of gastric varices, 5 cases of gastric bezoar, 5 cases of corrosive gastritis, 3 cases of granulomatous disease and one case of gastric hematoma. 2. The most frequent causes of benign tumors were adenomatous polyp (35/42) and the next was leiomyoma (4/42). Others were one of case of carcinoid, neurofibroma and cyst. 3. Characteristic of benign adenomatous polyp were relatively small in size, smooth surface and were observed that large size, benign polyp was frequently type IV lesion with a stalk. 4. Submucosal tumors such as leiomyoma needed differential diagnosis with polypoid malignant cancer. However, the characteristic points of differentiation was well circumscribed smooth margined filling defect without definite mucosal destruction on surface. 5. Gastric varices showed multiple lobulated filling defected especially on gastric fundus that changed its size and shape by respiration and posture of patients. Same varices lesions on esophagus and history of liver disease were helpful for easier diagnosis. 6. Gastric bezoar showed well defined movable mass

Benign gastric filling defect

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oh, K. K.; Lee, Y. H.; Cho, O. K.; Park, C. Y.

1979-01-01

The gastric lesion is a common source of complaints to Orientals, however, evaluation of gastric symptoms and laboratory examination offer little specific aid in the diagnosis of gastric diseases. Thus roentgenography of gastrointestinal tract is one of the most reliable method for detail diagnosis. On double contract study of stomach, gastric filling defect is mostly caused by malignant gastric cancer, however, other benign lesions can cause similar pictures which can be successfully treated by surgery. 66 cases of benign causes of gastric filling defect were analyzed at this point of view, which was verified pathologically by endoscope or surgery during recent 7 years in Yensei University College of Medicine, Severance Hospital. The characteristic radiological picture of each disease was discussed for precise radiologic diagnosis. 1. Of total 66 cases, there were 52 cases of benign gastric tumor 10 cases of gastric varices, 5 cases of gastric bezoar, 5 cases of corrosive gastritis, 3 cases of granulomatous disease and one case of gastric hematoma. 2. The most frequent causes of benign tumors were adenomatous polyp (35/42) and the next was leiomyoma (4/42). Others were one of case of carcinoid, neurofibroma and cyst. 3. Characteristic of benign adenomatous polyp were relatively small in size, smooth surface and were observed that large size, benign polyp was frequently type IV lesion with a stalk. 4. Submucosal tumors such as leiomyoma needed differential diagnosis with polypoid malignant cancer. However, the characteristic points of differentiation was well circumscribed smooth margined filling defect without definite mucosal destruction on surface. 5. Gastric varices showed multiple lobulated filling defected especially on gastric fundus that changed its size and shape by respiration and posture of patients. Same varices lesions on esophagus and history of liver disease were helpful for easier diagnosis. 6. Gastric bezoar showed well defined movable mass

Benign gastric filling defect

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Oh, K. K.; Lee, Y. H.; Cho, O. K.; Park, C. Y. [Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

1979-06-15

The gastric lesion is a common source of complaints to Orientals, however, evaluation of gastric symptoms and laboratory examination offer little specific aid in the diagnosis of gastric diseases. Thus roentgenography of gastrointestinal tract is one of the most reliable method for detail diagnosis. On double contract study of stomach, gastric filling defect is mostly caused by malignant gastric cancer, however, other benign lesions can cause similar pictures which can be successfully treated by surgery. 66 cases of benign causes of gastric filling defect were analyzed at this point of view, which was verified pathologically by endoscope or surgery during recent 7 years in Yensei University College of Medicine, Severance Hospital. The characteristic radiological picture of each disease was discussed for precise radiologic diagnosis. 1. Of total 66 cases, there were 52 cases of benign gastric tumor 10 cases of gastric varices, 5 cases of gastric bezoar, 5 cases of corrosive gastritis, 3 cases of granulomatous disease and one case of gastric hematoma. 2. The most frequent causes of benign tumors were adenomatous polyp (35/42) and the next was leiomyoma (4/42). Others were one of case of carcinoid, neurofibroma and cyst. 3. Characteristic of benign adenomatous polyp were relatively small in size, smooth surface and were observed that large size, benign polyp was frequently type IV lesion with a stalk. 4. Submucosal tumors such as leiomyoma needed differential diagnosis with polypoid malignant cancer. However, the characteristic points of differentiation was well circumscribed smooth margined filling defect without definite mucosal destruction on surface. 5. Gastric varices showed multiple lobulated filling defected especially on gastric fundus that changed its size and shape by respiration and posture of patients. Same varices lesions on esophagus and history of liver disease were helpful for easier diagnosis. 6. Gastric bezoar showed well defined movable mass

Genomic and Expression Profiling of Benign and Malignant Nerve Sheath Profiling of Benign and Malignant Nerve Sheath

Science.gov (United States)

2007-05-01

Benign and Malignant Nerve Sheath Tumors in Neurofibromatosis Patients PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Matt van de Rijn, M.D., Ph.D. Torsten...Annual 3. DATES COVERED 1 May 2006 –30 Apr 2007 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER Genomic and Expression Profiling of Benign and Malignant Nerve...Award Number: DAMD17-03-1-0297 Title: Genomic and Expression Profiling of Benign and Malignant Nerve Sheath Tumors in Neurofibromatosis

An environmentally benign antimicrobial nanoparticle based ...

Science.gov (United States)

Silver nanoparticles have antibacterial properties but their use has been a cause for concern because they persist in the environment. Here we show that lignin nanoparticles infused with silver ions and coated with a cationic polyelectrolyte layer form a biodegradable and green alternative to silver nanoparticles. The polyelectrolyte layer promotes the adhesion of the particles to bacterial cell membranes and together with silver ions can kill a broad spectrum of bacteria, including Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and quaternary-amine-resistant Ralstonia sp. Ion depletion studies showed that the bioactivity of these nanoparticles is time-limited because of the desorption of silver ions. High-throughput bioactivity screening did not reveal increased toxicity of the particles when compared to an equivalent mass of metallic silver nanoparticles or silver nitrate solution. Our results demonstrate that the application of green chemistry principles may allow the synthesis of nanoparticles with biodegradable cores that have higher antimicrobial activity and smaller environmental impact than metallic silver nanoparticles. Our results demonstrate that the application of green chemistry principles may allow the synthesis of nanoparticles with biodegradable cores that have higher antimicrobial activity and smaller environmental impact than metallic silver nanoparticles

Diffuse benign gastric inflammatory hyperplastic polyps presenting ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Benign gastric inflammatory hyperplasic polyps are benign lesions that rarely occur in young age. We report a case of diffuse benign gastric inflammatory hyperplastic polyps in a 19 year old boy who presented with cough, nausea, and hematamesis. In the presented case symptoms such as nausea and vomiting are non ...

G * E interaction for growth, yield and quality characters of strawberry (fragaria ananassa duch.) under bangladesh conditions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rahman, M.M.; Rahman, M.M.

2015-01-01

A multi location trial with five promising strawberry genotypes viz., Sweet Charlie, Festival, Camarosa, FA 008 and BARI Strawberry-1 was conducted under different sub tropical climatic conditions of Bangladesh to study their G * E interaction. Location were Gazipur, Rajshahi and Chittagong during the period from August 2009 to May 2011. Combined analysis of variance indicated significant variation among the genotypes as well as location for almost all the characters studied. Genotype environment studies indicated different response of genotypes over locations for most of the characters suggesting location wise environmental variation. Stability parameter revealed that a particular genotype did not perform consistently for all the characters. The genotype Festival considered as stable for most of the characters except days to flowering and ascorbic acid content of fruits, and considered as stable over different locations. For this reason, the genotype .Festival. could be well thought-out and less receptive to the environmental conditions and might be recommended for all environments. On the other hand, environmental indices indicated that the environment of Rajshahi was found to be most favourable for strawberry cultivation followed by that of Gazipur and Chittagong. (author)

Temperament and character associated with depressive symptoms in women: analysis of two genetically informative samples.

Science.gov (United States)

Yuh, Jongil; Neiderhiser, Jenae M; Lichtenstein, Paul; Hansson, Kjell; Cederblad, Marianne; Elthammer, Olle; Reiss, David

2009-09-01

Although previous research has explored associations between personality and depressive symptoms, a limited number of studies have assessed the extent to which genetic and environmental influences explain the association. This study investigated how temperament and character were associated with depressive symptoms in 131 pairs of twin and sibling women in early adulthood, as well as 326 pairs of twin women in middle adulthood. Results indicated that genetic influences accounted for a moderate to substantial percentage of the association between these personality features and depressive symptoms, emphasizing the role of genetic influences. Nonshared environmental influences made important contributions to the association between character and depressive symptoms, particularly in the sample of middle-aged twin women. These findings suggest that unique social experiences and relationships with a partner in adulthood may play an important role in these associations between character and depressive symptoms.

High quality Y-type hexaferrite thick films for microwave applications by an economical and environmentally benign crystal growth technique

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hu, Bolin; Chen, Yajie, E-mail: y.chen@neu.edu; Gillette, Scott; Su, Zhijuan; Harris, Vincent G. [Center for Microwave Magnetic Materials and Integrated Circuits and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115 (United States); Wolf, Jason; McHenry, Michael E. [Materials Science and Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 (United States)

2014-02-17

Thick barium hexaferrite Ba{sub 2}Zn{sub 2}Fe{sub 12}O{sub 22} (i.e., Zn{sub 2}Y) films having thicknesses of ∼100 μm were epitaxially grown on MgO (111) substrates using an environmentally benign ferrite-salt mixture by vaporizing the salt. X-ray diffraction pole figure analyses showed (00l) crystallographic alignment with little in plane dispersion confirming epitaxial growth. Saturation magnetization, 4πM{sub s}, was measured for as-grown films to be 2.51 ± 0.1 kG with an out of plane magnetic anisotropy field H{sub A} of 8.9 ± 0.1 kOe. Ferromagnetic resonance linewidth, as the peak-to-peak power absorption derivative at 9.6 GHz, was measured to be 62 Oe. These properties demonstrate a rapid, convenient, cost-effective, and nontoxic method of growing high quality thick crystalline ferrite films which could be used widely for microwave device applications.

The ABC of benign breast disease

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Benign breast disease is common, although the incidence is sparsely documented in ... The clinical presentation of benign breast diseases includes one or more of the ... problem, with various terms such as mastodynia, mastitis and fibrocystic ...

Variability of flax characters, associated with fibre formation, and environmental influence on their expression

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nina B Brach

2010-03-01

Full Text Available In this work the results of long-term evaluation of lines of flax genetic collection created in VIR are generalized. A wide variability of fibre productivity and quality characters, and also stability of their manifestation in varying environment is revealed. The genotypes possessing contrast traits of productivity, quality and stability of their display in different years are distinguished. Dependence of correlations between the evaluated characters on the environment parameters is detected. The described lines can serve as a material for profound studying of physiological processes of fibre formation, for the analysis of traits inheritance and successful breeding.

Actor/Character Dualism

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Riis, Johannes

2012-01-01

Our perception of agency may be inherently fallible, and this may explain not only our general awareness of actors when engaged in fictional characters but also the specific case of paradoxical characters...

The differentiation of the character of solid lesions in the breast in the compression sonoelastography. Part II: Diagnostic value of BIRADS-US classification, Tsukuba score and FLR ratio

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katarzyna Dobruch-Sobczak

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Sonoelastography is a dynamically developing method of ultrasound examination used to differentiate the character of focal lesions in the breasts. The aim of the Part II of the study is to determine the usefulness of sonoelastography in the differentiation diagnosis of focal breast lesions including the evaluation of the diagnostic value of Tsukuba score and FLR ratio in characterizing solid lesions in the breasts. Furthermore, the paper provides a comparison of classic B-mode imaging and sonoelastography. Material and methods: From January to July 2010 in the Ultrasound Department of the Cancer Centre, The Institute of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, 375 breast ultrasound examinations were conducted. The examined group included patients who in B-mode examinations presented indications for pathological verification. They were 80 women aged between 17 and 83 (mean age was 50 with 99 solid focal lesions in the breasts. All patients underwent: the interview, physical examination, B-mode ultrasound examination and elastography of the mammary glands and axillary fossae. The visualized lesions were evaluated according to BIRADS-US classification and Tsukuba score as well as FLR ratio was calculated. In all cases, the histopathological and/or cytological verification of the tested lesions was obtained. Results: In the group of 80 patients, the examination revealed 39 malignant neoplastic lesions and 60 benign ones. The mean age of women with malignant neoplasms was 55.07 (SD=10.54, and with benign lesions – 46.9 (SD=15.47. In order to identify threshold values that distinguish benign lesions from malignant ones, a comparative analysis of statistical models based on BIRADS-US classification and Tsukuba score was conducted and the cut-off value for FLR was assumed. The sensitivity and specificity values for BIRADS-US 4/5 were 76.92% and 96.67% and for Tsukuba 3/4 – 64.1% and 98.33% respectively. The assumed FLR threshold value to differentiate between

Benign breast lesions in Eastern Nigeria

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anyikam, A.; Nzegwn, Martin A.; Olusina, Daniel B.; Okoye, I.; Ozumba, Ben C.

2008-01-01

Objective was to characterize benign breast diseases in Eastern Nigeria and to highlight the age variations of these lesions as base line data. The Department of Morbid Anatomy, University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu caters for over 30 million African blacks and receives 2000 surgical pathology specimens yearly. Seven hundred and twenty-two benign breast specimens were analyzed over 5 years from Ist January 2000 to 31 December 2004, out of 1050 breast samples received. Of 1050 breast specimens received, 722 (68.8%) were benign. Fibroadenoma was the most common lesion with 318 cases (44%), occurring at a mean age of 16-32 years. Next were fibrocystic changes with 165 cases (22.9%) at a mean age of 23-45 years. Normal breast in the axillary tail region was seen in 32 cases (4.4%), represented as no pathology, with a mean presentation age of 20-46 years. Low grade Phyllodes tumor had 28 cases (3.9%), presenting at an average mean age of 17-32 years. Lactating adenoma had 19 (2.6%) cases. Other lesions made up less than 3% each. Benign breast lesions peaked at the 20-24 age range and then declined. Most were females. Benign breast lesions occur more frequently than malignant breast lesions with a ratio of 2.3:1 and were presented 20 years earlier than their malignant counterparts. Fibroadenoma was the most common benign lesions followed by fibrocystic disease, similar to the findings in Western Nigeria. In Northern Nigeria, fibrocystic breast disease was more common. (author)

Benign core biopsy of probably benign breast lesions 2 cm or larger: correlation with excisional biopsy and long-term follow-up

OpenAIRE

Jung, Hyun Kyung; Moon, Hee Jung; Kim, Min Jung; Kim, Eun-Kyung

2014-01-01

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy of benign core biopsy of probably benign breast lesions (category 3) 2 cm or larger on the basis of excisional biopsy and long-term follow-up. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed 146 category 3 lesions in 146 patients 2 cm or larger which were diagnosed as benign by ultrasound (US)-guided core biopsy. Patients were initially diagnosed as benign at core needle biopsy and then followed up with excisional biopsy (surgical excision, n=91; US-guided vacuum assist...

Benign osseous metaplasia of the breast: Case report

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hassan Alyami

Full Text Available Introduction: Benign Osseous metaplasia of the breast is rare, with only a few cases reported in the literature. Here we present a case of benign osseous metaplasia of the breast presenting as a breast lump. Case presentation: 38-year-old previously well woman presented with a one-year history of bilateral breast pain and a left-sided breast lump. Ultrasound and mammography suggested calcified fibroadenoma. An ultrasound-guided true cut biopsy revealed fibrous tissue containing foci of adenosis in the presence of a myoepithelial cell layer. Excision biopsy was performed, and histopathological examination showed bone matrix deposition occupying most of the nodule with peripheral hyalinized tissue but no evidence of malignancy. A diagnosis of benign osseous metaplasia of the breast was made, and the patient recovered well without recurrence after lump excision. Discussion: Only a few cases of osseous metaplasia are reported in the literature. Most reported cases are malignant, such as in fibrosarcoma, malignant mesenchymoma, osteoid sarcoma, osteogenic sarcoma, and osteochondrosarcoma.Very few cases of osseous sarcoma are reported in benign lesions such as fibroadenoma, pleomorphic adenoma, benign mesenchymoma, phyllodes tumor, and amyloid tumor of the breast. Joshi et al. first reported a case of benign osseous metaplasia of the breast presenting as breast lump in an HIV-positive patient [18]. We, therefore, consider this case to be the second case report of benign osseous metaplasia of the breast presenting as a breast lump, but the patient had no chronic illness. Conclusion: A breast lump can be the first presentation of benign osseous metaplasia. Keywords: Benign osseous metaplasia, Breast lump, Case report

FeCl3-catalysed Zn-mediated allylation of cyclic enol ethers in water

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Organic reactions in aqueous medium has attracted global attention from the chemists due to its safe environmentally benign character. Surprisingly, nature also permits aqueous medium for all the enzymatic processes. Since Breslow1 introduced the Diels–Alder reaction in aqueous medium, there has been an increas-.

Mesotherapy for benign symmetric lipomatosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Hasegawa, Toshio; Matsukura, Tomoyuki; Ikeda, Shigaku

2010-04-01

Benign symmetric lipomatosis, also known as Madelung disease, is a rare disorder characterized by fat distribution around the shoulders, arms, and neck in the context of chronic alcoholism. Complete excision of nonencapsulated lipomas is difficult. However, reports describing conservative therapeutic measures for lipomatosis are rare. The authors present the case of a 42-year-old man with a diagnosis of benign symmetric lipomatosis who had multiple, large, symmetrical masses in his neck. Multiple phosphatidylcholine injections in the neck were administered 4 weeks apart, a total of seven times to achieve lipolysis. The patient's lipomatosis improved in response to the injections, and he achieved good cosmetic results. Intralesional injection, termed mesotherapy, using phosphatidylcholine is a potentially effective therapy for benign symmetric lipomatosis that should be reconsidered as a therapeutic option for this disease.

Bubble point measurement and high pressure distillation column design for the environmentally benign separation of zirconium from hafnium for nuclear power reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Minh, Le Quang; Kim, Gyeongmin; Lee, Moonyong; Park, Jongki

2015-01-01

We examined the feasible separation of ZrCl 4 and HfCl 4 through high pressure distillation as environmentally benign separation for structural material of nuclear power reactor. The bubble point pressures of ZrCl 4 and HfCl 4 mixtures were determined experimentally by using an invariable volume equilibrium cell at high pressure and temperature condition range of 2.3-5..6MPa and 440-490 .deg. C. The experimental bubble point pressure data were correlated with Peng-Robinson equation of state with a good agreement. Based on the vapor-liquid equilibrium properties evaluated from the experimental data, the feasibility of high pressure distillation process for the separation of ZrCl 4 and HfCl 4 was investigated with its main design condition through rigorous simulation using a commercial process simulator, ASPEN Hysys. An enhanced distillation configuration was also proposed to improve energy efficiency in the distillation process. The result showed that a heat-pump assisted distillation with a partial bottom flash could be a promising option for commercial separation of ZrCl 4 and HfCl 4 by taking into account of both energy and environmental advantages

Benign pneumatosis in children

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fenton, L.Z.; Buonomo, C.

2000-01-01

Background. In pediatrics, pneumatosis intestinalis (PI) is usually due to necrotizing enterocolitis in premature newborns. Beyond infancy, PI is uncommon. ''Benign pneumatosis'' is PI in patients with few or no symptoms that resolves with conservative management. Objective. Our goal was to better characterize benign PI in children. Our investigation focused on identifying underlying risk factors, symptoms at time of diagnosis, management and outcome. Materials and methods. Available medical records and radiographs of children with pneumatosis intestinalis from 1990 to 1998 were reviewed for underlying conditions, symptoms at time of radiographs, management and outcome. Results. Thirty-seven children (mean age 4 years) were included. Thirty-two children had identifiable risk factors. Twenty -five children were immunocompromised by their underlying conditions or therapeutic regimen. Thirty-five children were managed conservatively with resolution of PI. Two patients, however, required surgery and one patient died. Conclusion. Benign pneumatosis does occur in children. The majority have underlying risk factors, most commonly related to immunosuppression. Clinical deterioration is the most useful indicator for surgical intervention. In most patients PI resolves with conservative management. (orig.)

Clustered microcalcifications without mass on mammography : benignancy vs. malignancy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Han, Yoon Hee; Do, Young Soo; Oh, Hoon Il; Kim, Ki Hwan; Chin, Soo Yil [Korean Cancer Center Hostpital, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Cho, Byung Jae [Chung Dam Radiologic Clinics, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Han, Heon [Chungang Gil Hospital, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Choi, Yeun Hyeun; Han, Boo Kyung [Sam Sung Medical Center, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Park, Jung Mi [Asan Medical Center, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

1996-11-01

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of differentiation between benign and malignant clustered microcalcifications without mass on mammogram. Fourty six mammograms of 44 patients showing clustered microcalcifications without mass were interpreted blindly by five independent observers majoring in breast imaging from different institutions. Twenty two were malignant (10 infiltrating ductal carcinomas, 12 intraductal carcinomas) and 24 were benign (all fibrocystic disease). The observers judge benignancy or malignancy of microcalcifications. The authors assess the accuracy of differential diagnosis of clustered microcalcifications. Of 24 cases proved benign microcalcifications, five radiologists correctly interpreted 20 on average as benign and of malignant 22 cases, 16 on average were correctly interpreted as malignant. The diagnostic accuracy of malignant microcalcifications was 71.8% on average(63.6%{approx}81.8%) and the diagnostic accuracy for benign microcalcifications was 83% on average(71%{approx}92%). It was 9 among total 46 cases that were misinterpreted by more than three radiologists. Among these 9 cases, malignant microcalcifications that had been misinterpreted as benign were seven, benign microcalcifications misinterpreted as malignant were two. The diagnostic accuracy of clustered malignant microcalcifications(71.8%) without mass on mammogram was lower than that of benign microcalcifications(83.3%). So, in case of suspected malignant microcalcification on mammogram, it is preferable that along with magnification view, histopathologic confirmation by core biopsy must be obtained.

Benign Liver Tumors

Science.gov (United States)

... Legacy Society Make Gifts of Stock Donate Your Car Personal Fundraising Partnership & Support Share Your Story Spread the Word Give While You Shop Contact Us Donate Now Benign Liver Tumors Back ...

A study of the benign cementoblastoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Won Jae; Choi, Eui Hwan

1994-01-01

The benign cementoblastoma is a benign odontogenic tumor of cemental-forming tissue, which has an unlimited growth potential, The radiographic appearance of the lesion is pathognomonic and consists of a radiopaque mass surrounded by a thin radiolucent line. This mass is inseparable, radiologically, from the tooth root and is attached to it, Microscopic evaluation suggests that the lesion enlarges by peripheral growth, with the center of the neoplasm being more calcified and inactive than the periphery. We have observed two cases of benign cementoblastoma (mature calcified stage) occurred in the left mandibular first molar of 22-year old man and 14-year-old man.

Believable Characters

Science.gov (United States)

El-Nasr, Magy Seif; Bishko, Leslie; Zammitto, Veronica; Nixon, Michael; Vasiliakos, Athanasios V.; Wei, Huaxin

The interactive entertainment industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. In 1996, the U.S. entertainment software industry reported 2.6 billion in sales revenue, this figure has more than tripled in 2007 yielding 9.5 billion in revenues [1]. In addition, gamers, the target market for interactive entertainment products, are now reaching beyond the traditional 8-34 year old male to include women, Hispanics, and African Americans [2]. This trend has been observed in several markets, including Japan, China, Korea, and India, who has just published their first international AAA title (defined as high quality games with high budget), a 3D third person action game: Ghajini - The Game [3]. The topic of believable characters is becoming a central issue when designing and developing games for today's game industry. While narrative and character were considered secondary to game mechanics, games are currently evolving to integrate characters, narrative, and drama as part of their design. One can see this pattern through the emergence of games like Assassin's Creed (published by Ubisoft 2008), Hotel Dusk (published by Nintendo 2007), and Prince of Persia series (published by Ubisoft), which emphasized character and narrative as part of their design.

Benign Essential Blepharospasm

Science.gov (United States)

... the same for many years; and, in rare cases, improve spontaneously. Clinical Trials Throughout the U.S. and Worldwide NINDS Clinical Trials Related ... Definition Benign essential blepharospasm (BEB) is a progressive neurological ...

Environmentally benign process for the preparation of antimicrobial α-methylene-β-hydroxy-γ-butyrolactone (tulipalin B) from tulip biomass.

Science.gov (United States)

Nomura, Taiji; Hayashi, Emiko; Kawakami, Shohei; Ogita, Shinjiro; Kato, Yasuo

2015-01-01

Tulipalin B (α-methylene-β-hydroxy-γ-butyrolactone, PaB) is an antimicrobial natural product occurring in tulip (Tulipa gesneriana). PaB is directly formed from the precursor glucose ester 6-tuliposide B (PosB) by endogenous Pos-converting enzyme (TCE). Despite the potential usefulness of antibacterial PaB in various industrial applications, lack of facile synthetic schemes hampers its practical use. Herein, we describe an environmentally benign and facile process for the preparation of PaB using tulip biomass materials based on one-step enzyme reaction catalyzed by TCE without the use of petroleum-derived solvents. By screening 115 tulip cultivars, we found three elite cultivars, which accumulated PosB almost exclusively in flower tissues. The flower extracts with aqueous ethanol were partially purified with activated charcoal and subjected to the enzyme reaction with reusable immobilized TCE prepared from bulb crude extracts. The reaction was completed in a few hours at room temperature, and PaB was purified with activated charcoal and ethanol in a batch-wise manner.

Environmentally benign synthesis of amides and ureas via catalytic dehydrogenation coupling of volatile alcohols and amines in a Pd-Ag membrane reactor

KAUST Repository

Chen, Tao

2016-05-31

In this study, we report the direct synthesis of amides and ureas via the catalytic dehydrogenation of volatile alcohols and amines using the Milstein catalyst in a Pd-Ag/ceramic membrane reactor. A series of amides and ureas, which could not be synthesized in an open system by catalytic dehydrogenation coupling, were obtained in moderate to high yields via catalytic dehydrogenation of volatile alcohols and amines. This process could be monitored by the hydrogen produced. Compared to the traditional method of condensation, this catalytic system avoids the stoichiometric pre-activation or in situ activation of reagents, and is a much cleaner process with high atom economy. This methodology, only possible by employing the Pd-Ag/ceramic membrane reactor, not only provides a new environmentally benign synthetic approach of amides and ureas, but is also a potential method for hydrogen storage.

Environmentally benign synthesis of amides and ureas via catalytic dehydrogenation coupling of volatile alcohols and amines in a Pd-Ag membrane reactor

KAUST Repository

Chen, Tao; Zeng, Gaofeng; Lai, Zhiping; Huang, Kuo-Wei

2016-01-01

In this study, we report the direct synthesis of amides and ureas via the catalytic dehydrogenation of volatile alcohols and amines using the Milstein catalyst in a Pd-Ag/ceramic membrane reactor. A series of amides and ureas, which could not be synthesized in an open system by catalytic dehydrogenation coupling, were obtained in moderate to high yields via catalytic dehydrogenation of volatile alcohols and amines. This process could be monitored by the hydrogen produced. Compared to the traditional method of condensation, this catalytic system avoids the stoichiometric pre-activation or in situ activation of reagents, and is a much cleaner process with high atom economy. This methodology, only possible by employing the Pd-Ag/ceramic membrane reactor, not only provides a new environmentally benign synthetic approach of amides and ureas, but is also a potential method for hydrogen storage.

The clinical factors associated with benign renal tumors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamashita, Ryo; Nakamura, Masafumi; Matsuzaki, Masato; Matsui, Takashi; Yamaguchi, Raizo; Niwakawa, Masashi; Tobisu, Kenichi; Asakura, Koiku; Ito, Ichiro

2009-01-01

In this study, we sought to define the incidence of benign renal tumors in our institute and to clarify the clinical factors associated with benign renal tumors, in order to assist in forming preoperative differential diagnoses. From October 2002 to July 2007, we performed 157 nephrectomies in patients preoperatively diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma. We chose 81 tumors, all of which were less than 5 cm, for further study. We reviewed double-phase helical CT imaging retrospectively, specifically focusing on attenuation patterns and homogeneity. We also compared clinical factors, including age, sex and tumor size, between the benign and malignant renal tumors. The patient's median age was 67 years (mean age, 63 years), and the median tumor diameter was 3.0 cm (mean, 3.2 cm). Benign renal tumors were found in 10 (12%) of the 81 tumors; these included seven cases of oncocytoma and three cases of angiomyolipoma with minimal fat. Several factors were significant clinical determinants of differentiation between benign and malignant renal tumors: homogeneity in CT, female gender, and small tumor size all predominated in cases of benign tumors. Attenuation pattern in CT, however, was not a significant factor (p=0.344). When a patient, especially a female, presents with a small and homogeneous renal tumor, careful consideration should be given to the possibility of a benign process, which needs further consideration before performing excessive surgery. (author)

The Implementation Of Character Education Values In Integrated Physical Education Subject In Elementary School

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Suherman Ayi

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The issue of this research emphasizes on the implementation of character building values through physical education learning in elementary school. The effort in developing this character building practice is essential to be done in order to tackle moral and character crises, which already occur in both individual and collective levels reflected in educational institution from elementary school to higher education. Hence, to form culture and national character, educational program and process are inseparable from environmental factor including the values of society, culture, and humanity. Physical education subject that is based on 2013 Curriculum has significant difference compared to the previous physical education subject. This is due to the fact that integrated physical education has its own uniqueness in terms of planning, systematic implementation, and instructional medium. This research aims at producing guidance in implementing character values integrated in physical education in elementary school. The method used in this research is research and development (R&D method, which includes preliminary research, model designing, limited trial, and extensive trial, as well as validation and dissemination. The findings of the research show that character values can be implemented in physical education in elementary schools in Sumedang Regency.

Benign clavicular lesions that may mimic malignancy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gerscovich, E.G.; Greenspan, A.; Szabo, R.M.

1991-01-01

Nontraumatic lesions of the clavicle are infrequent. Of these, malignant tumors are more common than benign lesions. From January 1988 to January 1990, we examined 17 patients with benign lesions of the clavicle; in 8, the morphologic appearance of the lesion raised the possibility of malignancy in the differential diagnosis. The radiologic findings in these patients are presented. We propose that the unique shape and embryologic development of the clavicle may contribute to the atypical, aggressive presentation of some benign lesions in that bone. (orig.)

First histologically confirmed case of a classic chordoma arising in a precursor benign notochordal lesion: differential diagnosis of benign and malignant notochordal lesions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamaguchi, Takehiko; Yamato, Minoru; Saotome, Koichi

2002-01-01

The first histologically confirmed case of a classic chordoma arising in a precursor benign notochordal lesion is presented and the differential diagnosis between benign and malignant notochordal lesions is discussed. A 57-year-old man presented with a classic chordoma in the coccyx. The resected specimen demonstrated a small intraosseous benign notochordal lesion in the coccyx, which was adjacent to the classic chordoma. Also seen were two separate, similar benign lesions in the sacrum. The classic chordoma consisted of multiple lobules that were separated by thin fibrous septa and that showed cords or strands of atypical physaliphorous cells set within an abundant myxoid matrix. In contrast, the benign lesions consisted of intraosseous sheets of bland physaliphorous cells without any extracellular matrix. The affected bone trabeculae showed sclerotic reactions. It was concluded that benign and malignant notochordal lesions can be distinguished microscopically. (orig.)

Radiation treatment of benign diseases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Reitan, J.B.; Flatby, J.; Backe, S.; Lundgren, L.

1984-01-01

The report deals with an estimation of the volume of radiation treatment of benign diseases in Norway and gives a survey of the subjective opinion of patients regarding the result of the treatment. Reported subjective recovery after radiation treatment seems to be at the same level as recovery without treatment. For an indication of the objective effect of radiation treatment of benign diseases, the subjective effect of this treatment has to be compared with objective findings

Temperament and character properties of primary focal hyperhidrosis patients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ak Mehmet

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Primary focal hyperhidrosis is a health problem, which has negative effects on the patient's quality of life and significantly affects the patients’ daily activities, social and business life. The aim of this study is to evaluate temperament and character properties of patients diagnosed with primary focal hyperhidrosis. Methods Fifty-six primary focal hyperhidrosis (22.42 ± 7.80 and 49 control subjects (24.48 ± 5.17 participated in the study. Patients who met the diagnostic criteria for PFH were referred to psychiatry clinic where the subjects were evaluated through Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Disorders-I and Temperament and Character Inventory. Results In order to examine the difference between the PFH and control group in terms of temperament and character properties, one-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA was conducted. In terms of temperament properties, PFH group took significantly higher scores than control group in Fatigability and asthenia dimension. In terms of character properties, PFH group scored significantly lower than control group in Purposefulness , Resourcefulness , Self-Directedness and scored significantly higher than control group in Self-forgetfulness and Self-Transcendence. Conclusion Temperament and character features of PFH patients were different from healthy group and it was considered that these features were affected by many factors including genetic, biological, environmental, socio-cultural elements. During the follow-up of PFH cases, psychiatric evaluation is important and interventions, especially psychotherapeutic interventions can increase the chances of success of the dermatological treatments and can have a positive impact on the quality of life and social cohesion of chronic cases.

Spectrum of benign breast diseases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khanzada, T.W.; Samad, A.; Sushel, C.

2009-01-01

Objective: To determine the frequencies of various benign breast diseases (BBD) in female patients in three private hospitals of Hyderabad. Methodology: This is a prospective cohort study of all female patients visiting the surgical clinic with breast problems. This study was conducted at Isra University Hospital Hyderabad and two other private hospitals of Hyderabad over a period of about three years starting from March 2004 to February 2007. All female patients visiting the surgical clinic with breast problems were included in the study. Patients with obvious clinical features of malignancy or those who on work up were diagnosed as carcinoma were excluded from the study. Results: A total of 275 patients were included in the study. About 44% (120/275) patients belonged to third decade of life (age between: 21-30 years) followed by 33% from forth decade (age between: 31- 40 years). Fibroadenoma was the most common benign breast disease, seen in 27% (75/275) of patients, followed by fibrocystic disease seen in about 21% (57/275) patients. Conclusion: Benign Breast Diseases (BBD) are common problems in females of reproductive age. Fibroadenoma is the commonest of all benign breast disease in our set up mostly seen in second and third decade of life. Fibrocystic disease of the breast is the next common BBD whose incidence increases with increasing age. (author)

A REVIEW: OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION

OpenAIRE

Swati Tomar*1 & Amit Kishore2

2018-01-01

This paper presents detailed review in the field of Optical Character Recognition. Various techniques are determine that have been proposed to realize the center of character recognition in an optical character recognition system. Even though, sufficient studies and papers are describes the techniques for converting textual content from a paper document into machine readable form. Optical character recognition is a process where the computer understands automatically the image of handwritten ...

Knowing Chinese character grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

Myers, James

2016-02-01

Chinese character structure has often been described as representing a kind of grammar, but the notion of character grammar has hardly been explored. Patterns in character element reduplication are particularly grammar-like, displaying discrete combinatoriality, binarity, phonology-like final prominence, and potentially the need for symbolic rules (X→XX). To test knowledge of these patterns, Chinese readers were asked to judge the acceptability of fake characters varying both in grammaticality (obeying or violating reduplication constraints) and in lexicality (of the reduplicative configurations). While lexical knowledge was important (lexicality improved acceptability and grammatical configurations were accepted more quickly when also lexical), grammatical knowledge was important as well, with grammaticality improving acceptability equally for lexical and nonlexical configurations. Acceptability was also higher for more frequent reduplicative elements, suggesting that the reduplicative configurations were decomposed. Chinese characters present an as-yet untapped resource for exploring fundamental questions about the nature of the human capacity for grammar. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Character Apps for Children's Snacks: Effects of Character Awareness on Snack Selection and Consumption Patterns.

Science.gov (United States)

Putnam, Marisa M; Cotto, Caroline E; Calvert, Sandra L

2018-04-01

Media characters are used to market snacks that are typically of poor nutritional value, which has been linked to childhood obesity. This study examines whether children's snack selections and consumption patterns are influenced by an app depicting a popular children's media character, as well as the role that children's awareness of the character plays. The results can increase our understanding of how to encourage healthier snack selection and consumption in newer game-based marketing venues, such as apps. Four- and 5-year-old children (N = 132) played a bowling game on an iPad with no character or with a character holding either healthier or unhealthy snacks. After app-play, children selected and consumed healthier or unhealthy snacks. Children's awareness of the character was measured by children's verbalizations of the character's name during or after app-play. An ordered logistic regression found no significant effect of treatment conditions compared with the control group. Within treatment conditions, awareness of the character led to selection and consumption of more healthy snacks in the healthier condition (odds ratio β = 10.340, P = 0.008), and of unhealthy snacks in the unhealthy condition (odds ratio β = 0.228, P = 0.033), but children were unaware that the character influenced their decisions. Results suggest that young children will choose and consume healthier, not just unhealthy, products when they are aware that a popular character in an app is associated with the snack, potentially leading to healthier eating patterns.

"Nanorust"-catalyzed benign oxidation of amines for selective synthesis of nitriles.

Science.gov (United States)

Jagadeesh, Rajenahally V; Junge, Henrik; Beller, Matthias

2015-01-01

Organic nitriles constitute key precursors and central intermediates in organic synthesis. In addition, nitriles represent a versatile motif found in numerous medicinally and biologically important compounds. Generally, these nitriles are synthesized by traditional cyanation procedures using toxic cyanides. Herein, we report the selective and environmentally benign oxidative conversion of primary amines for the synthesis of structurally diverse aromatic, aliphatic and heterocyclic nitriles using a reusable "nanorust" (nanoscale Fe2 O3 )-based catalysts applying molecular oxygen. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

1 Massive upper gastrointestinal bleeding and diffuse benign gastric ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Abstract: Benign gastric inflammatory hyperplasic polyps are benign lesions that rarely occur in young age. We report a case of diffuse benign gastric inflammatory hyperplastic polyps in a 19 year old male patient who presented with cough, nausea, and haematemesis. In the presented case symptoms such as nausea and.

A Missing Piece of the Contemporary Character Education Puzzle: The Individualisation of Moral Character

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yi-Lin

2013-01-01

The different sorts of virtuous people who display various virtues to a remarkable degree have brought the issue of individualisation of moral character to the forefront. It signals a more personal dimension of character development which is notoriously ignored in the current discourse on character education. The case is made that since in…

Benign vascular sexual headache and exertional headache: interrelationships and long term prognosis.

OpenAIRE

Silbert, P L; Edis, R H; Stewart-Wynne, E G; Gubbay, S S

1991-01-01

There is a definite relationship between the vascular type of benign sexual headache and benign exertional headache. Forty five patients with benign vascular sexual headache were reviewed. Twenty seven (60%) experienced benign vascular sexual headache alone and eighteen (40%) had experienced both benign vascular sexual headache and benign exertional headache on at least one occasion. The mean age was 34.3 years with a male:female ratio of 5.4:1. Thirty patients with a history of benign vascul...

Imaging malignant and apparent malignant transformation of benign gynaecological disease

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, A.Y.; Poder, L.; Qayyum, A.; Wang, Z.J.; Yeh, B.M. [Department of Radiology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (United States); Coakley, F.V., E-mail: Fergus.Coakley@radiology.ucsf.ed [Department of Radiology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA (United States)

2010-12-15

Common benign gynaecological diseases, such as leiomyoma, adenomyosis, endometriosis, and mature teratoma, rarely undergo malignant transformation. Benign transformations that may mimic malignancy include benign metastasizing leiomyoma, massive ovarian oedema, decidualization of endometrioma, and rupture of mature teratoma. The aim of this review is to provide a contemporary overview of imaging findings in malignant and apparent malignant transformation of benign gynaecological disease.

Pharmacological treatment of the benign prostatic hyperplasia

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Perez Guerra, Yohani; Molina Cuevas, Vivian; Oyarzabal Yera, Ambar; Mas Ferreiro, Rosa

2011-01-01

Benign prostatic hyperplasia is a common disease in over 50 years-old men consisting in uncontrolled and benign growth of prostatic gland that leads to lower urinary tract symptoms. The etiology of benign prostatic hyperplasia is multifactoral involving the increased conversion of testosterone in dihydrotestosterone by the prostatic 5α-reductase action, which brought about events that encourage the prostate growth (static component) and the increase of the bladder and prostate smooth muscle tone (dynamic component) regulated by the aα 1 -adrenoceptors (ADR). The pharmacological treatment of the benign prostatic hyperplasia includes the prostatic 5aα-reductase inhibitors, the aα 1 -adrenoreceptor blockers, their combined therapy and the phytotherapy. This paper was aimed at presenting the most relevant aspects of the pharmacology of drugs used for treating the benign prostatic hyperplasia, and providing elements to analyze their efficacy, safety and tolerability. To this end, a review was made of the different drugs for the treatment of this pathology and they were grouped according to their mechanism of action. Natural products were included as lipid extracts from Serenoa repens and Pygeum africanum as well as D-004, a lipid extract from Roystonea regia fruits, with proved beneficial effects on the main etiological factors of benign prostatic hyperplasia. D-004 is a prostatic 5a-reductase inhibitor, an aα 1 -adrenoceptor antagonist, aα 5-lipooxygenase inhibitor and has antioxidant action, all of which reveals a multifactoral mechanism. The results achieved till now indicate that D-004 is a safe and well-tolerated product

Ultrastructural characters of a Physarum melleum on living leaves of Dendrobium candidum in China*

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jing-ze; Liu, Lu-ning; Fiore-Donno, Anna-Maria; Xu, Tong

2007-01-01

A known species, Physarum melleum, was found fruiting on living leaves of Dendrobium candidum, which was collected in China in 2004. Its morphological characters were revealed by light microscopy (LM), environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Character variations were distinguished by its olive-yellow peridium and its always thinner capillitium containing globulose granular material between the large calcareous nodes. The calcium carbonate granules, deposited on stalks, peridium and hypothallus as well as within stalks, were globose and smooth. PMID:18257124

Character Issues: Reality Character Problems and Solutions through Education in Indonesia

Science.gov (United States)

Saidek, Abdul Rahim; Islami, Raisul; Abdoludin

2016-01-01

Weak character education raises the problem of corruption, a fight between students, free sex, drugs and rape/abortion indicate that the issue of character education of the nation must be improved and the concern of all parties, the nation's leaders, law enforcement officers, educators, religious leaders, groups and other etc. There are two…

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo in Parkinson's disease

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wensen, E. van; Leeuwen, R.B. van; Zaag-Loonen, H.J. van der; Masius-Olthof, S.; Bloem, B.R.

2013-01-01

BACKGROUND: Dizziness is a frequent complaint of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), and orthostatic hypotension (OH) is often thought to be the cause. We studied whether benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) could also be an explanation. AIM: To assess the prevalence of benign paroxysmal

Genetic and Environmental Basis of the Relationship Between Dissociative Experiences and Cloninger’s Temperament and Character Dimensions – Pilot Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Domozych Wojciech

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Dissociation is commonly regarded as a disruption in the normally integrated functions of memory, knowledge, affect, sensation or behavior. The present study utilized behavioral genetics’ methodology to investigate genetic and environmental basis of the relationship between dissociation and Cloninger’s temperament and character traits. A sample of 83 monozygotic and 65 dizygotic twins were administered self-report measures which assessed dissociative experiences along with personality dimensions. Significant correlations and high loads of common genetic variance between dissociative experiences and personality traits of novelty seeking, self-directedness, cooperativeness and self-transcendence were identified. Heritability of dissociative experiences was estimated at 62%. The study shows that there exists a considerable amount of genetic variance overlap between dissociation and personality dimensions. It also supports the hypothesis that propensity to dissociate is highly heritable

Benign Metastatic Leiomyoma Presenting as a Hemothorax

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anna M. Ponea

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Uterine leiomyomas have been reported to metastasize to various organs including the lungs, skeletal muscles, bone marrow, peritoneum, and heart. They may present with symptoms related to the metastases several years after hysterectomy. These tumors regress after menopause, and it is rare to detect active tumors in postmenopausal women. Despite their ability to metastasize, they are considered to be benign due to the lack of anaplasia. Pulmonary benign metastasizing leiomyoma is usually detected in the form of pulmonary nodules incidentally on imaging. Tissue biopsy of these nodules is required to identify them as benign metastasizing leiomyomas. Immunohistochemical analysis and molecular profiling may further help detect any malignant transformation in it. Untreated pulmonary benign metastasizing leiomyoma may result in the formation of cystic structures, destruction of lung parenchyma, and hemothorax and may cause respiratory failure. Surgical resection and hormonal therapy help prevent progression of this disease and provide an avenue for a cure.

Breast vibro-acoustography: initial experience in benign lesions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alizad, Azra; Mehrmohammadi, Mohammad; Ghosh, Karthik; Glazebrook, Katrina N; Carter, Rickey E; Karaberkmez, Leman Gunbery; Whaley, Dana H; Fatemi, Mostafa

2014-01-01

Vibro-acoustography (VA) is a newly developed imaging technology that is based on low-frequency vibrations induced in the object by the radiation force of ultrasound. VA is sensitive to the dynamic characteristics of tissue. Here, we evaluate the performance of VA in identifying benign lesions and compare the results to those of mammography. An integrated mammography-VA system designed for in vivo breast imaging was tested on a group of female volunteers, age ≥ 18 years, with suspected breast lesions based on clinical examination. A set of VA scans was acquired after each corresponding mammography. Most lesions were classified as benign based on their histological results. However, in 4 cases, initial diagnosis based on clinical imaging determined that the lesions were cysts. These cysts were aspirated with needle aspiration and disappeared completely under direct ultrasound visualization. Therefore, no biopsies were performed on these cases and lesions were classified as benign based on clinical findings per clinical standards. To define the VA characteristics of benign breast masses, we adopted the features that are normally attributed to such masses in mammography. In a blinded assessment, three radiologists evaluated the VA images independently. The diagnostic accuracy of VA for detection of benign lesions was assessed by comparing the reviewers’ evaluations with clinical data. Out of a total 29 benign lesions in the group, the reviewers were able to locate all lesions on VA images and mammography, 100% with (95% confidence interval (CI): 88% to 100%). Two reviewers were also able to correctly classify 83% (95% CI: 65% to 92%), and the third reviewer 86% (95% CI: 65% to 95%) of lesions, as benign on VA images and 86% (95% CI: 69% to 95%) on mammography. The results suggest that the mammographic characteristics of benign lesion may also be used to identify such lesions in VA. Furthermore, the results show the ability of VA to detect benign breast

Contribution to automatic handwritten characters recognition. Application to optical moving characters recognition

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gokana, Denis

1986-01-01

This paper describes a research work on computer aided vision relating to the design of a vision system which can recognize isolated handwritten characters written on a mobile support. We use a technique which consists in analyzing information contained in the contours of the polygon circumscribed to the character's shape. These contours are segmented and labelled to give a new set of features constituted by: - right and left 'profiles', - topological and algebraic unvarying properties. A new method of character's recognition induced from this representation based on a multilevel hierarchical technique is then described. In the primary level, we use a fuzzy classification with dynamic programming technique using 'profiles'. The other levels adjust the recognition by using topological and algebraic unvarying properties. Several results are presented and an accuracy of 99 pc was reached for handwritten numeral characters, thereby attesting the robustness of our algorithm. (author) [fr

Leading Character?s Antisocial Personality Disorder In James B Stewart?s Blind Eye

OpenAIRE

Lestari, Ayu

2016-01-01

110705043 The title of this thesis isLeading Character?s Antisocial Personality Disorder in James B Stewart?s Blind Eyethat is research about antisocial personality of leading character in the novel, namely Dr. Michael Swango. The purpose of this thesis is to find out characteristic of Swango that show he has antisocial personality disorder and to know the causes of his disorder. The writer refers to theory antisocial personality disorder that take in a research of APA (American Psychiatri...

Differentiation of benign and malignant hilar bile duct stenosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xiaolei; Yang, Zhiying; Tan, Haidong; Shao, Chen; Liu, Liguo; Si, Shuang; Xu, Li; Sun, Yongliang

2016-06-15

Failure to differentiate benign and malignant hilar bile duct stenosis may lead to inappropriate treatment. We retrospectively analyzed the methods for differentiation. A total of 53 patients with hilar bile duct stenosis were included, comprising 41 malignant cases (hilar cholangiocarcinoma) and 12 benign cases (six primary sclerosing cholangitis and six IgG4-associated sclerosing cholangitis). Data of clinical histories, laboratory tests, imaging studies, and liver pathologies were collected, and comparison was made between benign and malignant groups. Compared with malignant group, patients in the benign group were more likely to have multiorgan involvement of clinical histories (P < 0.001). There was no difference on bilirubin, liver enzyme, and serum tumor marker between the two groups, whereas serum IgG4 levels were higher in the benign group (P = 0.003). Patients in the benign group were more likely to have pancreatic changes (P < 0.001) and multiple-segmental bile duct stenosis (P < 0.001) on imaging. Compared with the malignant group, patients in the benign group were more likely to show severe periportal inflammation in noninvolved liver (P < 0.001), fibrosis around intrahepatic bile duct (P < 0.001), and more IgG4-positive plasma cells (P < 0.001) on liver pathology. Benign lesion should be considered for patients with history of multiorgan involvement, pancreas changes, or multiple-segmental bile duct stenosis on imaging. Liver biopsy could be helpful for differential diagnosis before surgery. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Use of FDG-PET in differentiating benign from malignant compression fractures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bredella, Miriam A.; Essary, Brendan; Torriani, Martin; Ouellette, Hugue A.; Palmer, William E.

2008-01-01

The objective was to evaluate the use of fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) in differentiating benign from malignant compression fractures. In a retrospective analysis, we identified 33 patients with 43 compression fractures who underwent FDG-PET. On FDG-PET the uptake pattern was recorded qualitatively and semiquantitatively and fractures were categorized as benign or malignant. Standardized uptake values (SUV) were obtained. MRI, CT, and biopsy results as well as clinical follow-up for 1-3 years served as standards of reference. The Student's t test was used to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between the SUV for benign and malignant compression fractures. There were 14 malignant and 29 benign compression fractures, including 5 acute benign fractures. On FDG-PET, 5 benign fractures were falsely classified as malignant (false-positive). Three of these patients underwent prior treatment with bone marrow-stimulating agents. There were two false-negative results. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of FDG-PET in differentiating benign from malignant compression fractures were 86%, 83%, 84%, 71%, and 92% respectively. The difference between SUV values of benign and malignant fractures was statistically significant (1.9 ± 0.97 for benign and 3.9 ± 1.52 for malignant fractures, p < 0.001). SUV of benign acute and chronic fractures were not statistically significant. Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography is useful in differentiating benign from malignant compression fractures. Therapy with bone marrow-stimulating agents can mimic malignant involvement. (orig.)

ANALYSIS OF THE INTERACTIONS BETWEEN IMMIGRANT/FOREIGN CHARACTERS AND NATIONAL/AUTOCHTHONOUS CHARACTERS IN SPANISH TELEVISION FICTION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

María Marcos Ramos

2014-10-01

Full Text Available In this paper we present the results of an empirical research in which it were analysed the interactions between immigrants and national characters in a sample of Spanish television fictional programs broadcasted on prime time. This study is a content analysis of 282 interactions between immigrant/foreign and national characters. Thus, it was found that the largest number of relationships between the characters involved was produced in a working context. Moreover, there was a higher proportion of the use of aggressive humour from the national characters to the immigrant/foreigners than in the reverse way. It was also observed that the immigrant/foreigner characters hardly spoke about their feelings, nor were heard by the nationals when they did it, although there were a high number of interactions in which immigrant characters were expressing their opinions and these were attended by national characters. The analysis of the interactions between immigrant and national characters in television fiction is a very important research issue, because it has been proposed that the parasocial interactions are complementary of the interpersonal interactions taking place in daily life (Müller, 2009; Park, 2012.

THE NEED FOR CHARACTER EDUCATION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aynur Pala

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Character education is a national movement creatingschools that foster ethical,responsible and caring young people by modelling and teaching good characterthrough emphasis on universal values that we all share. It is the intentional,proactive effort by schools, districts and states to instil in their students importantcore ethical values such as caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility and respect forself and others.Good character is not formed automatically; it is developed over time through asustained process of teaching, example, learning and practice. It is developedthrough character education. The intentional teaching of good character isparticularly important in today’s society since ouryouth face many opportunitiesand dangers unknown to earlier generations. They are bombarded with many morenegative influences through the media and other external sources prevalent intoday’s culture. Since children spend about 900 hours a year in school, it isessential that schools resume a proactive role in assisting families andcommunities by developing caring, respectful environments where students learncore, ethical values. When a comprehensive approachto character education isused, a positive moral culture is created in the school—a total school environmentthat supports the values taught in the classroom (Character Education Partnership,2010.The aim of this study is to provide guidelines forthe elements need for effectiveand comprehensive character education. And to emphasize the need of charactereducation to help students develop good character, which includes knowing,caring about and acting upon core ethical values such as respect, responsibility,honesty, fairness and compassion.

Modern role and issues of radiation therapy for benign diseases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Miyashita, Tsuguhiro; Tateno, Atsushi; Kumazaki, Tatsuo

1999-01-01

Cases of radiation therapy for benign diseases have diminished in number because of recent alternative methods and knowledge about radiation carcinogenesis. In contrast to this tendency, our cases of benign diseases have recently increased. The facts made us reconsider today's radiation therapy of benign diseases. We reviewed 349 patients who were diagnosed as having benign tumors or non-neoplastic conditions and treated by radiation therapy in the past sixteen years. Analyzed items were the annual transition of treatment number, sorts of diseases, patients' age and sex, and the goal of therapy. Of all radiation therapy patients, benign diseases account for 9.26%. The annual percentages were 0.5%, 6.0%, 11.2% and 13.7% at intervals of five years since 1982. The majority was 246 post-operative irradiation for keloids (71%) and 41 pituitary adenomas (12%). Compared with malignant tumors, benign disease patients were statistically younger and female-dominant. Applications of radiation therapy in keloids and pituitary adenomas had definite goals, but were unclear in other rare diseases. Benign diseases should be treated by radiation therapy as the second or third option, provided the patients have serious symptoms and their diseases do not respond to other modalities. It seems to be widely accepted that favorite cases such as keloids and pituitary adenomas are treated by radiation therapy. But, optimal radiation therapies for other rare benign diseases have not been established. Therefore, the building of databases on radiation therapy on benign diseases should be pursued. Since benign disease patients were young and female-dominant and had many remaining years, their carcinogenicity potential should be considered. (author)

Benign and malignant tumors of the foot and ankle

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Singer, Adam D.; Datir, Abhijit; Langley, Travis [Emory University Hospital, Department of Radiology, Section of Musculoskeletal Imaging, Atlanta, GA (United States); Tresley, Jonathan [University of Wisconsin, Department of Radiology, Madison, WI (United States); Clifford, Paul D.; Jose, Jean; Subhawong, Ty K. [University of Miami, Department of Radiology, Miami, FL (United States)

2016-03-15

Pain and focal masses in the foot and ankle are frequently encountered and often initiate a workup including imaging. It is important to differentiate benign lesions from aggressive benign or malignant lesions. In this review, multiple examples of osseous and soft tissue tumors of the foot and ankle will be presented. Additionally, the compartmental anatomy of the foot and ankle will be discussed in terms of its relevance for percutaneous biopsy planning and eventual surgery. Finally, a general overview of the surgical management of benign, benign aggressive and malignant tumors of the foot and ankle will be discussed. (orig.)

Maya Studio Projects Photorealistic Characters

CERN Document Server

Palamar, Todd

2011-01-01

Create realistic characters with Maya tools and this project-based book Maya character generation tools are extremely sophisticated, and there's no better way to learn all their capabilities than by working through the projects in this hands-on book. This official guide focuses on understanding and implementing Maya's powerful tools for creating realistic characters for film, games, and TV. Use a variety of tools to create characters from skeleton to clothing, including hairstyles and facial hair, and learn how to use Performance Capture. A DVD includes supplementary videos, project support fi

Holistic Processing of Chinese Characters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alan Chun-Nang Wong

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Enhanced holistic processing (obligatory attention to all parts of an object has been associated with different types of perceptual expertise involving faces, cars, fingerprints, musical notes, English words, etc. Curiously Chinese characters are regarded as an exception, as indicated by the lack of holistic processing found for experts (Hsiao and Cottrell, 2009. The ceiling performance of experts, however, may have caused this null effect. We revisit this issue by adopting the often-used face-composite sequential-matching task to two-part Chinese characters. Participants matched the target halves (left or right of two characters while ignoring the irrelevant halves. Both Chinese readers (experts and non-Chinese readers (novices showed holistic processing. Follow-up experiments suggested different origins of the effects for the two groups. For experts, holistic processing was sensitive to the amount of experience with the characters, as it was larger for words than non-words (formed by swapping the two parts of a valid character. Novices, however, showed similar degree of holistic processing to words and non-words, suggesting that their effects were more related to their inefficient decomposition of a complex, character-like pattern into parts. Overall these findings suggest that holistic processing may be a marker of expertise with Chinese characters, contrary to previous claims.

Messianism in Latin American Environmental Thought

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Buitrago, Dairo

2008-01-01

One appears in the communication as one resorts for the social mobilization, towards the political pretensions of the messianic environmental thought, to symbiologies of body, psychic character and society of skeptical or relativist character. For the analysis of the symbiologies, we start from the criterion that when they are used politically in the environmental thought it is not done necessarily with an intention of strategic use I specify, but that its use can be by the implicit valuations that have these symbiologies in the world of the daily life, where the systems of environmental thought also interact of messianic type

[Recurrent benign cystic peritoneal mesothelioma].

Science.gov (United States)

Stroescu, C; Negulescu, Raluca; Herlea, V; David, L; Ivanov, B; Nitipir, Cornelia; Popescu, I

2008-01-01

The benign cystic peritoneal mesothelioma (BCPM) is a rare neoplasm affecting mainly females at reproductive age. The natural history and physiopathology of the BCPM are not entirely known. It is mainly characterized by the lack of malignant elements, no tendency to metastasis and by a pervasive tendency to generate local recurrences after surgical removal. The clinical manifestations are insidious, uncharacteristic; the benign cystic peritoneal mesothelioma is often discovered during a surgical procedure addressing another condition. Imaging tests can raise the suspicion of BCPM but the diagnostic can only be confirmed by histopathological examination corroborated with an immunohistochemical analysis. There are no long term studies dictating a single therapeutic attitude but a high risk of local recurrences and the possibility of transformation into malignant mesothelioma have lead to the current tendency towards an aggressive treatment of the tumor. We present the case of a recurrent benign cystic peritoneal mesothelioma in a 40 years old female patient, emphasizing the therapeutic approach and the role of radical surgery in the treatment of BPCM.

Character order processing in Chinese reading.

Science.gov (United States)

Gu, Junjuan; Li, Xingshan; Liversedge, Simon P

2015-02-01

We explored how character order information is encoded in isolated word processing or Chinese sentence reading in 2 experiments using a masked priming paradigm and a gaze-contingent display-change paradigm. The results showed that response latencies in the lexical decision task and reading times on the target word region were longer in the unrelated condition (the prime or the preview was unrelated with the target word) than the transposed-character condition (the prime or the preview was a transposition of the 2 characters of the target word), which were respectively longer than in the identity condition (the prime or preview was identical to the target word). These results show that character order is encoded at an early stage of processing in Chinese reading, but character position encoding was not strict. We also found that character order encoding was similar for single-morpheme and multiple-morpheme words, suggesting that morphemic status does not affect character order encoding. The current results represent an early contribution to our understanding of character order encoding during Chinese reading.

Benign positional vertigo - aftercare

Science.gov (United States)

Vertigo - positional - aftercare; Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo - aftercare; BPPV - aftercare; Dizziness - positional vertigo ... Your health care provider may have treated your vertigo with the Epley maneuver . These are head movements ...

Environmental impacts of renewable energy sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abbasi, S.A.; Abbasi, N.

1997-01-01

The global attention has always been focused on the adverse environmental impacts of conventional energy sources. In contrast nonconventional energy sources, particularly the renewable ones, have enjoyed a clean image vis a vis environmental impacts. The only major exception to this general trend has been large hydropower projects; experience has taught that they can be disastrous for the environment. The belief now is that mini hydro and microhydro projects are harmless alternatives. But are renewable energy sources really as benign as is widely believed? The present essay addresses this question in the background of Lovin's classical paradigm which had postulated the hard (malignant) and soft (benign) energy concepts in the first place. It then critically evaluates the environmental impacts of major renewable energy sources. It then comes up with the broad conclusion that renewable energy sources are not the panacea they are popularly perceived to be; indeed in some cases their adverse environmental impacts can be as strongly negative as the impacts of conventional energy sources. The paper also dwells on the steps needed to utilize renewable energy sources without facing environmental backlashes of the type experienced from hydropower projects

Benign Lesions of The Vocal Fold

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ozgur Surmelioglu

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Benign lesions of vocal folds are common disorders. Fifty percent of patients who have sound complaints are found to have these lesions after endoscopic and stroboscopic examinations. Benign vocal fold diseases are primarily caused by vibratory trauma. However they may also occur as a result of viral infections and congenital causes. These lesions are often presented with the complaints of dysphonia. [Archives Medical Review Journal 2013; 22(1.000: 86-95

Prevalence, phenotype and inheritance of benign neutropenia in Arabs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nagelkerke Nicollas

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Benign neutropenia, i.e., neutropenia not associated with an increased risk of infection, may result in serious medical consequences when a 'standard' definition of neutropenia (absolute neutrophil count (ANC 9cells/L is universally applied to all races. The aims of this study were to determine the prevalence of benign neutropenia among healthy Arabs and evaluate its mode of inheritance. Methods ANCs were studied prospectively amongst a healthy indigenous population (n = 1032 from the United Arab Emirates undergoing a nation-wide sickle-cell and thalassemia screening program. The mean neutrophil count and the prevalence of benign neutropenia were compared by age, sex and amongst various tribes. Results The mean neutrophil count (× 109cells/L was 3.3 (range 0.95–7.6. Benign neutropenia was present in 110 (10.7% subjects of whom 24 (2.3% individuals had moderate neutropenia (ANC 0.5 – 1.0 × 109 cells/L. In the 22 tribe-family groups, the prevalence of benign neutropenia varied between 0% and 38%. Benign neutropenia showed no difference in the frequency amongst the sexes (p = 0.23 and it was independent of age (Spearman's rho = 0.05, p = 0.13. The age-related mean neutrophil count was the lowest in Arabs when compared with other ethnic groups (Blacks, Europeans and Mexicans. The inheritance of benign neutropenia was consistent with an autosomal dominant pattern; however, the diversity of observed phenotypes suggested the presence of more than one genetic variant for this trait. Conclusion Arabs have a high prevalence of benign neutropenia that may be inherited as an autosomal dominant trait.

Metabolomic Signatures of Inbreeding at Benign and Stressful Temperatures in Drosophila melanogaster

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, Kamilla Sofie; Kristensen, Torsten Nygård; Loeschcke, Volker

2008-01-01

-line variation in metabolite profiles compared to outbred lines. In contrast to previous observations revealing interactions between inbreeding and environmental stress on gene expression patterns and life-history traits, the effect of inbreeding on the metabolite profile was similar across the different...... and five inbred lines were studied by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy after exposure to benign temperature, heat stress, or cold stress. In both the absence and the presence of temperature stress, metabolite levels were significantly different among inbred and outbred lines. The major effect...

Benign fibroushistiocytoma of the gingiva

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Palani Rajathi

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Benign fibroushistiocytoma is a benign connective tissue tumor rarely seen affecting the head and neck region. These tumors were believed to be of histiocytic origin as they are comprised of cells, which showed spindled morphology and cells with a round histiocytic appearance. The current concept consents that the lesional cells rather represent a fibroblastic differentiation. Diagnosis of these tumors proves to be challenging even with the use of immunohistochemistry due to lack of any specific markers. Here, we describe a case which presented in the gingiva mimicking a reactive lesion, which in fact was a tumor.

Strategic Management Process of Islamic Character Development of Early Children in Islamic Kindergarten

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M Najib

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This research is a field research by using a qualitative research approach. The purpose in this research is to find steps in strategic management process for development character of early children in Islamic kindergarten of al-Irsyad Purwokerto, Central java, Indonesia. The results showed that the process of strategic management to develop Islamic character of early children is done through four processes. First, processing of observation environmental to develop Islamic character in Islamic kindergarten. Second, strategic formulation process for development an Islamic character of early children in Islamic kindergarten. Third, implementating strategic process for develop an Islamic character of early children in Islamic kindergarten. Fourth, strategic assesment process for develop an Islamic character of early children in Islamic kindergarten. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian lapangan menggunakan pendekatan penelitian kualitatif. Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah untuk menemukan langkah-langkah dalam proses manajemen strategik untuk membentuk karakter anak usia dini di Taman Kanak-kanak (TK Islam al-Irsyad Purwokerto, Jawa Tengah, Indonesia. Hasil penelitian mengungkapkan bahwa proses manajemen strategik untuk membentuk karakter anak usia dini di TK Islam dilakukan melalui empat langkah. Pertama, proses pengamatan lingkungan untuk membentuk karakter Islami anak usia dini di TK Islam. Kedua, proses formulasi strategi untuk membentuk karakter anak usia dini di TK Islam. Ketiga, proses penerapan strategi untuk membentuk karakter anak usia dini di TK Islam. Keempat, proses penilaian strategik untuk membentuk karakter anak usia dini di TK Islam.

Benign acute childhood myositis.

Science.gov (United States)

Rajajee, Sarala; Ezhilarasi, S; Rajarajan, K

2005-05-01

To describe the clinical and laboratory features of benign acute childhood myositis. 40 children of BACM were seen during October 2001 to February 2002, 22 (52%) were male with mean age of 5.3 years. Duration of illness was 3.97 days. Preceding symptoms included fever, leg pain, vomiting and inability to walk. A provisional diagnosis of viral myositis was made in 26 (66%). Guillian Barre Syndrome was the most common referral diagnosis. 11 (27.5%) children had leucopenia with lymphocytic response and 16 (40%) had thrombocytopenia. CRP was negative in 32 (80%). CPK was markedly elevated (more than 1000 IU/l) in 18 (45%) and more than 500 IU/l in 11 (27.5%) remaining between 200 to 500 IU/l. Associated features were hepatitis (elevated SGOT & SGPT) in 28 (70%) and shock in 5 (12.5%). Serological test were indicative of dengue virus (Elisa PAN BIO) in 20 (50%) of which 8 (25%) were primary dengue and 12 (30%) were secondary dengue. The outcome of therapy mainly supportive were excellent. Benign acute myositis occurs often in association with viral infection. In the present study, Dengue virus was positive in 20 (50%) children. Benign acute myositis can be differentiated from more serious causes of walking difficulty by presence of calf and thigh muscle tenderness on stretching, normal power and deep tendon reflex and elevated CPK.

Sclerotherapy for Benign Cystic Diseases in the Neck

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Ji Hoon; Sohn, Chul Ho; Choi, Seung Hong; Yun, Tae Jin [Dept. of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2012-08-15

Surgery has been the classic treatment of choice for benign cystic diseases, including lymphatic malformation, ranula, branchial cleft cyst, thyroglossal duct cyst, thyroid cyst, parathyroid cyst, and lymphocele. However, surgery is associated with a tendency toward recurrence and may be accompanied by various complications, such as nerve injuries, vascular injuries, and scar formation. Therefore, sclerotherapy using various agents has been applied successfully to treatment of benign cystic diseases in the neck. This editorial reviews the use of various sclerotic agents and application of sclerotherapy to benign cystic diseases in the neck.

Sclerotherapy for Benign Cystic Diseases in the Neck

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ji Hoon; Sohn, Chul Ho; Choi, Seung Hong; Yun, Tae Jin

2012-01-01

Surgery has been the classic treatment of choice for benign cystic diseases, including lymphatic malformation, ranula, branchial cleft cyst, thyroglossal duct cyst, thyroid cyst, parathyroid cyst, and lymphocele. However, surgery is associated with a tendency toward recurrence and may be accompanied by various complications, such as nerve injuries, vascular injuries, and scar formation. Therefore, sclerotherapy using various agents has been applied successfully to treatment of benign cystic diseases in the neck. This editorial reviews the use of various sclerotic agents and application of sclerotherapy to benign cystic diseases in the neck.

Character profiles and life satisfaction.

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Hwanjin; Suh, Byung Seong; Kim, Won Sool; Lee, Hye-Kyung; Park, Seon-Cheol; Lee, Kounseok

2015-04-01

There is a surge of interest in subjective well-being (SWB), which concerns how individuals feel about their happiness. Life satisfaction tends to be influenced by individual psychological traits and external social factors. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between individual character and SWB. Data from 3522 university students were analyzed in this study. Character profiles were evaluated using the Temperament and Character Inventory-Revised Short version (TCI-RS). Life satisfaction was assessed using the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS). All statistical tests regarding the correlations between each character profile and life satisfaction were conducted using ANOVAs, t-tests, multiple linear regression models and correlation analyses. The creative (SCT) profile was associated with the highest levels of life satisfaction, whereas the depressive (sct) profile was associated with the lowest levels of life satisfaction. Additionally, high self-directedness, self-transcendence and cooperation were associated with high life satisfaction. The results of gender-adjusted multiple regression analysis showed that the effects of self-directedness were the strongest in the assessment of one's quality of life, followed by self-transcendence and cooperativeness, in that order. All of the three-character profiles were significantly correlated with one's quality of life, and the character profiles of TCI-RS explained 27.6% of life satisfaction in total. Among the three-character profiles, the self-directedness profile was most associated with life satisfaction. Our study was cross-sectional, and self-reported data from students at a single university were analyzed. The results of this study showed that, among the character profiles, the effects of self-directedness were the strongest for predicting life satisfaction. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Nerve Invasion by Epithelial Cells in Benign Breast Diseases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu-Jan Chan

2009-03-01

Full Text Available Nerve invasion by glandular epithelial cells in a lesion is usually regarded as invasive carcinoma. However, some benign conditions in the pancreas, prostate, breast and other organs may show involvement of nerve bundles by benign epithelial cells. We report an 18-year-old female with nerve invasion in benign breast disease. The lesion in her right breast revealed fibrocystic changes with ductal hyperplasia and stromal sclerosis. Perineural and intraneural involvement by bland-looking small ducts lined by 2 layers of cells including an outer layer of myoepithelial cells were found, suggestive of benign nerve invasion. There was no evidence of malignant cells in any of the sections. The patient remains well after 31 months of follow-up. About 44 cases of nerve invasion in benign breast diseases have been reported in the literature. It is necessary to carefully evaluate nerve involvement in breast lesions to avoid over-diagnosis and inappropriate operation.

VIDEOLARYNGOSCOPIC SURGEY IN BENIGN LARYNGEAL LESIONS-OUR EXPERIENCE

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Satheesh

2015-11-01

Full Text Available : Benign laryngeal lesions are commonly encountered causes of dysphonia and are often surgically correctable. A prospective study on 62 cases selected for videolaryngoscopic surgery was undertaken in a single unit in the department of ENT, Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram. The male: female ratio was 1.8:1 and the most common affected age group was 35-45 yrs. The most common benign lesion was vocal polyp. Preoperative voice assessment and 70 degree endoscopy was done. Follow up visits were done at 1 week, 3 weeks and 6 weeks and voice assessment and laryngoscopic appearances were noted. 98% reported excellent improvement of voice. The varieties of benign lesions which cause hoarseness are sources of concern and worry as it can affect the self esteem of a person. Thus videolaryngoscopic surgery (VLS coupled with voice therapy offers cost effective and safe management in benign laryngeal lesions

ENVIROMENTALLY BENIGN MITIGATION OF MICROBIOLOGICALLY INFLUENCED CORROSION (MIC)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

J. Robert Paterek; Gemma Husmillo; Amrutha Daram; Vesna Trbovic

2003-10-31

The overall program objective is to develop and evaluate environmentally benign agents or products that are effective in the prevention, inhibition, and mitigation of microbially influenced corrosion (MIC) in the internal surfaces of metallic natural gas pipelines. The goal is to develop one or more environmentally benign (a.k.a. ''green'') products that can be applied to maintain the structure and dependability of the natural gas infrastructure. The technical approach for this quarter includes the application of the method of fractionation of the extracts by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC); determination of antimicrobial activities of the new extracts and fractions using a growth inhibition assay, and evaluation of the extracts' ability to inhibit biofilm formation. We initiated the delivery system for these new biocides in the test cell and in mixtures of foam components and biocides/anti-biofilms. A total of 51 fractions collected by HPLC from crude extracts that were obtained from three varieties of Capsicum sp. (Serrano, Habanero, Chile de Arbol) were subjected to growth inhibition tests against two SRB strains, D. vulgaris and D. desulfuricans. Five fractions showed growth inhibition against both strains while seven inhibited D. desulfuricans only. The crude extracts did not show growth inhibition on both strains but were proven to be potent in preventing the formation of biofilm. Growth inhibition tests of the same set of crude extracts against Comamonas denitrificans did not show positive results. The fractions will be subjected to biofilm inhibition and dissociation assay as well. The delivery system to be evaluated first was foam. The ''foam pig'' components of surfactants and water were tested with the biocide addition. The first chemical and physical parameters to be tested were pH and surfactants. Tests using the fractionated pepper extracts are progressing rapidly. Gas chromatographic analysis

Benign Multicystic Mesothelioma in the Left Round Ligament: Case Report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bae, So Young; Yi, Boem Ha; Lee, Hae Kyung; Park, Seong Jin; Cho, Gyu Seok; Kwak, Jeong Ja

2010-01-01

Benign multicystic mesothelioma is a rare mesothelial lesion that forms multicystic masses in the upper abdomen, pelvis, and retroperitoneum. Most cases have a benign course. We present the ultrasound and MR findings of benign multicystic mesothelioma in the left round ligament, which caused a left inguinal hernia in a 46-year-old woman

Benign Multicystic Mesothelioma in the Left Round Ligament: Case Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bae, So Young; Yi, Boem Ha; Lee, Hae Kyung; Park, Seong Jin; Cho, Gyu Seok; Kwak, Jeong Ja [Soonchunhyang University Bucheon Hospital, Bucheon (Korea, Republic of)

2010-02-15

Benign multicystic mesothelioma is a rare mesothelial lesion that forms multicystic masses in the upper abdomen, pelvis, and retroperitoneum. Most cases have a benign course. We present the ultrasound and MR findings of benign multicystic mesothelioma in the left round ligament, which caused a left inguinal hernia in a 46-year-old woman.

Character Development in Adolescents.

Science.gov (United States)

Kessler, Glenn R.; And Others

1986-01-01

Explored the effects of a program consisting of communication and counseling skills, assertiveness training and moral dilemmas on the character development of high school students. The results demonstrated that the character development of the students in the experimental treatment group was affected significantly over time by the program.…

Social character of materialism.

Science.gov (United States)

Chatterjee, A; Hunt, J M; Kernan, J B

2000-06-01

Scores for 170 undergraduates on Richins and Dawson's Materialism scale were correlated with scores on Kassarjian's Social Preference Scale, designed to measure individuals' character structure. A correlation of .26 between materialism and other-directed social character suggested that an externally oriented reference system guides materialists' perceptions, judgments, acquisitions, and possessions.

APLIKASI SPOKES-CHARACTERS DALAM KAITAN DENGAN MEREK PRODUK

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Caroline Widjoyo

2004-01-01

Full Text Available Advertisement by using spokes-characters have potency to alter the choice of consumer brand with the compared to bigger impact which do not use the spokes-character. A lot of producer which hence spokes-character to increase assess to sell from a product. Spokes-Characters experience of the evolution from time to time keep abreast of the era%2C now emerge the new type of spokes-character and its application. Abstract in Bahasa Indonesia : Iklan dengan spokes-characters berpotensi mengubah pilihan merek konsumen dengan dampak lebih besar dibanding yang tidak menggunakan spokes-character. Banyak produsen yang memakai spokes-character untuk meningkatkan nilai jual dari sebuah produk. Spokes-characters mengalami evolusi dari masa ke masa mengikuti perkembangan jaman%2C sekarang muncul jenis baru spokes-character dan aplikasinya. spokes-characters%2C advertising%2C branding.

Character Play – The use of game characters in multi- player Role Playing Games across platforms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tychsen, Anders; Hitchens, M.; Brolund, T.

2008-01-01

histories of game characters. This article presents results from a comprehensive empirical study of the way complex game characters are utilized by players in multiplayer role-playing games across two different media platforms. The results indicate that adult players are capable of comprehending...... and utilizing game characters with well-defined personalities and backgrounds, as well as rules-based components. Furthermore, that the game format plays a significant role in the pattern of usage of the character elements. This pattern appears directly linked with variations in the way that the different game...

Marvel and DC Characters Inspired by Arachnids

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elidiomar Ribeiro Da-Silva

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This article compares arachnid-based Marvel and DC comics characters. The composition of a comic book character often has interesting ‘real-life’ influences. Given the strong connection between arachnids (especially spiders, scorpions and mites, all belonging to the zoological class 'Arachnida' and human beings it is not surprising that they have inspired many fictional characters. We recorded 84 Marvel Comics characters and 40 DC Comics characters, detailed in the dataset that accompanies the article (Da-Silva 2014. Most characters have been created recently, since the 1990s. Marvel has significantly more arachnid characters than DC. As for taxonomic classification, the characters were based mostly on spiders (zoological order 'Araneae'. Of the total characters, the majority are human beings, but an overwhelming number have at least some typical arachnid features. Villains (60.91% of total are significantly more numerous, considering the sum of the two publishers. Arachnids have bad reputation for being dangerous (Thorp and Woodson 1976; Ruppert and Barnes 1996. Since the public usually considers spiders, scorpions and mites “harmful” in general, we expected a larger contingent of villains. However, there was no statistical difference between the amount of villains and heroes in Marvel characters. It did not happen probably due to the success of one character: the Amazing Spider-Man.

Handwritten Sindhi Character Recognition Using Neural Networks

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Shafique Ahmed Awan

2018-01-01

Full Text Available OCR (OpticalCharacter Recognition is a technology in which text image is used to understand and write text by machines. The work on languages containing isolated characters such as German, English, French and others is at its peak. The OCR and ICR (Intelligent Character Recognition research in Sindhi script is currently at in starting stages and not sufficient work have been cited in this area even though Sindhi language is rich in culture and history. This paper presents one of the initial steps in recognizing Sindhi handwritten characters. The isolated characters of Sindhi script written by thesubjects have been recognized. The various subjects were asked to write Sindhi characters in unconstrained form and then the written samples were collected and scanned through a flatbed scanner. The scanned documents were preprocessedwith the help of binary conversion, removing noise by pepper noise and the lines were segmented with the help of horizontal profile technique. The segmented lines were used to extract characters from scanned pages.This character segmentation was done by vertical projection. The extracted characters have been used to extract features so that the characters can be classified easily. Zoning was used for the feature extraction technique. For the classification, neural network has been used. The recognized characters converted into editable text with an average accuracy of 85%.

Benign fibroosseous lesions

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Cansu Köseoğlu Seçgin

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Benign fibroosseous lesions represent a group of lesions that share the same basic evolutive mechanism and are characterized by replacement of normal bone with a fibrous connective tissue that gradually undergoes mineralization. These lesions are presented by a variety of diseases including developmental, reactive-dysplastic processes and neoplasms. Depending on the nature and amount of calcified tissue, they can be observed as radiolucent, mixed or radiopaque. Their radiographic features could be well-defined or indistinguishable from the surrounding bone tissue. They can be asymptomatic as in osseous dysplasias and can be detected incidentally on radiographs, or they can lead to expansion in the affected bone as in ossifying fibroma. All fibroosseous lesions seen in the jaws and face are variations of the same histological pattern. Therefore, detailed clinical and radiographic evaluation in differential diagnosis is important. In this review, fibroosseous benign lesions are classified as osseous dysplasia, fibrous dysplasia and fibroosseous tumors; and radiographic features and differential diagnosis of these lesions are reviewed taking into account this classification.

Benign Angiomyolipoma with Renal Vein Invasion: A Case Report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Mi Seon; Park, Soo Youn; Hwang, Seong Su

2009-01-01

Angiomyolipomas are the most common type of benign renal tumors and are characterized by a mixture of mature adipose tissue, sheet of smooth muscle, and thick-walled blood vessels of various proportions. Several cases of angiomyolipoma with partial malignant transformation invading the adjacent structure and lymph node have been reported. On the other hand, benign angiomyolipomas invading the adjacent structures has been rarely reported. We report a case of a benign angiomyolipoma with renal vein invasion

Degraded character recognition based on gradient pattern

Science.gov (United States)

Babu, D. R. Ramesh; Ravishankar, M.; Kumar, Manish; Wadera, Kevin; Raj, Aakash

2010-02-01

Degraded character recognition is a challenging problem in the field of Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The performance of an optical character recognition depends upon printed quality of the input documents. Many OCRs have been designed which correctly identifies the fine printed documents. But, very few reported work has been found on the recognition of the degraded documents. The efficiency of the OCRs system decreases if the input image is degraded. In this paper, a novel approach based on gradient pattern for recognizing degraded printed character is proposed. The approach makes use of gradient pattern of an individual character for recognition. Experiments were conducted on character image that is either digitally written or a degraded character extracted from historical documents and the results are found to be satisfactory.

Benign compression fractures of the spine: signal patterns

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ryu, Kyung Nam; Choi, Woo Suk; Lee, Sun Wha; Lim, Jae Hoon

1992-01-01

Fifteen patients with 38 compression fractures of the spine underwent magnetic resonance(MR) imaging. We retrospectively evaluated MR images in those benign compression fractures. MR images showed four patterns in T1-weighted images. MR imaging patterns were normal signal(21), band like low signal(8), low signal with preservation of peripheral portion of the body(8), and diffuse low signal through the vertebral body(1). The low signal portions were changed to high signal intensities in T2-weighted images. In 7 of 15 patients (11 compression fractures), there was a history of trauma, and the remaining 8 patients (27 compression fractures) had no history of trauma. Benign compression fractures of trauma, remained 8 patients (27 compression fractures) were non-traumatic. Benign compression fractures of the spine reveal variable signal intensities in MR imagings. These patterns of benign compression fractures may be useful in interpretation of MR imagings of the spine

Moral character in the workplace.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, Taya R; Panter, A T; Turan, Nazli; Morse, Lily; Kim, Yeonjeong

2014-11-01

Using two 3-month diary studies and a large cross-sectional survey, we identified distinguishing features of adults with low versus high levels of moral character. Adults with high levels of moral character tend to: consider the needs and interests of others and how their actions affect other people (e.g., they have high levels of Honesty-Humility, empathic concern, guilt proneness); regulate their behavior effectively, specifically with reference to behaviors that have positive short-term consequences but negative long-term consequences (e.g., they have high levels of Conscientiousness, self-control, consideration of future consequences); and value being moral (e.g., they have high levels of moral identity-internalization). Cognitive moral development, Emotionality, and social value orientation were found to be relatively undiagnostic of moral character. Studies 1 and 2 revealed that employees with low moral character committed harmful work behaviors more frequently and helpful work behaviors less frequently than did employees with high moral character, according to their own admissions and coworkers' observations. Study 3 revealed that adults with low moral character committed more delinquent behavior and had more lenient attitudes toward unethical negotiation tactics than did adults with high moral character. By showing that individual differences have consistent, meaningful effects on employees' behaviors, after controlling for demographic variables (e.g., gender, age, income) and basic attributes of the work setting (e.g., enforcement of an ethics code), our results contest situationist perspectives that deemphasize the importance of personality. Moral people can be identified by self-reports in surveys, and these self-reports predict consequential behaviors months after the initial assessment.

Character Education and Students Social Behavior

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Syamsu A. Kamaruddin

2012-09-01

Full Text Available

In an educational environment, in the form of character education program has been done both formally and informally. It's intended as one of the supporting ideas for follow-up in the form of design activities. Character education should basically refers to the vision and mission of the institution concerned. It shows the orientation of the two things in the character of the students are: aspects of human character and individual learners hallmark institution. In this paper, these two aspects is the author trying to ideas by referring to some other writings. The end result, the authors expect the birth of a design patent as early referral to spearhead a character development program learners.

ADC mapping of benign and malignant breast tumors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Woodhams, R.; Matsunaga, Keiji; Kan, Shinichi; Hata, Hirofumi; Iwabuchi, Keiichi; Kuranami, Masaru; Watanabe, Masahiko; Hayakawa, Kazushige; Ozaki, Masanori

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the utility of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value in differentiating benign and malignant breast lesions and evaluating the detection accuracy of the cancer extension. We used DWI to obtain images of 191 benign and malignant lesions (24 benign, 167 malignant) before surgical excision. The ADC values of the benign and malignant lesions were compared, as were the values of noninvasive ductal carcinoma (NIDC) and invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC). We also evaluated the ADC map, which represents the distribution of ADC values, and compared it with the cancer extension. The mean ADC value of each type of lesion was as follows: malignant lesions, 1.22±0.31 x 10 -3 mm 2 /s; benign lesions, 1.67±0.54 x 10 -3 mm 2 /s; normal tissues, 2.09±0.27 x 10 -3 mm 2 /s. The mean ADC value of the malignant lesions was statistically lower than that of the benign lesions and normal breast tissues. The ADC value of IDC was statistically lower than that of NIDC. The sensitivity of the ADC value for malignant lesions with a threshold of less than 1.6 x 10 -3 mm 2 /s was 95% and the specificity was 46%. A full 75% of all malignant cases exhibited a near precise distribution of low ADC values on ADC maps to describe malignant lesions. The main causes of false negative and underestimation of cancer spread were susceptibility artifact because of bleeding and tumor structure. Major histologic types of false-positive lesions were intraductal papilloma and fibrocystic diseases. Fibrocystic diseases also resulted in overestimation of cancer extension. DWI has the potential in clinical appreciation to detect malignant breast tumors and support the evaluation of tumor extension. However, the benign proliferative change remains to be studied as it mimics the malignant phenomenon on the ADC map. (author)

[Large benign prostatic hiperplasia].

Science.gov (United States)

Soria-Fernández, Guillermo René; Jungfermann-Guzman, José René; Lomelín-Ramos, José Pedro; Jaspersen-Gastelum, Jorge; Rosas-Nava, Jesús Emmanuel

2012-01-01

the term prostatic hyperplasia is most frequently used to describe the benign prostatic growth, this being a widely prevalent disorder associated with age that affects most men as they age. The association between prostate growth and urinary obstruction in older adults is well documented. large benign prostatic hyperplasia is rare and few cases have been published and should be taken into account during the study of tumors of the pelvic cavity. we report the case of an 81-year-old who had significant symptoms relating to storage and bladder emptying, with no significant elevation of prostate specific antigen. this is a rare condition but it is still important to diagnose and treat as it may be related to severe obstructive uropathy and chronic renal failure. In our institution, cases of large prostatic hyperplasia that are solved by suprapubic adenomectomy are less than 3%.

Survey on synthesis and reaction of environmentally benign water-soluble metal complex catalysts; Kankyo chowagata suiyosei sakutai shokubai no gosei hanno no chosa

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-03-01

This report describes the research trend survey results on the synthesis and reaction of water-soluble metal complexes which are regarded as environmentally benign catalysts. For the synthesis and catalysis of water-soluble complexes, synthetic methods of water-soluble phosphines, such as sulfonated TPPMS and TPPTS, are described in detail. Synthesis and reactivity of hydroxymethylphosphines are introduced, and the application of electrospray mass spectroscopy is elucidated as a tool for the analysis of them. Changes of the application of transition metal complexes with water-soluble phosphines to catalysis are described. Dual catalysts which have both functions of phase transfer catalysts and homogeneous catalysts are introduced. Concept of counter phase transfer catalysts is also introduced, and some catalytic reactions are described. In addition, this report introduces catalysis of water-soluble polymer-supported metal complexes, immobilization of metal colloids with water-soluble ligands and their analysis, and water-soluble complexes as hybrid catalysts. 144 refs., 94 figs., 10 tabs.

Treatment of oral soft tissues benign tumors using laser

Science.gov (United States)

Crisan, Bogdan; Baciut, Mihaela; Crisan, Liana; Bran, Simion; Rotar, Horatiu; Dinu, Cristian; Moldovan, Iuliu; Baciut, Grigore

2014-01-01

The present study aimed to assess the efficacy and indications of surgical laser therapy in the treatment of oral soft tissues benign tumors compared to classic surgery. A controlled clinical study was conducted in a group of 93 patients presenting various forms of oral soft tissues benign tumors. These patients were examined pre-and postoperatively and the oral benign tumors were measured linearly and photographed. The surgery of laser-assisted biopsy excision of oral benign tumors was carried out using a diode laser device of 980 nm. In patients who received surgical laser treatment, therapeutic doses of laser to biostimulate the operated area were administered on the first day after the surgery. The interventions of conventional excision of oral soft tissues benign tumors consisted in removing them using scalpel. In patients who have received therapeutic doses of laser for biostimulation of the operated area, a faster healing of wound surfaces and tumor bed was observed during the first days after surgery. Two weeks after the surgical treatment, good healing without scarring or discomfort in the area of excision was documented. Surgical treatment of oral soft tissues benign tumors with laser assisted postoperative therapy confirms the benefits of this surgical procedure. A faster healing process of the excision area due to laser biostimulation of low intensity has been observed in patients with surgical laser assisted treatment in the postoperative period.

Essays on Character & Opportunity

Science.gov (United States)

Center on Children and Families at Brookings, 2014

2014-01-01

These essays provide richer set of writings on the philosophical, empirical and practical issues raised by a focus on character, and in particular its relationship to questions of opportunity. Each one is an intellectual pemmican: sharp and to the point. Two scholars draw attention to the gendered nature of character formation (Segal and Lexmond);…

Benign breast diseases. Radiology, pathology, risk assessment. 2. ed.

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chinyama, Catherine N.

2014-01-01

Radiological and pathological correlation of the full range of benign breast lesions, with emphasis on screen-detected lesions. Detailed discussion of risk assessment. Revised and updated edition, with a new chapter on gynaecomastia. Ideal aid to the management of patients with benign or indeterminate breast lesions in a multidisciplinary setting. The second edition of this book has been extensively revised and updated. There have been numerous scientific advances in the radiology, pathology and risk assessment of benign breast lesions since the publication of the first edition. The first edition concentrated on screen-detected lesions, which has since been rectified; new symptomatic and screen-detected lesions are discussed in the second edition and include: mastitis and breast abscesses, idiopathic granulomatous mastitis, diabetic mastopathy, phyllodes tumours, gynaecomastia and pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia. The chapters on columnar cell lesions and mucocele-like lesions have been extensively updated. Where applicable, genetic analysis of the benign lesions, which is becoming part of personalised medicine in the field of breast cancer, has been included. The book also presents detailed analyses of the main models, such as the Gail Model, used to assess the subsequent risk of breast cancer in individuals. The current trend in the management of all cancers is preventative. Screening mammography detects early curable cancers as well as indeterminate lesions, the latter of which are invariably pathologically benign. The author has collated important benign lesions and, based on peer-reviewed publications, has documented the relative risk of subsequent cancer to allow the patient and the clinician to implement preventative measures where possible. This book will therefore serve as an essential component of multidisciplinary management of patients with symptomatic and screen-detected benign breast lesions.

Benign breast diseases. Radiology, pathology, risk assessment. 2. ed.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chinyama, Catherine N. [Princess Elizabeth Hospital, Le Vauquiedor, St. Martin' s Guernsey, Channel Islands (United Kingdom); Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Brighton (United Kingdom)

2014-04-01

Radiological and pathological correlation of the full range of benign breast lesions, with emphasis on screen-detected lesions. Detailed discussion of risk assessment. Revised and updated edition, with a new chapter on gynaecomastia. Ideal aid to the management of patients with benign or indeterminate breast lesions in a multidisciplinary setting. The second edition of this book has been extensively revised and updated. There have been numerous scientific advances in the radiology, pathology and risk assessment of benign breast lesions since the publication of the first edition. The first edition concentrated on screen-detected lesions, which has since been rectified; new symptomatic and screen-detected lesions are discussed in the second edition and include: mastitis and breast abscesses, idiopathic granulomatous mastitis, diabetic mastopathy, phyllodes tumours, gynaecomastia and pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia. The chapters on columnar cell lesions and mucocele-like lesions have been extensively updated. Where applicable, genetic analysis of the benign lesions, which is becoming part of personalised medicine in the field of breast cancer, has been included. The book also presents detailed analyses of the main models, such as the Gail Model, used to assess the subsequent risk of breast cancer in individuals. The current trend in the management of all cancers is preventative. Screening mammography detects early curable cancers as well as indeterminate lesions, the latter of which are invariably pathologically benign. The author has collated important benign lesions and, based on peer-reviewed publications, has documented the relative risk of subsequent cancer to allow the patient and the clinician to implement preventative measures where possible. This book will therefore serve as an essential component of multidisciplinary management of patients with symptomatic and screen-detected benign breast lesions.

Benign childhood epilepsy with occipital paroxysms: neuropsychological findings.

Science.gov (United States)

Germanò, Eva; Gagliano, Antonella; Magazù, Angela; Sferro, Caterina; Calarese, Tiziana; Mannarino, Erminia; Calamoneri, Filippo

2005-05-01

Benign childhood epilepsy with occipital paroxysms is classified among childhood benign partial epilepsies. The absence of neurological and neuropsychological deficits has long been considered as a prerequisite for a diagnosis of benign childhood partial epilepsy. Much evidence has been reported in literature in the latest years suggesting a neuropsychological impairment in this type of epilepsy, particularly in the type with Rolandic paroxysms. The present work examines the neuropsychological profiles of a sample of subjects affected by the early-onset benign childhood occipital seizures (EBOS) described by Panayotopulos. The patient group included 22 children (14 males and 8 females; mean age 10.1+/-3.3 years) diagnosed as having EBOS. The patients were examined with a set of tests investigating neuropsychological functions: memory, attention, perceptive, motor, linguistic and academic (reading, writing, arithmetic) abilities. The same instruments have been given to a homogeneous control group as regards sex, age, level of education and socio-economic background. None of the subjects affected by EBOS showed intellectual deficit (mean IQ in Wechsler Full Scale 91.7; S.D. 8.9). Results show a widespread cognitive dysfunction in the context of a focal epileptogenic process in EBOS. In particular, children with EBOS show a significant occurrence of specific learning disabilities (SLD) and other subtle neuropsychological deficits. We found selective dysfunctions relating to perceptive-visual attentional ability (pmemory abilities (psupports the hypothesis that epilepsy itself plays a role in the development of neuropsychological impairment. Supported by other studies that have documented subtle neuropsychological deficits in benign partial epilepsy, we stress the importance of reconsidering its supposed "cognitive benignity", particularly in occipital types.

Proteomic study of benign and malignant pleural effusion.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Hongqing; Tang, Zhonghao; Zhu, Huili; Ge, Haiyan; Cui, Shilei; Jiang, Weiping

2016-06-01

Lung adenocarcinoma can easily cause malignant pleural effusion which was difficult to discriminate from benign pleural effusion. Now there was no biomarker with high sensitivity and specificity for the malignant pleural effusion. This study used proteomics technology to acquire and analyze the protein profiles of the benign and malignant pleural effusion, to seek useful protein biomarkers with diagnostic value and to establish the diagnostic model. We chose the weak cationic-exchanger magnetic bead (WCX-MB) to purify peptides in the pleural effusion, used matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) to obtain peptide expression profiles from the benign and malignant pleural effusion samples, established and validated the diagnostic model through a genetic algorithm (GA) and finally identified the most promising protein biomarker. A GA diagnostic model was established with spectra of 3930.9 and 2942.8 m/z in the training set including 25 malignant pleural effusion and 26 benign pleural effusion samples, yielding both 100 % sensitivity and 100 % specificity. The accuracy of diagnostic prediction was validated in the independent testing set with 58 malignant pleural effusion and 34 benign pleural effusion samples. Blind evaluation was as follows: the sensitivity was 89.6 %, specificity 88.2 %, PPV 92.8 %, NPV 83.3 % and accuracy 89.1 % in the independent testing set. The most promising peptide biomarker was identified successfully: Isoform 1 of caspase recruitment domain-containing protein 9 (CARD9), with 3930.9 m/z, was decreased in the malignant pleural effusion. This model is suitable to discriminate benign and malignant pleural effusion and CARD9 can be used as a new peptide biomarker.

Benign submucosal lesions of the stomach and duodenum: Imaging characteristics with endoscopic and pathologic correlation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oh, Jong Young; Nam, Kyung Jin; Choi, Jong Cheol; Cho, Jin Han; Yoon, Seong Kuk; Choi, Sun Seob; Kwon, Hee Jin; Yoon, Jung Hee; Kim, Su Jin

2008-01-01

Benign submucosal lesions of the stomach and duodenum are occasionally encountered during endoscopy. But endoscopy has its limitations in the diagnosis and differentiation of these lesions, because submucosal lesions are often difficult to visualize at endoscopy due to minimal change of the overlying mucosa. Furthermore, endoscopic biopsy may not always yield adequate tissue for diagnosis due to the submucosal location of the lesions. For this reason, the role of radiologic imaging is important in the diagnosis of submucosal lesions of the stomach and duodenum. Recent advances in computed tomography (CT) and sonographic technology are helpful in narrowing the differential diagnosis of gastroduodenal submucosal lesions. In contrast to endoscopy and barium studies, CT or ultrasonography (US) provides information about both the gastric wall and the extragastric extent of the disease. Arterial phase contrast enhanced CT enables us to discriminate a mass of submucosal from that of a mucosal origin in the differential diagnosis of gastric or duodenal lesions. Although endoscopic sonography has been considered the better modality in the diagnosis of gastroduodenal submucosal lesions, transabdominal sonography can still be an alternative method to endoscopic sonography in assessing of the origin and character of the submucosal lesions. Some gastroduodenal submucosal lesions have similar radiologic findings that make differentiation difficult. But despite overlaps in radiologic findings, some lesions have characteristic radiologic features that may suggest a specific diagnosis. Knowledge of the differential diagnosis of benign submucosal lesions in the stomach and duodenum may promote correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment

Imaging of nontraumatic benign splenic lesions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Choi, Jin Young; Kim, Eun Kyung; Chung, Jae Joon; Kim, Myeong Jin; Lee, Jong Tae; Yoo, Hyung Sik; Kim, Seong Joon [Yonsei Univ. College of Medicine Research Institute of Radiological Science, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Lu Ci A [Yonsei Univ. College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

1999-04-01

The spleen is one of the largest organ in the reticuloendothelial system and plays an important role in the activation of immune response. It is the organ most commonly injured after blunt abdominal trauma, and malignant lesions such as lymphoma, or these due to metastasis, occur not infrequently. Even so, it is ignored even in abdominal ultrasonography. Some benign splenic lesions, however can cause severe symptoms and result in high mortality, and their accurate diagnosis is therefore essential. This study describes the imaging findings and histopathologic features of various nontraumatic benign splenic lesions.

Imaging of nontraumatic benign splenic lesions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Jin Young; Kim, Eun Kyung; Chung, Jae Joon; Kim, Myeong Jin; Lee, Jong Tae; Yoo, Hyung Sik; Kim, Seong Joon; Kim, Lu Ci A

1999-01-01

The spleen is one of the largest organ in the reticuloendothelial system and plays an important role in the activation of immune response. It is the organ most commonly injured after blunt abdominal trauma, and malignant lesions such as lymphoma, or these due to metastasis, occur not infrequently. Even so, it is ignored even in abdominal ultrasonography. Some benign splenic lesions, however can cause severe symptoms and result in high mortality, and their accurate diagnosis is therefore essential. This study describes the imaging findings and histopathologic features of various nontraumatic benign splenic lesions

Building Character through Literacy with Children's Literature

Science.gov (United States)

Almerico, Gina M.

2014-01-01

Character education is described as curriculum specifically developed to teach children about the quality and traits of good character. One means in which children can learn about good character is through the pages of high quality children's literature. In this study, the author defines the characteristics of an effective character development…

The Effect of Realistic Appearance of Virtual Characters in Immersive Environments - Does the Character's Personality Play a Role?

Science.gov (United States)

Zibrek, Katja; Kokkinara, Elena; Mcdonnell, Rachel

2018-04-01

Virtual characters that appear almost photo-realistic have been shown to induce negative responses from viewers in traditional media, such as film and video games. This effect, described as the uncanny valley, is the reason why realism is often avoided when the aim is to create an appealing virtual character. In Virtual Reality, there have been few attempts to investigate this phenomenon and the implications of rendering virtual characters with high levels of realism on user enjoyment. In this paper, we conducted a large-scale experiment on over one thousand members of the public in order to gather information on how virtual characters are perceived in interactive virtual reality games. We were particularly interested in whether different render styles (realistic, cartoon, etc.) would directly influence appeal, or if a character's personality was the most important indicator of appeal. We used a number of perceptual metrics such as subjective ratings, proximity, and attribution bias in order to test our hypothesis. Our main result shows that affinity towards virtual characters is a complex interaction between the character's appearance and personality, and that realism is in fact a positive choice for virtual characters in virtual reality.

Inverted papillomas and benign nonneoplastic lesions of the nasal cavity

Science.gov (United States)

Casiano, Roy R.

2012-01-01

Background: Benign lesions of the nasal cavity represent a diverse group of pathologies. Furthermore, each of these disorders may present differently in any given patient as pain and discomfort, epistaxis, headaches, vision changes, or nasal obstruction. Although these nasal masses are benign, many of them have a significant capacity for local tissue destruction and symptomatology secondary to this destruction. Advances in office-based endoscopic nasendoscopy have equipped the otolaryngologist with a safe, inexpensive, and rapid means of directly visualizing lesions within the nasal cavity and the initiation of appropriate treatment. Methods: The purpose of this study is to review the diagnosis, management, and controversies of many of the most common benign lesions of the nasal cavity encountered by the primary care physician or otolaryngologist. Results: This includes discussion of inverted papilloma (IP), juvenile angiofibroma, squamous papilloma, pyogenic granuloma, hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia, schwannoma, benign fibro-osseous lesions, and other benign lesions of the nasal cavity, with particular emphasis on IP and juvenile angiofibroma. Conclusion: A diverse array of benign lesions occur within the nasal cavity and paranasal cavities. Despite their inability to metastasize, many of these lesions have significant capability for local tissue destruction and recurrence. PMID:22487294

Promoting Character Development through Coach Education

Science.gov (United States)

Power, F. Clark; Seroczynski, A. D.

2015-01-01

Can youth sports build character? Research suggests that the answer to this question leads to 2 further questions: (1) can youth sport coaches be effectively prepared to become character educators, and (2) can character education take place in today's competitive youth sport environment? (Bredemeier & Shields, 2006; Power, 2015; Power &…

Braille Character Recognition Using Artificial Neural Network

OpenAIRE

Subur, Joko; Sardjono, Tri Arief; Mardiyanto, Ronny

2015-01-01

Braille letter is characters designed for the blind, consist of six embossed points, arranged in a standard braille character. Braille letters is touched and read using fingers, therefore the sensitivity of the fingers is important. Those characters need to be memorized, so it is very difficult to be learned. The aim of this research is to create a braille characters recognition system and translate it to alpha-numeric text. Webcam camera is used to capture braille image from braille characte...

Benign multicystic peritoneal mesothelioma: a case report

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Papapaulou Leonidas

2010-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction We report the case of a patient with a benign multicystic peritoneal mesothelioma and describe its appearance on computed tomography scans and ultrasonography, in correlation with gross clinical and pathological findings. Case presentation A 72-year-old Caucasian woman presented to our emergency department with acute abdomen signs and symptoms. A clinical examination revealed a painful palpable mass in her left abdomen. Abdominal ultrasonography and computed tomography demonstrated the presence of a large cystic mass in her left upper abdomen, adjacent to her left hemidiaphragm. The lower border of the mass extended to the upper margin of her pelvis. A complete resection of the lesion was performed. Pathological analysis showed a benign multicystic peritoneal mesothelioma. Conclusions Benign multicystic peritoneal mesothelioma is a rare lesion with a non-specific appearance on imaging. Its diagnosis always requires pathological analysis.

A Study of Character among Collegiate Athletes

Science.gov (United States)

Heupel, Jill D.

2017-01-01

The idea that sport builds character has been around for a long time. However, sports may not build the type of character once thought. Character of athletes was defined based on differing views held by sport scholars, coaches, athletes, and sport enthusiast. Sport scholars tend to view character of athletes from a moral perspective. Coaches,…

Thyroid carcinoma masquerading as a solitary benign hyperfunctioning nodule

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sandler, M.P.; Fellmeth, B.; Salhany, K.E.; Patton, J.A.

1988-06-01

Focal hot nodules on iodine thyroid images are associated with an exceedingly low incidence of malignancy. Most previously reported hot carcinomas represent the coexistence of small malignancies in or adjacent to a benign hot lesion. Described here is a 3-cm papillary carcinoma that fulfilled the criteria for benignancy on Tc-99m and I-123 imaging. Coincidental carcinoma within a benign lesion was excluded by detailed scintigraphic-pathologic correlation of the tumor. The implications of this case on the management of the solitary hot nodule are discussed and the literature reviewed.

Thyroid carcinoma masquerading as a solitary benign hyperfunctioning nodule

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sandler, M.P.; Fellmeth, B.; Salhany, K.E.; Patton, J.A.

1988-01-01

Focal hot nodules on iodine thyroid images are associated with an exceedingly low incidence of malignancy. Most previously reported hot carcinomas represent the coexistence of small malignancies in or adjacent to a benign hot lesion. Described here is a 3-cm papillary carcinoma that fulfilled the criteria for benignancy on Tc-99m and I-123 imaging. Coincidental carcinoma within a benign lesion was excluded by detailed scintigraphic-pathologic correlation of the tumor. The implications of this case on the management of the solitary hot nodule are discussed and the literature reviewed

IMAGE PROCESSING BASED OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION USING MATLAB

OpenAIRE

Jyoti Dalal*1 & Sumiran Daiya2

2018-01-01

Character recognition techniques associate a symbolic identity with the image of character. In a typical OCR systems input characters are digitized by an optical scanner. Each character is then located and segmented, and the resulting character image is fed into a pre-processor for noise reduction and normalization. Certain characteristics are the extracted from the character for classification. The feature extraction is critical and many different techniques exist, each having its strengths ...

Body Language Advanced 3D Character Rigging

CERN Document Server

Allen, Eric; Fong, Jared; Sidwell, Adam G

2011-01-01

Whether you're a professional Character TD or just like to create 3D characters, this detailed guide reveals the techniques you need to create sophisticated 3D character rigs that range from basic to breathtaking. Packed with step-by-step instructions and full-color illustrations, Body Language walks you through rigging techniques for all the body parts to help you create realistic and believable movements in every character you design. You'll learn advanced rigging concepts that involve MEL scripting and advanced deformation techniques and even how to set up a character pipeline.

Benign focal liver lesions: discrimination from malignant mimickers.

Science.gov (United States)

Alobaidi, Mohammad; Shirkhoda, Ali

2004-01-01

Focal lesions of the liver often have various imaging characteristics which may be interpreted as either benign or malignant. Understanding the underlying pathophysiology of these liver lesions may lead to characteristic imaging manifestations, which direct the radiologist to the diagnosis. Benign lesions include congenital hepatic cyst, autosomal dominant polycystic disease, hemangioma, focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH), hepatic adenoma, inflammatory pseudotumor, peliosis hepatis, focal fatty infiltration, hamartoma, and infectious processes such as hepatic abscess, echinococcal cyst, and candidiasis. Characteristic imaging features, clinical symptoms, and treatment/prognosis will be discussed. Emphasis will be placed on key reliable features of each disease to develop a method of discriminating these lesions from other benign and malignant disorders.

Comparative environmental impact and efficiency assessment of selected hydrogen production methods

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ozbilen, Ahmet, E-mail: Ahmet.Ozbilen@uoit.ca; Dincer, Ibrahim, E-mail: Ibrahim.Dincer@uoit.ca; Rosen, Marc A., E-mail: Marc.Rosen@uoit.ca

2013-09-15

The environmental impacts of various hydrogen production processes are evaluated and compared, considering several energy sources and using life cycle analysis. The results indicate that hydrogen produced by thermochemical water decomposition cycles are more environmentally benign options compared to conventional steam reforming of natural gas. The nuclear based four-step Cu–Cl cycle has the lowest global warming potential (0.559 kg CO{sub 2}-eq per kg hydrogen production), mainly because it requires the lowest quantity of energy of the considered processes. The acidification potential results show that biomass gasification has the highest impact on environment, while wind based electrolysis has the lowest. The relation is also investigated between efficiency and environmental impacts. -- Highlights: • Environmental performance of nuclear-based hydrogen production is investigated. • The GWP and AP results are compared with various hydrogen production processes. • Nuclear based 4-step Cu–Cl cycle is found to be an environmentally benign process. • Wind-based electrolysis has the lowest AP value.

On Hemingway’s Literary Characters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Maria-Miruna Ciocoi-Pop

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The present paper is a brief outline of Hemingway’s characters and the way in which they correspond to the author himself. It is known for a fact that Hemingway evinced a tendency to imitate his characters when they were coming to grips with diverse situations. Thus I have tried to briefly pinpoint the fading boundaries between reality and imagination in his work. By doing so, I have focused on both male and female characters, underlining the major dissimilarities between these two categories, as well as their main features.

Moral character effects in endorser perception

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chang Joseph W.

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This research consists of two experimental studies investigating the influence of moral character on endorser perception, and the influence of perceiver characteristics on tarnished endorser perception and brand evaluations. Perceiver characteristics are discussed from the perspectives of dispositional tendency, innate moral intuitions and self-location. The first study compared the influences of moral character and warmth on endorser perception. The second study examined the impact of perceiver characteristics on tarnished endorsers and brand evaluations. The findings reveal that moral character is more influential than warmth on endorser evaluations. Tarnished endorsers with immoral character exert more negative influence than tarnished endorsers with coldness character on brand evaluations. Innate moral intuitions and self-location moderate brand evaluations. High-morality consumers and heart-locators are more vulnerable than low-morality and brain-locators to the brands endorsed by tarnished endorsers, respectively.

Diagnostic value of chemical shift artifact in distinguishing benign lymphadenopathy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Farshchian, Nazanin, E-mail: farshchian.n@gmail.com [Department of Radiology, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Tamari, Saghar; Farshchian, Negin [Department of Radiology, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Madani, Hamid [Department of Pathology, Imam-Reza Hospital, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Rezaie, Mansour [Department of Biostatistics, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah (Iran, Islamic Republic of); Mohammadi-Motlagh, Hamid-Reza, E-mail: mohammadimotlagh@gmail.com [Medical Biology Research Center, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah (Iran, Islamic Republic of)

2011-11-15

Purpose: Today, distinguishing metastatic lymph nodes from secondary benign inflammatory ones via using non-invasive methods is increasingly favorable. In this study, the diagnostic value of chemical shift artifact (CSA) in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was evaluated to distinguish benign lymphadenopathy. Subjects and methods: A prospective intraindividual internal review board-approved study was carried out on 15 men and 15 women having lymphadenopathic lesions in different locations of the body who underwent contrast-enhanced dynamic MR imaging at 1.5 T. Then, the imaging findings were compared with pathology reports, using the statistics analyses. Results: Due to the findings of the CSA existence in MRI, a total of 56.7% of the studied lesions (17 of 30) were identified as benign lesions and the rest were malignant, whereas the pathology reports distinguished twelve malignant and eighteen benign cases. Furthermore, the CSA findings comparing the pathology reports indicated that CSA, with confidence of 79.5%, has a significant diagnostic value to differentiate benign lesions from malignant ones. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that CSA in MR imaging has a suitable diagnostic potential nearing readiness for clinical trials. Furthermore, CSA seems to be a feasible tool to differentiate benign lymph nodes from malignant ones; however, further studies including larger numbers of patients are required to confirm our results.

Video Game Characters. Theory and Analysis

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Felix Schröter

2014-06-01

Full Text Available This essay develops a method for the analysis of video game characters based on a theoretical understanding of their medium-specific representation and the mental processes involved in their intersubjective construction by video game players. We propose to distinguish, first, between narration, simulation, and communication as three modes of representation particularly salient for contemporary video games and the characters they represent, second, between narrative, ludic, and social experience as three ways in which players perceive video game characters and their representations, and, third, between three dimensions of video game characters as ‘intersubjective constructs’, which usually are to be analyzed not only as fictional beings with certain diegetic properties but also as game pieces with certain ludic properties and, in those cases in which they function as avatars in the social space of a multiplayer game, as representations of other players. Having established these basic distinctions, we proceed to analyze their realization and interrelation by reference to the character of Martin Walker from the third-person shooter Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Development 2012, the highly customizable player-controlled characters from the role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda 2011, and the complex multidimensional characters in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare 2011-2014.

Green Synthesis of Nanomaterials: Environmental Aspects

Science.gov (United States)

There is always a search for reliable and environmentally friendly processes to manufacture metal and metal oxide nanoparticles minimizing or even eliminating the use of hazardous chemicals. The only way to develop these “green” processes is to adapt benign synthesis approaches t...

Ultrasound differentiation of benign and malignant cervical lymph nodes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Md. Mizanur Rahman

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This study was conducted to see whether the size (measured by maximal short axis diameter, shape (expressed in terms of ratio dividing long axis diameter of the node by short axis diameter or L/S ratio, marginal clarity (regular or irregular margin, internal echo-pattern (homogeneous hypoechoic or heterogeneous and hilar echogenicity (presence or absence of echo-genicity in hilum are good criteria for differentiating benign from malignant cervical lymph nodes using high frequency (high resolution ultrasound probe. The study was carried out from January 1998 to December 1998, among patients with enlarged cervical lymph nodes who were scanned with a high frequency (5.0 MHz curvilinear probe. Chi-Square test was done to see the statistical correlation between two groups of nodes. A p value of <0.05 was taken as significant. Out of 65 nodes studied, 26 (100% enlarged cervical nodes with short axis diameter more than 1 cm were all malignant. In contrast 31 (79.5% of 39 enlarged nodes with short axis diameter less than 1cm were benign and rest were malignant (p<0.001. Of 34 enlarged nodes with L/S ratio <2, 30 (88.2% nodes were found malignant and 4 (11.8% were benign. Among the rest 31 enlarged nodes, 27 (87.1% with L/S ratio  2 were benign while 4 (12.9% were malignant (p <0.001. Among the 39 nodes with regular margin 28 (71.8% were found benign, where as among 26 nodes with irregular margin 23 (88.5% were malignant (p <0.001. When the internal echopattern was taken in account, 32 nodes had homogeneous hypoechoic echo of which 28 (87.5% were benign and among 33 nodes with heterogeneous echopattern 30 (90.9% were malignant (p <0.001. Among the 43 enlarged nodes with presence of hilar echogenicity 31(72.1% were found benign and 22 (100% nodes with no hilar echogenicity were all malignant (p <0.001. Such findings suggest that real time high resolution ultrasound might assist in differentiation of benign and malignant enlarged cervical lymph nodes

Modeling the Semiotic Structure of Player-Characters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vella, Daniel

2014-01-01

When game studies has tackled the player-character, it has tended to do so by means of an opposition to the notion of the avatar, with the result that the ontological and semiotic nature of the character in itself has not been given due attention. This paper draws on understandings of character...... from the fields of narratology and literary theory to highlight the double-layered ontology of character as both a possible individual and as a semiotic construction. Uri Margolin’s narratological model of character signification is used as the basis for developing a semiotic-structural model...

Guidelines for evaluating the environmental performance of Product/Service-Systems through life cycle assessment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjær, Louise Laumann; Pigosso, Daniela C. A.; McAloone, Tim C.

2018-01-01

Product/Service-Systems (PSS) such as integrated solutions, performance-based contracts or sharing systems are often proposed as means to enable improved environmental sustainability. However, PSS are not necessarily environmentally benign compared to conventional systems. Quantitative environmen......Product/Service-Systems (PSS) such as integrated solutions, performance-based contracts or sharing systems are often proposed as means to enable improved environmental sustainability. However, PSS are not necessarily environmentally benign compared to conventional systems. Quantitative....... In this article, we propose a set of guidelines consisting of six steps, which elaborates the LCA process with respect to the specific consideration for PSS assessment. The guidelines were developed based on identified challenges for the application of LCA on PSS, a review of existing LCAs on PSS case studies...

Benign joint hypermobility syndrome

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iwona Słowińska

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Benign joint hypermobility syndrome (BJHS, commonly known as loose ligament syndrome, is a non-inflammatory rheumatic condition. It is characterised by a greater than normal range of motion of the joints of the limbs and spine. The prevalence of the syndrome in preschool-age children is estimated to be between 2% and 30%, depending on ethnic background (with higher prevalence in Asian and African populations, occurring most often in families with a history of the condition and more frequently in girls. This paper presents a case report of a 12-year-old girl. A broad differential diagnostic approach to recurrent joint inflammation with joint effusion and pain made it possible to establish a diagnosis of benign joint hypermobility syndrome. The child met the Brighton criteria; her Beighton score was 7 out of 9. Patient education aimed at eliminating abnormal joint movement and an appropriate rehabilitation programme play key roles in the treatment of BJHS.

Building innovative and creative character through mathematics

Science.gov (United States)

Suyitno, Hardi; Suyitno, Amin

2018-03-01

21st century is predicted as the century with rapid development in all aspects of life. People require creative and innovative character to exist. Specifically, mathematics has been given to students from the kindergarten until the middle school. Thus, building character through mathematics should begin since the early age. The problem is how to build creative and innovative character through mathematics education? The goal expected from this question is to build innovative and creative characters to face the challenges of the 21st century. This article discusses the values of mathematics, the values in mathematics education, innovative and creative character, and the integration of these values in teaching mathematics that support the innovative and creative character building, and applying the values in structurely programmed, measurable, and applicable learning activities.

Virtual Character Personality Influences Participant Attitudes and Behavior - An Interview with a Virtual Human Character about Her Social Anxiety

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xueni ePan

2015-02-01

Full Text Available We introduce a novel technique for the study of human-virtual character interaction in immersive virtual reality. The human participants verbally administered a standard questionnaire about social anxiety to a virtual female character, that responded to each question through speech and body movements. The purpose was to study the extent to which participants responded differently to characters that exhibited different personalities, even though the verbal content of their answers was always the same. A separate online study provided evidence that our intention to create two different personality types had been successful. In the main between-groups experiment that utilized a Cave system there were 24 male participants, where 12 interacted with a female virtual character portrayed to exhibit shyness and the remaining 12 with an identical but more confident virtual character. Our results indicate that although the content of the verbal responses of both virtual characters was the same, participants showed different subjective and behavioral responses to the two different personalities. In particular participants evaluated the shy character more positively, for example, expressing willingness to spend more time with her. Participants evaluated the confident character more negatively and waited for a significantly longer time to call her back after she had left the scene in order to answer a telephone call. The method whereby participants interviewed the virtual character allowed naturalistic conversation while avoiding the necessity of speech processing and generation, and natural language understanding. It is therefore a useful method for the study of the impact of virtual character personality on participant responses.

Artificial Neural Network Based Optical Character Recognition

OpenAIRE

Vivek Shrivastava; Navdeep Sharma

2012-01-01

Optical Character Recognition deals in recognition and classification of characters from an image. For the recognition to be accurate, certain topological and geometrical properties are calculated, based on which a character is classified and recognized. Also, the Human psychology perceives characters by its overall shape and features such as strokes, curves, protrusions, enclosures etc. These properties, also called Features are extracted from the image by means of spatial pixel-...

A contrast-enhanced ultrasound study of benign and malignant ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

A contrast-enhanced ultrasound study of benign and malignant breast tissue. S Barnard, E Leen, T Cooke, W Angerson. Abstract. Objective. To determine the diagnostic value of haemodynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasound assessment in benign and malignant breast tissue, using histological examination as the reference ...

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo secondary to laparoscopic surgery

Science.gov (United States)

Shan, Xizheng; Wang, Amy; Wang, Entong

2017-01-01

Objectives: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is a common vestibular disorder and it may be idiopathic or secondary to some conditions such as surgery, but rare following laparoscopic surgery. Methods: We report two cases of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo secondary to laparoscopic surgery, one after laparoscopic cholecystectomy in a 51-year-old man and another following laparoscopic hysterectomy in a 60-year-old woman. Results: Both patients were treated successfully with manual or device-assisted canalith repositioning maneuvers, with no recurrence on the follow-up of 6 -18 months. Conclusions: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is a rare but possible complication of laparoscopic surgery. Both manual and device-assisted repositioning maneuvers are effective treatments for this condition, with good efficacy and prognosis. PMID:28255446

Character Education in Print: Content Analysis of Character Education in Introduction to Education Textbooks

Science.gov (United States)

Protz, Babette Marisa

2013-01-01

Albert Einstein is credited with saying that the most important component of education is the development of students' character. While debate exists as to the delivery of character education in the public schools, it must be recognized that not all students have a support system outside of the schoolhouse. Consequently, when character…

Environmental impact of non-conventional energy sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abbasi, S.A.; Abbasi, Naseema; Nipaney, P.C.; Ramasamy, E.V.

1995-01-01

Whereas the global attention has always been focused on the adverse environmental impacts of conventional energy sources, only a few studies have been conducted on the clean environment image of the non-conventional energy sources, particularly the renewable ones. The question whether the non-conventional sources are really as benign as they are made out to be is addressed in the present paper in the background of a classical paradigm developed by Lovin which had postulated the hard (malignant) and soft (benign) energy concepts in the first place. It then assesses the likely environmental impacts of several major non-conventional energy sources and comes up with the note of caution that in many cases the adverse impacts may not be insubstantial; indeed in some cases they can be as strongly negative as the impacts of the conventional energy sources. (author). 31 refs

Landscape Character of Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area

Science.gov (United States)

Kusumoarto, A.; Gunawan, A.; Machfud; Hikmat, A.

2017-10-01

Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area has a diverse landscape character as a potential landscape resources for the development of ecotourism destination. This area is part of the Mount of Botol Resort, Halimun Salak National Park (HSNP). This area also has a fairly high biodiversity. This study aims to identify and analysis the category of landscape character in the Pongkor Mining Ecotourism Area for the development of ecotourism destination. This study used a descriptive approach through field surveys and interviews, was carried out through two steps : 1) identify the landscape character, and 2) analysis of the landscape character. The results showed that in areas set aside for ecotourism destination in Pongkor Mining, landscape character category scattered forests, tailing ponds, river, plain, and the built environment. The Category of landscape character most dominant scattered in the area is forest, here is the river, plain, tailing ponds, the built environment, and plain. The landscape character in a natural environment most preferred for ecotourism activities. The landscape character that spread in the natural environment and the built environment is a potential that must be protected and modified such as elimination of incongruous element, accentuation of natural form, alteration of the natural form, intensification and enhanced visual quality intensively to be developed as a ecotourism destination area.

Data set for Tifinagh handwriting character recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Omar Bencharef

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The Tifinagh alphabet-IRCAM is the official alphabet of the Amazigh language widely used in North Africa [1]. It includes thirty-one basic letter and two letters each composed of a base letter followed by the sign of labialization. Normalized only in 2003 (Unicode [2], ICRAM-Tifinagh is a young character repertoire. Which needs more work on all levels. In this context we propose a data set for handwritten Tifinagh characters composed of 1376 image; 43 Image For Each character. The dataset can be used to train a Tifinagh character recognition system, or to extract the meaning characteristics of each character.

READING LITERATURE, TAKING PHILOSOPHICAL IDEAS, AND OBTAINING CHARACTERS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Siti Maisaroh

2017-05-01

Full Text Available This study aims to describe the philosophical ideas and characters containing in trilogy of 'RaraMendut's' novel by YB Mangunwijaya. The method used is the knowledge archeology of Michel Foucault. The research proves that the philosophical ideas as follows: 1 wife's faithfulness contains characters of wife’s strong determination and true faithfulness sense; 2 The women seizing fate's  contains the character of high struggle spirit;3 women as a glory’s symbol contains character of self-actualization ability; 4 women and a country's defense contains a character of clever to take on the role / responsive; 5 women and their benefits contains the character as a source of love and life spirit; 6 women as good mothers contains the character of conciliatory, reassuring, joyful, sincere, and full of love; 7 the anxiety to old age contains the character of religious and strong self-awareness; 8 the glory contains the character of the glory of battle with themselves; 9 the child's nature contains the character of belief in the skill/ creativity of children and believe to God the Evolver; And 10 the essence of wisdom and usefulness of life contain  the characters of uniting the scattered things, receiving and embracing sincerely things bad/ broken/ waste, understanding and forgiving, voice sincerity and excitement, not easy to complain.

Single benign metastasising leiomyoma of an inguinal lymph node.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Laban, KG; Tobon-Morales, Roberto; Hodge, Janice; Schreuder, HWR

2016-01-01

Benign metastasising leiomyoma (BML) is a rare benign disease associated with uterine leiomyoma and history of uterine surgery. It most frequently occurs in premenopausal woman, with a pulmonary localisation, and consisting of multiple nodules. We present an uncommon case of a 69-year-old woman with

Environmental Benign Synthesis of Lithium Silicates and Mg-Al Layered Double Hydroxide from Vermiculite Mineral for CO2 Capture

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Yu Zhang

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This research introduces a completely new environmental benign synthesis route for obtaining two kinds of inter-mediate and high temperature CO2 sorbents, Mg-Al layered double hydroxide (LDH and Li4SiO4, from vermiculite. The mineral vermiculite was leached with acid, from which the obtained SiO2 was used for the synthesis of Li4SiO4 and the leaching waste water was used for the synthesis of Mg-Al LDH. Therefore, no waste was produced during the whole process. Both Li4SiO4 and Mg-Al LDH sorbents were carefully characterized using XRD, SEM, and BET analyses. The CO2 capturing performance of these two sorbents was comprehensively evaluated. The influence of the Li/Si ratio, calcination temperature, calcination time, and sorption temperature on the CO2 sorption capacity of Li4SiO4, and the sorption temperature on the CO2 sorption capacity of LDH, were investigated. The optimal leaching acid concentration for vermiculite and the CO2 sorption/desorption cycling performance of both the Li4SiO4 and Mg-Al LDH sorbents were determined. In sum, this demonstrated a unique and environment-friendly scheme for obtaining two CO2 sorbents from cheap raw materials, and this idea is applicable to the efficient utilization of other minerals.

Benign multiple sclerosis: a need for a consensus.

Science.gov (United States)

Glad, S B; Aarseth, J H; Nyland, H; Riise, T; Myhr, K-M

2010-01-01

To investigate the impact of different definitions on the frequency of benign multiple sclerosis (MS) in patients with a long follow-up, and to study the presence of non-motor symptoms and employment across the definitions. All patients alive (n = 188) with disease onset during 1976-1986 in Hordaland County, Norway, were clinically examined including the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) in 2003. Non-motor symptoms which included depression, cognitive impairment, fatigue and pain, and employment status were also registered. Three definitions of benign MS were used based on the following EDSS cut-off values: 2.0, 3.0 and 4.0. Two additional definitions were added using an EDSS part-time employment status. The frequency of benign MS increased from 14.5% for EDSS benign MS.

A Classification Scheme for Literary Characters

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Matthew Berry

2017-10-01

Full Text Available There is no established classification scheme for literary characters in narrative theory short of generic categories like protagonist vs. antagonist or round vs. flat. This is so despite the ubiquity of stock characters that recur across media, cultures, and historical time periods. We present here a proposal of a systematic psychological scheme for classifying characters from the literary and dramatic fields based on a modification of the Thomas-Kilmann (TK Conflict Mode Instrument used in applied studies of personality. The TK scheme classifies personality along the two orthogonal dimensions of assertiveness and cooperativeness. To examine the validity of a modified version of this scheme, we had 142 participants provide personality ratings for 40 characters using two of the Big Five personality traits as well as assertiveness and cooperativeness from the TK scheme. The results showed that assertiveness and cooperativeness were orthogonal dimensions, thereby supporting the validity of using a modified version of TK’s two-dimensional scheme for classifying characters.

Resistive index in breast tumors; usefulness on differentiation between benign and malignant lesions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

An, Eun Joo; Choi, Hye Young; Baek, Seung Yon; Kim, Ah Young; Choe, Du Hwan

1996-01-01

We assessed the usefulness of resistive index(RI) on spectral analysis of doppler sonography for differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast lesions. We retrospectively reviewed 29 benign and 22 malignant lesions of breast, which were examined preoperatively with color and duplex Doppler and were confirmed by histopathologically after operation. We analyzed the average and distribution of RI in benign and malignant lesions. Although, there was no difference in the average values of RI in benign and malignant breast lesions, the distribution of RI was below 0.7 in eighteen cases (62%) of benign lesions, and above 0.7 in eighteen cases (82%) of malignant lesions. Thus, RI is valuable for differentiation between benign and malignant lesions of breast. Measurement of RI in breast disease using color and duplex Doppler study is useful modality adjunct to the conventional ultrasonographic differentiation of benign and malignant lesions

Character, attitude and disposition

OpenAIRE

Webber, Jonathan

2015-01-01

Recent debate over the empirical psychological presuppositions of virtue ethics has focused on reactive behavioural dispositions. But there are many character traits that cannot be understood properly in this way. Such traits are well described by attitude psychology. Moreover, the findings of attitude psychology support virtue ethics in three ways. First, they confirm the role of habituation in the development of character. Further, they show virtue ethics to be compatible with the situation...

Benign hepatic portal venous gas following caustic ingestion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lewin, Maite; Tubiana, Jean-Michel; Pocard, Marc; Caplin, Scott; Parc, Rolland; Blain, Antoine

2002-01-01

Hepatic portal vein gas has been documented in numerous conditions and is traditionally regarded as a poor prognostic sign. There are, however, several reports of portal vein gas with a benign course. We report the first case of transient hepatic portal vein gas secondary to the ingestion of a caustic substance. The literature of hepatic portal vein gas in benign disease is reviewed. (orig.)

The ABC of benign breast disease | Ndhluni | Continuing Medical ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Benign breast disease is common, although the incidence is sparsely documented in the literature and is probably quite underestimated. The main reason is that it is regarded as unimportant, with far more attention being focused on breast cancer. However, benign breast disease is far more common than breast cancer.

Anteromediale hælknuder - en benign tilstand

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Marxen, Bent; Bygum, Anette

2009-01-01

A 6-month-old girl was referred with plantar tumours noticed a few weeks after birth. The tumours, which were localized on the heels, had grown proportionally with the child. An ultrasonographic examination showed subcutaneous nodules, and she was referred for further dermatologic evaluation....... The diagnosis anteromedial heel pad nodules was established clinically. This benign condition has a tendency to spontaneous remission within the first years of life. Knowledge of this benign condition can prevent unnecessary surgical treatment of children. Udgivelsesdato: 2009-Aug-24...

Benign Breast Problems and Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

... Hyperplasia: A condition in which cells in the breast ducts or lobes are increasing in number and do not look normal under a microscope. Benign: Not cancer. Biopsy: A minor surgical procedure to remove a small ...

Case Report: Giant Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia in a Ghanaian ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Giant Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia (GBPH) is an uncommon pathology of the prostate gland. Up to date, only 17 cases have been described with specimen weights exceeding 500 g in the world literature. We report the successful removal of the largest ever benign prostatic hyperplasia (800 g) via transvesical prostatectomy ...

Spread and Control of Mobile Benign Worm Based on Two-Stage Repairing Mechanism

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Meng Wang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Both in traditional social network and in mobile network environment, the worm is a serious threat, and this threat is growing all the time. Mobile smartphones generally promote the development of mobile network. The traditional antivirus technologies have become powerless when facing mobile networks. The development of benign worms, especially active benign worms and passive benign worms, has become a new network security measure. In this paper, we focused on the spread of worm in mobile environment and proposed the benign worm control and repair mechanism. The control process of mobile benign worms is divided into two stages: the first stage is rapid repair control, which uses active benign worm to deal with malicious worm in the mobile network; when the network is relatively stable, it enters the second stage of postrepair and uses passive mode to optimize the environment for the purpose of controlling the mobile network. Considering whether the existence of benign worm, we simplified the model and analyzed the four situations. Finally, we use simulation to verify the model. This control mechanism for benign worm propagation is of guiding significance to control the network security.

Madness in Shakespeare's Characters

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Nuno Borja-Santos

2014-10-01

Full Text Available This paper begins with an introduction where the aims are explained: a psychopathological analysis of a Shakespearean character - Othello – followed by the discussion of the English dramatist’s importance in helping us understand madness in the emergent world of Renaissance. The main characteristics of Othello’s personality, which allowed the development of his jealousy delusion, are described. Finally, the conclusions underline the overlap of the symptoms developed by the character with the DSM-IV classification.

Optical character recognition based on nonredundant correlation measurements.

Science.gov (United States)

Braunecker, B; Hauck, R; Lohmann, A W

1979-08-15

The essence of character recognition is a comparison between the unknown character and a set of reference patterns. Usually, these reference patterns are all possible characters themselves, the whole alphabet in the case of letter characters. Obviously, N analog measurements are highly redundant, since only K = log(2)N binary decisions are enough to identify one out of N characters. Therefore, we devised K reference patterns accordingly. These patterns, called principal components, are found by digital image processing, but used in an optical analog computer. We will explain the concept of principal components, and we will describe experiments with several optical character recognition systems, based on this concept.

The likely adverse environmental impacts of renewable energy sources

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abbasi, S.A.; Abbasi, Naseema

2000-01-01

The global attention has always been focused on the adverse environmental impacts of conventional energy sources. In contrast nonconventional energy sources, particularly the renewable ones, have enjoyed a 'clean' image vis a vis environmental impacts. The only major exception to this general trend has been large hydropower projects; experience has taught us that they can be disastrous for the environment. The belief now is that minihydel and microhydel projects are harmless alternatives. But are renewable energy sources really as benign as is widely believed? The present essay addresses this question in the background of Lovin's classical paradigm, which had postulated the hard (malignant) and soft (benign) energy concepts in the first place. It critically evaluates the environmental impacts of major renewable energy sources. It then comes up with the broad conclusion that renewable energy sources are not the panacea they are popularly perceived to be; indeed in some cases their adverse environmental impacts can be as strongly negative as the impacts of conventional energy sources. The paper also dwells on the steps we need to take so that we can utilise renewable energy sources without facing environmental backlashes of the type we got from hydropower projects. (Author)

Ultrasonographic findings of benign soft tissue tumors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ki Sung; Oh, Dong Heon; Jung, Tae Gun; Kim, Yong Kil; Kwon, Jung Hyeok

1994-01-01

To clarify the characteristic sonographic features of benign soft tissue tumors and to evaluate the usefulness of sonographic imaging. We retrospectively reviewed ultrasonographic images of 70 cases in 68 patients with histologically proved benign soft tissue tumors. The tumors include 33 lipomas, 11 hemangiomas, 11 lymphangiomas, 7 neurilemmomas, 4 epidermoid cysts, 2 fibromas, 1 mesenchymoma, and 1 myxoma. The sonographic appearances of the lesions were mainly solid in 53 cases(33 lipomas, 8 hemangiomas, 2 lymphangiomas, 7 neurilemmomas, 2 fibromas and 1 mesenchymoma), mainly cystic in 14 cases(1 hemangioma, 8 lymphangiomas, 4 epidermoid cysts, and 1 myxomal), and mixed in 3 cases(2 hemangiomas and 1 lymphangioma). Although an accurate histologic prediction could not be made in most cases, certain patterns appeared to be characteristic of specific tumor types. 26 cases(78%) of lipoma were seen as lentiform, iso- or hyperechoic, solid mass. Hemangioma had variable appearance and characteristic calcifications were seen in 3 cases. Unicameral or multiseptated cystic mass with variable thickness of echogenic septa and solid portion was the characteristic finding of lymhangioma. Neurilemmoma showed lobulated, oval to round , relatively hypoechoic mass or with without internal cystic portion. Sonographic evaluation of benign soft tissue tumors is useful in demonstrating the location, size, extent, and internal characteristic of the mass. A relatively confident diagnosis can made when the characteristic features of the benign soft tissue tumor are present on sonographic imaging

Ultrasonographic findings of benign soft tissue tumors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Ki Sung; Oh, Dong Heon; Jung, Tae Gun; Kim, Yong Kil; Kwon, Jung Hyeok [Dongkang Genernal Hospital, Ulsan (Korea, Republic of)

1994-05-15

To clarify the characteristic sonographic features of benign soft tissue tumors and to evaluate the usefulness of sonographic imaging. We retrospectively reviewed ultrasonographic images of 70 cases in 68 patients with histologically proved benign soft tissue tumors. The tumors include 33 lipomas, 11 hemangiomas, 11 lymphangiomas, 7 neurilemmomas, 4 epidermoid cysts, 2 fibromas, 1 mesenchymoma, and 1 myxoma. The sonographic appearances of the lesions were mainly solid in 53 cases(33 lipomas, 8 hemangiomas, 2 lymphangiomas, 7 neurilemmomas, 2 fibromas and 1 mesenchymoma), mainly cystic in 14 cases(1 hemangioma, 8 lymphangiomas, 4 epidermoid cysts, and 1 myxomal), and mixed in 3 cases(2 hemangiomas and 1 lymphangioma). Although an accurate histologic prediction could not be made in most cases, certain patterns appeared to be characteristic of specific tumor types. 26 cases(78%) of lipoma were seen as lentiform, iso- or hyperechoic, solid mass. Hemangioma had variable appearance and characteristic calcifications were seen in 3 cases. Unicameral or multiseptated cystic mass with variable thickness of echogenic septa and solid portion was the characteristic finding of lymhangioma. Neurilemmoma showed lobulated, oval to round , relatively hypoechoic mass or with without internal cystic portion. Sonographic evaluation of benign soft tissue tumors is useful in demonstrating the location, size, extent, and internal characteristic of the mass. A relatively confident diagnosis can made when the characteristic features of the benign soft tissue tumor are present on sonographic imaging.

Case report 525: Benign fibrous histiocytoma (BFH) of thumb

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Statz, E.M.; Philipps, E.; Pochebit, S.M.; Cooper, A.; Leslie, B.M.

1989-01-01

A case was presented of benign fibrous histiocytoma (BFH) involving the distal phalanx of the thumb, a location heretofore not described in the literature. The distinction between BFH and other lesions (e.g. non-ossifying fibroma) was considered in depth. The distinction between benign and malignant fibrous histiocytoma was also described. (orig.)

Understanding the Properties of Interactive Televised Characters

Science.gov (United States)

Claxton, Laura J.; Ponto, Katelyn C.

2013-01-01

Children's television programming frequently uses interactive characters that appear to directly engage the viewers. These characters encourage children to answer questions and perform actions to help the characters solve problems in the televised world. Children readily engage in these interactions; however, it is unclear why they do so. To…

Diffusion-weighted MR imaging in benign and malignant orbital masses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Guo Jian; Wang Zhenchang; Xian Junfang; Niu Yantao; Zhao Bo; Yan Fei; Liu Zhonglin; Yang Bentao

2007-01-01

Objective: To analyse the characteristics of orbital benign and malignant masses on diffusion weighted imaging in combination with conventional MR imaging and evaluate the diagnostic value of apparent diffusion coefficient in distinguishing benign and malignant orbital lesions. Methods: Seventy- seven cases with orbital masses, including fifty-five benign lesions and twenty-two malignant tumors, who underwent conventional MRI and diffusion imaging scanning were studied with use of a 1.5 T magnetic resonance system. Quantitative ADC measurements of masses (ADCM) and of the white matter of contralateral temporal lobe (ADC w ) were made with two different b-values of 0 and 1000 s/mm 2 . The ADC ratio (ADCR) of the lesion to the control was calculated. The receiver operating characteristic curves(ROC) were constructed using various cut points of ADCM and ADCR for different parameters to differentiate between benign and malignant masses. The area under the ROC curve for each parameter was also calculated. Results: All cases were proved by histopathology. The mean ADCM and ADCR of benign orbital masses were (1.56 ± 0.75) x 10 -3 mm 2 /s and 1.85 ± 0.91, respectively. The mean ADCM and ADCR of malignant orbital masses were (1.09 ± 0.42) x 10 -3 mm 2 /s and 1.28 ± 0.53, respectively. There were significant difference both between ADCM and ADCR of benign and malignant masses (t=2.803, 2.735, P -3 mm 2 /s for ADC M of the tumor, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were 59.1%, 78.2% and 72.7%, respectively. And by using cut point of 1.24 for ADCR, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were 59.1%, 76.4%, 71.4%, respectively. Conclusion: Diffusion MR imaging and ADC value could provide additional information for conventional magnetic resonance imaging in distinguishing benign and malignant orbital masses. (authors)

Intra-corporeal anastomosis in laparoscopic surgery for benign colorectal disease

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Antonsen, Jacob; Balachandran, Rogini; Holm, Finn Stigsen

2017-01-01

INTRODUCTION: Recent studies have described the benefits of performing bowel resections for benign and malignant diseases as a total laparoscopic procedure with intra-corporeal anastomosis. We describe our preliminary experience with total laparoscopic surgery for benign lower gastrointestinal...

Risk of borderline ovarian tumors among women with benign ovarian tumors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Guleria, Sonia; Jensen, Allan; Kjær, Susanne K

2018-01-01

tumors among women with a benign ovarian tumor. METHODS: This nationwide cohort study included all Danish women diagnosed with a benign ovarian tumor (n=139,466) during 1978-2012. The cohort was linked to the Danish Pathology Data Bank and standardized incidence ratios (SIR) with 95% confidence intervals...... (CI) were calculated. RESULTS: Women with benign ovarian tumors had increased risks for subsequent borderline ovarian tumors (SIR 1.62, 95% CI 1.43-1.82), and this applied to both serous (SIR 1.69, 95% CI 1.39-2.03) and mucinous (SIR 1.75, 95% CI 1.45-2.10) histotypes of borderline ovarian tumors....... The risk for borderline ovarian tumors was primarily increased for women diagnosed with a benign ovarian tumor before 40years of age. The risk remained increased up to 9years after a benign ovarian tumor diagnosis. Finally, the associations did not change markedly when analyzed for the different histotypes...

Urinary prostate-specific antigen: predictor of benign prostatic hyperplasia progression?

Science.gov (United States)

Pejcic, Tomislav P; Tulic, Cane Dz; Lalic, Natasa V; Glisic, Biljana D; Ignjatovic, Svetlana D; Markovic, Biljana B; Hadzi-Djokic, Jovan B

2013-04-01

Urinary prostate-specific antigen (uPSA) can be used as additional parameter of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) progression. From January 2001 to December 2011, uPSA was determined in 265 patients with benign prostate. Based on total prostate volume (TPV), the patients with benign prostate were divided in two groups: TPV specificity of 0.83 and sensitivity of 0.67. The level of uPSA reflects prostatic hormonal activity and correlates with TPV, PSA and age. UPSA level ≥ 150 ng/mL can be used as additional predictive parameter of BPH progression.

Benign breast disease and risk of thyroid cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Luo, Juhua; Hendryx, Michael; Nassir, Rami; Cheng, Ting-Yuan David; Lane, Dorothy; Margolis, Karen L

2017-09-01

It has been suggested that breast and thyroid diseases may be linked. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between benign breast disease and subsequent risk of thyroid cancer. Postmenopausal women (n = 133,875) aged 50-79 years were followed up for a mean of 14 years. Benign breast disease was defined by history of biopsy. Incident thyroid cancer cases were confirmed by medical record review. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard modeling was used to estimate hazard ratios. There were 370 incident thyroid cancer cases during the follow-up period. Compared to women without BBD, women with BBD had a significant increased risk of thyroid cancer after adjusting for potential confounders (HR 1.38 95% CI 1.10-1.73), especially for women with more than two biopsies (HR 1.59 95% CI 1.10-2.26). There were no significant differences in thyroid tumor size, stage or histologic types between women with and without BBD. Our large prospective study observed that postmenopausal women with BBD had an increased risk for thyroid cancer compared with women without BBD. A more detailed investigation of thyroid cancer risk according to different subtypes of benign breast disease is needed to better understand the association observed between thyroid and benign breast diseases.

Benign and malignant thyroid nodules after neck irradiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fjaelling, M.T.; Tisell, L.E.; Carlsson, S.; Hansson, G.; Lundberg, L.M.; Oden, A.

1986-01-01

A total of 444 persons were examined for the presence of thyroid nodules on average of 43 years after having been treated with x-rays for cervical tuberculous adenitis. Of this total, 101 subjects had undergone surgery for thyroid nodules: 25 for carcinoma (6%) and 76 for benign nodules (17%). Carcinoma occurred with the same frequency in multinodular and uninodular glands. Because of the uneven age distribution in the current series, it could not be decided whether there was a higher susceptibility of the young thyroid to the induction of thyroid carcinoma or benign nodules. The dosage range for the whole series was 0.40 to 50.90 Gy (40-5090 rad). There was a positive correlation between the absorbed radiation dose and the probability of developing benign and malignant thyroid nodules, even after doses of 20 Gy or more. The risk of developing thyroid carcinoma was equal for men and women, while the female-to-male ratio for benign nodules was 2.9:1, indicating that risk factors associated with females are of less importance in irradiated than in nonirradiated populations. The median latency for carcinoma was 40 years, suggesting that the increased risk of thyroid carcinoma after irradiation remains for the rest of the patient's life

Diagnosis and Treatment of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammed Dagkiran

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is the cause of peripheral vertigo, which only takes seconds posed by certain head and body position and led to severe attacks of vertigo. Therefore, it is a disturbance that causes a continuous fear of fall and anxiety in some patients. Although benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is the most common cause of peripheral vertigo, it may cause unnecessary tests, treatment costs and the loss of labor due to the result of the delay in the diagnosis and treatment stages. Diagnosis and treatment of this disease is easy. High success rates can be achieved with appropriate repositioning maneuvers after taking a detailed medical history and accurate assessment of accompanying nystagmus. The aim of this paper was to review the updated information about benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. [Archives Medical Review Journal 2015; 24(4.000: 555-564

Factorized combinations of Virasoro characters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bytsko, A.G.; Fring, A.

2000-01-01

We investigate linear combinations of characters for minimal Virasoro models which are representable as a product of several basic blocks. Our analysis is based on consideration of asymptotic behaviour of the characters in the quasi-classical limit. In particular, we introduce a notion of the secondary effective central charge. We find all possible cases for which factorization occurs on the base of the Gauss-Jacobi or the Watson identities. Exploiting these results, we establish various types of identities between different characters. In particular, we present several identities generalizing the Rogers-Ramanujan identities. Applications to quasi-particle representations, modular invariant partition functions, super-conformal theories and conformal models with boundaries are briefly discussed. (orig.)

Character Recognition Using Genetically Trained Neural Networks

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Diniz, C.; Stantz, K.M.; Trahan, M.W.; Wagner, J.S.

1998-10-01

Computationally intelligent recognition of characters and symbols addresses a wide range of applications including foreign language translation and chemical formula identification. The combination of intelligent learning and optimization algorithms with layered neural structures offers powerful techniques for character recognition. These techniques were originally developed by Sandia National Laboratories for pattern and spectral analysis; however, their ability to optimize vast amounts of data make them ideal for character recognition. An adaptation of the Neural Network Designer soflsvare allows the user to create a neural network (NN_) trained by a genetic algorithm (GA) that correctly identifies multiple distinct characters. The initial successfid recognition of standard capital letters can be expanded to include chemical and mathematical symbols and alphabets of foreign languages, especially Arabic and Chinese. The FIN model constructed for this project uses a three layer feed-forward architecture. To facilitate the input of characters and symbols, a graphic user interface (GUI) has been developed to convert the traditional representation of each character or symbol to a bitmap. The 8 x 8 bitmap representations used for these tests are mapped onto the input nodes of the feed-forward neural network (FFNN) in a one-to-one correspondence. The input nodes feed forward into a hidden layer, and the hidden layer feeds into five output nodes correlated to possible character outcomes. During the training period the GA optimizes the weights of the NN until it can successfully recognize distinct characters. Systematic deviations from the base design test the network's range of applicability. Increasing capacity, the number of letters to be recognized, requires a nonlinear increase in the number of hidden layer neurodes. Optimal character recognition performance necessitates a minimum threshold for the number of cases when genetically training the net. And, the

Benign vascular lesions of bone: radiologic and pathologic features

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wenger, D.E.; Wold, L.E. [Mayo Foundation, Rochester, MN (United States)

2000-02-01

The benign vascular tumors of bone represent a diverse group of tumors that can present with a broad spectrum of clinical signs and symptoms. They can also present a significant diagnostic challenge due to their widely variable radiographic imaging and histologic features. Some of the tumors manifest as clearly benign lesions with tissue-specific diagnostic imaging features, while others have non-specific imaging features that may simulate malignant neoplasm. This article will provide a review of the nomenclature and the characteristic radiographic and pathologic features of the benign vascular lesions of bone. The information will aid in improving our diagnostic accuracy and enhance our understanding of the biologic potential of this diverse group of osseous lesions. (orig.)

Benign vascular lesions of bone: radiologic and pathologic features

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wenger, D.E.; Wold, L.E.

2000-01-01

The benign vascular tumors of bone represent a diverse group of tumors that can present with a broad spectrum of clinical signs and symptoms. They can also present a significant diagnostic challenge due to their widely variable radiographic imaging and histologic features. Some of the tumors manifest as clearly benign lesions with tissue-specific diagnostic imaging features, while others have non-specific imaging features that may simulate malignant neoplasm. This article will provide a review of the nomenclature and the characteristic radiographic and pathologic features of the benign vascular lesions of bone. The information will aid in improving our diagnostic accuracy and enhance our understanding of the biologic potential of this diverse group of osseous lesions. (orig.)

Large mid-esophageal granular cell tumor: benign versus malignant

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Prarthana Roselil Christopher

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Granular cell tumors are rare soft tissue neoplasms, among which only 2% are malignant, arising from nervous tissue. Here we present a case of a large esophageal granular cell tumor with benign histopathological features which metastasized to the liver, but showing on positron emission tomography-computerized tomography standardized uptake value suggestive of a benign lesion.

Benign breast lesions in Kano | Ochicha | Nigerian Journal of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Results: Benign breast lesions accounted for 160 (73%) of all breast biopsies seen, and 71.9% of breast diseases in women with a benign to malignant ratio of 2.6 to 1. The mean age at presentation was 26 years. Fibrocystic disease was the commonest histological lesion comprising 55 (34.3%) of all cases, with a mean ...

MRI features in differentiation borderline from benign mucinous ovarian cystadenoma

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhao Shuhui; Qiang Jinwei; Zhang Guofu; Qiu Haiying; Wang Xuezhen; Wang Li

2012-01-01

Objective: To investigate MRI features for differentiating borderline from benign mucinous cystadenoma (MC) of the ovary. Methods: Twenty three patients with 23 benign MCs and 19 patients with 20 borderline mucinous cystadenomas (BMC)proven by surgery and pathology underwent MRI, with 23 benign MCs and 20 BMC. MRI features of tumor were evaluated and compared between two groups including location, shape, size, loculation, signal intensity of the fluid, thickness of septa and wall, and vegetations. The findings were correlated with those of pathology. The loculation, the signal intensity of the intracystic content, the thickness of the septation and the wall, and the vegetations between the benign MCs and the BMCs were compared using the Chi-square test.Results Homogenous low signal on T 1 WI and homogenous high signal on T 2 WI were the main signal patterns of benign MC seen more commonly in benign MC (18/23 and 17/23, respectively) than in BMC (5/20 and 8/20, respectively) (χ 2 =12.1979, 5.0553; P<0.05). The honeycomb loculi, high signal on T 1 WI, low signal on T 2 WI, thickened septa or wall (≥5 mm), and vegetations (≥5 mm) were significantly more common in BMC (10/20, 9/20, 8/20, 10/20 and 14/20, respectively) than in benign MC(4/23, 3/23, 1/23, 1/23 and 1/23, respectively) (χ 2 =5.1804, 5.4300, 8.2163, 11.7113 and 20.2990, P<0.05), with the sensitivity and specificity for characterizing BMC of 50.0% and 82.6%, 45.0% and 87.0%, 40.0% and 95.7%, 50.0% and 95.7%, and 70.0% and 95.7%, respectively. When one of honeycomb loculi with low signal on T 2 WI, thickened septa or wall (≥5 mm), and vegetations (≥5 mm) were found, the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy for characterizing BMC were 90.0%, 91.3% and 90.7% respectively. Conclusion: MRI is accurate for demonstrating morphological features of ovarian MC which well correlated to pathological characteristics, and for differentiating BMC from benign MC, thus helpful for making surgery strategy. (authors)

Thallium 201 thyroid scan: differential diagnosis of benign and malignant nodules

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oh, Jong Sub; Kim, Byong Geun; Park, Byung Ran; Kim, Se Jong; Ko, Kang Seok; Kim, Min Joong; Ji, Joo Yun

1995-01-01

To evaluate useful findings and diagnostic value of TI-201 thyroid scan in differentiating benign from malignant nodules. We studied 77 cold thyroid nodules proven histologically(27 malignant and 50 benign). Early (5-15 min) and delayed images(3-5 hours) were obtained after intravenous injection of thallium 201. In these nodules, we retrospectively analyzed the degree of TI-201 uptake in early and delayed images, histopathologic type, size, and presence or absence of cystic change in the sonograms of 22 malignant nodules. Useful finding for diagnosis of malignant nodules was strong uptake of TI-201 in early and delayed images(specificity: 98%, sensitivity: 63%, positive predictive value: 94.4%). Useful finding for benign nodules was no uptake of TI-201 in delayed image(specificity: 88.9%, sensitivity: 68%, positive predictive value: 91.9%). The accuracy of TI-201 thyroid scan in differentiating benign from malignant nodules was 66.2%. The nodules with strong TI-201 uptake in early image and low TI-201 uptake in delayed image were malignant in 29.4%. Cystic changes were found in 40% of malignant nodules with atypical TI-201 uptake. TI-201 thyroid scan showed high specificity in follicular neoplasm and adenomatous goiter in which differentiation of benignancy and malignancy is difficult with only cytologic examination. We consider that TI-201 thyroid scan is valuable in differentiating benign from malignant nodules and when combined with fine needle aspiration and ultrasound examination, it will enable more accurate differential diagnosis between benign and malignant thyroid nodules

Good character at school: positive classroom behavior mediates the link between character strengths and school achievement.

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Wagner, Lisa; Ruch, Willibald

2015-01-01

Character strengths have been found to be substantially related to children's and adolescents' well-being. Initial evidence suggests that they also matter for school success (e.g., Weber and Ruch, 2012). The present set of two studies aimed at replicating and extending these findings in two different age groups, primary school students (N = 179; mean age = 11.6 years) and secondary school students (N = 199; mean age = 14.4 years). The students completed the VIA-Youth (Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth), a self-report measure of the 24 character strengths in the VIA classification. Their teachers rated the students' positive behavior in the classroom. Additionally, school achievement was assessed: For the primary school students (Study 1), teachers rated the students' overall school achievement and for the secondary school students (Study 2), we used their grades as a measure of school achievement. We found that several character strengths were associated with both positive classroom behavior and school achievement. Across both samples, school achievement was correlated with love of learning, perseverance, zest, gratitude, hope, and perspective. The strongest correlations with positive classroom behavior were found for perseverance, self-regulation, prudence, social intelligence, and hope. For both samples, there were indirect effects of some of the character strengths on school achievement through teacher-rated positive classroom behavior. The converging findings from the two samples support the notion that character strengths contribute to positive classroom behavior, which in turn enhances school achievement. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and for school interventions based on character strengths.

Good character at school: Positive classroom behavior mediates the link between character strengths and school achievement

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lisa eWagner

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Character strengths have been found to be substantially related to children’s and adolescents’ well-being. Initial evidence suggests that they also matter for school success (e.g., Weber and Ruch, 2012. The present set of two studies aimed at replicating and extending these findings in two different age groups, primary school students (N = 179; mean age = 11.6 years and secondary school students (N = 199; mean age = 14.4 years. The students completed the VIA-Youth, a self-report measure of the 24 character strengths in the VIA classification. Their teachers rated the students’ positive behavior in the classroom. Additionally, school achievement was assessed: For the primary school students (Study 1, teachers rated the students’ overall school achievement and for the secondary school students (Study 2, we used their grades as a measure of school achievement. We found that several character strengths were associated with both positive classroom behavior and school achievement. Across both samples school achievement was correlated with love of learning, perseverance, zest, gratitude, hope, and perspective. The strongest correlations with positive classroom behavior were found for perseverance, self-regulation, prudence, social intelligence, and hope. For both samples, there were indirect effects of most of the character strengths on school achievement through teacher-rated positive classroom behavior. The converging findings from the two samples support the notion that character strengths contribute to positive classroom behavior, which in turn enhances school achievement. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research and for school interventions based on character strengths.

Dual time-point FDG PET/CT for differentiating benign from ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Objective. Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-positron emission tomography (PET) is an accurate non-invasive imaging test for differentiating benign from malignant solitary pulmonary nodules (SPNs). We aimed to assess its diagnostic accuracy for differentiating benign from malignant SPNs in a tuberculosis (TB)-endemic area.

Intraosseous Benign Lesions of the Jaws: A Radiographic Study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Javadian Langaroodi, Adineh; Lari, Sima Sadat; Shokri, Abbas; Hoseini Zarch, Seyed Hossein; Jamshidi, Shokofeh; Akbari, Peyman

2014-01-01

Benign maxillo-mandibular tumors and cysts, which are relatively common findings on radiographs, namely the ubiquitous panoramic view, have to be dealt with by dentists on a daily basis. The aim of this study is to evaluate the panoramic radiographic findings pertaining to benign and tumoral lesions in the maxilla and mandible. Applying a case series method, panoramic images of 61 patients with cysts, benign tumors and tumor-like lesions in the jaws who were referred to Hamedan dental school between 2009 and 2011 were evaluated by two radiologists. They were both blind to histopathological results as well as the objectives of our study. Lesions were assessed based on their location, periphery, internal structure and impaction on the surrounding structures. Then the obtained data were analyzed using descriptive tables. Cysts were mostly more common in men despite the equal propensity of both genders to benign tumors. In contrast, women showed a higher frequency of tumor-like lesions. The most common site of involvement was the posterior mandible, with peri-apical tooth lesions as the most prevalent dental association. Radiographically, what we most encountered was unilocular radiolucency pertaining to cysts and benign tumors; nevertheless, tumor-like lesions tended to present with a well-defined radiopacity. Despite its known shortcomings, like every other diagnostic tool, panoramic radiography can contribute to the early detection of maxillary/mandibular lesions that in turn enable the dentist to devise an appropriate treatment plan

On the information content of discrete phylogenetic characters.

Science.gov (United States)

Bordewich, Magnus; Deutschmann, Ina Maria; Fischer, Mareike; Kasbohm, Elisa; Semple, Charles; Steel, Mike

2017-12-16

Phylogenetic inference aims to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of different species based on genetic (or other) data. Discrete characters are a particular type of data, which contain information on how the species should be grouped together. However, it has long been known that some characters contain more information than others. For instance, a character that assigns the same state to each species groups all of them together and so provides no insight into the relationships of the species considered. At the other extreme, a character that assigns a different state to each species also conveys no phylogenetic signal. In this manuscript, we study a natural combinatorial measure of the information content of an individual character and analyse properties of characters that provide the maximum phylogenetic information, particularly, the number of states such a character uses and how the different states have to be distributed among the species or taxa of the phylogenetic tree.

Environmental modulation of androgen levels and secondary sex characters in two populations of the peacock blenny Salaria pavo.

Science.gov (United States)

Saraiva, João L; Gonçalves, David M; Oliveira, Rui F

2010-02-01

Morphology and endocrinology were studied in two populations of the peacock blenny Salaria pavo, with different regimes of sexual selection imposed by differences in nest site availability. The peacock blenny is a small, sexually dimorphic benthic fish that presents exclusive paternal care of the clutch and inhabits rocky shores of the Mediterranean and adjacent Atlantic areas. In a population from the Gulf of Trieste (Northern Adriatic sea) inhabiting rocky shores where nest sites are abundant, male-male competition for nests is low, males court females and a low frequency of alternative reproductive tactics (small, parasitic female-mimicking sneaker males that change tactic into nest holders in subsequent breeding seasons) occurs. Conversely at Ria Formosa, a coastal lagoon in Southern Portugal, where nest sites are scarce and highly aggregated, male-male competition for nests is very high, there is sex-role reversal with female courtship and a high frequency of alternative reproductive tactics is observed. Concomitantly, at Ria Formosa nest holder males are larger and present more developed secondary sex characters and higher levels of 11KT than at the Gulf of Trieste. However, the gonads of nest holders and parasitic males were larger in the Gulf of Trieste population. Competition for nests at Ria Formosa seems to promote more developed secondary sex characters in nest site scarcity conditions, while competition for females at the Gulf of Trieste seems to be spurring sperm competition among males in populations where nest sites are more abundant. 11KT was thus associated with the development and expression of secondary sex characters in contrasting environments. These results exemplify how the modulation of behavioral plasticity and secondary sex characters by the social environment can be mediated by androgens. Copyright 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Percutaneous treatment of benign bile duct strictures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Koecher, Martin [Department of Radiology, University Hospital, I.P.Pavlova 6, 775 20 Olomouc (Czech Republic)]. E-mail: martin.kocher@seznam.cz; Cerna, Marie [Department of Radiology, University Hospital, I.P.Pavlova 6, 775 20 Olomouc (Czech Republic); Havlik, Roman [Department of Surgery, University Hospital, I.P.Pavlova 6, 775 20 Olomouc (Czech Republic); Kral, Vladimir [Department of Surgery, University Hospital, I.P.Pavlova 6, 775 20 Olomouc (Czech Republic); Gryga, Adolf [Department of Surgery, University Hospital, I.P.Pavlova 6, 775 20 Olomouc (Czech Republic); Duda, Miloslav [Department of Surgery, University Hospital, I.P.Pavlova 6, 775 20 Olomouc (Czech Republic)

2007-05-15

Purpose: To evaluate long-term results of treatment of benign bile duct strictures. Materials and methods: From February 1994 to November 2005, 21 patients (9 men, 12 women) with median age of 50.6 years (range 27-77 years) were indicated to percutaneous treatment of benign bile duct stricture. Stricture of hepatic ducts junction resulting from thermic injury during laparoscopic cholecystectomy was indication for treatment in one patient, stricture of hepaticojejunostomy was indication for treatment in all other patients. Clinical symptoms (obstructive jaundice, anicteric cholestasis, cholangitis or biliary cirrhosis) have appeared from 3 months to 12 years after surgery. Results: Initial internal/external biliary drainage was successful in 20 patients out of 21. These 20 patients after successful initial drainage were treated by balloon dilatation and long-term internal/external drainage. Sixteen patients were symptoms free during the follow-up. The relapse of clinical symptoms has appeared in four patients 9, 12, 14 and 24 months after treatment. One year primary clinical success rate of treatment for benign bile duct stricture was 94%. Additional two patients are symptoms free after redilatation (15 and 45 months). One patient is still in treatment, one patient died during secondary treatment period without interrelation with biliary intervention. The secondary clinical success rate is 100%. Conclusion: Benign bile duct strictures of hepatic ducts junction or biliary-enteric anastomosis are difficult to treat surgically and endoscopically inaccessible. Percutaneous treatment by balloon dilatation and long-term internal/external drainage is feasible in the majority of these patients. It is minimally invasive, safe and effective.

Solitary fibrous tumour of pleura: CT differentiation of benign and malignant types.

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Gupta, A; Souza, C A; Sekhon, H S; Gomes, M M; Hare, S S; Agarwal, P P; Kanne, J P; Seely, J M

2017-09-01

To analyse and compare the computed tomography (CT) features of benign and malignant types of histopathologically proven cases of solitary fibrous tumours of pleura (SFTP). Retrospective analysis of preoperative CT images of 28 cases of histopathologically proven and classified SFTP from three participating institutions was performed. Patient demographics and lesion characteristics including size, borders, presence of a pedicle, extension into the fissure, attenuation, enhancement, pleural effusion, and calcifications were recorded and correlated with the final histopathological diagnosis. Type and results of preoperative biopsy were also recorded. Follow-up imaging and the clinical charts were reviewed to identify recurrence. Out of 28 cases (15 women and 13 men), 18 were proven to be benign and 10 were malignant. The mean age of patients was 58.1±15.9 and 66.5±11.8 years (p=0.1564) for benign and malignant tumours, respectively. The median (interquartile range) diameter was 6.05 (3.2-10.9) cm for benign and 15.7 (7.1-17.5) cm for malignant type tumours (p=0.0291). Tumours had lobulate borders in 28% (5/18) of benign cases and in 80% (8/10) of malignant cases (p=0.0163). Extension into adjacent fissure was seen in 22% (4/18) of benign lesions and 40% (4/10) of malignant lesions (p=0.40). A pedicle was present in 17% (3/18) of benign and 10% (1/10) of malignant lesions (p=1). Heterogeneous attenuation was present in 61% (11/18) of benign and 90% (9/10) of malignant lesions (p=0.19). Calcification was present in 17% (3/18) of benign tumours and in 70% (7/10) of malignant tumours (p=0.0113). Pleural effusion was present in 6% (1/18) of benign and 40% (4/10) of malignant lesions (p=0.04). Only 1/13 preoperative fine-needle aspirates yielded diagnosis of SFTP. Preoperative diagnosis of SFTP was made in all cases (11/11) with core biopsies. At follow-up (1-10 years, mean 3 years), local recurrence occurred in 3/6 (50%) patients with malignant SFTP and in none of the

Which "Character" Should Sport Develop?

Science.gov (United States)

Rudd, Andy

2005-01-01

For years, strong claims have been made that sport builds character. Despite such claims, a "winning at all cost" mentality can frequently be seen within all of sport. The reason for this paradox may relate to confusion around what it means to demonstrate character. The purpose of this article is to show that there are indeed two distinct types of…

Imaging of benign tumors of the osseous spine

OpenAIRE

Riahi, Hend; Mechri, Meriem; Barsaoui, Maher; Bouaziz, Mouna; Vanhoenacker, Filip; Ladeb, Mohamed

2018-01-01

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the imaging features of the most prevalent benign bone tumors involving the spine. Benign tumors of the osseous spine account approximately for 1% of all primary skeletal tumors. Many lesions exhibit characteristic radiologic features. In addition to age and location of the lesion, radiographs are an essential step in the initial detection and characterization but are limited to complex anatomy and superposition. CT and MR imagi...

Contemporary Management of Benign and Malignant Parotid Tumors.

Science.gov (United States)

Thielker, Jovanna; Grosheva, Maria; Ihrler, Stephan; Wittig, Andrea; Guntinas-Lichius, Orlando

2018-01-01

To report the standard of care, interesting new findings and controversies about the treatment of parotid tumors. Relevant and actual studies were searched in PubMed and reviewed for diagnostics, treatment and outcome of both benign and malignant tumors. Prospective trials are lacking due to rarity of the disease and high variety of tumor subtypes. The establishment of reliable non-invasive diagnostics tools for the differentiation between benign and malignant tumors is desirable. Prospective studies clarifying the association between different surgical techniques for benign parotid tumors and morbidity are needed. The role of adjuvant or definitive radiotherapy in securing loco-regional control and improving survival in malignant disease is established. Prospective clinical trials addressing the role of chemotherapy/molecular targeted therapy for parotid cancer are needed. An international consensus on the classification of parotid surgery techniques would facilitate the comparison of different trials. Such efforts should lead into a clinical guideline.

Benign Cystic Mesothelioma Misdiagnosed as Peritoneal Carcinomatosis

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Hyun Deok Shin

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Benign cystic mesothelioma (BCM is a rare benign disease that forms multicystic masses in the abdomen, pelvis, and retroperitoneum. It occurs predominantly in young to middle-aged women. The majority of cases were associated with a history of abdominal or pelvic operation, a history of endometriosis, and pelvic inflammatory disease. We present a unique case of BCM which is different to the previous cases. The patient was a 52-year-old man showing features of peritoneal carcinomatosis accompanied by ascites on abdominal computed tomography scans. We herein report a case of BCM misdiagnosed with peritoneal carcinomatosis.

THE CHARACTER ANALYSIS OF GLEN HANSARD IN ONCE FILM

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Nani Rosnani Thamrin

2013-12-01

Full Text Available This paper analyzed the characterization of talented actor named Glen Hansard in Once film. This study employed a descriptive qualitative research design based on theories of Rahardjo (1985, Robert (1965, and Card (1988. Primary data sources were whole Once scenes film directed by John Carney which had low-budgeting production with two stars, Glen Hansard and Irglova, while secondary data sources were collected from the articles related to this study. This research mainly investigated two aspects involved two character analyses of the main actor, Hansard. The first one was the construction of Hansard’s characters and the second one was the effect between his character and another actors’ character. The study showed that Hansard’s characters were constructed by five factors: from what the character did and said, what the other characters said about him, how the appearance and its milieu were, influencing one and another.The study also found that he had struggle, visionary, ambitious, introvert, sensitive, straightforward and curious characters, but more characters that showed strong characters of his were struggle, visionary and ambitious, because the scenes reflected them more.

Benign nerve sheath tumor of stomach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chaudry, N.U.; Zafar, S.; Haque, I.U.

2007-01-01

Gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumors are a group of tumors, which originate from the mesenchymal stem cells of the gastrointestinal tract. Gastric schwannoma is a very rare gastrointestinal mesenchymal tumor, which represents only 0.2% of all gastric tumors and 4% of all benign gastric neoplasms. We report a 55 years old lady who suffered from pain epigastrium, vomiting, occasionally with blood, loss of appetite and weight loss. Endoscopic examination showed a round submucosal tumor with a central ulceration along the greater curvature of the stomach. The pathological examination revealed a picture of spindle cell tumor. Immunohistochemical stain was strongly positive for S-100 protein stain, and non-reactive for CD34, CD117, consistent with benign nerve sheath tumor of stomach i.e. gastric schwannoma. (author)

Amide proton transfer imaging for differentiation of benign and atypical meningiomas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Joo, Bio [The Armed Forces Capital Hospital, Department of Radiology, Seongnam, Gyeonggi-do (Korea, Republic of); Han, Kyunghwa; Choi, Yoon Seong; Lee, Seung-Koo [Yonsei University College of Medicine, Department of Radiology and Research Institute of Radiological Science, College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Ahn, Sung Soo [Yonsei University College of Medicine, Department of Radiology and Research Institute of Radiological Science, College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Yonsei University, Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Chang, Jong Hee; Kang, Seok-Gu [Yonsei University College of Medicine, Department of Neurosurgery, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Se Hoon [Yonsei University College of Medicine, Department of Pathology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Zhou, Jinyuan [Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of MRI Research, Department of Radiology, Baltimore, MD (United States)

2018-01-15

To investigate the difference in amide proton transfer (APT)-weighted signals between benign and atypical meningiomas and determine the value of APT imaging for differentiating the two. Fifty-seven patients with pathologically diagnosed meningiomas (benign, 44; atypical, 13), who underwent preoperative MRI with APT imaging between December 2014 and August 2016 were included. We compared normalised magnetisation transfer ratio asymmetry (nMTR{sub asym}) values between benign and atypical meningiomas on APT-weighted images. Conventional MRI features were qualitatively assessed. Both imaging features were evaluated by multivariable logistic regression analysis. The discriminative value of MRI with and without nMTR{sub asym} was evaluated. The nMTR{sub asym} of atypical meningiomas was significantly greater than that of benign meningiomas (2.46% vs. 1.67%; P < 0.001). In conventional MR images, benign and atypical meningiomas exhibited significant differences in maximum tumour diameter, non-skull base location, and heterogeneous enhancement. On multivariable logistic regression analysis, high nMTR{sub asym} was an independent predictor of atypical meningiomas (adjusted OR, 11.227; P = 0.014). The diagnostic performance of MRI improved with nMTR{sub asym} for predicting atypical meningiomas. Atypical meningiomas exhibited significantly higher APT-weighted signal intensities than benign meningiomas. The discriminative value of conventional MRI improved significantly when combined with APT imaging for diagnosis of atypical meningioma. (orig.)

Perfusion MR imaging for differentiation of benign and malignant meningiomas

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zhang, Hao; Rodiger, Lars A.; Shen, Tianzhen; Miao, Jingtao; Oudkerk, Matthijs

Introduction Our purpose was to determine whether perfusion MR imaging can be used to differentiate benign and malignant meningiomas on the basis of the differences in perfusion of tumor parenchyma and/or peritumoral edema. Methods A total of 33 patients with preoperative meningiomas (25 benign and

Benign cystic mesothelioma of the appendix presenting in a woman: a case report

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Beddy David

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Introduction Benign cystic mesothelioma or peritoneal inclusion cysts are rare benign abdominal tumors usually occurring in females of reproductive age. These cysts present as abdominopelvic pain or masses but are often found on imaging or incidentally at surgery. They are commonly associated with pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis, or ovarian cysts. We report what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first case of a benign cystic mesothelioma complicating a presentation of acute appendicitis. Case Presentation A 19-year-old Irish Caucasian woman presented with abdominal pain. Imaging suggested appendicitis with abscess formation. She was treated with antibiotics and scheduled for interval appendicectomy. At laparoscopy, an unusual cystic mass was found arising from the appendix. Histology revealed benign cystic mesothelioma. Conclusion We report what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first case of a benign cystic mesothelioma arising from the appendix and complicating a presentation of acute appendicitis. This is a benign pathology, but recurrences are not uncommon. Benign cystic mesothelioma should be included in the differential when investigating pelvic masses or abscesses associated with either appendicitis or pelvic inflammatory disease in women.

Benign cystic mesothelioma of the appendix presenting in a woman: a case report

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

O' Connor, Donal B

2010-12-03

Abstract Introduction Benign cystic mesothelioma or peritoneal inclusion cysts are rare benign abdominal tumors usually occurring in females of reproductive age. These cysts present as abdominopelvic pain or masses but are often found on imaging or incidentally at surgery. They are commonly associated with pelvic inflammatory disease, endometriosis, or ovarian cysts. We report what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first case of a benign cystic mesothelioma complicating a presentation of acute appendicitis. Case Presentation A 19-year-old Irish Caucasian woman presented with abdominal pain. Imaging suggested appendicitis with abscess formation. She was treated with antibiotics and scheduled for interval appendicectomy. At laparoscopy, an unusual cystic mass was found arising from the appendix. Histology revealed benign cystic mesothelioma. Conclusion We report what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first case of a benign cystic mesothelioma arising from the appendix and complicating a presentation of acute appendicitis. This is a benign pathology, but recurrences are not uncommon. Benign cystic mesothelioma should be included in the differential when investigating pelvic masses or abscesses associated with either appendicitis or pelvic inflammatory disease in women.

Dynamic computed tomography scanning of benign bone lesions: Preliminary results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Levine, E.; Neff, J.R.

1983-01-01

The majority of benign bone lesions can be evaluated adequately using conventional radiologic techniques. However, it is not always possible to differentiate reliably between different types of benign bone lesions on the basis of plain film appearances alone. Dynamic computed tomography (CT) scanning provides a means for further characterizing such lesions by assessing their degree of vascularity. Thus, it may help in distinguishing an osteoid osteoma, which has a hypervascular nidus, from a Brodie's abscess, which is avascular. Dynamic CT scanning may also help in the differentiation between a fluid-containing simple bone cyst, which is avascular, and other solid or semi-solid benign bone lesions which slow varying degrees of vascularity. However, because of the additional irradiation involved, dynamic CT scanning should be reserved for evaluation of selected patients with benign bone lesions in whom the plain film findings are not definitive and in whom the CT findings may have a significant influence on management. (orig.)

Environmentally Benign Production of Stretchable and Robust Superhydrophobic Silicone Monoliths.

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Alexander; Surdo, Salvatore; Caputo, Gianvito; Bayer, Ilker S; Athanassiou, Athanassia

2018-01-24

Superhydrophobic materials hold an enormous potential in sectors as important as aerospace, food industries, or biomedicine. Despite this great promise, the lack of environmentally friendly production methods and limited robustness remain the two most pertinent barriers to the scalability, large-area production, and widespread use of superhydrophobic materials. In this work, highly robust superhydrophobic silicone monoliths are produced through a scalable and environmentally friendly emulsion technique. It is first found that stable and surfactantless water-in-polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) emulsions can be formed through mechanical mixing. Increasing the internal phase fraction of the precursor emulsion is found to increase porosity and microtexture of the final monoliths, rendering them superhydrophobic. Silica nanoparticles can also be dispersed in the aqueous internal phase to create micro/nanotextured monoliths, giving further improvements in superhydrophobicity. Due to the elastomeric nature of PDMS, superhydrophobicity can be maintained even while the material is mechanically strained or compressed. In addition, because of their self-similarity, the monoliths show outstanding robustness to knife-scratch, tape-peel, and finger-wipe tests, as well as rigorous sandpaper abrasion. Superhydrophobicity was also unchanged when exposed to adverse environmental conditions including corrosive solutions, UV light, extreme temperatures, and high-energy droplet impact. Finally, important properties for eventual adoption in real-world applications including self-cleaning, stain-repellence, and blood-repellence are demonstrated.

The character of free topological groups II

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peter Nickolas

2005-04-01

Full Text Available A systematic analysis is made of the character of the free and free abelian topological groups on metrizable spaces and compact spaces, and on certain other closely related spaces. In the first case, it is shown that the characters of the free and the free abelian topological groups on X are both equal to the “small cardinal” d if X is compact and metrizable, but also, more generally, if X is a non-discrete k!-space all of whose compact subsets are metrizable, or if X is a non-discrete Polish space. An example is given of a zero-dimensional separable metric space for which both characters are equal to the cardinal of the continuum. In the case of a compact space X, an explicit formula is derived for the character of the free topological group on X involving no cardinal invariant of X other than its weight; in particular the character is fully determined by the weight in the compact case. This paper is a sequel to a paper by the same authors in which the characters of the free groups were analysed under less restrictive topological assumptions.

High-Performance Quantum Dot Thin-Film Transistors with Environmentally Benign Surface Functionalization and Robust Defect Passivation.

Science.gov (United States)

Jung, Su Min; Kang, Han Lim; Won, Jong Kook; Kim, JaeHyun; Hwang, ChaHwan; Ahn, KyungHan; Chung, In; Ju, Byeong-Kwon; Kim, Myung-Gil; Park, Sung Kyu

2018-01-31

The recent development of high-performance colloidal quantum dot (QD) thin-film transistors (TFTs) has been achieved with removal of surface ligand, defect passivation, and facile electronic doping. Here, we report on high-performance solution-processed CdSe QD-TFTs with an optimized surface functionalization and robust defect passivation via hydrazine-free metal chalcogenide (MCC) ligands. The underlying mechanism of the ligand effects on CdSe QDs has been studied with hydrazine-free ex situ reaction derived MCC ligands, such as Sn 2 S 6 4- , Sn 2 Se 6 4- , and In 2 Se 4 2- , to allow benign solution-process available. Furthermore, the defect passivation and remote n-type doping effects have been investigated by incorporating indium nanoparticles over the QD layer. Strong electronic coupling and solid defect passivation of QDs could be achieved by introducing electronically active MCC capping and thermal diffusion of the indium nanoparticles, respectively. It is also noteworthy that the diffused indium nanoparticles facilitate charge injection not only inter-QDs but also between source/drain electrodes and the QD semiconductors, significantly reducing contact resistance. With benign organic solvents, the Sn 2 S 6 4- , Sn 2 Se 6 4- , and In 2 Se 4 2- ligand based QD-TFTs exhibited field-effect mobilities exceeding 4.8, 12.0, and 44.2 cm 2 /(V s), respectively. The results reported here imply that the incorporation of MCC ligands and appropriate dopants provide a general route to high-performance, extremely stable solution-processed QD-based electronic devices with marginal toxicity, offering compatibility with standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor processing and large-scale on-chip device applications.

Benign (solitary) ulcer of the rectum - another cause for rectal stricture

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chapa, H.J.; Smith, H.J.; Dickinson, T.A.; Veterans Administration Hospital, Dallas, TX; Texas Univ., Dallas

1981-01-01

Benign rectal ulcer syndrome is an uncommon cause of lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Patients may present with mild, often recurrent, rectal bleeding frequently ascribed to hemorrhoids. Barium enema may be normal during the early, nonulcerative phase of proctitis. Single (or multiple) uclers with or without rectal stricture are the hallmarks of the radiographic diagnosis. Radiologic demonstration of the ulcer(s) is not required, however, for the diagnosis. Benign rectal ulcer should be included in the differential diagnosis of benign-appearing rectal strictures. (orig.) [de

Benign (solitary) ulcer of the rectum - another cause for rectal stricture

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chapa, H.J.; Smith, H.J.; Dickinson, T.A.

1981-01-15

Benign rectal ulcer syndrome is an uncommon cause of lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Patients may present with mild, often recurrent, rectal bleeding frequently ascribed to hemorrhoids. Barium enema may be normal during the early, nonulcerative phase of proctitis. Single (or multiple) ulcers with or without rectal stricture are the hallmarks of the radiographic diagnosis. Radiologic demonstration of the ulcer(s) is not required, however, for the diagnosis. Benign rectal ulcer should be included in the differential diagnosis of benign-appearing rectal strictures.

Environmental Research Program. 1994 annual report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brown, N.J.

1995-04-01

The objective of the Environmental Research Program is to enhance the understanding of, and mitigate the effects of pollutants on health, ecological systems, global and regional climate, and air quality. The program is multi-disciplinary and includes fundamental research and development in efficient and environmentally-benign combustion, pollutant abatement and destruction, and novel methods of detection and analysis of criteria and non-criteria pollutants. This diverse group conducts investigations in combustion, atmospheric and marine processes, flue-gas chemistry, and ecological systems.

DIALOGUE AND CHARACTER CLASSIFICATION IN WOLE ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

position, level of education, character and habits of a character are reflected in the speech .... Dictators are averse to any form of ... breaks out shouting slogans of praises of himself. ..... Task easier if I can get all the Obas settled before our.

Aristotelian versus Virtue Ethical Character Education

Science.gov (United States)

Curren, Randall

2016-01-01

This article examines some central aspects of Kristján Kristjánsson's book, "Aristotelian Character Education," beginning with the claim that contemporary virtue ethics provides methodological, ontological, epistemological, and moral foundations for Aristotelian character education. It considers three different formulations of what…

A Review of Virtual Character's Emotion Model

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhen

2008-11-01

Emotional virtual characters are essential to digital entertainment, an emotion is related to virtual environment and a virtual character's inner variables, emotion model of virtual character is a hot topic in many fields, domain knowledge is very important for modeling emotion, and the current research of emotion expression in the world was also summarized, and some new research directions of emotion model are presented.

Temperature dependent and applied field strength dependent magnetic study of cobalt nickel ferrite nano particles: Synthesized by an environmentally benign method

Science.gov (United States)

Sontu, Uday Bhasker; G, Narsinga Rao; Chou, F. C.; M, V. Ramana Reddy

2018-04-01

Spinel ferrites have come a long way in their versatile applications. The ever growing applications of these materials demand detailed study of material properties and environmental considerations in their synthesis. In this article, we report the effect of temperature and applied magnetic field strength on the magnetic behavior of the cobalt nickel ferrite nano powder samples. Basic structural properties of spinel ferrite nano particles, that are synthesized by an environmentally benign method of auto combustion, are characterized through XRD, TEM, RAMAN spectroscopy. Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (DRS) is done to understand the nickel substitution effect on the optical properties of cobalt ferrite nano particles. Thermo magnetic studies using SQUID in the temperature range 5 K to 400 K and room temperature (300 K) VSM studies are performed on these samples. Fields of 0Oe (no applied field: ZF), 1 kOe (for ZFC and FC curves), 5 kOe (0.5 T), 50 kOe (5T) (for M-H loop study) are used to study the magnetic behavior of these nano particles. The XRD,TEM analysis suggest 40 nm crystallites that show changes in the cation distribution and phase changes in the spinel structure with nickel substitution. Raman micrographs support phase purity changes and cation redistributions with nickel substitution. Diffuse reflectance study on powder samples suggests two band gap values for nickel rich compounds. The Magnetic study of these sample nano particles show varied magnetic properties from that of hard magnetic, positive multi axial anisotropy and single-magnetic-domain structures at 5 K temperature to soft magnetic core shell like structures at 300 K temperature. Nickel substitution effect is non monotonous. Blocking temperature of all the samples is found to be higher than the values suggested in the literature.

Radical Homemaking in Contemporary American Environmental Fiction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kristin J. Jacobson

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Ursula K. Heise in ‘Ecocriticism and the Transnational Turn in American Studies’ critiques ‘the portrayal of multicultural and sometimes transnational nuclear families as the narrative solution to environmental and political problems’ (Heise, 2008: 383. This essay places Heise’s critique of the ‘ecological family romance’ in conversation with three other ecological domestic fictions: T. C. Boyle’s 'A Friend of the Earth' (2000, Jonathan Franzen’s 'Freedom' (2010, and Barbara Kingsolver’s 'Flight Behavior' (2012. Heise’s critique and Shannon Hayes’ 'Radical Homemakers' (2010 frame my close readings of the novels’ interconnected themes of radical homemaking, transnationalism, and environmentalism. My reading of the novels highlights their shared use of marginalized, racially-other characters to develop their entwined romantic and environmental plots (Lalitha in 'Freedom', several minor characters in 'A Friend of the Earth', and Ovid in 'Flight Behavior' and their use of sentimental deaths, especially of key female characters (Lalitha in Freedom, Sierra in A Friend of the Earth, and Dellarobia’s uncertain fate in Flight Behavior. By adopting the sentimental, domestic romance plot for ecological aims, the three novels highlight how environmental aims get stymied when cultural and ecological diversity are relegated to the margins. They also suggest that more is gained than lost through their use of ecological allegory. While the fictions do not offer solutions, they do push their readers to confront the Anthropocene’s ecological realities and their radical domestic-environmental politics.

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo treatment

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

West, Niels; Hansen, Søren; Bloch, Sune Land

2017-01-01

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) remains the most frequent cause of vertigo. The TRV chair is a mechanical device suited for optimization of managing complex cases of BPPV. Although the use of repositioning devices in the management of BPPV is increasing, no applicable guide for the TRV...

Perfusion MR imaging for differentiation of benign and malignant meningiomas

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Hao [University of Groningen, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen (Netherlands); Shanghai Jiaotong University, Department of Radiology, First People' s Hospital, Shanghai (China); Roediger, Lars A.; Oudkerk, Matthijs [University of Groningen, Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen (Netherlands); Shen, Tianzhen [Fudan University, Department of Radiology, Huashan Hospital, Shanghai (China); Miao, Jingtao [Shanghai Jiaotong University, Department of Radiology, First People' s Hospital, Shanghai (China)

2008-06-15

Our purpose was to determine whether perfusion MR imaging can be used to differentiate benign and malignant meningiomas on the basis of the differences in perfusion of tumor parenchyma and/or peritumoral edema. A total of 33 patients with preoperative meningiomas (25 benign and 8 malignant) underwent conventional and dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MR imaging. Maximal relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) and the corresponding relative mean time to enhance (rMTE) (relative to the contralateral normal white matter) in both tumor parenchyma and peritumoral edema were measured. The independent samples t-test was used to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference in the mean rCBV and rMTE ratios between benign and malignant meningiomas. The mean maximal rCBV values of benign and malignant meningiomas were 7.16{+-}4.08 (mean{+-}SD) and 5.89{+-}3.86, respectively, in the parenchyma, and 1.05{+-}0.96 and 3.82{+-}1.39, respectively, in the peritumoral edema. The mean rMTE values were 1.16{+-}0.24 and 1.30{+-}0.32, respectively, in the parenchyma, and 0.91{+-}0.25 and 1.24{+-}0.35, respectively, in the peritumoral edema. The differences in rCBV and rMTE values between benign and malignant meningiomas were not statistically significant (P>0.05) in the parenchyma, but both were statistically significant (P<0.05) in the peritumoral edema. Perfusion MR imaging can provide useful information on meningioma vascularity which is not available from conventional MRI. Measurement of maximal rCBV and corresponding rMTE values in the peritumoral edema is useful in the preoperative differentiation between benign and malignant meningiomas. (orig.)

The influence of media characters on children's food choices.

Science.gov (United States)

Kotler, Jennifer A; Schiffman, Jennifer M; Hanson, Katherine G

2012-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to assess the role of media characters in influencing children's food choices; the first focused on children's self-reported preference, whereas the second focused on actual choice. The results of the experiments suggest that popular characters can make a difference in encouraging children to select one food over another. In the first experiment, children were more likely to indicate a preference for one food over another when one was associated with characters that they liked and with whom they were familiar. This effect was particularly strong when a sugary or salty snack branded by a favored character was competing with a healthier option branded by an unknown character or no character. Alternatively, when children were asked to choose between a healthy food and a sugary or salty snack, branding of the healthy food with a favored character did not significantly change appeal of that healthy snack. However, when foods within the same category (i.e., 2 vegetables, 2 fruits, or 2 grains) were asked to compete against each other, character branding strongly influenced children's food choice. Findings from the second experiment suggest that children are more willing to try more pieces of a healthy food if a favored character, in comparison with an unknown character, is promoting that food.

The Proximate Unit in Chinese Handwritten Character Production

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jenn-Yeu eChen

2013-08-01

Full Text Available In spoken word production, a proximate unit is the first phonological unit at the sublexical level that is selectable for production (O’Seaghdha, Chen, & Chen, 2010. The present study investigated whether the proximate unit in Chinese handwritten word production is the stroke, the radical, or something in between. A written version of the form preparation task was adopted. Chinese participants learned sets of two-character words, later were cued with the first character of each word, and had to write down the second character (the target. Response times were measured from the onset of a cue character to the onset of a written response. In Experiment 1, the target characters within a block shared (homogeneous or did not share (heterogeneous the first stroke. In Experiment 2, the first two strokes were shared in the homogeneous blocks. Response times in the homogeneous blocks and in the heterogeneous blocks were comparable in both experiments (Exp. 1: 687 ms vs. 684 ms, Exp. 2: 717 vs. 716. In Experiment 3 and 4, the target characters within a block shared or did not share the first radical. Response times in the homogeneous blocks were significantly faster than those in the heterogeneous blocks (Exp. 3: 685 vs. 704, Exp. 4: 594 vs. 650. In Experiment 5 and 6, the shared component was a Gestalt-like form that is more than a stroke, constitutes a portion of the target character, can be a stand-alone character itself, can be a radical of another character but is not a radical of the target character (e.g., 士in聲, 鼓, 穀, 款; called a logographeme. Response times in the homogeneous blocks were significantly faster than those in the heterogeneous blocks (Exp. 5: 576 vs. 625, Exp. 6: 586 vs. 620. These results suggest a model of Chinese handwritten character production in which the stroke is not a functional unit, the radical plays the role of a morpheme, and the logographeme is the proximate unit.

Dynamic Obstacle Clearing for Real-time Character Animation

OpenAIRE

Glardon, Pascal; Boulic, Ronan; Thalmann, Daniel

2006-01-01

This paper proposes a novel method to control virtual characters in dynamic environments. A virtual character is animated by a locomotion and jumping engine, enabling production of continuous parameterized motions. At any time during runtime, flat obstacles (e.g. a puddle of water) can be created and placed in front of a character. The method first decides whether the character is able to get around or jump over the obstacle. Then the motion parameters are accordingly modified. The transition...

Character feature integration of Chinese calligraphy and font

Science.gov (United States)

Shi, Cao; Xiao, Jianguo; Jia, Wenhua; Xu, Canhui

2013-01-01

A framework is proposed in this paper to effectively generate a new hybrid character type by means of integrating local contour feature of Chinese calligraphy with structural feature of font in computer system. To explore traditional art manifestation of calligraphy, multi-directional spatial filter is applied for local contour feature extraction. Then the contour of character image is divided into sub-images. The sub-images in the identical position from various characters are estimated by Gaussian distribution. According to its probability distribution, the dilation operator and erosion operator are designed to adjust the boundary of font image. And then new Chinese character images are generated which possess both contour feature of artistical calligraphy and elaborate structural feature of font. Experimental results demonstrate the new characters are visually acceptable, and the proposed framework is an effective and efficient strategy to automatically generate the new hybrid character of calligraphy and font.

Character education in perspective of chemistry pre-service teacher

Science.gov (United States)

Merdekawati, Krisna

2017-12-01

As one of the pre-service teacher education programs, Chemistry Education Department Islamic University of Indonesia (UII) is committed to providing quality education. It is an education that can produce competent and characteristic chemistry pre-service teacher. The focus of research is to describe the perception of students as a potential teacher of chemistry on character education and achievement of character education. The research instruments include questionnaires and observation sheets. Research data show that students have understood the importance of character education and committed to organizing character education later in schools. Students have understood the ways in which character education can be used. The students stated that Chemistry Education Department has tried to equip students with character education. The observation result shows that students generally have character as a pre-service teacher.

Distinguishing benign from malignant gallbladder wall thickening using FDG-PET

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oe, Ai; Kawabe, Joji; Torii, Kenji

2006-01-01

Because thickening of the gallbladder wall is observed not only in patients with gallbladder cancer but also in those with benign diseases such as chronic cholecystitis and gallbladder adenomyosis, it is difficult to distinguish between benign and malignant gallbladder wall thickening by conventional techniques of diagnostic imaging such as computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and abdominal ultrasonography (US). In the present study, we attempted to distinguish between benign and malignant gallbladder wall thickening by means of fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG)-Positron emission tomography (PET). FDG-PET was performed in 12 patients with gallbladder wall thickening detected by CT or US, to determine whether it was benign or malignant. Emission scans were taken, beginning 45 minutes after intravenous administration of FDG, and standardized uptake value (SUV) was calculated as an indicator of glucose metabolism. Of the 12 patients, 4 showed positive uptake of FDG in the gallbladder wall. Of these 4 patients, 3 had gallbladder cancer. The remaining one, who had chronic cholecystitis, had false-positive findings. The other 8 patients had negative uptake of FDG in the gallbladder wall. Two of these 8 underwent surgical resection, which yielded a diagnosis of chronic cholecystitis. The other 6 patients exhibited no sign of gallbladder malignancy and have been followed without active treatment. FDG-PET appears able to distinguish between benign and malignant gallbladder wall thickening. (author)

Lack of HPV in Benign and Malignant Epithelial Ovarian Tumors in Iran

Science.gov (United States)

Farzaneh, Farah; Nadji, Seyed Alireza; Khosravi, Donya; Hosseini, Maryam Sadat; Hashemi Bahremani, Mohammad; Chehrazi, Mohammad; Bagheri, Ghazal; Sigaroodi, Afsaneh; Haghighatian, Zahra

2017-05-01

Background: Ovarian epithelial tumors one of the most common gynecological neoplasms; we here evaluated the presence of HPV in benign and malignant examples. Methods: In this cross-sectional study the records of 105 patients with epithelial ovarian tumors (benign and malignant) referred to Imam Hossein University Hospital from 2012 to 2015 were evaluated along with assessment of the presence of the HPV infection using PCR. Results: Among 105 patients, comprising 26 (24.8%) with malignant and 79 (75.2%) with benign lesions, the factors found to impact on malignancy were age at diagnosis, age at first pregnancy, number of pregnancies and hormonal status. However, malignancies was not related to abortion, late menopause, and early menarche. In none of the ovarian tissues (benign and malignant) was HPV DNA found. Conclusion: In this study HPV DNA could not be found in any epithelial ovarian tumors (benign and malignant) removed from 105 women; more studies with larger sample size are needed for a definite conclusion. Creative Commons Attribution License

The decline of hysterectomy for benign disease.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Horgan, R P

2012-01-31

Hysterectomy is one of the most common gynaecological surgical procedures performed but there appears to be a decline in the performance of this procedure in Ireland in recent times. We set out to establish the extent of the decline of hysterectomy and to explore possible explanations. Data for hysterectomy for benign disease from Ireland was obtained from the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry Scheme (HIPE) section of the Economic and Social Research Institute for the years 1999 to 2006. The total number of hysterectomies performed for benign disease showed a consistent decline during this time. There was a 36% reduction in the number of abdominal hysterectomy procedures performed.

Handwritten Javanese Character Recognition Using Several Artificial Neural Network Methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gregorius Satia Budhi

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Javanese characters are traditional characters that are used to write the Javanese language. The Javanese language is a language used by many people on the island of Java, Indonesia. The use of Javanese characters is diminishing more and more because of the difficulty of studying the Javanese characters themselves. The Javanese character set consists of basic characters, numbers, complementary characters, and so on. In this research we have developed a system to recognize Javanese characters. Input for the system is a digital image containing several handwritten Javanese characters. Preprocessing and segmentation are performed on the input image to get each character. For each character, feature extraction is done using the ICZ-ZCZ method. The output from feature extraction will become input for an artificial neural network. We used several artificial neural networks, namely a bidirectional associative memory network, a counterpropagation network, an evolutionary network, a backpropagation network, and a backpropagation network combined with chi2. From the experimental results it can be seen that the combination of chi2 and backpropagation achieved better recognition accuracy than the other methods.

Indications for surgical resection of benign pancreatic tumors; Indikationen zur chirurgischen Therapie benigner Pankreastumoren

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Isenmann, R.; Henne-Bruns, D. [Chirurgische Universitaetsklinik, Klinik fuer Allgemein-, Viszeral- und Transplantationschirurgie, Ulm (Germany)

2008-08-15

Benign pancreatic tumors should undergo surgical resection when they are symptomatic or - in the case of incidental discovery - bear malignant potential. This is the case for the majority of benign pancreatic tumors, especially for intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms or mucinous cystic adenomas. In addition, resection is indicated for all tumors where preoperative diagnostic fails to provide an exact classification. Several different operative techniques are available. The treatment of choice depends on the localization of the tumor, its size and on whether there is evidence of malignant transformation. Partial duodenopancreatectomy is the oncological treatment of choice for tumors of the pancreatic head whereas for tumors of the pancreatic tail a left-sided pancreatectomy is appropriate. Middle pancreatectomy or duodenum-preserving resection of the pancreatic head is not a radical oncologic procedure. They should only be performed in cases of tumors without malignant potential. (orig.) [German] Die Indikationsstellung zur Resektion benigner Pankreastumoren ist gegeben, wenn es sich um einen symptomatischen Tumor handelt oder - bei einem Zufallsbefund - um einen Tumor mit Potenzial zur malignen Entartung. Dies besteht bei der Mehrzahl der benignen Pankreastumoren, insbesondere bei der intraduktalen papillaeren muzinoesen Neoplasie (IPMN) oder muzinoesen Zystadenomen. Operativer Abklaerung beduerfen auch Tumoren, die unter Ausschoepfung aller diagnostischer Moeglichkeiten nicht eindeutig klassifizierbar sind. An chirurgischen Therapieverfahren stehen verschiedene Techniken zur Verfuegung. Die Wahl des Verfahren haengt von der Groesse und Lokalisation des Tumors ab und von der Frage, ob eine maligne Entartung bereits stattgefunden hat. Das onkologisch korrekte Standardresektionsverfahren bei Tumoren des Pankreaskopfes ist die partielle Duodenopankreatektomie, bei Tumoren des Pankreasschwanzes die Pankreaslinksresektion. Eine segmentale Resektion des

Diagnostic value of dynamic perfusion MR imaging in benign and malignant musculoskeletal lesions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, Byeong Kyoo; Lee, Sang Hoon; Cha, Ji Hyeon; Kim, Sung Moon; Shin, Myung Jin; Han, Heon; Kim, Sam Soo; Lee, Ji Yeon; Jeon, Yong Hwan

2008-01-01

To assess the diagnostic value of dynamic perfusion MR imaging for differentiation between benign and malignant musculoskeletal lesions. Dynamic perfusion MR imaging was performed using a 3.0 T system in 32 female and 30 male patients (aged 10-90 years, mean age, 43 years). Following the assessment of the precontrast imaging, a dynamic study was performed. This dynamic technique allowed for 638 images to be obtained at 11 levels throughout the lesion. Twenty-eight lesions originated within bone (8 benign, 20 malignant), whereas 34 lesions were of soft tissue origin (22 benign, 12 malignant). The final diagnosis was histopathologically confirmed in all patients. To differentiate between benign and malignant lesions, we analyzed the four parameters: (maximal relative enhancement (MRE), time to peak (TTP), wash in rate (WI), steepest slope (SS) and the distribution of time intensity curve (TIC) patterns. The TTP, WI, and SS values of malignant lesions were statistically significant from those of benign lesions(ρ < 0.05). However, the difference for the MRE values was not statistically significant. The distribution of TIC patterns was a helpful indicator of benign or malignant state, however the difference between the two states was not significant. Dynamic perfusion MR imaging is a helpful tool in differentiating benign and malignant musculoskeletal lesions

The growth response of plants to elevated CO2 under non-optimal environmental conditions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Poorter, H.; Pérez-Soba, M.

2001-01-01

Under benign environmental conditions, plant growth is generally stimulated by elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations. When environmental conditions become sub- or supra-optimal for growth, changes in the biomass enhancement ratio (BER; total plant biomass at elevated CO2 divided by plant biomass

Solitary, multiple, benign, atypical, or malignant: the "Granular Cell Tumor" puzzle.

Science.gov (United States)

Machado, Isidro; Cruz, Julia; Lavernia, Javier; Llombart-Bosch, Antonio

2016-05-01

The clinical evolution and biology of granular cell tumors (GCT) are poorly understood and treatment remains an issue of discussion. The majority of GCT are benign, although some display malignant behavior. The distinction between benign, atypical, and malignant GCT is controversial due to morphological and immunohistochemical overlap and lack of consistent histological and phenotypic criteria that predict behavior. Although histological criteria may indicate increased risk of malignant evolution, some GCT with evident benign appearance exceptionally progress towards metastatic disease. In this review, we discuss current knowledge on GCT, including histologic, immunophenotypic, and molecular characteristics and differential diagnosis. We focus on the following problematic items in GCT: (1) evolution of classification, (2) neural versus non-neural GCT, (3) neoplastic versus reactive disease, (4) malignant transformation of benign GCT, and (5) multiple versus metastatic GCT. We conclude that although a Ki-67 index >10 % and the presence of mitoses and/or of necrosis are frequently associated with malignant behavior, metastasis remains the only unequivocal sign of malignancy in GCT. An infiltrative growth pattern and vascular and/or perineural invasion are not indicative of malignancy. GCT with atypical/uncertain features almost never metastasize, and many of these tumors either behave in a benign fashion or only recur locally (similar to incompletely excised benign tumors). We therefore propose that classical and atypical histological variants form a single group of GCT. GCT with various unfavorable histological features might be labeled as "GCT with increased risk of metastasis" rather than malignant GCT.

Alterations in subspecific characters of groundnut

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mouli, C.; Patil, S.H.; Kale, D.M.

1983-01-01

Recombination of beneficial characters associated in the cultivars of groundnut (Arachis hypogaea, L.) belonging to the two subspecies hypogaea and fastigiata had little success in conventional breeding programme. The cultures of ssp. hypogaea have the desirable characters for the crop improvement viz; various growth habits, profuse branching, large pod, seed dormancy and stress tolerance. Sequential flowering, early maturity, compact fruiting habit and high kernel outturn are the other useful characters present in ssp. fastigiata cultures. Mutation research in a popular variety, Spanish Improved belonging to ssp. fastigiata led to the selection of various mutants. One among the mutants had large pod, a characteristic of hypogaea ssp. Hybridization among the mutants and improved cultivars as well as radiation treatment of selected cultures resulted in the isolation of cultures having not only combinations and alterations of characters in both subspecies, but also modifications. These cultures are classified into major groups and their significance in the groundnut improvement is discussed. (author)

Primary benign brachial plexus tumors: an experience of 115 operated cases.

Science.gov (United States)

Desai, Ketan I

2012-01-01

Primary benign brachial plexus tumors are rare. They pose a great challenge to the neurosurgeon, because the majority of patients present with minimal or no neurological deficits. Radical to complete excision of the tumor with preservation of neurological function of the involved nerve is an ideal surgical treatment option with benign primary brachial plexus tumor surgery. We present a review article of our 10-year experience with primary benign brachial plexus tumors surgically treated at King Edward Memorial Hospital and P.D. Hinduja National Hospital from 2000 to 2009. The clinical presentations, radiological features, surgical strategies, and the eventual outcome following surgery are analyzed, discussed, and compared with available series in the world literature. Various difficulties and problems faced in the management of primary benign brachial plexus tumors are analyzed. Irrespective of the tumor size, the indications for surgical intervention are also discussed. The goal of our study was to optimize the treatment of patients with benign brachial plexus tumors with minimal neurological deficits. It is of paramount importance that brachial plexus tumors be managed by a peripheral nerve surgeon with expertise and experience in this field to minimize the neurological insult following surgery.

Character & Cane

Science.gov (United States)

Sartorius, Tara Cady

2009-01-01

They say first impressions can be deceiving. The difficulty of getting to know someone increases when that person is mostly fictional. Whatever the author writes is all readers can know. Whatever they read about the character is all they have to go on. Now take it another step back, and imagine a portrait drawing, painting or print of that…

Gallium scanning in differentiating malignant from benign asbestos-related pleural disease

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Teirstein, A.S.; Chahinian, P.; Goldsmith, S.J.; Sorek, M.

1986-01-01

In order to assess the utility of 67gallium citrate in delineating malignant pleural mesothelioma from benign asbestos-related pleural disease, 49 patients with malignant mesothelioma and 16 with benign asbestos-related pleural disease were studied. Seven patients with malignant mesothelioma had no history of asbestos exposure, while the remaining 58 patients were exposed. Forty-three of the 49 patients (88%) with malignant mesothelioma had a positive 67gallium scan including 36 of the 42 (86%) patients with asbestos exposure and all 7 patients without a history of asbestos exposure. Three of 16 patients (19%) with benign asbestos-related pleural disease had a positive scan. 67Gallium radionuclide imaging is nonspecific but may be valuable in noninvasive monitoring of asbestos-exposed populations, which have a high risk for the late development of benign and/or malignant pleural disease

Identification Of Minangkabau Landscape Characters

Science.gov (United States)

Asrina, M.; Gunawan, A.; Aris, Munandar

2017-10-01

Minangkabau is one of cultures in indonesia which occupies landscape intact. Landscape of Minangkabau have a very close relationship with the culture of the people. Uniqueness of Minangkabau culture and landscape forming an inseparable characterunity. The landscape is necessarily identified to know the inherent landscape characters. The objective of this study was to identify the character of the Minangkabau landscape characterizes its uniqueness. The study was conducted by using descriptive method comprised literature review and field observasion. Observed the landscape characters comprised two main features, they were major and minor features. Indetification of the features was conducted in two original areas (darek) of the Minangkabau traditional society. The research results showed that major features or natural features of the landscape were predominantly landform, landcover, and hidrology. All luhak (districts) of Minangkabau showed similar main features such as hill, canyon, lake, valley, and forest. The existence of natural features such as hills, canyon and valleys characterizes the nature of minangkabau landscape. Minor features formed by Minangkabau cultural society were agricultural land and settlement. Rumah gadang (big house) is one of famous minor features characterizes the Minangkabau culture. In addition, several historical artefacts of building and others structure may strengthen uniqueness of the Minangkabau landscape character, such as The royal palace, inscription, and tunnels.

Usefulness of serum CA-15.3 in the management of benign breast lesion.

Science.gov (United States)

Mondal, Hari Pada; Roy, Himanshu; Mondal, Palash; Saha, Mita; Basu, Nandita

2012-04-01

Benign breast lesion is an important risk factor for breast cancer and elevated CA-15.3 in serum is a well established marker of breast cancer. Core-needle biopsy is now the method of choice to sample non-palpable mammographic abnormality and as well as clinically palpable lesion. To asses relationship of serum CA-15.3 with different histologic entities of benign breast lesion and usefulness of this marker in predicting breast cancer in this high risk group, a study was conducted among 140 patients who had a diagnosis of benign breast lesion and malignancy following fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) at department of surgery, Medical College, Kolkata between 2007 and 2009. We prospectively estimated serum CA-15.3 level in all patients. Different histologic entities of benign breast lesion, who showed serum CA-15.3 level >30U/ml underwent tru-cut biopsy to detect malignancy. Of 140 patients studied, 50 were stamped as malignancy and 90 as benign after FNAC of which 20 patients had fibroadenoma, 25 had fibro-adenoma with fibrocystic disease, 20 had fibrocystic disease with epitheliosis and 25 had fibrocystic disease with atypia. All breast cancer patients and 10 each from fibro-adenoma with fibrocystic disease, fibrocystic disease with epitheliosis and fibrocystic disease with atypia had serum CA -15.3 level>30U/ml. Thirty patients with benign breast lesion who had raised CA-15.3 underwent core-needle biopsy. Fifteen patients were detected to have intraductal carcinoma, mostly with fibrocystic disease with atypia. Clinical applicability of serum CA-15.3 to detect breast cancer should be strongly considered in management of patients with benign breast lesion and tru-cut biopsy than FNAC be done before benign breast lesion being stamped as benign. Biopsy results that are not concordant with the targeted lesion require surgical biopsy.

Usefulness of FDG PET/CT in determining benign from malignant endobronchial obstruction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cho, Arthur; Kang, Won Jun; Cho, Ho Jin; Lee, Jae-hoon; Yun, Mijin; Lee, Jong Doo; Hur, Jin

2011-01-01

To evaluate the usefulness of FDG PET/CT to differentiate malignant endobronchial lesions with distal atelectasis from benign bronchial stenosis. This retrospective study reviewed 84 patients who underwent contrast-enhanced chest CT and then PET/CT and had histological (n = 81) or follow-up imaging (n = 3) confirmation. Two chest radiologists reviewed initial chest CT and determined endobronchial lesions to be malignant or benign. Two nuclear medicine physicians reviewed PET/CT for FDG uptake at the obstruction site and measured SUV. Malignancy was considered when increased FDG uptake was seen in the obstruction site, regardless of FDG within the atelectatic lung. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of chest CT was 95%, 48% and 84%, compared with 95%, 91% and 94% for PET/CT. Benign obstructive lesions showed statistically lower FDG uptake than malignant obstructions (benign SUV 2.5 ± 0.84; malignant SUV 11.8 ± 5.95, p < 0.001). ROC analysis showed an SUV cut-off value of 3.4 with highest sensitivity of 94% and specificity of 91%. Increased FDG PET/CT uptake at the obstruction site indicates a high probability of malignancy, while benign lesions show low FDG uptake. Careful evaluation of FDG uptake pattern at the obstruction site is helpful in the differentiation between benign and malignant endobronchial lesions. (orig.)

Usefulness of FDG PET/CT in determining benign from malignant endobronchial obstruction

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cho, Arthur; Kang, Won Jun; Cho, Ho Jin; Lee, Jae-hoon; Yun, Mijin; Lee, Jong Doo [Yonsei University Health System, Division of Nuclear Medicine, Department of Radiology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Hur, Jin [Yonsei University Health System, Department of Radiology, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2011-05-15

To evaluate the usefulness of FDG PET/CT to differentiate malignant endobronchial lesions with distal atelectasis from benign bronchial stenosis. This retrospective study reviewed 84 patients who underwent contrast-enhanced chest CT and then PET/CT and had histological (n = 81) or follow-up imaging (n = 3) confirmation. Two chest radiologists reviewed initial chest CT and determined endobronchial lesions to be malignant or benign. Two nuclear medicine physicians reviewed PET/CT for FDG uptake at the obstruction site and measured SUV. Malignancy was considered when increased FDG uptake was seen in the obstruction site, regardless of FDG within the atelectatic lung. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of chest CT was 95%, 48% and 84%, compared with 95%, 91% and 94% for PET/CT. Benign obstructive lesions showed statistically lower FDG uptake than malignant obstructions (benign SUV 2.5 {+-} 0.84; malignant SUV 11.8 {+-} 5.95, p < 0.001). ROC analysis showed an SUV cut-off value of 3.4 with highest sensitivity of 94% and specificity of 91%. Increased FDG PET/CT uptake at the obstruction site indicates a high probability of malignancy, while benign lesions show low FDG uptake. Careful evaluation of FDG uptake pattern at the obstruction site is helpful in the differentiation between benign and malignant endobronchial lesions. (orig.)

CHARACTER EDUCATION IN ISLAMIC BOARDING SCHOOL- BASED SMA AMANAH

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Nana Herdiana Abdurrahman

2016-06-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to describe findings of the study in pesantren-based SMA Amanah covering: 1 the principal policy in developing character education, 2 the methods used in developing character education, 3 students’ characteristics as the result of the character education process, 4 the problems encountered in the implementation of character education and the efforts made in addressing the implementation of character education at the school. This study applied qualitative method using descriptive technique. The data were collected through observation, interviews, and documentation. The findings of study showed that: 1 the principal’s policy in developing character education was carried out by implementing government policies in line with the school’s vision, mission, and programs; 2 the methods used in the process of character education were through role-modelling, assignments and nurturing, habituation, training programs, and  students’ participation in various types of activities, as well as the application of rewards and punishments; 3 the student's characteristics resulted from the character  education process were piousness and devotion as well as being able to apply their knowledge and piety in everyday life; 4 problems encountered in the implementation of character education  were different values and norms students brought from home; imbalance of facilities compared to the number of students; as well as teachers’ readiness to actually implement the new program, which  was character education. Meanwhile the efforts made to overcome those problems were namely developing personal, family, neighborhood or community characters, and making commitment of all related parties/stakeholdres of SMA Amanah.

Environmentally Benign and Permanent Modifications to Prevent Biofouling on Marine and Hydrokinetic Devices

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zheng Zhang

2012-04-19

Semprus Biosciences is developing environmentally benign and permanent modifications to prevent biofouling on Marine and Hydrokinetic (MHK) devices. Biofouling, including growth on external surfaces by bacteria, algae, barnacles, mussels, and other marine organisms, accumulate quickly on MHK devices, causing mechanical wear and changes in performance. Biofouling on crucial components of hydrokinetic devices, such as rotors, generators, and turbines, imposes substantial mass and hydrodynamic loading with associated efficiency loss and maintenance costs. Most antifouling coatings leach toxic ingredients, such as copper and tributyltin, through an eroding process, but increasingly stringent regulation of biocides has led to interest in the development of non-biocidal technologies to control fouling. Semprus Biosciences research team is developing modifications to prevent fouling from a broad spectrum of organisms on devices of all shapes, sizes, and materials for the life of the product. The research team designed and developed betaine-based polymers as novel underwater coatings to resist the attachment of marine organisms. Different betaine-based monomers and polymers were synthesized and incorporated within various coating formulations. The formulations and application methods were developed on aluminum panels with required adhesion strength and mechanical properties. The coating polymers were chemically stable under UV, hydrolytic and oxidative environments. The sulfobetaine formulations are applicable as nonleaching and stable underwater coatings. For the first time, coating formulations modified with highly packed sulfobetaine polymers were prepared and demonstrated resistance to a broad spectrum of marine organisms. Assays for comparing nonfouling performance were developed to evaluate protein adsorption and bacteria attachment. Barnacle settlement and removal were evaluated and a 60-day field test was performed. Silicone substrates including a commercial

Perfusion MR imaging for differentiation of benign and malignant meningiomas

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Hao; Roediger, Lars A.; Oudkerk, Matthijs; Shen, Tianzhen; Miao, Jingtao

2008-01-01

Our purpose was to determine whether perfusion MR imaging can be used to differentiate benign and malignant meningiomas on the basis of the differences in perfusion of tumor parenchyma and/or peritumoral edema. A total of 33 patients with preoperative meningiomas (25 benign and 8 malignant) underwent conventional and dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MR imaging. Maximal relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV) and the corresponding relative mean time to enhance (rMTE) (relative to the contralateral normal white matter) in both tumor parenchyma and peritumoral edema were measured. The independent samples t-test was used to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference in the mean rCBV and rMTE ratios between benign and malignant meningiomas. The mean maximal rCBV values of benign and malignant meningiomas were 7.16±4.08 (mean±SD) and 5.89±3.86, respectively, in the parenchyma, and 1.05±0.96 and 3.82±1.39, respectively, in the peritumoral edema. The mean rMTE values were 1.16±0.24 and 1.30±0.32, respectively, in the parenchyma, and 0.91±0.25 and 1.24±0.35, respectively, in the peritumoral edema. The differences in rCBV and rMTE values between benign and malignant meningiomas were not statistically significant (P>0.05) in the parenchyma, but both were statistically significant (P<0.05) in the peritumoral edema. Perfusion MR imaging can provide useful information on meningioma vascularity which is not available from conventional MRI. Measurement of maximal rCBV and corresponding rMTE values in the peritumoral edema is useful in the preoperative differentiation between benign and malignant meningiomas. (orig.)

Features fusion based approach for handwritten Gujarati character recognition

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Ankit Sharma

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Handwritten character recognition is a challenging area of research. Lots of research activities in the area of character recognition are already done for Indian languages such as Hindi, Bangla, Kannada, Tamil and Telugu. Literature review on handwritten character recognition indicates that in comparison with other Indian scripts research activities on Gujarati handwritten character recognition are very less.  This paper aims to bring Gujarati character recognition in attention. Recognition of isolated Gujarati handwritten characters is proposed using three different kinds of features and their fusion. Chain code based, zone based and projection profiles based features are utilized as individual features. One of the significant contribution of proposed work is towards the generation of large and representative dataset of 88,000 handwritten Gujarati characters. Experiments are carried out on this developed dataset. Artificial Neural Network (ANN, Support Vector Machine (SVM and Naive Bayes (NB classifier based methods are implemented for handwritten Gujarati character recognition. Experimental results show substantial enhancement over state-of-the-art and authenticate our proposals.

FDG-PET for preoperative differential diagnosis between benign and malignant soft tissue masses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aoki, J.; Koyama, Y.; Sato, N.; Watanabe, H.; Shinozaki, T.; Takagishi, K.; Tokunaga, M.; Endo, K.

2003-01-01

To evaluate the standardized uptake value (SUV) of [ 18 F]2-deoxy-2-fluoro-d-glucose at positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) for preoperative differential diagnosis between benign and malignant soft tissue masses.Design One hundred and fourteen soft tissue masses (80 benign, 34 malignant) were examined by FDG-PET prior to tissue diagnosis. The SUVs were calculated and compared between benign and malignant lesions and among different histologic subgroups which included three or more cases. There was a statistically significant difference in SUV between benign (1.80±1.42 [SD]) and malignant (4.20±3.16) soft tissue masses in total (P<0.0001). However, a considerable overlap in SUV was observed between many benign and malignant lesions. Liposarcomas (2.16±1.72) and synovial sarcomas (1.60±0.43) did not show significantly higher SUV than any benign lesions. Metastases (4.23±2.35) showed no statistically significant difference in SUV as compared with schwannomas (1.75±0.84), desmoids (2.77±1.32), sarcoidosis (3.62±1.53), or giant cell tumors of tendon sheath (GCT of TS; 5.06±1.63). Even malignant fibrous histiocytomas (5.37±1.40) could not be differentiated from sarcoidosis or GCT of TS, based on the SUV. A large accumulation of FDG can be observed in both benign and malignant histiocytic, fibroblastic, or neurogenic lesions. SUV at conventional FDG-PET is limited to differentiating benign from malignant soft tissue masses, when all kinds of histologic subtypes are included. (orig.)

Venous thromboembolic complications to hysterectomy for benign disease

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kahr, Henriette Strøm; Thorlacius-Ussing, Ole; Christiansen, Ole Bjarne

2018-01-01

women undergoing hysterectomy for benign conditions from 1996 to 2015. PATIENTS: Women aged 18 years and older who underwent hysterectomy for benign disease were stratified into 3 groups according to the hysterectomy approach: abdominal, laparoscopic, or vaginal. INTERVENTIONS: Hysterectomy...... were the approach to hysterectomy and a history of thromboembolic disease. In the multivariable analysis, the risk of VTE was significantly reduced with laparoscopic hysterectomy (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.51; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.28-0.92; p = .03) and vaginal hysterectomy (HR = 0.39; 95% CI, 0...

Character and Characterization in “Palms and Men” novel

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Fariedeh Khajehpour

2013-11-01

Full Text Available Abstract Nowadays one of the most significant elements in story writing is character and characterization. Character in a narrative or a play, is a person that his mental and moral qualities reflect in his deeds and what he says and does. Creating such characters in a story or a novel that seem to be like real people to the reader is called characterization (Mir Sadeghi, 1382: p 85. In this article character and characterization in one of the novels about the eight year war between Iran and Iraq, calling “Palms and Men”, is investigated. Character types, methods of characterization, character appearance, prototype, the relation of character with other elements, and characterization defects are some of the subjects studied in this article.  Character types: these characters are generally categorized in two groups of stereotype and type. Samir, Touraj, Reza, Hamid etc. all belong to Sepah forces category which are type characters. Some women characters such as Zeinab, Samir’s mother, Kolsoum, Hanieh’s mother etc. are stereotype characters.   Methods of characterization in “Palms and Men” novel:   The description of characters is done in two methods by Mr. Nematollah Soleimani:   a Direct characterization: If not all the characters, most of them are certainly characterized in this way. For example in expressing Hamid’s characteristic who is the commander of the mission, he writes, “Hamid didn’t bat an eyelid in any incidents. Hamid was lion-hearted”. (Soleimani, 1380: 128. In describing uncle Heidar, he writes, “wisdom and insight, and the effects of years of suffering, difficulty, and experiencing could be clearly seen in his limpid eyes. The rural man was indeed a wise and experienced man” (the same: 264_265.   b Indirect Characterization: Although in novels and long stories, direct characterization method is often used, in “Palms and Men” this kind of characterization is also appeared in different conversations

Character and Characterization in “Palms and Men” novel

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

F. Khajeh pour

Full Text Available Nowadays one of the most significant elements in story writing is character and characterization. Character in a narrative or a play, is a person that his mental and moral qualities reflect in his deeds and what he says and does. Creating such characters in a story or a novel that seem to be like real people to the reader is called characterization (Mir Sadeghi, 1382: p 85. In this article character and characterization in one of the novels about the eight year war between Iran and Iraq, calling “Palms and Men”, is investigated. Character types, methods of characterization, character appearance, prototype, the relation of character with other elements, and characterization defects are some of the subjects studied in this article.Character types: these characters are generally categorized in two groups of stereotype and type. Samir, Touraj, Reza, Hamid etc. all belong to Sepah forces category which are type characters. Some women characters such as Zeinab, Samir’s mother, Kolsoum, Hanieh’s mother etc. are stereotype characters.Methods of characterization in “Palms and Men” novel:The description of characters is done in two methods by Mr. Nematollah Soleimani:aDirect characterization: If not all the characters, most of them are certainly characterized in this way. For example in expressing Hamid’s characteristic who is the commander of the mission, he writes, “Hamid didn’t bat an eyelid in any incidents. Hamid was lion-hearted”. (Soleimani, 1380: 128. In describing uncle Heidar, he writes, “wisdom and insight, and the effects of years of suffering, difficulty, and experiencing could be clearly seen in his limpid eyes. The rural man was indeed a wise and experienced man” (the same: 264_265.bIndirect Characterization: Although in novels and long stories, direct characterization method is often used, in “Palms and Men” this kind of characterization is also appeared in different conversations, stream of consciousness, deeds

WWC Evidence Review Protocol for Character Education Interventions

Science.gov (United States)

What Works Clearinghouse, 2014

2014-01-01

Character education is an inclusive concept regarding all aspects of how families, schools, and related social institutions support the positive character development of children and adults. "Character" in this context refers to the moral and ethical qualities of persons as well as the demonstration of those qualities in their emotional…

The comparison of MSCT multi-phase scan features between benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu Jingang; Wang Xizhen; Niu Qingliang; Lu Hongkai; Wang Bin

2009-01-01

Objective: To investigate the multi-phase contrast-enhanced features of multi-slice computed tomography (MSCT) of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and prostate cancer (PCa). Methods: Thirty-five BPH and twenty- seven PCa were examined with multi-phase contrast-enhanced MSCT scan. The peak time, maximum attenuation value (MAV) and time density curve (TDC) were recorded, and the slope of the contrast media uptake curve was calculated. Result: Significant differences between BPH and PCa in the type of the curves and the peak time were observed (P<0.01). The slopes of BPH and PCa were 0.45+0.25 and 0.7 6+0.34 respectively, the slope of PCa was higher than that of BPH (P<0.05). MAVs of BPH and PCa were (44.057±10.261) HU and (46.778±11.140) HU respectively, and there was no significant difference between them (P>0.05). Conclusion: The multi-phase MSCT scan can reflect the blood supply and enhancement characters of BPH and PCa, which are important in detection and differential diagnosis of the prostate diseases. (authors)

Drawing and Recognizing Chinese Characters with Recurrent Neural Network.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xu-Yao; Yin, Fei; Zhang, Yan-Ming; Liu, Cheng-Lin; Bengio, Yoshua

2018-04-01

Recent deep learning based approaches have achieved great success on handwriting recognition. Chinese characters are among the most widely adopted writing systems in the world. Previous research has mainly focused on recognizing handwritten Chinese characters. However, recognition is only one aspect for understanding a language, another challenging and interesting task is to teach a machine to automatically write (pictographic) Chinese characters. In this paper, we propose a framework by using the recurrent neural network (RNN) as both a discriminative model for recognizing Chinese characters and a generative model for drawing (generating) Chinese characters. To recognize Chinese characters, previous methods usually adopt the convolutional neural network (CNN) models which require transforming the online handwriting trajectory into image-like representations. Instead, our RNN based approach is an end-to-end system which directly deals with the sequential structure and does not require any domain-specific knowledge. With the RNN system (combining an LSTM and GRU), state-of-the-art performance can be achieved on the ICDAR-2013 competition database. Furthermore, under the RNN framework, a conditional generative model with character embedding is proposed for automatically drawing recognizable Chinese characters. The generated characters (in vector format) are human-readable and also can be recognized by the discriminative RNN model with high accuracy. Experimental results verify the effectiveness of using RNNs as both generative and discriminative models for the tasks of drawing and recognizing Chinese characters.

Leiomyoma of Testis –Rare Benign Mimicker of Testicular Malignancy

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Asif Baliyan

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Leiomyomas are benign tumours that originate from any organ containing smooth muscles. The testis is an extremely rare site. We report a case of testicular leiomyoma in a 50-year-old. Testis-associated leiomyomas are a benign and rare disease presenting as a painless, slowly-growing mass. Only histological examination with immunohistochemistry can validate the diagnosis.

Surgical Excision of Benign Papillomas Diagnosed with Core Biopsy: A Community Hospital Approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rozentsvayg, Eka; Carver, Kristen; Borkar, Sunita; Mathew, Melvy; Enis, Sean; Friedman, Paul

2011-01-01

Our goal was to assess the value of surgical excision of benign papillomas of the breast diagnosed on percutaneous core biopsy by determining the frequency of upgrade to malignancies and high risk lesions on a final surgical pathology. We reviewed 67 patients who had biopsies yielding benign papilloma and underwent subsequent surgical excision. Surgical pathology of the excised lesions was compared with initial core biopsy pathology results. 54 patients had concordant benign core and excisional pathology. Cancer (ductal carcinoma in situ and invasive ductal carcinoma) was diagnosed in five (7%) patients. Surgery revealed high-risk lesions in 8 (12%) patients, including atypical ductal hyperplasia, atypical lobular hyperplasia, and lobular carcinoma in situ. Cancer and high risk lesions accounted for 13 (19%) upstaging events from benign papilloma diagnosis. Our data suggests that surgical excision is warranted with core pathology of benign papilloma

Importance and correlations of characters for cowpea diversity in traditional varieties

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Márcia Silva de Mendonça

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Cowpea is a legume with ample plasticity, versatility and nutritional potential. It is a species widely used as a source of income and subsistence for small farmers in several Brazilian states, among them Acre. Due to the different varieties found in the State, it is the target of studies aiming at its genetic improvement. Thus, as one of the first stages of its improvement, it was aimed to determine the importance and correlations of characters for diversity and selection in traditional varieties of cowpea. The experiment was carried in completely randomized design, with plots consisting of four vase with capacity to 15.7 L, with one plant each and two replicates. The characteristics evaluated were: days for emergence, flowering (days, plant vigor (note, number of main stem nodes, apical leaflet length (mm, apical leaflet width (mm, length of pod (cm and width of the pod (cm. The correlation coefficients (phenotypic, genotypic and environmental were obtained, and the principal components analysis and the importance of the characters by the method proposed by Singh were carried out. The Singh method and principal components analysis were partially concordant in the distinction of the evaluated characters. The days for emergence, width of the apical leaflet, flowering and length of the apical leaflet were the main determinants for quantification of the genotypes and those that contributed the most to the variability of cowpea. The least discriminant characteristic by principal component analysis and recommended for discarding was plant vigor.

First Course in Japanese: Character Workbook.

Science.gov (United States)

Niwa, Tamako

This character workbook is an introduction to Japanese writing designed to be used in conjunction with Parts One and Two of this introductory course in Japanese. All the "hiragana", several "katakana", and 88 Japanese characters are introduced in this text. The workbook, consisting of 30 lessons, is divided into three parts.…

Do Rural Schools Need Character Education?

Science.gov (United States)

Reynolds, Janice Carner

Studies suggest that the challenge of violence in public schools can be met through character education, whether by providing a school culture in which core values are practiced or some form of moral training (indoctrination). To assess the need for character education in rural schools, small-school superintendents and board members in central…

Can diffusion-weighted imaging distinguish between benign and malignant pediatric liver tumors?

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Caro-Dominguez, Pablo; Chavhan, Govind B. [University of Toronto, Department of Diagnostic Imaging, The Hospital for Sick Children, Medical Imaging, Toronto, ON (Canada); Gupta, Abha A. [The Hospital for Sick Children, Department of Hematology and Oncology, Toronto, ON (Canada)

2018-01-15

There are limited data on utility of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the evaluation of pediatric liver lesions. To determine whether qualitative and quantitative DWI can be used to differentiate benign and malignant pediatric liver lesions. We retrospectively reviewed MRIs in children with focal liver lesions to qualitatively evaluate lesions noting diffusion restriction, T2 shine-through, increased diffusion, hypointensity on DWI and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps, and intermediate signal on both, and to measure ADC values. Pathology confirmation or a combination of clinical, laboratory and imaging features, and follow-up was used to determine final diagnosis. We included 112 focal hepatic lesions in 89 children (median age 11.5 years, 51 female), of which 92 lesions were benign and 20 malignant. Interobserver agreement was almost perfect for both qualitative (kappa 0.8735) and quantitative (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] 0.96) diffusion assessment. All malignant lesions showed diffusion restriction. Most benign lesions other than abscesses were not restricted. There was significant association of qualitative restriction with malignancy and non-restriction with benignancy (Fisher exact test P<0.0001). Mean normalized ADC values of malignant lesions (1.23 x 10{sup -3} mm{sup 2}/s) were lower than benign lesions (1.62 x 10{sup -3} mm{sup 2}/s; Student's t-test, P<0.015). However, there was significant overlap of ADC between benign and malignant lesions, with wide range for each diagnosis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.63 for predicting malignancy using an ADC cut-off value of ≤1.20 x 10{sup -3} mm{sup 2}/s, yielding a sensitivity of 78% and a specificity of 54% for differentiating malignant from benign lesions. Qualitative diffusion restriction in pediatric liver lesions is a good predictor of malignancy and can help to differentiate between benign and malignant lesions

Moral character predominates in person perception and evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Goodwin, Geoffrey P; Piazza, Jared; Rozin, Paul

2014-01-01

What sorts of trait information do people most care about when forming impressions of others? Recent research in social cognition suggests that "warmth," broadly construed, should be of prime importance in impression formation. Yet, some prior research suggests that information about others' specifically moral traits--their moral "character"--may be a primary dimension. Although warmth and character have sometimes been conceived of as interchangeable, we argue that they are separable, and that across a wide variety of contexts, character is usually more important than warmth in impression formation. We first showed that moral character and social warmth traits are indeed separable (Studies 1 and 2). Further studies that used correlational and experimental methods showed that, as predicted, in most contexts, moral character information is more important in impression formation than is warmth information (Studies 2-6). Character information was also more important than warmth information with respect to judgments of traits' perceived fundamentalness to identity, their uniquely human quality, their context-independence, and their controllability (Study 2). Finally, Study 7 used an archival method to show that moral character information appears more prominently than warmth information in obituaries, and more strongly determines the impressions people form of the individuals described in those obituaries. We discuss implications for current theories of person perception and social cognition.

Saw palmetto for benign prostatic hyperplasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Bent, Stephen; Kane, Christopher; Shinohara, Katsuto; Neuhaus, John; Hudes, Esther S; Goldberg, Harley; Avins, Andrew L

2006-02-09

Saw palmetto is used by over 2 million men in the United States for the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia and is commonly recommended as an alternative to drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In this double-blind trial, we randomly assigned 225 men over the age of 49 years who had moderate-to-severe symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia to one year of treatment with saw palmetto extract (160 mg twice a day) or placebo. The primary outcome measures were changes in the scores on the American Urological Association Symptom Index (AUASI) and the maximal urinary flow rate. Secondary outcome measures included changes in prostate size, residual urinary volume after voiding, quality of life, laboratory values, and the rate of reported adverse effects. There was no significant difference between the saw palmetto and placebo groups in the change in AUASI scores (mean difference, 0.04 point; 95 percent confidence interval, -0.93 to 1.01), maximal urinary flow rate (mean difference, 0.43 ml per minute; 95 percent confidence interval, -0.52 to 1.38), prostate size, residual volume after voiding, quality of life, or serum prostate-specific antigen levels during the one-year study. The incidence of side effects was similar in the two groups. In this study, saw palmetto did not improve symptoms or objective measures of benign prostatic hyperplasia. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00037154.). Copyright 2006 Massachusetts Medical Society.

Galactographic differentiation between malignant and benign disease in patients with pathologic nipple discharge

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Cho, Nariya; Cho, Hyun Yee [Gil Medical Center, Incheon (Korea, Republic of); Oh, Ki Keun [Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2003-06-01

To compare the galactographic findings of malignant and benign disease in patients with pathologic nipple discharge and to analyze the features suggesting malignancy. In 24 patients in whom pathologic nipple discharge had occurred, the findings of preoperative galactography were correlated with those of pathology. Nine of the 24 cases were malignant and the other 15 were benign. Intraductal calcification occurred in five malignant cases (56%) and two (13%) which were benign. Seven malignant cases (78%) involved the segmental ducts, and in eight (89%), the peripheral ducts below the subsegmental duct were involved. Five benign cases (33%) involved the lactiferous sinus, seven (47%) the segmental duct, and two (13%) the subsegmental duct. Distal duct dilatation occurred in four benign cases (27%), while ductal stenosis was noted in six cases (67%) and ductal distortion in seven (78%). A malignant tumor appeared as a multiple (n=5, 56%) or irregular (n=5, 56%) filling defect, and a benign tumor as a single (n=12, 80%), oval (n=6, 40%) or lobular (n=4, 27%) filling defect. At galactography, a malignant tumor frequently appeared as an irregular multiple intraductal filling defect in a peripheral duct. A benign tumor, on the other hand, appeared as an oval or lobular single lesion. The presence of ductal stenosis, distortion and intraductal microcalcifications not opacified by contrast material suggest possible malignancy.

Environmentally benign working pairs for adsorption refrigeration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cui Qun; Tao Gang; Chen Haijun; Guo Xinyue; Yao Huqing

2005-01-01

This paper begins from adsorption working pairs: water and ethanol were selected as refrigerants; 13x molecular sieve, silica gel, activated carbon, adsorbent NA and NB, proposed by authors, were selected as adsorbents, and the performance of adsorption working pairs in adsorption refrigeration cycle was studied. The adsorption isotherms of adsorbents (NA and NB) were obtained by high-vacuum gravimetric method. Desorption properties of adsorbents were analyzed and compared by thermal analysis method. The performance of adsorption refrigeration was studied on simulation device of adsorption refrigeration cycle. After presentation of adsorption isotherms, the thermodynamic performance for their use in adsorption refrigeration system was calculated. The results show: (1) the maximum adsorption capacity of water on adsorbent NA reaches 0.7 kg/kg, and the maximum adsorption capacity of ethanol on adsorbent NB is 0.68 kg/kg, which is three times that of ethanol on activated carbon, (2) the refrigeration capacity of NA-water working pair is 922 kJ/kg, the refrigeration capacity of NB-ethanol is 2.4 times that of activated carbon-methanol, (3) as environmental friendly and no public hazard adsorption working pair, NA-H 2 O and NB-ethanol can substitute activated carbon-methanol in adsorption refrigeration system using low-grade heat source

Clinical and histopathologic study of benign lichenoid keratosis on the face.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Han Su; Park, Eun Joo; Kwon, In Ho; Kim, Kwang Ho; Kim, Kwang Joong

2013-10-01

Benign lichenoid keratosis is a cutaneous entity that consists of a nonpruritic papule or slightly indurated plaque that is histologically characterized by a band-like inflammatory infiltrate with interface involvement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical and histopathologic features of benign lichenoid keratosis localized on the face. Fourteen benign lichenoid keratosis patients diagnosed clinically and histopathologically in our clinic during the 10-year period from 2002 to 2012 were studied. Thirteen female and 1 male patients were included. The mean age at diagnosis was 46.5 years. The color of most of the lesions was brown (10 cases, 71%). The cheek was the most commonly involved area (10 cases, 71%). All of the lesions were single. There were 9 (64%) flat lesion cases and 5 (36%) raised lesion cases. Most patients denied having any symptoms; 3 had mild pruritus. The histopathological findings indicated that all the cases exhibited lichenoid inflammatory infiltrate obscuring the dermal-epidermal junction and vacuolar alteration of basal cell layer. The lesions showed focal parakeratosis (79%), melanophages (79%), hyperkeratosis (71%), and necrotic keratinocytes (71%). Solar elastosis (50%) and acanthosis (43%) were also seen frequently. Diagnosis of benign lichenoid keratosis should be made by a combination of clinical manifestations and histopathological findings. In particular, benign lichenoid keratosis should be considered if a middle-aged patient presents a solitary asymptomatic brown lesion on the face. We think benign lichenoid keratosis may be a specific disorder rather than the inflammatory stage of regressing solar lentigines, large cell acanthoma or reticulated seborrheic keratosis.

Cultivating characters (moral value) through internalization strategy in science classroom

Science.gov (United States)

Ibrahim, M.; Abadi

2018-01-01

It is still in a crucial debate that characters play an important learning outcome to be realized by design. So far, most people think that characters were reached as nurturance effect with the assumption that students who are knowledgeable and skillful will have good characters automatically. Lately, obtained evidence that this assumption is not true. Characters should be taught deliberately or by design. This study was designed to culture elementary school students’ characters through science classroom. The teaching-learning process was conducted to facilitate and bridge the students from the known (concrete images: Science phenomena) to the unknown (abstract ideas: characters: care, and tolerance. Characters were observed five weeks before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed from observation of 24 students in internalization strategy-based courses. Qualitative and quantitative data suggested that the internalization strategy that use of science phenomena to represent abstract ideas (characters) in science classroom positively cultivating characters.

Differential diagnosis between benign and malignant soft tissue tumors utilizing ultrasound parameters.

Science.gov (United States)

Morii, Takeshi; Kishino, Tomonori; Shimamori, Naoko; Motohashi, Mitsue; Ohnishi, Hiroaki; Honya, Keita; Aoyagi, Takayuki; Tajima, Takashi; Ichimura, Shoichi

2018-01-01

Preoperative discrimination between benign and malignant soft tissue tumors is critical for the prevention of excess application of magnetic resonance imaging and biopsy as well as unplanned resection. Although ultrasound, including power Doppler imaging, is an easy, noninvasive, and cost-effective modality for screening soft tissue tumors, few studies have investigated reliable discrimination between benign and malignant soft tissue tumors. To establish a modality for discrimination between benign and malignant soft tissue tumors using ultrasound, we extracted the significant risk factors for malignancy based on ultrasound information from 40 malignant and 56 benign pathologically diagnosed soft tissue tumors and established a scoring system based on these risk factors. The maximum size, tumor margin, and vascularity evaluated using ultrasound were extracted as significant risk factors. Using the odds ratio from a multivariate regression model, a scoring system was established. Receiver operating characteristic analyses revealed a high area under the curve value (0.85), confirming the accuracy of the scoring system. Ultrasound is a useful modality for establishing the differential diagnosis between benign and malignant soft tissue tumors.

The spectrum of benign esophageal lesions: imaging findings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jang, Kyung Mi; Lee, Kyung Soo; Lee, Soon Jin; Kim, Eun A; Kim, Tae Sung; Han, Dae Hee; Shim, Young Mog

2002-01-01

Benign esophageal lesions occur in various diseases. Barium studies are useful for the evaluation of mucosal surface lesions but provide little information about the extramucosal extent of disease. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, on the other hand, permit the assessment of wall thickness, mediastinal involvement, adjacent lymphadenopathy, and distant spread. In diseases such as fibrovascular polyps, duplication cysts, scleroderma, trauma, caustic esophagitis, hiatal hernia, esophageal diverticulum, achalasia, and paraesophageal varices, the findings of imaging studies are specific, obviating the need for further invasive diagnostic work-up. The advent of helical computed tomography and its volume data set allows the acquisition of multiplanar images, and magnetic resonance imaging is useful both for this and for tissue characterization. Thus, multiplanar cross-sectional imaging further extends the role of imaging modalities to the evaluation of benign esophageal lesions. Through an awareness of the multiplanar cross-sectional appearances of various benign esophageal lesions, the radiologist can play an important role in the detection, diagnosis, further diagnostic planning, and treatment of the diseases in which they occur

The spectrum of benign esophageal lesions: imaging findings

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jang, Kyung Mi; Lee, Kyung Soo; Lee, Soon Jin; Kim, Eun A; Kim, Tae Sung; Han, Dae Hee; Shim, Young Mog [Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2002-09-01

Benign esophageal lesions occur in various diseases. Barium studies are useful for the evaluation of mucosal surface lesions but provide little information about the extramucosal extent of disease. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, on the other hand, permit the assessment of wall thickness, mediastinal involvement, adjacent lymphadenopathy, and distant spread. In diseases such as fibrovascular polyps, duplication cysts, scleroderma, trauma, caustic esophagitis, hiatal hernia, esophageal diverticulum, achalasia, and paraesophageal varices, the findings of imaging studies are specific, obviating the need for further invasive diagnostic work-up. The advent of helical computed tomography and its volume data set allows the acquisition of multiplanar images, and magnetic resonance imaging is useful both for this and for tissue characterization. Thus, multiplanar cross-sectional imaging further extends the role of imaging modalities to the evaluation of benign esophageal lesions. Through an awareness of the multiplanar cross-sectional appearances of various benign esophageal lesions, the radiologist can play an important role in the detection, diagnosis, further diagnostic planning, and treatment of the diseases in which they occur.

Environmentally Benign Lubricant Systems For Cold, Warm And Hot Forging

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bay, Niels

2010-01-01

paper gives an overview of these efforts substituting environmentally hazardous lubricants in cold, warm and hot forging. The paper is an extract of the keynote paper [3] written by the author together with eight co-authors referring to collected papers and other information from more than 30 different...

Character combinations, convergence and diversification in ectoparasitic arthropods.

Science.gov (United States)

Poulin, Robert

2009-08-01

Different lineages of organisms diversify over time at different rates, in part as a consequence of the characteristics of the species in these lineages. Certain suites of traits possessed by species within a clade may determine rates of diversification, with some particular combinations of characters acting synergistically to either limit or promote diversification; the most successful combinations may also emerge repeatedly in different clades via convergent evolution. Here, the association between species characters and diversification is investigated amongst 21 independent lineages of arthropods ectoparasitic on vertebrate hosts. Using nine characters (each with two to four states) that capture general life history strategy, transmission mode and host-parasite interaction, each lineage was described by the set of character states it possesses. The results show, firstly, that most possible pair-wise combinations of character states have been adopted at least once, sometimes several times independently by different lineages; thus, ectoparasitic arthropods have explored most of the life history character space available to them. Secondly, lineages possessing commonly observed combinations of character states are not necessarily the ones that have experienced the highest rates of diversification (measured as a clade's species-per-genus ratio). Thirdly, some specific traits are associated with higher rates of diversification. Using more than one host per generation, laying eggs away from the host and intermediate levels of fecundity are features that appear to have promoted diversification. These findings indicate that particular species characters may be evolutionary drivers of diversity, whose effects could also apply in other taxa.

The dark cube: dark and light character profiles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danilo Garcia

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Background. Research addressing distinctions and similarities between people’s malevolent character traits (i.e., the Dark Triad: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy has detected inconsistent linear associations to temperament traits. Additionally, these dark traits seem to have a common core expressed as uncooperativeness. Hence, some researchers suggest that the dark traits are best represented as one global construct (i.e., the unification argument rather than as ternary construct (i.e., the uniqueness argument. We put forward the dark cube (cf. Cloninger’s character cube comprising eight dark profiles that can be used to compare individuals who differ in one dark character trait while holding the other two constant. Our aim was to investigate in which circumstances individuals who are high in each one of the dark character traits differ in Cloninger’s “light” character traits: self-directedness, cooperativeness, and self-transcendence. We also investigated if people’s dark character profiles were associated to their light character profiles. Method. A total of 997 participants recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk responded to the Short Dark Triad and the Short Character Inventory. Participants were allocated to eight different dark profiles and eight light profiles based on their scores in each of the traits and any possible combination of high and low scores. We used three-way interaction regression analyses and t-tests to investigate differences in light character traits between individuals with different dark profiles. As a second step, we compared the individuals’ dark profile with her/his character profile using an exact cell-wise analysis conducted in the ROPstat software (http://www.ropstat.com. Results. Individuals who expressed high levels of Machiavellianism and those who expressed high levels of psychopathy also expressed low self-directedness and low cooperativeness. Individuals with high

Feasibility of Intravoxel Incoherent Motion for Differentiating Benign and Malignant Thyroid Nodules.

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Hui; Chen, Jun; Zhao, Yi Ling; Liu, Jin Huan; Zhang, Liang; Liu, Chang Sheng; Huang, Dongjie

2018-06-13

This study aimed to preliminarily investigate the feasibility of intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) theory in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant thyroid nodules. Forty-five patients with 56 confirmed thyroid nodules underwent preoperative routine magnetic resonance imaging and IVIM diffusion-weighted imaging. The histopathologic diagnosis was confirmed by surgery. Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), perfusion fraction f, diffusivity D, and pseudo-diffusivity D* were quantified. Independent samples t test of IVIM-derived metrics were conducted between benign and malignant nodules. Receiver-operating characteristic analyses were performed to determine the optimal thresholds as well as the sensitivity and specificity for differentiating. Significant intergroup difference was observed in ADC, D, D*, and f (p < 0.001). Malignant tumors featured significantly lower ADC, D and D* values and a higher f value than that of benign nodules. The ADC, D, and D* could distinguish the benign from malignant thyroid nodules, and parameter f differentiate the malignant tumors from benign nodules. The values of the area under the curve for parameter ADC, D, and D* were 0.784 (p = 0.001), 0.795 (p = 0.001), and 0.850 (p < 0.001), separately, of which the area under the curve of f value was the maximum for identifying the malignant from benign nodules, which was 0.841 (p < 0.001). This study suggested that ADC and IVIM-derived metrics, including D, D*, and f, could potentially serve as noninvasive predictors for the preoperative differentiating of thyroid nodules, and f value performed best in identifying the malignant from benign nodules among these parameters. Copyright © 2018 Academic Radiology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Skipping of Chinese characters does not rely on word-based processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Nan; Angele, Bernhard; Hua, Huimin; Shen, Wei; Zhou, Junyi; Li, Xingshan

2018-02-01

Previous eye-movement studies have indicated that people tend to skip extremely high-frequency words in sentence reading, such as "the" in English and "/de" in Chinese. Two alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain how this frequent skipping happens in Chinese reading: one assumes that skipping happens when the preview has been fully identified at the word level (word-based skipping); the other assumes that skipping happens whenever the preview character is easy to identify regardless of whether lexical processing has been completed or not (character-based skipping). Using the gaze-contingent display change paradigm, we examined the two hypotheses by substituting the preview of the third character of a four-character Chinese word with the high-frequency Chinese character "/de", which should disrupt the ongoing word-level processing. The character-based skipping hypothesis predicts that this manipulation will enhance the skipping probability of the target character (i.e., the third character of the target word), because the character "/de" has much higher character frequency than the original character. The word-based skipping hypothesis instead predicts a reduction of the skipping probability of the target character because the presence of the character "/de" is lexically infelicitous at word level. The results supported the character-based skipping hypothesis, indicating that in Chinese reading the decision of skipping a character can be made before integrating it into a word.

Case Report: Benign Multicystic Peritoneal Mesothelioma

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Nurettin Boran

2011-08-01

In conclusion BPMP is a rare benign cystic tumor which can be easily misdiagnosed as an ovarian cancer preoperatively. Intraoperative findings and appearence of the mass may mimic malignancy. For that reason frozen section examination will prevent overtreatment.

Benign Strictures of the Esophagus and Gastric Outlet: Interventional Management

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Jin Hyoung; Shin, Ji Hoon; Song, Ho Young [University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2010-10-15

Benign strictures of the esophagus and gastric outlet are difficult to manage conservatively and they usually require intervention to relieve dysphagia or to treat the stricture-related complications. In this article, authors review the non-surgical options that are used to treat benign strictures of the esophagus and gastric outlet, including balloon dilation, temporary stent placement, intralesional steroid injection and incisional therapy

Retroperitoneoscopic nephrectomy in benign pathology.

Science.gov (United States)

Quintela, Rodrigo S; Cotta, Leonardo R; Neves, Marcelo F; Abelha, David L; Tavora, Jose E

2006-01-01

We report our experience with 43 retroperitoneal laparoscopic nephrectomy for benign kidney disease. All patients had a poor function from obstructive uropathology and renal atrophy. None of these patients had a previous lumbotomy. Retroperitoneoscopy was performed with 4 trocar port technique in a lateral position. The retroperitoneal space is created by using a Gaur's balloon made of sterile glove. The approach to vascular pedicle was done posteriorly and vessels were clipped by metal and Hem-o-lock (Weck Closure Systems, North Carolina, USA) clips. The sample was intact extracted in an Endo-Bag prolonging one trocar incision. Median operative time was 160 minutes and median blood loss was 200 mL. Four cases (9%) were converted to open surgery: one case due to bleeding and 3 cases due to technical difficulties regarding perirenal adherences. Most patients (39) checked out from the Hospital in day two. Four of them were left over 3 days due to wound complications. Retroperitoneoscopy offers a safe, effective and reproductive access to nephrectomy for benign pathologies.

Leveling up and down : The experiences of benign and malicious envy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van de Ven, N.; Zeelenberg, M.; Pieters, R.

2009-01-01

Envy is the painful emotion caused by the good fortune of others. This research empirically supports the distinction between two qualitatively different types of envy, namely benign and malicious envy. It reveals that the experience of benign envy leads to a moving-up motivation aimed at improving

Environmental research program. 1992 annual report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

1993-07-01

The objective of the Environmental Research Program is to contribute to the understanding of the formation, mitigation, transport, transformation, and ecological effects of energy-related pollutants on the environment. The program is multidisciplinary and includes fundamental and applied research in chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, and ecology. The program undertakes research and development in efficient and environmentally benign combustion, pollution abatement and destruction, and novel methods of detection and analysis of criteria and non-criteria pollutants. This diverse group investigates combustion, atmospheric processes, flue-gas chemistry, and ecological systems.

Laparoscopic hand-assisted adrenalectomy for a 20 cm benign tumor.

Science.gov (United States)

Popescu, I; Tomulescu, V; Hrehoret, D; Popescu, A; Herlea, V

2007-01-01

Since its introduction in 1992, laparoscopic adrenalectomy (LA) has become the technique of choice in the surgical treatment of both secreting or non-secreting benign adrenal pathology. Although traditionally, laparoscopic approach was recommended only for tumor sizes less than 6-8 cm--as larger tumors were known to have an increased risk of malignancy--the currently growing experience and improvement of surgical techniques has allowed for an extension of the therapeutic indication, as shown by the recent case report of LA use for a benign 22 cm tumor (1). We report the case of a young patient operated in our Department for a benign 20 cm adrenal tumor for which laparoscopic "hand-assisted" adrenalectomy yielded a good postoperative outcome and minimal complications.

Role of frozen section in surgery of benign thyroid

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomaž Štupnik

2007-04-01

Full Text Available Background: Fine-needle aspiration biopsy can very reliably discriminate between benign and malignant thyroid tumors. The role of additional intraoperative frozen section to guide intraoperative management was questioned.Methods: A retrospective analysis of all thyroid resections at our department between 2000 and 2004 was performed.Results: 420 patients with benign thyroid lesions underwent surgical resections. 169 lobectomies and 251 total thyroidectomies were performed and 57 (13.5 % thyroid cancers discovered (mostly papillary carcinomas. 54 frozen sections were performed and sensitivity rate of 11.1 % and specificity rate of 97.8 % was estimated.Conclusions: Our data supports the fact that intraoperative frozen section is not sensitive enough to substantially add to preoperative fine-needle aspiration biopsy, even with more selective use. We conclude that routine use of frozen section is not cost-effective in surgery of the benign thyroid and can therefore be abandoned.

Estimation of cancer risks from radiotherapy of benign diseases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Trott, K.R.; Kamprad, F.

2006-01-01

Background: The effective-dose method which was proposed by the ICRP (International Commission of Radiation Protection) for the estimation of risk to the general population from occupational or environmental, low-dose radiation exposure is not adequate for estimating the risk of cancer induction by radiotherapy of malignant or nonmalignant diseases. Methods:The risk of cancer induction by radiotherapy of benign diseases should be based on epidemiologic data directly derived from follow-up studies of patients who had been given radiotherapy for nonmalignant diseases in the past. Results: Risk factors were derived from epidemiologic studies of patients treated with irradiation for nonmalignant diseases to be used for selecting treatment options and optimizing treatment procedures. Conclusion: In most cases, cancer risks estimated by the effective-dose method may overestimate the true risks by one order of magnitude, yet in other cases even may underestimate it. The proposed method using organ-specific risk factors may be more suitable for treatment planning. (orig.)

Head capsule characters in the Hymenoptera and their phylogenetic implications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lars Vilhelmsen

2011-09-01

Full Text Available The head capsule of a taxon sample of three outgroup and 86 ingroup taxa is examined for characters of possible phylogenetic significance within Hymenoptera. 21 morphological characters are illustrated and scored, and their character evolution explored by mapping them onto a phylogeny recently produced from a large morphological data set. Many of the characters are informative and display unambiguous changes. Most of the character support demonstrated is supportive at the superfamily or family level. In contrast, only few characters corroborate deeper nodes in the phylogeny of Hymenoptera.

Environmentally benign and scalable synthesis of LiFePO4 nanoplates with high capacity and excellent rate cycling performance for lithium ion batteries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhao, Chunsong; Wang, Lu-Ning; Chen, Jitao; Gao, Min

2017-01-01

Highlights: •LiFePO 4 precursors were successfully prepared in pure water phase under atmosphere. •LiFePO 4 nanostructures were also regenerated by recycling filtrate. •LiFePO 4 /C delivers high discharge capacity of 160 mAh g −1 at 0.2 C and high rate capacity of 107 mAh g −1 at 20C. •LiFePO 4 /C delivers a capacity retention rate closed to 97% after 240 cycles at 20C. -- Abstract: An economical and scalable synthesis route of LiFePO 4 nanoplate precursors is successfully prepared in pure water phase under atmosphere without employing environmentally toxic surfactants or high temperature and high pressure compared with traditional hydrothermal or solvothermal methods, which also involves recycling the filtrate to regenerate LiFePO 4 nanoplate precursors and collecting by-product Na 2 SO 4 . The LiFePO 4 precursors present a plate-like morphology with mean thickness and length of 50–100 and 100–300 nm, respectively. After carbon coating, the LiFePO 4 /C nanoparticles with particle size around 200 nm can be observed which exhibit a high discharge capacity of 160 mAh g −1 at 0.2 C and 107 mAh g −1 at 20 C. A high capacity retention closed to 91% can be reached after 500 cycles even at a high current rate of 20C with coulombic efficiency of 99.5%. This work suggests a simple, economic and environmentally benign method in preparation of LiFePO 4 /C cathode material for power batteries that would be feasible for large scale industrial production.

Submatrices of character tables and basic sets

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bessenrodt, Christine; Olsson, Jørn Børling

2012-01-01

In this investigation of character tables of nite groups we study basic sets and associated representation theoretic data for complementary sets of conjugacy lasses. For the symmetric groups we nd unexpected properties of characters on restricted sets of conjugacy classes, like beautiful...... combinatorial determinant formulae for submatrices of the character table and Cartan matrices with respect to basic sets; we observe that similar phenomena occur for the transition matrices between power sum symmetric functions to bounded partitions and the k-Schur functions dened by Lapointe and Morse...

Visual Antipriming Effect: Evidence from Chinese Character Identification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Feng Zhang

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Marsolek et al. (2006 have differentiated antipriming effects from priming effects, by adopting a novel priming paradigm comprised of four phases that include a baseline measurement. The general concept of antipriming supports the overlapping representation theory of knowledge. This study extended examination of the Marsolek et al. (2006 paradigm by investigating antipriming and priming effects in a series of Chinese character identification tasks. Results showed that identification accuracy of old characters was significantly higher than baseline measurements (i.e., the priming effect, while identification accuracy of novel characters was significantly lower than baseline measurements (i.e., the antipriming effect. This study demonstrates for the first time the effect of visual antipriming in Chinese character identification. It further provides new evidence for the overlapping representation theory of knowledge, and supports generalizability of the phenomenon to Chinese characters.

Character strengths, social anxiety, and physiological stress reactivity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tingting Li

2017-05-01

Full Text Available In this paper, the effects of character strengths on the physiological reactivity to social anxiety induced by the Trier Social Stress Task were reported. On the basis of their scores in the Chinese Virtues Questionnaire, 30 college students were assigned to either high- (n = 15 or low-character-strength (n = 15 groups. Their psychological stress and physiological data across three laboratory stages (namely, baseline, stress exposure, and post-stress were collected. Results indicated that individuals with high character strengths exhibited rapid cardiovascular recovery from baseline to post-stress even if high- and low-character-strength groups showed similar patterns of cardiovascular arousal in response to the stress at baseline and stress exposure. These results prove that character strengths are stress-defense factors that allow for psychological and physiological adaptation to stress.

Representations of deaf characters in children's picture books.

Science.gov (United States)

Golos, Debbie B; Moses, Annie M

2011-01-01

Picture books can influence how children perceive people of different backgrounds, including people with disabilities whose cultures differ from their own. Researchers have examined the portrayal of multicultural characters with disabilities in children's literature. However, few have specifically considered the portrayal of deaf characters, despite increased inclusion of deaf characters in children's literature over the past two decades. The present study analyzed the portrayal of deaf characters in picture books for children ages 4-8 years. A content analysis of 20 children's picture books was conducted in which the books were analyzed for messages linked to pathological and cultural categories. Results indicated that these books did not portray Deaf characters from a cultural perspective but, rather, highlighted aspects of deafness as a medical condition, one that requires fixing and that perpetuates stereotypes of deafness as a disability.

Influence of a Character-Based App on Children's Learning of Nutritional Information: Should Apps Be Served with a Side of Media Characters?

Science.gov (United States)

Putnam, Marisa M; Richmond, Elana M; Brunick, Kaitlin L; Wright, Charlotte A; Calvert, Sandra L

2018-04-01

Childhood obesity is a health issue in the United States, associated with marketing practices in which media characters are often used to sell unhealthy products. This study examined exposure to a socially contingent touch-screen gaming app, which replied immediately, reliably, and accurately to children's actions. Children's recall of nutritional content and their liking of the character were assessed. Four- and five-year-old children (N = 114) received no-exposure, single-exposure, or repeated-exposure to a character-based iPad app rewarding healthy and penalizing unhealthy behaviors. Children reported how much they liked the character and recalled healthy and unhealthy items from the app. An ordinary least squares regression was conducted on how much children liked the character by condition. Poisson regressions were conducted on the number of items recalled by condition alone, and in an interacted model of treatment condition by liking the character. Children liked the character more in the repeated app-exposure condition than in the control group (P = 0.018). Children in the repeated and single app-exposure conditions recalled more healthy (P < 0.001) and unhealthy (P < 0.001) items than the control group. Within treatment conditions, liking the character increased recall of healthy items in the single app-exposure compared to the repeated app-exposure condition (P = 0.005). Results revealed that repeated exposure increased children's learning of nutritional information and liking of the character. The results contribute to our understanding of how to deliver effective nutrition information to young children in a new venue, a gaming app.

A Benign Cardiac Growth but Not So Indolent

Science.gov (United States)

Reddy, Sahadev T.; Biederman, Robert W. W.

2016-01-01

Cardiac lipomatous hypertrophy is a rare benign condition that usually involves the interatrial septum. Due to its benign nature it rarely requires intervention. Its presence outside the interatrial septum is reported infrequently. We present a case of lipomatous hypertrophy in the intraventricular septum that was complicated by a severe, symptomatic, and disabling dynamic left ventricular outflow tract obstruction. The symptoms significantly improved following the excision of the mass. In our case transthoracic echocardiogram was used to visualize the mass and measure the severity of the obstruction; Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging was used to characterize the mass and histopathology confirmed the diagnosis. PMID:27293911

Radiological and histopathological study of benign tumors of the mandible

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yoo, Seon Young; Baek, Seung Yon; Choi, Kyung Hee; Suh, Jeung Soo; Rhee, Chung Sik; Kim, Hee Seup [Ewha Womans University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

1984-06-15

Benign tumors of the mandible are uncommon lesions. That were classified into odontogenic tumors and nonodontogenic tumors. Author reviewed the radiological evaluation and pathological microscopic finding from 33 benign tumors of the mandible that were confirmed by the biopsy during last 10 years in Dental Clinics, Ewha Womans University Hospital and Seoul National University Dental Hospital. Following results were obtained; 1. Benign tumors of the mandible were classified into odontogenic (66.7%) and non-odontogenic tumors (33.3%). 2. The range of the age distribution was between 6 years and 67 years old. The commonest age group was the second decade (39.4%). 3. There was no difference to sex distribution. 4. The most frequent location was the body of the mandible (42.4%). 5. Radiographic findings were relatively characteristic in odontogenic tumors rather than non-odontogenic tumors. 1) Radiolucent cystic lesions-ameloblastoma, odontogenic myxoma, odontogenic fibtoma, aneurysmal bone cyst and neurofibroma. 2) Radiopaque mass lesions-odontoma, cementoma and osteoma. 3) Mixed patterns-ossifying fibroma, cementifying fibroma, calcifying odontogenic epithelial tumor and hemangioma. It was concluded that the radiographic examination was of value to diagnose the benign tumors of the mandible in symptomless patients.

The Implementation of Character Education at Senior High School

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julia

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This paper is aimed at analyzing the implementation of character education at Senior High School in Sumedang Regency, West Java, Indonesia. A content analysis method was employed to collect the data with interviews with six teachers from six different senior high schools, which represent the rural, transitional, and urban areas. The findings revealed that: (1 not all teachers understand the concept of character education; (2 the character education has not been done systematically or has not had the specific design/model for the teaching and learning process. Most teachers embedded the character values during the teaching and learning process as a form of character education. For example, through Qur’an recitation, learning tasks, group discussion, lecture, socio-drama, observation and admonition, and even through teachers’ model. Meanwhile, outside the class, character education was implemented through competition and extracurricular activities; (3 the evaluation of character education was relatively varied, such as an observation followed by admonition, group guidance, and also focusing on behavior and affective assessment in the classroom learning process. This research implied that it is needed to make a policy on a program development through the Bureau of Education to improve Senior High School teachers’ knowledge and skills in implementing the character education.

Differentiation and diagnosis of benign and malignant testicular lesions using 18F-FDG PET/CT.

Science.gov (United States)

Shao, Dan; Gao, Qiang; Tian, Xu-Wei; Wang, Si-Yun; Liang, Chang-Hong; Wang, Shu-Xia

2017-08-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the differential diagnostic value of 18 F-fluorodeoxy glucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography ( 18 F-FDG PET/CT) for benign and malignant testicular lesions. The PET/CT scans of 53 patients with testicular lesions confirmed by biopsy or surgical pathology were retrospectively analyzed. There were 32 cases of malignant tumors and 21 cases of benign lesions. Differences in the maximum standardized uptake value (SUVmax) measurements and the SUVmax lesion/background ratios between benign and malignant lesions were analyzed. The diagnostic value of this PET/CT modality for the differential diagnosis of benign versus malignant testicular lesions was calculated. The differences in the SUVmax measurements and the SUVmax lesion/background ratios between benign and malignant lesions were statistically significant (SUVmax: Z=-4.295, p=0.000; SUVmax lesion/background ratio: Z=-5.219, p=0.000); specifically, both of these indicators were higher in malignant lesions compared to benign lesions. An SUVmax of 3.75 was the optimal cutoff value to differentiate between benign and malignant testicular lesions. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of this PET/CT modality in the differential diagnosis of benign versus malignant testicular lesions were 90.6%, 80.9%, 86.8%, 87.9%, and 85.0%, respectively. 18 F-FDG PET/CT can accurately identify benign and malignant testicular lesions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Endoscopic Management of Benign Esophageal Strictures.

Science.gov (United States)

Ravich, William J

2017-08-24

This paper presents the author's approach to esophageal dilation. It offers a tailored approach to the application of dilation to specific types of esophageal stenotic lesions. In patients with inflammatory stricture, recent studies confirm the importance of treating the underlying inflammatory condition in order to decrease the rate of recurrence. The paper reviews some of the novel techniques that have been suggested for the treatment of refractory benign esophageal strictures, including incisional therapy, stenting, or the injection steroids or antifibrotic agents. The endoscopist who treats esophageal strictures must be familiar with the tools of the dilation and how they are best applied to specific types of stenotic lesions. If inflammation is present, effective management requires treatment of the inflammatory process in addition to mechanical dilation of the stenotic lesion. Controlled trials of novel approaches to treatment of refractory benign esophageal strictures are limited and will be necessary to determine efficacy.

Javanese Character Feature Extraction Based on Shape Energy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Galih Hendra Wibowo

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Javanese character is one of Indonesia's noble culture, especially in Java. However, the number of Javanese people who are able to read the letter has decreased so that there need to be conservation efforts in the form of a system that is able to recognize the characters. One solution to these problem lies in Optical Character Recognition (OCR studies, where one of its heaviest points lies in feature extraction which is to distinguish each character. Shape Energy is one of feature extraction method with the basic idea of how the character can be distinguished simply through its skeleton. Based on the basic idea, then the development of feature extraction is done based on its components to produce an angular histogram with various variations of multiples angle. Furthermore, the performance test of this method and its basic method is performed in Javanese character dataset, which has been obtained from various images, is 240 data with 19 labels by using K-Nearest Neighbors as its classification method. Performance values were obtained based on the accuracy which is generated through the Cross-Validation process of 80.83% in the angular histogram with an angle of 20 degrees, 23% better than Shape Energy. In addition, other test results show that this method is able to recognize rotated character with the lowest performance value of 86% at 180-degree rotation and the highest performance value of 96.97% at 90-degree rotation. It can be concluded that this method is able to improve the performance of Shape Energy in the form of recognition of Javanese characters as well as robust to the rotation.

18FDG PET scanning of benign and malignant musculoskeletal lesions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Feldman, Frieda; Heertum, Ronald van; Manos, Chitra

2003-01-01

To describe the technique, applications and advantages of 18 FDG PET scanning in detection, analysis and management of musculoskeletal lesions.Design and patients Forty-five patients (19 males,26 females) aged 9 to 81 years had radiographs, routine radionuclide scans, CT and/or MRI of clinically suspected active benign or malignant musculoskeletal lesions. 18 FDG scans with a Siemens ECAT EXACT 921 dedicated PET unit (Knoxville, Tenn.) and FWH=6 mm images acquired as a 5-6 bed examination (6 min emission and 4 min transmission) used OSEM iterative reconstruction with segmented transmission attenuation correction and a Gaussian filter (cutoff 6.7 mm). Region of interest (ROI) 3 x 3 pixel image analysis based on transverse whole body images (slice thickness 3.37 mm) generated Maximum Standard Uptake Values (Max SUV) with a cutoff of 2.0 used to distinguish benign and malignant lesions. Thirty-nine studies were available for SUV ROI analysis. Overall sensitivity for differentiating malignant from benign osseous and non-osseous lesions was 91.7% (22/24), overall specificity was 100% (11/11) with an accuracy of 91.7%. All aggressive lesions had a Max SUV >2.0. Data separating benign from malignant lesions and aggressive from benign lesions were statistically significant (P 18 FDG PET contributes unique information regarding metabolism of musculoskeletal lesions. By supplying a physiologic basis for more informed treatment and management, it influences prognosis and survival. Moreover, since residual, recurrent or metastatic tumors can be simultaneously documented on a single whole body scan, PET may theoretically prove to be cost-effective. (orig.)

Molecular pathology of chondroid neoplasms: part 1, benign lesions

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bell, W.C. [University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Pathology, Birmingham, AL (United States); University of Alabama at Birmingham, Center for Metabolic Bone Disease, Birmingham, AL (United States); University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Birmingham, AL (United States); Klein, M.J. [University of Alabama at Birmingham, Center for Metabolic Bone Disease, Birmingham, AL (United States); University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Pathology, Birmingham, AL (United States); University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Birmingham, AL (United States); Pitt, M.J. [University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Birmingham, AL (United States); University of Alabama at Birmingham, Center for Metabolic Bone Disease, Birmingham, AL (United States); Siegal, G.P. [University of Alabama at Birmingham, Departments of Pathology, Cell Biology, and Surgery, and the Center for Metabolic Bone Disease, Birmingham, AL (United States)

2006-11-15

This two-part review presents an overview of the molecular findings associated with both benign and malignant chondroid neoplasms. This first part presents a brief review of methods in molecular pathology along with a review of the cytogenetic and molecular genetic findings in benign chondroid neoplasms. Clinical aspects of the various lesions are briefly discussed, and each tumor is illustrated with representative radiographic and pathologic images. Malignant chondroid neoplasms will be considered in the second part of this review. (orig.)

Diagnostic and therapeutic pitfalls in benign vocal fold diseases

Science.gov (United States)

Bohlender, Jörg

2013-01-01

More than half of patients presenting with hoarseness show benign vocal fold changes. The clinician should be familiar with the anatomy, physiology and functional aspects of voice disorders and also the modern diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities in order to ensure an optimal and patient specific management. This review article focuses on the diagnostic and therapeutic limitations and difficulties of treatment of benign vocal fold tumors, the management and prevention of scarred vocal folds and the issue of unilateral vocal fold paresis. PMID:24403969

Molecular pathology of chondroid neoplasms: part 1, benign lesions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bell, W.C.; Klein, M.J.; Pitt, M.J.; Siegal, G.P.

2006-01-01

This two-part review presents an overview of the molecular findings associated with both benign and malignant chondroid neoplasms. This first part presents a brief review of methods in molecular pathology along with a review of the cytogenetic and molecular genetic findings in benign chondroid neoplasms. Clinical aspects of the various lesions are briefly discussed, and each tumor is illustrated with representative radiographic and pathologic images. Malignant chondroid neoplasms will be considered in the second part of this review. (orig.)

The Inaccuracy of National Character Stereotypes

Science.gov (United States)

McCrae, Robert R.; Chan, Wayne; Jussim, Lee; De Fruyt, Filip; Löckenhoff, Corinna E.; De Bolle, Marleen; Costa, Paul T.; Hřebíčková, Martina; Graf, Sylvie; Realo, Anu; Allik, Jüri; Nakazato, Katsuharu; Shimonaka, Yoshiko; Yik, Michelle; Ficková, Emília; Brunner-Sciarra, Marina; Reátigui, Norma; de Figueora, Nora Leibovich; Schmidt, Vanina; Ahn, Chang-kyu; Ahn, Hyun-nie; Aguilar-Vafaie, Maria E.; Siuta, Jerzy; Szmigielska, Barbara; Cain, Thomas R.; Crawford, Jarret T.; Mastor, Khairul Anwar; Rolland, Jean-Pierre; Nansubuga, Florence; Miramontez, Daniel R.; Benet-Martínez, Veronica; Rossier, Jérôme; Bratko, Denis; Marušić, Iris; Halberstadt, Jamin; Yamaguchi, Mami; Knežević, Goran; Purić, Danka; Martin, Thomas A.; Gheorghiu, Mirona; Smith, Peter B.; Barbaranelli, Claudio; Wang, Lei; Shakespeare-Finch, Jane; Lima, Margarida P.; Klinkosz, Waldemar; Sekowski, Andrzej; Alcalay, Lidia; Simonetti, Franco; Avdeyeva, Tatyana V.; Pramila, V. S.; Terracciano, Antonio

2013-01-01

Consensual stereotypes of some groups are relatively accurate, whereas others are not. Previous work suggesting that national character stereotypes are inaccurate has been criticized on several grounds. In this article we (a) provide arguments for the validity of assessed national mean trait levels as criteria for evaluating stereotype accuracy; and (b) report new data on national character in 26 cultures from descriptions (N=3,323) of the typical male or female adolescent, adult, or old person in each. The average ratings were internally consistent and converged with independent stereotypes of the typical culture member, but were weakly related to objective assessments of personality. We argue that this conclusion is consistent with the broader literature on the inaccuracy of national character stereotypes. PMID:24187394

Transliterating non-ASCII characters with Python

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seth Bernstein

2013-10-01

Full Text Available This lesson shows how to use Python to transliterate automatically a list of words from a language with a non-Latin alphabet to a standardized format using the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII characters. It builds on readers’ understanding of Python from the lessons “Viewing HTML Files,” “Working with Web Pages,” “From HTML to List of Words (part 1” and “Intro to Beautiful Soup.” At the end of the lesson, we will use the transliteration dictionary to convert the names from a database of the Russian organization Memorial from Cyrillic into Latin characters. Although the example uses Cyrillic characters, the technique can be reproduced with other alphabets using Unicode.

Animated Character Analysis and Costume Design with Structured Analysis

OpenAIRE

Yıldırım Artaç, Berna; Ağaç, Saliha

2016-01-01

In various genres, costumes complement fictional characters and not onlyconstitute the external appearance of the fictional character, but are alsoused for purposes of fun or style by fans who dress up as the character andinternalize that character’s state of mind. This phenomenon is calledcosplay. A literature review of the field has revealed no study made previouslyon the cosplay costume design process according to character analysis. Thepresent study emphasizes the link between an...

Stereological estimation of nuclear volume in benign and atypical meningiomas

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, C; Schrøder, H D

1993-01-01

A stereological estimation of nuclear volume in benign and atypical meningiomas was made. The aim was to investigate whether this method could discriminate between these two meningeal neoplasms. The difference was significant and it was moreover seen that there was no overlap between the two groups....... The results demonstrate that atypical meningiomas can be distinguished from benign meningiomas by an objective stereological estimation of nuclear volume....

Can diffusion-weighted imaging distinguish between benign and malignant pediatric liver tumors?

Science.gov (United States)

Caro-Domínguez, Pablo; Gupta, Abha A; Chavhan, Govind B

2018-01-01

There are limited data on utility of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the evaluation of pediatric liver lesions. To determine whether qualitative and quantitative DWI can be used to differentiate benign and malignant pediatric liver lesions. We retrospectively reviewed MRIs in children with focal liver lesions to qualitatively evaluate lesions noting diffusion restriction, T2 shine-through, increased diffusion, hypointensity on DWI and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps, and intermediate signal on both, and to measure ADC values. Pathology confirmation or a combination of clinical, laboratory and imaging features, and follow-up was used to determine final diagnosis. We included 112 focal hepatic lesions in 89 children (median age 11.5 years, 51 female), of which 92 lesions were benign and 20 malignant. Interobserver agreement was almost perfect for both qualitative (kappa 0.8735) and quantitative (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC] 0.96) diffusion assessment. All malignant lesions showed diffusion restriction. Most benign lesions other than abscesses were not restricted. There was significant association of qualitative restriction with malignancy and non-restriction with benignancy (Fisher exact test Pbenign and malignant lesions, with wide range for each diagnosis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.63 for predicting malignancy using an ADC cut-off value of ≤1.20x10 -3  mm 2 /s, yielding a sensitivity of 78% and a specificity of 54% for differentiating malignant from benign lesions. Qualitative diffusion restriction in pediatric liver lesions is a good predictor of malignancy and can help to differentiate between benign and malignant lesions, in conjunction with conventional MR sequences. Even though malignant lesions demonstrated significantly lower ADC values than benign lesions, the use of quantitative diffusion remains limited in its utility for distinguishing them because of the

Differentiation of benign and malignant ulcers of the stomach on computed tomography

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Seo, Im Jeong; Kim, Suk; Lee, Jun Woo; Jeong, Yeon Joo; Choo, Ki Seok; Lee, Suk Hong; Kim, Gwang Ha; Kim, Tae Oh; Jo, Hong Jae [Pusan National University College of Medicine, Busan (Korea, Republic of)

2006-10-15

We wanted to determine the multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) findings for differentiating benign ulcers from malignant ones. 18 clinicopathologically proven benign ulcers that had been detected by both endoscopy and MDCT were the focus of this study. 26 ulcerative advanced gastric cancers and 26 early gastric cancers with ulceration, all of which had been surgically proven, were selected as a control group. Five of the 26 early gastric cancers that were confined to the mucosa and that were not detected on CT were excluded in this study. The following CT findings were reviewed by two radiologists; ulcer size, the degree of enhancement and the thickness of inner enhancing layer in the ulcer base, the total thickness and the enhancing inner layer thickness in the largest part of the thickened ulcer mound, the presence of ulcer that projected beyond the healthy lumen, and the presence of perigastric fat infiltration and perigastric lymphadenopathy. An indiscernible thin-walled ulcer base (less than 1.5 mm) and suboptimal enhancement of the ulcer base for the discrimination of benign gastric ulcers from the malignant gastric ulcers showed sensitivities of 100% (18/18) and 78% (14/18), respectively, with specificities of 98% (46/47) and 92% (43/47), respectively. Ulcer projection was more significantly present in benign ulcer (13/18, 72%) than in the malignant gastric ulcers (7/47, 15%). The enhancing inner layer thickness in the ulcer mound was significantly greater in the AGC (mean; 7.4 mm) than in the benign gastric ulcers (mean, 2.2 mm). There were insignificant differences for ulcer size, total thickness of the ulcer mound, the perigastric fat infiltration and perigastric lymphadenopathy between the benign and malignant gastric ulcers. MDCT is an additional helpful diagnostic tool when benign gastric ulcers are histologically difficult to distinguish from malignant gastric ones.

Differentiation of benign and malignant ulcers of the stomach on computed tomography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seo, Im Jeong; Kim, Suk; Lee, Jun Woo; Jeong, Yeon Joo; Choo, Ki Seok; Lee, Suk Hong; Kim, Gwang Ha; Kim, Tae Oh; Jo, Hong Jae

2006-01-01

We wanted to determine the multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) findings for differentiating benign ulcers from malignant ones. 18 clinicopathologically proven benign ulcers that had been detected by both endoscopy and MDCT were the focus of this study. 26 ulcerative advanced gastric cancers and 26 early gastric cancers with ulceration, all of which had been surgically proven, were selected as a control group. Five of the 26 early gastric cancers that were confined to the mucosa and that were not detected on CT were excluded in this study. The following CT findings were reviewed by two radiologists; ulcer size, the degree of enhancement and the thickness of inner enhancing layer in the ulcer base, the total thickness and the enhancing inner layer thickness in the largest part of the thickened ulcer mound, the presence of ulcer that projected beyond the healthy lumen, and the presence of perigastric fat infiltration and perigastric lymphadenopathy. An indiscernible thin-walled ulcer base (less than 1.5 mm) and suboptimal enhancement of the ulcer base for the discrimination of benign gastric ulcers from the malignant gastric ulcers showed sensitivities of 100% (18/18) and 78% (14/18), respectively, with specificities of 98% (46/47) and 92% (43/47), respectively. Ulcer projection was more significantly present in benign ulcer (13/18, 72%) than in the malignant gastric ulcers (7/47, 15%). The enhancing inner layer thickness in the ulcer mound was significantly greater in the AGC (mean; 7.4 mm) than in the benign gastric ulcers (mean, 2.2 mm). There were insignificant differences for ulcer size, total thickness of the ulcer mound, the perigastric fat infiltration and perigastric lymphadenopathy between the benign and malignant gastric ulcers. MDCT is an additional helpful diagnostic tool when benign gastric ulcers are histologically difficult to distinguish from malignant gastric ones

Usefulness of diffusion-weighted MRI in differentiating benign from malignant musculoskeletal tumors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nagata, Shuji; Uchida, Masafumi; Hayabuchi, Naofumi

2005-01-01

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of diffusion-weighted MRI in distinguishing different components and in differentiating benign from malignant musculoskeletal tumors. Fifty-seven patients with musculoskeletal tumors underwent MR at our institution from October 1999 to April 2002. We evaluated 57 tumors (9 bone tumors and 48 soft tissue tumors). All tumors were classified into 8 groups (myxomatous, fibrous, cystic, cartilaginous, fatty components, hematomas, other benign tumors, and other malignant tumors). MR examinations were performed with a 1.5-Tesla system. Diffusion-weighted single-shot echo planer imaging (EPI) images were obtained in all patients. Apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) were calculated by using b factors of 0 and 1,000 sec/mm 2 . ADC values of myxomatous, cystic, and cartilaginous components were significantly higher than those of other tumors. In cartilaginous tumors, malignant tumor ADC values (2.33±0.44) were higher than those of benign tumors (2.13±0.13). However, there was no significant difference between benign and malignant tumors. Except for high-intensity components on T1-weighted imaging and low or homogeneously very high intensity components on T2-weighted imaging, there was a significant difference in ADC between malignant (1.35±0.40) and benign (1.97±0.50) tumors. Within the limited number of cases, there was a significant difference in ADC between malignant and benign tumors. (author)

Differential Diagnosis between Benign and Malignant Bowel Lesions on Ultrasonogram and CT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Suh, Chan Hae; Kim, Mi Young

1996-01-01

To evaluate the diagnostic criteria for differentiation between benign and malignant bowel wall lesions on ultrasonogram (US) and CT. We prospectively analyzed 55 bowel lesions on US and CT, including 29 cases of benign lesion and 26 cases of malignant lesion. The thickness and length of the lesions were measured and the bowel features were classified into four categories : a) obliteration of bowel wall layers, b) marginal irregularity, c)eccentric wall thickening, and d) heterogeneous perilesional fat changes. We analyzed the sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values of each criterion. The mean thickness of malignant bovel lesions was 1.77 / 1.84 cm on US/CT, and that of benign lesions was 0.71 / 0.80 cm on US/CT. There was statistically significant difference in thickness between benign and malignant lesions (P<.05). The statistical analysis of incremental study showed that the most sensitive and specific criteria for malignant lesions were more than 1.2cm in thickness and less than 5.0cm in length. Among feature criteria, bowel wall obliteration, irregular margin and eccentric contour were statistically and significantly different between benign and malignant lesions (P<.05). The most sensitive and specific feature criterion was the bowel wall obliteration. The most sensitive and specific criteria for differentiation between benign and malignant bowel lesions were thickness and obliteration of bowel wall layers. Particularly, US was useful for the detection of bowel wall layers

About Chinese Characters

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

2002-01-01

It is perhaps a facet of human nature that makes a person want to beking, and to control others. The character "王" was originally"王",symbolizing the emerald prayer beads worn exclusively by the king. Inthe course of this character’s evolution, however, new connotations were

[Benign Metastasizing Leiomyoma of the Lung;Report of a Case].

Science.gov (United States)

Sawada, Takahiro; Yamamoto, Satoshi; Sugihara, Hajime; Iwasaki, Akinori

2017-02-01

A 71-year-old woman, in whom computed tomography revealed a solitary mass shadow at the base of the left lung, underwent resection of the mass. Histopathological examination showed estrogen receptor-positive leiomyoma cells growing in cords and mixed with glandular structures composed of alveolar cells. These findings led to a diagnosis of benign metastatic leiomyoma. Benign metastatic leiomyoma is a rare disease in which histologically benign uterine leiomyoma cells metastasize to different sites of the body. However, in this patient, the presence of uterine myoma was not confirmed in the past or at present. She had a history of cervical conization, which suggests that a small amount of the leiomyoma component contained in cervical tissue may have been forced into blood vessels during surgical manipulation, causing lung metastasis.

Low-dose radiotherapy as treatment for benign lymphoepitelial lesion in HIV-patients

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gonzalez Patino, E.; Lopez Vazquez, M.D.; Cascallar Caneda, L.; Antinez Lopez, J.; Victoria Fernandez, C.; Salvador Garrido, N.; Ares Banobre, M.; Porto vazquez, M.C.

1995-01-01

Standard treatments for benign lymphoepitelial lesion of the parotid gland in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are unsatisfactory. Recently, low-dose radiotherapy has been proposed as a noninvasive treatment option. We describe a case of bilateral benign lymphoepitelial lesion parotid gland in a HIV-positive paint, treated by radiotherapy. Low-dose radiotherapy, appears as a alternative in the treatment for benign lymphoepitelial lesion in HIV-patients, and preliminary evaluations have indicated that this treatment is effective from both the clinical and cosmetic points of view

How jurors use and misuse character evidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Hunt, Jennifer S; Budesheim, Thomas Lee

2004-04-01

The Federal Rules of Evidence allow defendants to offer testimony about their good character, but that testimony can be impeached with cross-examination or a rebuttal witness. It is assumed that jurors use the defense's character evidence (CE) to form guilt and conviction judgments but use impeachment evidence only to assess the character witness's credibility. Two experiments tested these assumptions by presenting mock jurors with various forms of CE and impeachment. Participants made trait ratings for the character witness and defendant and guilt and conviction judgments. Positive CE did not affect guilt or conviction judgments, but cross-examination caused a backlash in which judgments were harsher than when no CE was given. Using path analysis, the authors tested a model of the process by which CE and impeachment affect defendant and witness impressions and guilt and conviction judgments. Implications for juror decision making are discussed.

Introducing Character Animation with Blender

CERN Document Server

Mullen, Tony

2011-01-01

Introducing Character Animation with Blender, 2nd Edition is written in a friendly but professional tone, with clear descriptions and numerous illustrative screenshots. Throughout the book, tutorials focus on how to accomplish actual animation goals, while illustrating the necessary technical methods along the way. These are reinforced by clear descriptions of how each specific aspect of Blender works and fits together with the rest of the package. By following all the tutorials, the reader will gain all the skills necessary to build and animate a well-modeled, fully-rigged character of their

Intratumoral Macroscopic Fat and Hemorrhage Combination Useful in the Differentiation of Benign and Malignant Solid Renal Masses.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Jun; Xing, Zhaoyu; Xing, Wei; Zheng, Linfeng; Chen, Jie; Fan, Min; Chen, Tongbing; Zhang, Zhuoli

2016-03-01

To evaluate the value of combining the detection of intratumoral macroscopic fat and hemorrhage in the differentiation of the benign from malignant solid renal masses.Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), chemical shift (CS)-MRI, and susceptibility-weighted imaging were performed in 152 patients with 152 solid renal masses, including 48 benign and 104 malignant masses all pathologically confirmed. The presence of macroscopic fat detected by CS-MRI and hemorrhage detected by susceptibility-weighted imaging were evaluated in all masses. The rates of macroscopic fat and hemorrhage observed between benign and malignant masses were compared by a χ test. All masses found to contain macroscopic fat with or without hemorrhage were considered to be benign. The remaining masses (without macroscopic fat) found not to contain hemorrhage were considered to be benign. Only those found to contain hemorrhage alone were considered to be malignant. The evaluation indexes for differentiating and forecasting the benign and malignant masses were calculated.Significant differences in the rate of macroscopic fat (observed in 85.42% of benign masses vs. 0% of malignant masses) and hemorrhage (observed in 4.17% of benign masses vs. 95.19% of malignant masses) were measured in the benign and malignant groups (P benign and malignant masses were 96.05%, 95.19%, and 97.92%, respectively, and the accuracy and error rate of forecasting the benign and malignant masses were 95.39% and 4.61%, respectively.Combining the detection intratumoral macroscopic fat and hemorrhage can be used to differentiate the benign from malignant solid renal masses.

Benchmark for license plate character segmentation

Science.gov (United States)

Gonçalves, Gabriel Resende; da Silva, Sirlene Pio Gomes; Menotti, David; Shwartz, William Robson

2016-09-01

Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) has been the focus of many researches in the past years. In general, ALPR is divided into the following problems: detection of on-track vehicles, license plate detection, segmentation of license plate characters, and optical character recognition (OCR). Even though commercial solutions are available for controlled acquisition conditions, e.g., the entrance of a parking lot, ALPR is still an open problem when dealing with data acquired from uncontrolled environments, such as roads and highways when relying only on imaging sensors. Due to the multiple orientations and scales of the license plates captured by the camera, a very challenging task of the ALPR is the license plate character segmentation (LPCS) step, because its effectiveness is required to be (near) optimal to achieve a high recognition rate by the OCR. To tackle the LPCS problem, this work proposes a benchmark composed of a dataset designed to focus specifically on the character segmentation step of the ALPR within an evaluation protocol. Furthermore, we propose the Jaccard-centroid coefficient, an evaluation measure more suitable than the Jaccard coefficient regarding the location of the bounding box within the ground-truth annotation. The dataset is composed of 2000 Brazilian license plates consisting of 14000 alphanumeric symbols and their corresponding bounding box annotations. We also present a straightforward approach to perform LPCS efficiently. Finally, we provide an experimental evaluation for the dataset based on five LPCS approaches and demonstrate the importance of character segmentation for achieving an accurate OCR.

Technical guide for monitoring selected conditions related to wilderness character

Science.gov (United States)

Peter Landres; Steve Boutcher; Liese Dean; Troy Hall; Tamara Blett; Terry Carlson; Ann Mebane; Carol Hardy; Susan Rinehart; Linda Merigliano; David N. Cole; Andy Leach; Pam Wright; Deb Bumpus

2009-01-01

The purpose of monitoring wilderness character is to improve wilderness stewardship by providing managers a tool to assess how selected actions and conditions related to wilderness character are changing over time. Wilderness character monitoring provides information to help answer two key questions about wilderness character and wilderness stewardship: 1. How is...

A Clinico-Pathological Study on Benign Breast Diseases

Science.gov (United States)

Sangma, Mima B. Maychet; Panda, Kishori; Dasiah, Simon

2013-01-01

Background: To study the patterns of clinically benign breast disease in females and to co-relate them with the pathological findings. Methods: One hundred females who attended the Surgery Outpatients Department in Indira Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute, Pondicherry, with various forms of benign breast diseases during the period from October 2011 to September 2012, were studied. Early diagnoses by doing a triple assessment like a clinical examination, FNAC or a core needle biopsy and imaging methods like ultrasonography or mammography, were made within 72 hrs from the first consultation. The clinical diagnoses were compared with the cytological or histological findings wherever possible and their accuracies were evaluated. Results: Out of the 100 female patients who were studied, 87 patients who presented with breast lumps and fibroadenoma, accounted for 48% of the cases, which was the highest number of patients. Fibrocystic changes and breast abscesses came next with 18% and 12% cases respectively. We detected 3 cases of proliferative disease with atypia and one case with florid hyperplasia, which had high and low risk factors respectively, for developing invasive carcinoma. The oldest lady of the group who was clinically diagnosed to have benign disease, was detected to have invasive ductal carcinoma. They were treated in our hospital and were advised follow up. Conclusion: Benign breast diseases are common in female patients and fibroadenoma is the commonest of them all. Triple assessment provided a quick diagnosis and it alleviated unnecessary anxiety from the patients about breast cancer. The clinical diagnosis of a breast lump, as confirmed by cytology and histology, was accurate in 91.95 % of the cases. PMID:23634406

Pancreatic insufficiency after different resections for benign tumours.

Science.gov (United States)

Falconi, M; Mantovani, W; Crippa, S; Mascetta, G; Salvia, R; Pederzoli, P

2008-01-01

Pancreatic resections for benign diseases may lead to long-term endocrine/exocrine impairment. The aim of this study was to compare postoperative and long-term results after different pancreatic resections for benign disease. Between 1990 and 1999, 62 patients underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD), 36 atypical resection (AR) and 64 left pancreatectomy (LP) for benign tumours. Exocrine and endocrine pancreatic function was evaluated by 72-h faecal chymotrypsin and oral glucose tolerance test. The incidence of pancreatic fistula was significantly higher after AR than after LP (11 of 36 versus seven of 64; P = 0.028). The long-term incidence of endocrine pancreatic insufficiency was significantly lower after AR than after PD (P insufficiency was more common after PD (P endocrine and exocrine insufficiency was higher for PD and LP than for AR (32, 27 and 3 per cent respectively at 1 year; 58, 29 and 3 per cent at 5 years; P pancreatic resections are associated with different risks of developing long-term pancreatic insufficiency. AR represents the best option in terms of long-term endocrine and exocrine function, although it is associated with more postoperative complications. Copyright (c) 2007 British Journal of Surgery Society Ltd.

A Benign Cardiac Growth but Not So Indolent

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adil S. Wani

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Cardiac lipomatous hypertrophy is a rare benign condition that usually involves the interatrial septum. Due to its benign nature it rarely requires intervention. Its presence outside the interatrial septum is reported infrequently. We present a case of lipomatous hypertrophy in the intraventricular septum that was complicated by a severe, symptomatic, and disabling dynamic left ventricular outflow tract obstruction. The symptoms significantly improved following the excision of the mass. In our case transthoracic echocardiogram was used to visualize the mass and measure the severity of the obstruction; Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging was used to characterize the mass and histopathology confirmed the diagnosis.

Imaging features of benign adrenal cysts

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanal, Hatice Tuba; Kocaoglu, Murat; Yildirim, Duzgun; Bulakbasi, Nail; Guvenc, Inanc; Tayfun, Cem; Ucoz, Taner

2006-01-01

Benign adrenal gland cysts (BACs) are rare lesions with a variable histological spectrum and may mimic not only each other but also malignant ones. We aimed to review imaging features of BACs which can be helpful in distinguishing each entity and determining the subsequent appropriate management

CT findings of pleural lesions: differential diagnosis between malignant benign diseases

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Baek, Seung Yon; Lim, Tae Hwan; Kim, Woo Sun; Park, Kwang Gil [Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan, College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

1991-05-15

A number of benign and malignant diseases may cause pleural abnormalities. Since the resolution of computed tomography (CT) has been improved, the detailed anatomy of pleura can now be well delineated in various pleural diseases. We reviewed retrospectively the CT findings of 60 patients with pathologically proved pleural diseases in order to find out the differential points between benign and malignant diseases. Thirty-six patients had malignant diseases (20 adenocarcinoma, 8 squamous cell carcinoma, 4 small cell carcinoma, 2 lung metastasis, 1 large cell carcinoma, 1 small and large cell carcinoma), and 24 patients had benign diseases (16 tuberculosis including empyema, 3 bacterial empyema, 3 pneumonia, 1 lung abscess, 1 lung contusion). The CT features that suggested malignant pleural diseases were high-grade mediastinal involvement (57.9%, {rho} < 0.1), thick and irregular thickening with nodularity and mass formations (38.5%, {rho} < 0.1), Circumferential pleural thickening 132.1%, {rho} < 0.01), and aggressive pleural effusion 122.2%, {rho} < 0.05). Benign pleural lesions were typically represented by pleural calcification (50%) and extrapleural fat accumulation (45.8%)

Leveling up and down: the experiences of benign and malicious envy.

Science.gov (United States)

van de Ven, Niels; Zeelenberg, Marcel; Pieters, Rik

2009-06-01

Envy is the painful emotion caused by the good fortune of others. This research empirically supports the distinction between two qualitatively different types of envy, namely benign and malicious envy. It reveals that the experience of benign envy leads to a moving-up motivation aimed at improving one's own position, whereas the experience of malicious envy leads to a pulling-down motivation aimed at damaging the position of the superior other. Study 1 used guided recall of the two envy types in a culture (the Netherlands) that has separate words for benign and malicious envy. Analyses of the experiential content of these emotions found the predicted differences. Study 2 and 3 used one sample from the United States and one from Spain, respectively, where a single word exists for both envy types. A latent class analysis based on the experiential content of envy confirmed the existence of separate experiences of benign and malicious envy in both these cultures as well. The authors discuss the implications of distinguishing the two envy types for theories of cooperation, group performance, and Schadenfreude.

Outcomes of Temporary Partially Covered Stent Placement for Benign Tracheobronchial Stenosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ma, Ji; Han, Xinwei; Wu, Gang; Jiao, Dechao; Ren, Kewei; Bi, Yonghua

2016-01-01

PurposeTo evaluate the intermediate outcomes of temporary partially covered tracheobronchial stenting in patients with benign tracheobronchial stenosis.Materials and MethodsWe conducted a retrospective study of patients with benign tracheobronchial stenosis who underwent stent placement. All stents were removed approximately 3 months after placement. Respiratory function was assessed using the visual analogue scale (VAS) and Karnofsky performance status scale (KPS) before and after stent placement. The lumen diameters of the stenotic lesions were measured using chest computed tomography (CT) and compared between before stent placement and after stent removal.ResultsA total of 51 stents were successfully placed in consecutive 51 patients with benign tracheobronchial stenosis. No serious complications occurred. The mean VAS and KPS scores significantly improved after stent removal (6.291 ± 0.495 and 25.352 ± 10.533, respectively) compared with those before stent placement (1.493 ± 0.504 and 60.140 ± 16.344, respectively; P   0.05).ConclusionTemporary partially covered stenting may be a safe and effective treatment for benign tracheobronchial stenosis.

Outcomes of Temporary Partially Covered Stent Placement for Benign Tracheobronchial Stenosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma, Ji; Han, Xinwei; Wu, Gang; Jiao, Dechao; Ren, Kewei; Bi, Yonghua

2016-08-01

To evaluate the intermediate outcomes of temporary partially covered tracheobronchial stenting in patients with benign tracheobronchial stenosis. We conducted a retrospective study of patients with benign tracheobronchial stenosis who underwent stent placement. All stents were removed approximately 3 months after placement. Respiratory function was assessed using the visual analogue scale (VAS) and Karnofsky performance status scale (KPS) before and after stent placement. The lumen diameters of the stenotic lesions were measured using chest computed tomography (CT) and compared between before stent placement and after stent removal. A total of 51 stents were successfully placed in consecutive 51 patients with benign tracheobronchial stenosis. No serious complications occurred. The mean VAS and KPS scores significantly improved after stent removal (6.291 ± 0.495 and 25.352 ± 10.533, respectively) compared with those before stent placement (1.493 ± 0.504 and 60.140 ± 16.344, respectively; P  0.05). Temporary partially covered stenting may be a safe and effective treatment for benign tracheobronchial stenosis.

Effect of refractive error on temperament and character properties

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Emine; Kalkan; Akcay; Fatih; Canan; Huseyin; Simavli; Derya; Dal; Hacer; Yalniz; Nagihan; Ugurlu; Omer; Gecici; Nurullah; Cagil

2015-01-01

AIM: To determine the effect of refractive error on temperament and character properties using Cloninger’s psychobiological model of personality.METHODS: Using the Temperament and Character Inventory(TCI), the temperament and character profiles of 41 participants with refractive errors(17 with myopia,12 with hyperopia, and 12 with myopic astigmatism) were compared to those of 30 healthy control participants.Here, temperament comprised the traits of novelty seeking, harm-avoidance, and reward dependence, while character comprised traits of self-directedness,cooperativeness, and self-transcendence.RESULTS: Participants with refractive error showed significantly lower scores on purposefulness,cooperativeness, empathy, helpfulness, and compassion(P <0.05, P <0.01, P <0.05, P <0.05, and P <0.01,respectively).CONCLUSION: Refractive error might have a negative influence on some character traits, and different types of refractive error might have different temperament and character properties. These personality traits may be implicated in the onset and/or perpetuation of refractive errors and may be a productive focus for psychotherapy.

Glyph Identification and Character Recognition for Sindhi OCR

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

NISAR AHMEDMEMON

2017-10-01

Full Text Available A computer can read and write multiple languages and today?s computers are capable of understanding various human languages. A computer can be given instructions through various input methods but OCR (Optical Character Recognition and handwritten character recognition are the input methods in which a scanned page containing text is converted into written or editable text. The change in language text available on scanned page demands different algorithm to recognize text because every language and script pose varying number of challenges to recognize text. The Latin language recognition pose less difficulties compared to Arabic script and languages that use Arabic script for writing and OCR systems for these Latin languages are near to perfection. Very little work has been done on regional languages of Pakistan. In this paper the Sindhi glyphs are identified and the number of characters and connected components are identified for this regional language of Pakistan. A graphical user interface has been created to perform identification task for glyphs and characters of Sindhi language. The glyphs of characters are successfully identified from scanned page and this information can be used to recognize characters. The language glyph identification can be used to apply suitable algorithm to identify language as well as to achieve a higher recognition rate.

Character, Social-Emotional, and Academic Outcomes among Underachieving Elementary School Students

Science.gov (United States)

Grier, Leslie K.

2012-01-01

One purpose of this research was to examine the psychometric properties of a character assessment scale (the Character Assessment for School Age Children; CASAC) based on 6 pillars of character (Josephson Institute, 2009). Many youth development and character education programs utilize some, if not all, of the pillars of character explicitly or…

Percutaneous dilatation of biliary benign strictures

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Park, Jae Hyung; Choi, Byung Ihn; Sung, Kyu Bo; Han, Man Chung; Park, Yong Hyun; Yoon, Yong Bum [Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

1986-06-15

Percutaneous biliary dilation was done in 3 patients with benign strictures. The first case was 50-year-old male who had multiple intrahepatic stones with biliary stricture. The second 46-year-old female and the third 25-year-old male suffered from recurrent cholangitis with benign stricture of anastomotic site after choledocho-jejunostomy. In the first case, a 6mm diameter Grunzing dilatation balloon catheter was introduced through the T-tube tract. In the second case, the stricture was dilated with two balloons of 5mm and 8mm in each diameter sequentially through the U-loop tract formed by surgically made jejunostomy and percutaneous transhepatic puncture. In the third case, the dilatation catheter was introduced through the percutaneous transhepatic tract. Dilatation was made with a pressure of 5 to 10 atmospheres for 1 to 3 minutes duration for 3 times. In all 3 cases, the strictures were successfully dilated and in second and third cases internal stent was left across the lesion for prevention of restenosis.

Morbidity and mortality after liver resection for benign and malignant hepatobiliary lesions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Erdogan, Deha; Busch, Olivier R. C.; Gouma, Dirk J.; van Gulik, Thomas M.

2009-01-01

Aim: Although most partial liver resections are performed for malignant lesions, an increasing contingent of benign lesions is also considered for surgery. The aim was to assess post-operative morbidity and mortality after liver resection for benign hepatobiliary lesions in comparison with outcome

Different expression of FoxM1 in human benign and malignant pleural effusion.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Zhonghao; Li, Hongqing; Zhu, Huili; Bai, Chunxue

2015-01-01

The aims of this study were as follows: to analyze the forkhead box M1 (FoxM1) expression in benign and malignant pleural effusion by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction assay (RT-PCR); to explore the role of FoxM1 in formation and progress in malignant pleural effusion, and whether there is significant difference in expression level of FoxM1 between benign and malignant pleural effusion; to seek a gene marker diagnostically useful to identify benign and malignant pleural effusion in diagnosis and treatment of pleural effusion; and to collect expression level data of FoxM1 in 23 malignant pleural effusion samples (17 adenocarcinoma samples, four squamous carcinoma samples and two small cell lung carcinoma samples) and 15 benign pleural effusion samples (11 inflammatory pleural effusions, two transudates, two tuberculous pleural effusions) by RT-PCR. Among all 38 samples, average FoxM1 expression level of benign pleural effusions is (235.09 ± 59.99), while malignant pleural effusions (828.77 ± 109.76). Among 23 malignant samples, average FoxM1 expression level is (529.27 ± 75.85) in samples without cytological diagnostic evidence, while (1,218.12 ± 167.21) in samples with cytological diagnostic evidence. Differences of FoxM1 expression level between benign pleural effusions and malignant ones have statistical significance. There is an area of 0.881 under the receiver-operating characteristic curve, which verifies the accuracy of using FoxM1 expression level as diagnostic index to identify benign and malignant pleural effusions. According to our study, diagnostic sensitivity and specificity for FoxM1 expression level at 418.1 were 82.6 and 86.7 %, respectively, while 47.8 and 100 %, respectively, at 768.7. FoxM1 expression level in malignant pleural effusions is significantly higher than in benign ones. This study provides a new approach in clinical diagnosis, with FoxM1 as a specific molecule marker to identify benign and malignant pleural

A Japanese logographic character frequency list for cognitive science research.

Science.gov (United States)

Chikamatsu, N; Yokoyama, S; Nozaki, H; Long, E; Fukuda, S

2000-08-01

This paper describes a Japanese logographic character (kanji) frequency list, which is based on an analysis of the largest recently available corpus of Japanese words and characters. This corpus comprised a full year of morning and evening editions of a major newspaper, containing more than 23 million kanji characters and more than 4,000 different kanji characters. This paper lists the 3,000 most frequent kanji characters, as well as an analysis of kanji usage and correlations between the present list and previous Japanese frequency lists. The authors believe that the present list will help researchers more accurately and efficiently control the selection of kanji characters in cognitive science research and interpret related psycholinguistic data.

A database application for wilderness character monitoring

Science.gov (United States)

Ashley Adams; Peter Landres; Simon Kingston

2012-01-01

The National Park Service (NPS) Wilderness Stewardship Division, in collaboration with the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute and the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program, developed a database application to facilitate tracking and trend reporting in wilderness character. The Wilderness Character Monitoring Database allows consistent, scientifically based...

On character amenability of semigroup algebras | Maepa ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

We study the character amenability of semigroup algebras. We work on general semigroups and certain semigroups such as inverse semigroups with a nite number of idempotents, inverse semigroups with uniformly locally nite idempotent set, Brandt and Rees semigroup and study the character amenability of the ...

The Strategies for Character Building through Sports Participation

OpenAIRE

M.S. Omar-Fauzee; Mohd Nizam Nazarudin; Yudha M. Saputra; Nina Sutresna; Duangkrai Taweesuk; Wipoj Chansem; Rozita Abd. Latif; Soh Kim Geok

2012-01-01

The sport participation has been a major part of our life in the societies. Studies on sports participation have found that sports have both positive and negative influence on character buildings. It has been on-going debate on whether ‘sports build character’ but through literature analysis, author had found that ‘with the intention, sports do build character.’ Therefore, strategies of building character through sports are suggested in this paper.

Total Moral Quality: A New Approach for Character Education in Pesantren

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hasan Baharun

2017-06-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the concept of character education in pesantren which gives valuable contributions to the success of moral development for students. It also offers a different paradigm in developing the concept of character building in educational institution. This article is inspired by the lack of effective character learning in a variety of formal educational institutions. Hence, the schools which succeed in instilling character education can be used as a reference to develop character education. This study focuses on character education model developed by pesantren and offers an alternative perspective of the development of character education in Indonesia. This study adopts a qualitative research approach and uses a case study design. The study shows that the model of character education in pesantren is carried out through a multi-disciplinary approach so as to provide maximum results for the development of character education. This study suggests that the Total Moral Quality (TMQ is the further development of Thomas Lickona’s concept of character education of moral modeling, moral knowing, moral feeling and moral habituation and is applicable in the school.

Character context: a shape descriptor for Arabic handwriting recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Mudhsh, Mohammed; Almodfer, Rolla; Duan, Pengfei; Xiong, Shengwu

2017-11-01

In the handwriting recognition field, designing good descriptors are substantial to obtain rich information of the data. However, the handwriting recognition research of a good descriptor is still an open issue due to unlimited variation in human handwriting. We introduce a "character context descriptor" that efficiently dealt with the structural characteristics of Arabic handwritten characters. First, the character image is smoothed and normalized, then the character context descriptor of 32 feature bins is built based on the proposed "distance function." Finally, a multilayer perceptron with regularization is used as a classifier. On experimentation with a handwritten Arabic characters database, the proposed method achieved a state-of-the-art performance with recognition rate equal to 98.93% and 99.06% for the 66 and 24 classes, respectively.

Video Game Characters. Theory and Analysis

OpenAIRE

Felix Schröter; Jan-Noël Thon

2014-01-01

This essay develops a method for the analysis of video game characters based on a theoretical understanding of their medium-specific representation and the mental processes involved in their intersubjective construction by video game players. We propose to distinguish, first, between narration, simulation, and communication as three modes of representation particularly salient for contemporary video games and the characters they represent, second, between narrative, ludic, and social experien...

Development of Environmentally Benign and Reduced Corrosion Runway Deicing Fluid

Science.gov (United States)

2009-08-01

ESTCP Environmental Security Technology Certification Program FAME Fatty Acid Methyl Ester FFA Free Fatty Acid FPt Freezing Point; first...based on altering the tail-end of the process for making fatty acid methyl ester ( FAME ) by transesterification of triglycerides typically derived from...converted to glycerin while the rest are converted to fatty acid methyl esters ( FAME ) that have traditionally been used in oleochemical industry. Recently

Late sarcoma development after curettage and bone grafting of benign bone tumors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Picci, Piero; Sieberova, Gabriela; Alberghini, Marco; Balladelli, Alba; Vanel, Daniel; Hogendoorn, Pancras C.W.; Mercuri, Mario

2011-01-01

Background and aim: Rarely sarcomas develop in previous benign lesions, after a long term disease free interval. We report the experience on these rare cases observed at a single Institution. Patients and methods: 12 cases curetted and grafted, without radiotherapy developed sarcomas, between 1970 and 2005, 6.5-28 years from curettage (median 18, average 19). Age ranged from 13 to 55 years (median 30, average 32) at first diagnosis; tumors were located in the extremities (9 GCT, benign fibrous histiocytoma, ABC, and solitary bone cyst). Radiographic and clinic documentation, for the benign and malignant lesions, were available. Histology was available for 7 benign and all malignant lesions. Results: To fill cavities, autogenous bone was used in 4 cases, allograft in 2, allograft and tricalcium-phosphate/hydroxyapatite in 1, autogenous/allograft in 1, heterogenous in 1. For 3 cases the origin was not reported. Secondary sarcomas, all high grade, were 8 osteosarcoma, 3 malignant fibrous histiocytoma, and 1 fibrosarcoma. Conclusions: Recurrences with progression from benign tumors are possible, but the very long intervals here reported suggest a different cancerogenesis for these sarcomas. This condition is extremely rare accounting for only 0.26% of all malignant bone sarcomas treated in the years 1970-2005 and represents only 8.76% of all secondary bone sarcomas treated in the same years. This incidence is the same as that of sarcomas arising on fibrous dysplasia, and is lower than those arising on bone infarcts or on Paget's disease. This possible event must be considered during follow-up of benign lesions.

Late sarcoma development after curettage and bone grafting of benign bone tumors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Picci, Piero, E-mail: piero.picci@ior.it [Bone Tumor Center, Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, Bologna (Italy); Sieberova, Gabriela [Dept. of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, Bratislava (Slovakia); Alberghini, Marco; Balladelli, Alba; Vanel, Daniel [Bone Tumor Center, Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, Bologna (Italy); Hogendoorn, Pancras C.W. [Dept. of Pathology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden (Netherlands); Mercuri, Mario [Bone Tumor Center, Istituto Ortopedico Rizzoli, Bologna (Italy)

2011-01-15

Background and aim: Rarely sarcomas develop in previous benign lesions, after a long term disease free interval. We report the experience on these rare cases observed at a single Institution. Patients and methods: 12 cases curetted and grafted, without radiotherapy developed sarcomas, between 1970 and 2005, 6.5-28 years from curettage (median 18, average 19). Age ranged from 13 to 55 years (median 30, average 32) at first diagnosis; tumors were located in the extremities (9 GCT, benign fibrous histiocytoma, ABC, and solitary bone cyst). Radiographic and clinic documentation, for the benign and malignant lesions, were available. Histology was available for 7 benign and all malignant lesions. Results: To fill cavities, autogenous bone was used in 4 cases, allograft in 2, allograft and tricalcium-phosphate/hydroxyapatite in 1, autogenous/allograft in 1, heterogenous in 1. For 3 cases the origin was not reported. Secondary sarcomas, all high grade, were 8 osteosarcoma, 3 malignant fibrous histiocytoma, and 1 fibrosarcoma. Conclusions: Recurrences with progression from benign tumors are possible, but the very long intervals here reported suggest a different cancerogenesis for these sarcomas. This condition is extremely rare accounting for only 0.26% of all malignant bone sarcomas treated in the years 1970-2005 and represents only 8.76% of all secondary bone sarcomas treated in the same years. This incidence is the same as that of sarcomas arising on fibrous dysplasia, and is lower than those arising on bone infarcts or on Paget's disease. This possible event must be considered during follow-up of benign lesions.

Detecting android malicious apps and categorizing benign apps with ensemble of classifiers

KAUST Repository

Wang, Wei

2017-01-17

Android platform has dominated the markets of smart mobile devices in recent years. The number of Android applications (apps) has seen a massive surge. Unsurprisingly, Android platform has also become the primary target of attackers. The management of the explosively expansive app markets has thus become an important issue. On the one hand, it requires effectively detecting malicious applications (malapps) in order to keep the malapps out of the app market. On the other hand, it needs to automatically categorize a big number of benign apps so as to ease the management, such as correcting an app’s category falsely designated by the app developer. In this work, we propose a framework to effectively and efficiently manage a big app market in terms of detecting malapps and categorizing benign apps. We extract 11 types of static features from each app to characterize the behaviors of the app, and employ the ensemble of multiple classifiers, namely, Support Vector Machine (SVM), K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN), Naive Bayes (NB), Classification and Regression Tree (CART) and Random Forest (RF), to detect malapps and to categorize benign apps. An alarm will be triggered if an app is identified as malicious. Otherwise, the benign app will be identified as a specific category. We evaluate the framework on a large app set consisting of 107,327 benign apps as well as 8,701 malapps. The experimental results show that our method achieves the accuracy of 99.39% in the detection of malapps and achieves the best accuracy of 82.93% in the categorization of benign apps.

Differentiation between benign and malignant breast lesions using fat-suppressed dynamic MR imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koshiishi, Takeshi; Isomoto, Ichirou; Nakamura, Kazukuni; Kajiwara, Yoshifumi; Izawa, Kunihide

1998-01-01

To assess the value and problems of fat-suppressed dynamic MR imaging in differentiating between benign and malignant lesions. In twenty-nine patients who underwent excisional biopsy or surgical resection, fat-suppressed dynamic MR imaging was performed with a 0.5 T superconducting magnet. Pre- and post-contrast 3D-spoiled gradient echo sequences were employed with fat suppression. We calculated and evaluated the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and contrast enhancement ratio (CER) at each contrast determination time (CDT), which is the intermediate time in the scan. Time intensity curves of CNR showed no statistically significant difference between cancers and other benign lesions. The difference in CER between malignant and benign disease was highly significant (p=0.006) at CDT 45 sec., but there was great overlap in the time intensity curve of CER after CDT 45 sec. When we attempt to differentiate malignant from benign breast lesions by dynamic MR imaging, comparison of CNR is impertinent, and we should evaluate the differential diagnosis of cancer versus benign lesions by means of CER at CDT points of about 45 sec. (author)

Pulmonary Benign Metastasizing Leiomyoma from the Uterine Leiomyoma: A Case Report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kołaczyk, Katarzyna; Chamier-Ciemińska, Katarzyna; Walecka, Anna; Chosia, Maria; Szydłowska, Iwona; Starczewski, Andrzej; Grodzki, Tomasz; Smereczyński, Andrzej; Sawicki, Marcin

2015-01-01

Benign metastasizing leiomyoma (BML) is a rare condition described as multiple well-differentiated leiomyomas at sites distant from the uterus. Apart from lungs it has also been reported in lymph nodes, heart, brain, bone, skin, eye and spinal cord. We present a case of pulmonary benign metastasizing leiomyoma in a female patient admitted to our hospital with suspicion of left adnexal tumor. A 45-year-old woman was referred to our hospital with suspicion of left adnexal tumor. The control transvaginal ultrasound examination performed at admission to the Gynecological Department excluded adnexal neoplasm. However, a large amount of fluid within the Douglas pouch raised the oncological concern. The patient underwent myomectomy in 2005. In the same year she was diagnosed with multiple lung nodules and underwent pulmonary wedge resection with the diagnosis of pulmonary benign metastasizing leiomyoma being stated. The decision of reevaluation of the specimen, control CT and puncture of the Douglas pouch fluid was made. Computed tomography performed at the Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Interventional Radiology of the Pomeranian Medical University Hospital revealed multiple, bilateral nodules. The microscopic examination of the samples confirmed the initial diagnosis of benign metastasizing leiomyoma with no evidence of neoplastic cells within the fluid. Pulmonary benign metastasizing leiomyoma is a rare entity. However, it should be always taken into consideration in women with a previous or coincident history of uterine leiomyoma, especially when no evidence of other malignancy is present

Contribution of diffusion-weighted MR imaging for predicting benignity of complex adnexal masses

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thomassin-Naggara, Isabelle; Darai, Emile; Cuenod, Charles A.; Fournier, Laure; Toussaint, Irwin; Marsault, Claude; Bazot, Marc

2009-01-01

The purpose of this study was to prospectively assess the contribution of diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) for characterizing complex adnexal masses. Seventy-seven women (22-87 years old) with complex adnexal masses (30 benign and 47 malignant) underwent MR imaging including DWI before surgery. Conventional morphological MR imaging criteria were recorded in addition to b 1,000 signal intensity and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurements of cystic and solid components. Positive likelihood ratios (PLR) were calculated for predicting benignity and malignancy. The most significant criteria for predicting benignity were low b 1,000 signal intensity within the solid component (PLR = 10.9), low T2 signal intensity within the solid component (PLR = 5.7), absence of solid portion (PLR = 3.1), absence of ascites or peritoneal implants (PLR = 2.3) and absence of papillary projections (PLR = 2.3). ADC measurements did not contribute to differentiating benign from malignant adnexal masses. All masses that displayed simultaneously low signal intensity within the solid component on T2-weighted and on b 1,000 diffusion-weighted images were benign. Alternatively, the presence of a solid component with intermediate T2 signal and high b 1,000 signal intensity was associated with a PLR of 4.5 for a malignant adnexal tumour. DWI signal intensity is an accurate tool for predicting benignity of complex adnexal masses. (orig.)

Contribution of diffusion-weighted MR imaging for predicting benignity of complex adnexal masses

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Thomassin-Naggara, Isabelle [Hopital Tenon, Assistance Publique Hopitaux de Pariss, Department of Radiology, Paris (France); Universite Rene Descartes, LRI-EA4062, Paris (France); Darai, Emile [Hopital Tenon, Assistance Publique Hopitaux de Pariss, Department of Gynecology-Obstetrics, Paris (France); Cuenod, Charles A.; Fournier, Laure [Universite Rene Descartes, LRI-EA4062, Paris (France); Hopital Europeen Georges Pompidou (HEGP), Assistance Publique Hopitaux de Paris, Department of Radiology, Paris (France); Toussaint, Irwin; Marsault, Claude; Bazot, Marc [Hopital Tenon, Assistance Publique Hopitaux de Pariss, Department of Radiology, Paris (France)

2009-06-15

The purpose of this study was to prospectively assess the contribution of diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) for characterizing complex adnexal masses. Seventy-seven women (22-87 years old) with complex adnexal masses (30 benign and 47 malignant) underwent MR imaging including DWI before surgery. Conventional morphological MR imaging criteria were recorded in addition to b{sub 1,000} signal intensity and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurements of cystic and solid components. Positive likelihood ratios (PLR) were calculated for predicting benignity and malignancy. The most significant criteria for predicting benignity were low b{sub 1,000} signal intensity within the solid component (PLR = 10.9), low T2 signal intensity within the solid component (PLR = 5.7), absence of solid portion (PLR = 3.1), absence of ascites or peritoneal implants (PLR = 2.3) and absence of papillary projections (PLR = 2.3). ADC measurements did not contribute to differentiating benign from malignant adnexal masses. All masses that displayed simultaneously low signal intensity within the solid component on T2-weighted and on b{sub 1,000} diffusion-weighted images were benign. Alternatively, the presence of a solid component with intermediate T2 signal and high b{sub 1,000} signal intensity was associated with a PLR of 4.5 for a malignant adnexal tumour. DWI signal intensity is an accurate tool for predicting benignity of complex adnexal masses. (orig.)

Ultrasound-guided sclerotherapy for benign non-thyroid cystic mass in the neck

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Ji Hoon [Dept. of Radiology, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

2014-04-15

Surgical excision has traditionally been the treatment of choice for benign non-thyroid cystic neck masses, including lymphatic malformation, ranula, branchial cleft cyst, thyroglossal duct cyst, and parathyroid cyst. However, there is a tendency toward recurrence after surgery, and surgery may be accompanied by complications, including nerve injuries, vascular injuries, and scar formation. Ultrasound-guided sclerotherapy using various agents has been challenged and successfully applied as an alternative treatment for benign non-thyroid cystic neck masses. This report reviews the available sclerosing agents and describes the applications of sclerotherapy to the treatment of benign cystic masses in the neck.

Ultrasound-guided sclerotherapy for benign non-thyroid cystic mass in the neck

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ji-hoon Kim

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Surgical excision has traditionally been the treatment of choice for benign non-thyroid cystic neck masses, including lymphatic malformation, ranula, branchial cleft cyst, thyroglossal duct cyst, and parathyroid cyst. However, there is a tendency toward recurrence after surgery, and surgery may be accompanied by complications, including nerve injuries, vascular injuries, and scar formation. Ultrasound-guided sclerotherapy using various agents has been challenged and successfully applied as an alternative treatment for benign non-thyroid cystic neck masses. This report reviews the available sclerosing agents and describes the applications of sclerotherapy to the treatment of benign cystic masses in the neck.

Ultrasound-guided sclerotherapy for benign non-thyroid cystic mass in the neck

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ji Hoon

2014-01-01

Surgical excision has traditionally been the treatment of choice for benign non-thyroid cystic neck masses, including lymphatic malformation, ranula, branchial cleft cyst, thyroglossal duct cyst, and parathyroid cyst. However, there is a tendency toward recurrence after surgery, and surgery may be accompanied by complications, including nerve injuries, vascular injuries, and scar formation. Ultrasound-guided sclerotherapy using various agents has been challenged and successfully applied as an alternative treatment for benign non-thyroid cystic neck masses. This report reviews the available sclerosing agents and describes the applications of sclerotherapy to the treatment of benign cystic masses in the neck.

Treatment of malignant or benign tracheobronchial stenosis by home made Nitrol stents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Fanchang; Luo Zhehuang; Hu Xunying; Liu Jiubao; Jin Aifang

2002-01-01

Objective: To evaluate the therapeutic effects of home made Nitrol stents in the treatment of malignant or benign tracheobronchial stenosis. Methods: Thirteen patients with malignant or benign tracheobronchial stenosis were treated by Nitrol stents. The stenosed sites located in trachea in 5, tracheo-bronchi in 6, main bronchus in 2. All cases were malignant except one was benign. Results: 15 stents were successfully placed the expected position with dyspnea rapidly improved. The average survival time was 11.4 months. Conclusions: It is an effective way to place Nitrol stent in treatment of tracheobronchial stenosis under x-ray guidance with fiber tracheo-bronchoscopy

Ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential in patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mozhgan Masoom

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Background and Aim: Since utricle is the main damaged organ in benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV, ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential (oVEMP may be an appropriate method to evaluate the utricule dysfunction and the effect of disease recurrence rate on it. This study aimed to record myogenic potential in patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.Methods: In a cross-sectional study, ocular myogenic potential was recorded in 25 healthy subjects and 20 patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo using 500 Hz-tone bursts (95 dB nHL.Results: In the affected ear, mean amplitude was lower and mean threshold was higher than those in the unaffected ear and in the normal group (p<0.05. Mean amplitude asymmetry ratio of patients was more than the healthy subjects (p0.05. Frequencies of abnormal responses in the affected ears were higher than in unaffected ears and in the normal group (p<0.05. Furthermore, the patients with recurrent vertigo showed more abnormalities than the patients with non-recurrent (p=0.030.Conclusion: In the recurrent benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential showed more damage in the utricle, suggesting this response could be used to evaluate the patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.

Computational Design of Animated Mechanical Characters

Science.gov (United States)

Coros, Stelian; Thomaszewski, Bernhard; DRZ Team Team

2014-03-01

A factor key to the appeal of modern CG movies and video-games is that the virtual worlds they portray place no bounds on what can be imagined. Rapid manufacturing devices hold the promise of bringing this type of freedom to our own world, by enabling the fabrication of physical objects whose appearance, deformation behaviors and motions can be precisely specified. In order to unleash the full potential of this technology however, computational design methods that create digital content suitable for fabrication need to be developed. In recent work, we presented a computational design system that allows casual users to create animated mechanical characters. Given an articulated character as input, the user designs the animated character by sketching motion curves indicating how they should move. For each motion curve, our framework creates an optimized mechanism that reproduces it as closely as possible. The resulting mechanisms are attached to the character and then connected to each other using gear trains, which are created in a semi-automated fashion. The mechanical assemblies generated with our system can be driven with a single input driver, such as a hand-operated crank or an electric motor, and they can be fabricated using rapid prototyping devices.

Optical Character Recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Converso, L.; Hocek, S.

1990-01-01

This paper describes computer-based optical character recognition (OCR) systems, focusing on their components (the computer, the scanner, the OCR, and the output device); how the systems work; and features to consider in selecting a system. A list of 26 questions to ask to evaluate systems for potential purchase is included. (JDD)

Benign chondroblastoma - malignant radiological appearances

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schulze, K.; Treugut, H.; Mueller, G.E.

1980-04-01

The very rare benign chondroblastoma occasionally invades soft tissues and may grow beyond the epiphysis into the metaphysis. In the present case such a tumour did not show the typical radiological appearances, but presented malignant features both on plain films and on the angiogram. The importance of biopsy of tumours which cannot be identified with certainty must be stressed before radical surgery is carried out.

Genomic and Expression Profiling of Benign and Malignant Nerve Sheath Tumors in Neurofibromatosis Patients

Science.gov (United States)

2008-05-01

DAMD17-03-1-0297 Title: Genomic and Expression Pr ofiling of Benign and Malignant Nerve Sheath Tumors in Neurofibromatosis Patients...have determined the gene expression signature for benign and malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors and found that the major trend in transformation...However, EGFR data in soft tissue neoplasms is limited. Using a variety of benign and malignant spindle cell neoplasms, we assessed EGFR status by

Readmission After Gynecologic Surgery: A Comparison of Procedures for Benign and Malignant Indications.

Science.gov (United States)

Cory, Lori; Latif, Nawar; Brensinger, Colleen; Zhang, Xiaochen; Giuntoli, Robert L; Burger, Robert A; Morgan, Mark; Ko, Emily

2017-08-01

To compare 30-day postsurgical readmission rates and associated risk factors for readmission among women undergoing gynecologic surgery for benign and malignant conditions. In a retrospective cohort study, we identified patients after surgery for benign and malignant gynecologic conditions in the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database between January 1, 2011, and December 31, 2012. Data collected included surgical factors, perioperative characteristics, surgical complications, and 30-day readmissions. The primary study outcome was readmission rates after gynecologic surgery for benign and oncologic conditions. Secondary study outcomes were risk factors associated with readmission among gynecologic surgeries performed for benign and oncologic conditions. Approximately 3% (1,444/46,718) compared with 8.2% (623/7,641) of patients who underwent gynecologic surgery for benign and malignant indications, respectively, were readmitted (P<.01). Compared with patients with benign surgical indications, those with uterine cancer (readmission rate 6.6%; odds ratio [OR] 2.21, 95% CI 1.95-2.51), ovarian cancer (readmission rate 10.9%; OR 3.82, 95% CI 3.29-4.45), and cervical cancer (readmission rate 10.1%; OR 3.51, 95% CI 2.71-4.53) were more likely to be readmitted. In multivariable models, independent risk factors for readmission for gynecologic cancer surgery included worse preoperative conditions (OR 1.49, 95% CI 1.17-1.90) and major complications (OR 17.84, 95% CI 14.19-22.43). In comparison, independent risk factors for readmission after surgery for benign indications included comorbid conditions (OR 1.36, 95% CI 1.18-1.57), operative time (15-59 minutes: referent; 60 minutes or greater: 1.37, 95% CI 1.14-1.63) and major complications (OR 53.91, 95% CI 46.98-61.85). Among gynecologic surgeries, those performed for oncologic indications were associated with readmission rates 2.8 times that of surgeries performed for benign indications. In adjusted models

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - N

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with N as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - K

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with K as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - M

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with M as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - R

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with R as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - G

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with G as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - O

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with O as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - S

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with S as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - B

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with B as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - C

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with C as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - F

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with F as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - P

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with P as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - L

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with L as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - H

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with H as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - I

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with I as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - Z

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with Z as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - A

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with A as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - E

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with E as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - T

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with T as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - D

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with D as the first character.

Environmental Chemistry Methods (ECM) Index - Q

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Laboratories use testing methods to identify pesticides in water and soil. Environmental chemistry methods test soil and water samples to determine the fate of pesticides in the environment. Find methods for chemicals with Q as the first character.

Shear-wave elastography and greyscale assessment of palpable probably benign masses: is biopsy always required?

Science.gov (United States)

Giannotti, Elisabetta; Vinnicombe, Sarah; Thomson, Kim; McLean, Dennis; Purdie, Colin; Jordan, Lee; Evans, Andy

2016-06-01

To establish if palpable breast masses with benign greyscale ultrasound features that are soft on shear-wave elastography (SWE) (mean stiffness masses at ultrasound. All underwent ultrasound, SWE and needle core biopsy. Static greyscale images were retrospectively assigned Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) scores by two readers blinded to the SWE and pathology findings, but aware of the patient's age. A mean stiffness of 50 kPa was used as the SWE cut-off for calling a lesion soft or stiff. Histological findings were used to establish ground truth. No cancer had benign characteristics on both modalities. 466 (99.8%) of the 467 cancers were classified BI-RADS 4a or above. The one malignant lesion classified as BI-RADS 3 was stiff on SWE. 446 (96%) of the 467 malignancies were stiff on SWE. No cancer in females under 40 years had benign SWE features. 74 (32.6%) of the 227 benign lesions were BI-RADS 3 and soft on SWE; so, biopsy could potentially have been avoided in this group. Lesions which appear benign on greyscale ultrasound and SWE do not require percutaneous biopsy or short-term follow-up, particularly in females under 40 years. None of the cancers had benign characteristics on both greyscale ultrasound and SWE, and 32% of benign lesions were BI-RADS 3 and soft on SWE; lesions that are benign on both ultrasound and SWE may not require percutaneous biopsy or short-term follow-up.

A structural query system for Han characters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skala, Matthew

2016-01-01

The IDSgrep structural query system for Han character dictionaries is presented. This dictionary search system represents the spatial structure of Han characters using Extended Ideographic Description Sequences (EIDSes), a data model and syntax based on the Unicode IDS concept. It includes a query...... language for EIDS databases, with a freely available implementation and format translation from popular third-party IDS and XML character databases. The system is designed to suit the needs of font developers and foreign language learners. The search algorithm includes a bit vector index inspired by Bloom...... filters to support faster query operations. Experimental results are presented, evaluating the effect of the indexing on query performance....

Developing Individual and Team Character in Sport

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Gaines, Stacey A.

2012-01-01

The idea that participation in sport builds character is a long-standing one. Advocates of sport participation believe that sport provides an appropriate context for the learning of social skills such as cooperation and the development of prosocial behavior (Weiss, Smith, & Stuntz, 2008). Research in sport regarding character development has…

Consistency of the preoperative and intraoperative diagnosis of benign vocal fold lesions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Poels, PJP; de Jong, FICRS; Schutte, HK

The purpose of this retrospective study was to compare the preoperative and intraoperative diagnosis of benign vocal fold lesions for consistency. The diagnosis was made in 221 consecutive patients with benign vocal fold lesions for which a microlaryngoscopy was carried out in a general ENT-clinic.

Personality, temperament and character in Erich Fromm's theory

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Redžić Saduša F.

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The character of the man is the substitute for instincts that animals have. In reality characters are not found in pure form, as specified orientation, but as a mixture of types. The social character of Fromm has an ethical and heuristic importance. Human passions are rooted in character and are a way to give meaning to existence, to respond to the human existential situation. If we are not able to respond through the love, then, in the absence of, we turn to destructiveness. According to Fromm, the most important goal of society should be human development. He lays down a rational belief in critical thought coupled with love of life. Although the development of personality is largely determined by social structure, Fromm concludes it is not entirely passive, that a man has the opportunity, space and power to use his mind to react to the alienation and inhumane living conditions. Through analysis of the social character From is giving a kind of critique of modern, market-oriented society, based on the principles of humanistic ethics. .

Membangun Karakter Anak Usia Dini melalui Pembelajaran Math Character

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Titin Faridatun Nisa’

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui penerapan pembelajaran math character untuk membangun karakter Anak Usia Dini (AUD dan kesulitan-kesulitan yang dialami guru dalam penerapan pembelajaran math character. Target penelitian ini adalah terbentuknya karakter anak usia dini melalui pembelajaran math character. Jenis penelitian ini adalah penelitian deskriptif dengan metode penelitian kualitatif. Teknik pengumpulan informasi penelitian ini dengan metode observasi dan wawancara. Analisis data penelitian ini menggunakan analisis deskriptif. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penerapan pembelajaran math character dapat membangun delapan belas nilai-nilai karakter AUD. Kesulitan-kesulitan yang dialami guru dalam pembentukan karakter AUD melalui pembelajaran math character meliputi tema yang digunakan termasuk tema baru, siswa belum terbiasa dengan pembelajaran berbasis sentra, usia siswa bervariasi, dan adanya ikut campur wali siswa dalam kegiatan pembelajaran di kelas sehingga siswa menjadi kurang mandiri.

Chinese character recognition based on Gabor feature extraction and CNN

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Yudian; Lu, Tongwei; Jiang, Yongyuan

2018-03-01

As an important application in the field of text line recognition and office automation, Chinese character recognition has become an important subject of pattern recognition. However, due to the large number of Chinese characters and the complexity of its structure, there is a great difficulty in the Chinese character recognition. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposes a method of printed Chinese character recognition based on Gabor feature extraction and Convolution Neural Network(CNN). The main steps are preprocessing, feature extraction, training classification. First, the gray-scale Chinese character image is binarized and normalized to reduce the redundancy of the image data. Second, each image is convoluted with Gabor filter with different orientations, and the feature map of the eight orientations of Chinese characters is extracted. Third, the feature map through Gabor filters and the original image are convoluted with learning kernels, and the results of the convolution is the input of pooling layer. Finally, the feature vector is used to classify and recognition. In addition, the generalization capacity of the network is improved by Dropout technology. The experimental results show that this method can effectively extract the characteristics of Chinese characters and recognize Chinese characters.

Benign ovarian and endometrial uptake on FDG PET-CT. Patterns and pitfalls

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu, Y.

2009-01-01

Increased ovarian or endometrial uptake may cause a dilemma in the interpretation of whole body F18-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) imaging or even misdiagnosis of malignant disease. Knowledge of benign FDG uptake of the ovaries and uterus is important for daily practice of nuclear medicine radiologists. Increased uptake in the ovaries or uterus indicates a pathologic or neoplastic process in postmenopausal patients. In premenopausal women, increased ovarian or endometrial uptake can be functional or malignant. Benign functional uptake of premenopausal ovaries or uterus is related to the menstrual cycle; therefore, information about the patient's menstrual status is crucial for interpretation. In addition, correlation with computed tomography (CT), especially diagnostic CT acquired at the same time of PET/CT is very useful in clarifying the location of the uptake and the existence or disappearance of the discrete lesion. Increased ovarian uptake may also be identified in histologically different benign tumor entities. Nonmenstrual-related endometrial uptake may be present in many benign diseases as well. (author)

Dispositional envy revisited: unraveling the motivational dynamics of benign and malicious envy.

Science.gov (United States)

Lange, Jens; Crusius, Jan

2015-02-01

Previous research has conceptualized dispositional envy as a unitary construct. Recently however, episodic envy has been shown to emerge in two qualitatively different forms. Benign envy is related to the motivation to move upward, whereas malicious envy is related to pulling superior others down. In four studies (N = 1,094)--using the newly developed Benign and Malicious Envy Scale (BeMaS)--we show that dispositional envy is also characterized by two independent dimensions related to distinct motivational dynamics and behavioral consequences. Dispositional benign and malicious envy uniquely predict envious responding following upward social comparisons. Furthermore, they are differentially connected to hope for success and fear of failure. Corresponding to these links, dispositional benign envy predicted faster race performance of marathon runners mediated via higher goal setting. In contrast, dispositional malicious envy predicted race goal disengagement. The findings highlight that disentangling the two sides of envy opens up numerous research avenues. © 2014 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Identifying Two Common Types of Breast Benign Diseases Based on Multiphoton Microscopy

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Yan Wu

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Multiphoton microscopy has attracted increasing attention and investigations in the field of breast cancer, based on two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF and second-harmonic generation (SHG. However, the incidence of breast benign diseases is about 5 to 10 times higher than breast cancer; up to 30% of women suffer from breast benign diseases and require treatment at some time in their lives. Thus, in this study, MPM was applied to image fibroadenoma and fibrocystic lesion, which are two of the most common breast benign diseases. The results show that MPM has the capability to identify the microstructure of lobule and stroma in normal breast tissue, the interaction of compressed ducts with surrounding collagen fiber in fibroadenoma, and the architecture of cysts filled with cystic fluid in fibrocystic disease. These findings indicate that, with integration of MPM into currently accepted clinical imaging system, it has the potential to make a real-time diagnosis of breast benign diseases in vivo, as well as breast cancer.

A Chinese character teaching system using structure theory and morphing technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Linjia; Liu, Min; Hu, Jiajia; Liang, Xiaohui

2014-01-01

This paper proposes a Chinese character teaching system by using the Chinese character structure theory and the 2D contour morphing technology. This system, including the offline phase and the online phase, automatically generates animation for the same Chinese character from different writing stages to intuitively show the evolution of shape and topology in the process of Chinese characters teaching. The offline phase builds the component models database for the same script and the components correspondence database for different scripts. Given two or several different scripts of the same Chinese character, the online phase firstly divides the Chinese characters into components by using the process of Chinese character parsing, and then generates the evolution animation by using the process of Chinese character morphing. Finally, two writing stages of Chinese characters, i.e., seal script and clerical script, are used in experiment to show the ability of the system. The result of the user experience study shows that the system can successfully guide students to improve the learning of Chinese characters. And the users agree that the system is interesting and can motivate them to learn.

A Chinese character teaching system using structure theory and morphing technology.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linjia Sun

Full Text Available This paper proposes a Chinese character teaching system by using the Chinese character structure theory and the 2D contour morphing technology. This system, including the offline phase and the online phase, automatically generates animation for the same Chinese character from different writing stages to intuitively show the evolution of shape and topology in the process of Chinese characters teaching. The offline phase builds the component models database for the same script and the components correspondence database for different scripts. Given two or several different scripts of the same Chinese character, the online phase firstly divides the Chinese characters into components by using the process of Chinese character parsing, and then generates the evolution animation by using the process of Chinese character morphing. Finally, two writing stages of Chinese characters, i.e., seal script and clerical script, are used in experiment to show the ability of the system. The result of the user experience study shows that the system can successfully guide students to improve the learning of Chinese characters. And the users agree that the system is interesting and can motivate them to learn.

{sup 18}F-PET imaging: frequency, distribution and appearance of benign lesions; Die Positronenemissionstomographie des Skelettsystems mit {sup 18}FNa: Haeufigkeit, Befundmuster und Verteilung benigner Veraenderungen

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Schirrmeister, H.; Kotzerke, J.; Rentschler, M.; Traeger, H.; Fenchel, S.; Diederichs, C.G.; Reske, S.N. [Ulm Univ. (Germany). Abt. Nuklearmedizin; Nuessle, K. [Ulm Univ. (Germany). Abt. fuer Roentgendiagnostik

1998-09-01

Purpose: We evaluated the frequency, distribution and appearance of benign lesions in {sup 18}F-PET scans. Methods: Between March 1996 and May 1997, {sup 18}F-PET scans were performed in 59 patients in addition to conventional planar bone scintigraphy. Eleven patients were subjected to additional SPECT imaging. The main indication was searching for bone metastases (58 pat.). The diagnosis was confirmed radiologically. Results: With {sup 18}F-PET in 39 patients (66,1%) 152 benign lesions, mostly located in the spine were detected. {sup 99m}Tc bone scans revealed 45 lesions in 10 patients. Osteoarthritis of the intervertebral articulations (69%) or of the acromioclavicular joint (15%) were the most common reasons for degenerative lesions detected with {sup 18}F-PET. Osteophytes appeared as hot lesions located at two adjacent vertebral endplates. Osteoarthritis of the intervertebral articulations showed an enhanced tracer uptake at these localizations, whereas endplate fractures of the vertebral bodies appeared very typically; solitary fractures of the ribs could not be differentiated from metastases. Rare benign lesions were not studied. Conclusion: Most of the degenerative lesions (84%) detected with {sup 18}F-PET had a very typical appearance and could be detected with the improved spatial resolution and advantages of a tomographic technique. {sup 18}F-PET had an increased accuracy in detecting degenerative bone lesions. (orig.) [Deutsch] Ziel: Wir untersuchten Haeufigkeit und Befundmuster benigner Skelettveraenderungen mit {sup 18}F-PET. Material und Methoden: Zwischen 3/96 und 5/97 untersuchten wir 59 Patienten mit {sup 18}F-PET zusaetzlich zur planaren, bei 11 Patienten durch SPECT ergaenzten konventionellen Skelettszintigraphie (KS). Hauptindikation war die Metastasensuche (58 Pat.). Die Befundkontrolle erfolgte radiologisch. Ergebnisse: {sup 18}F-PET zeigte bei 39 Patienten (66,1%) 152 meist in der Wirbelsaeule lokalisierte, benigne Mehranreicherungen. Mit der

Character Education of the Most Developed Countries in ASEAN

Science.gov (United States)

Istiningsih

2016-01-01

Character education into an international issue, especially in developing countries. More specifically in Indonesia, character education is a major issue in the 2012's to the present. What kind of education that may build character? To be able to answer this question, we need a broad and deep research. Research simpler related to character…

Character Education in Three Schools: Catholic, Quaker and Public

Science.gov (United States)

Meidl, Christopher; Meidl, Tynisha

2013-01-01

Character education has always played a role in the purpose of schools. Most US states have a statement about character education as a part of the mission of the schools. This research studied how character education was perceived by participants in regards to school mission statements/philosophies, school atmosphere and curriculum in a Catholic…

PET in Benign Bone Marrow Disorders

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van der Bruggen, Wouter; Glaudemans, Andor W. J. M.; Vellenga, Edo; Slart, Riemer H. J. A.

This review aims to describe the current status of benign bone marrow (BM) imaging using PET. BM imaging is important as the BM is not only involved in poiesis of different vital cell lines and. can be affected by primary BM disorders, but it is also frequently affected by several extramedullary

Morphologic classification of ductal breast tumors on ultrasound : differential diagnosis of benign and malignant tumors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Won, Mi Sook; Chung, Soo Young; Yang, Ik; Lee, Yul; Park, Hai Jung; Lee, Myoung Hwan; Yoon, In Sook; Koh, Mi Gyoung

1997-01-01

To evaluate the morphologic differential diagnosis of benign and malignant ductal breast tumors, as seen on US US findings in 29 pathologically proven cases of ductal breast tumor were retrospectively reviewed. All patients were female and their mean age was 42 years. Nineteen tumors were benign and ten were malignant, and all ductal or cystic lesions showed solid masses. According to the location of the mural nodule, we classified the sonographic appearance of these tumors into three types:intraductal, intracystic and amorphic. The intraductal type was divided into three subtypes:incompletely obstructive, completely obstructive and multiple mural nodules. For the intracystic type, too, three subtypes were designated:the intracystic mural nodule (mural cyst), intracystic mural nodule with the duct (mural cyst+duct) and intracystic multiple mural nodules. The amorphic type is defined as an atypical ductal tumor with the mural nodule extending into adjacent parenchyma. The margin of the duct or cyst was smooth in 68.4% of benign, and irregular in 90% of malignant ductal tumors. Internal echogeneity of the duct or cyst usually showed homogeneity in both benign and malignant tumors. 73.7% of tumors connecting the duct were benign and 50% were malignant. In benign tumors, 52.6% of mural nodule had an irregular margin, while in malignant tumors, the corresponding proportion was 100%;both types usually showed heterogeneous hypoechogeneity. Among benign tumors, the most common morphologic type was the intraductal incompletely obstructive subtype (36.8%);among those that were malignant, the amorphic type was most common, accounting for 40% of tumors. No amorphic type was benign and no incompletely obstructive subtype was malignant. When ductal breast tumors are morphologically classified on the basis of sonographic findings, the intraductal incompletely obstructive subtype suggests benignancy, and the amorphic type, malignancy. The morphologic classification of ductal

Relationships between Character Education and School Climate

Science.gov (United States)

Karaburk, Hasan

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between character education and school climate based on the lived experiences and beliefs of teachers. The research was conducted in a public middle school to explore understandings and beliefs of teachers about character education and its perceived impact on school climate. Social…

Diagnostic value of p53 and M67 immunostaining for distinguishing benign from malignant serous effusions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hafez, N.H.; Tahoun, N.S.

2011-01-01

The differentiation of benign mesothelial cells from malignant tumor cells, primary, or metastatic, in serous effusions based on cytomorphologic features alone can be problematic. Purpose: This study was conducted to evaluate the utility of p53 and ki67 imrminocytochemical markers in differentiating benign from malignant tumor cells in serous effusions. Patients and methods: Archival Papanicolaou-stained smears of 91 pleura and peritoneal effusions were retrieved from Cytology Unit, Pathology Department, NCI, Cairo University between 2008 and 2010. Forty-one cases were positive for malignant cells and 50 cases were benign based on cytomorphologic features. Cases having doubt were excluded from the study. The slides were de stained and subjected to immunocytochemical staining for p53 and ki67. Histologic sections of colonic carcinoma and tonsillar tissue were used as positive control for p53 and ki67, respectively. Smears having > 5% positively stained nuclei for p53 were taken as positive and labeling index 10% of ki67 was considered positive. Frequencies of the individual immunocytochemical stains; p53 and ki67, in benign and malignant effusion as well as the combination of both stains were calculated. Results: p53 immunostaining showed nuclear positivity in 31 out of 41 malignant effusions (75.6%) and in 3 out of 50 benign effusions (6%), p < 0.005. p53 had 75.6% sensitivity, 94% specificity, 91.2% PPV, and 82.5% NPV. ki67 immunostaining was positive in 30 out of 41 malignant effusions (73.2%) and in 17 out of 50 benign effusions (34%), p < 0.05. ki67 had 73.2% sensitivity, 66% specificity, 63.8% PPV, and 75% NPV. Cases were then analyzed for combined immuno profile of p3 and ki67. Among the 24 cases that coexpressed both antigens, 22 cases (91.7%) were malignant. Thirty two out of 34 cases (94.1%) that showed negative results for both antigens were benign. For the cases that showed p53 immunostaining only, 9 out of 10 cases (90%) were malignant. Fifteen out of

"It Could Affect You as a Person, Character-Wise": Promoting Character Development and Preventing Sexual Violence at West Point

Science.gov (United States)

Arbeit, Miriam R.

2017-01-01

The United States Military Academy at West Point develops cadets into "leaders of character" who will become Army officers. This focus on character presents an opportunity for the prevention of sexual violence through an emphasis on military values. Using constructivist grounded theory, this study examined how cadets experience their own…

Benign breast disease, mammographic breast density, and the risk of breast cancer.

Science.gov (United States)

Tice, Jeffrey A; O'Meara, Ellen S; Weaver, Donald L; Vachon, Celine; Ballard-Barbash, Rachel; Kerlikowske, Karla

2013-07-17

Benign breast disease and high breast density are prevalent, strong risk factors for breast cancer. Women with both risk factors may be at very high risk. We included 42818 women participating in the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium who had no prior diagnosis of breast cancer and had undergone at least one benign breast biopsy and mammogram; 1359 women developed incident breast cancer in 6.1 years of follow-up (78.1% invasive, 21.9% ductal carcinoma in situ). We calculated hazard ratios (HRs) using Cox regression analysis. The referent group was women with nonproliferative changes and average density. All P values are two-sided. Benign breast disease and breast density were independently associated with breast cancer. The combination of atypical hyperplasia and very high density was uncommon (0.6% of biopsies) but was associated with the highest risk for breast cancer (HR = 5.34; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 3.52 to 8.09, P < .001). Proliferative disease without atypia (25.6% of biopsies) was associated with elevated risk that varied little across levels of density: average (HR = 1.37; 95% CI = 1.11 to 1.69, P = .003), high (HR = 2.02; 95% CI = 1.68 to 2.44, P < .001), or very high (HR = 2.05; 95% CI = 1.54 to 2.72, P < .001). Low breast density (4.5% of biopsies) was associated with low risk (HRs <1) for all benign pathology diagnoses. Women with high breast density and proliferative benign breast disease are at very high risk for future breast cancer. Women with low breast density are at low risk, regardless of their benign pathologic diagnosis.

Fluorescence spectra of benign and malignant prostate tissues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

AlSalhi, M S; Masilamani, V; Atif, M; Farhat, K; Rabah, D; Al Turki, M R

2012-01-01

In this study, fluorescence emission spectrum (FES), Stokes' shift spectrum (SSS), and reflectance spectrum (RS) of benign (N = 12) and malignant prostate tissues (N = 8) were investigated to discriminate the two types of tissues. The FES was done with the excitation at 325 nm only; SSS with Δλ = 70 and Δλ = 0, the latter being equivalent to reflectance spectra. Of the three modes of spectra, SSS with Δλ = 70 nm showed the best discrimination. There were four important bands, one at 280 nm (due to tryptophan); 320 nm (due to elastin and tryptophan); 355 and 385 (due to NADH) and 440 nm (due to flavin). From the relative intensities of these bands, three ratios were evaluated. Similarly another two ratios were obtained from reflectance spectra and one more from FES. Thus, there are 6 ratio parameters which represent the relative concentration of tryptophan, elastin, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH), and flavin. A statistical analysis showed that benign and malignant tissues could be classified with accuracy greater than 90%. This report is only for in vitro analysis; but employing optical fiber, this can be extended to in vivo analysis too, so that benign tumor could be distinguished without surgery

Oncogenic signalling pathways in benign odontogenic cysts and tumours.

Science.gov (United States)

Diniz, Marina Gonçalves; Gomes, Carolina Cavalieri; de Sousa, Sílvia Ferreira; Xavier, Guilherme Machado; Gomez, Ricardo Santiago

2017-09-01

The first step towards the prevention of cancer is to develop an in-depth understanding of tumourigenesis and the molecular basis of malignant transformation. What drives tumour initiation? Why do most benign tumours fail to metastasize? Oncogenic mutations, previously considered to be the hallmark drivers of cancers, are reported in benign cysts and tumours, including those that have an odontogenic origin. Despite the presence of such alterations, the vast majority of odontogenic lesions are benign and never progress to the stage of malignant transformation. As these lesions are likely to develop due to developmental defects, it is possible that they harbour quiet genomes. Now the question arises - do they result from DNA replication errors? Specific candidate genes have been sequenced in odontogenic lesions, revealing recurrent BRAF mutation in the case of ameloblastoma, KRAS mutation in adenomatoid odontogenic tumours, PTCH1 mutation in odontogenic keratocysts, and CTNNB1 (Beta-catenin) mutation in calcifying odontogenic cysts. Studies on these benign and rare entities might reveal important information about the tumorigenic process and the mechanisms that hinder/halt neoplastic progression. This is because the role of relatively common oncogenic mutations seems to be context dependent. In this review, each mutation signature of the odontogenic lesion and the affected signalling pathways are discussed in the context of tooth development and tumorigenesis. Furthermore, behavioural differences between different types of odontogenic lesions are explored and discussed based on the molecular alteration described. This review also includes the employment of molecular results for guiding therapeutic approaches towards odontogenic lesions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

IOTA simple rules in differentiating between benign and malignant ovarian tumors.

Science.gov (United States)

Tantipalakorn, Charuwan; Wanapirak, Chanane; Khunamornpong, Surapan; Sukpan, Kornkanok; Tongsong, Theera

2014-01-01

To evaluate the diagnostic performance of IOTA simple rules in differentiating between benign and malignant ovarian tumors. A study of diagnostic performance was conducted on women scheduled for elective surgery due to ovarian masses between March 2007 and March 2012. All patients underwent ultrasound examination for IOTA simple rules within 24 hours of surgery. All examinations were performed by the authors, who had no any clinical information of the patients, to differentiate between benign and malignant adnexal masses using IOTA simple rules. Gold standard diagnosis was based on pathological or operative findings. A total of 398 adnexal masses, in 376 women, were available for analysis. Of them, the IOTA simple rules could be applied in 319 (80.1%) including 212 (66.5%) benign tumors and 107 (33.6%) malignant tumors. The simple rules yielded inconclusive results in 79 (19.9%) masses. In the 319 masses for which the IOTA simple rules could be applied, sensitivity was 82.9% and specificity 95.3%. The IOTA simple rules have high diagnostic performance in differentiating between benign and malignant adnexal masses. Nevertheless, inconclusive results are relatively common.

Integrating Character Education In Teaching Speaking For Business Administration Students

OpenAIRE

Woro Prastiwi, Chyntia Heru

2016-01-01

Globalization along with the advancement of information and communication technology has brought tremendous effects on students' character. Education field as a place of community has to contribute in developing students' character traits. Integrating character education in curriculum is the key for qualified education. This research aimed to describe the way to integrate character education in teaching speaking for Business Administration students. The data was obtained from teaching and lea...

ECONOMIC ETHICS: APPLIED AND PROFESSIONAL CHARACTER

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ella Gordova

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In given article economic ethics are considered as set of norms of behavior of the businessman, the requirements shown by a cultural society to its style of work, to character of dialogue between participants of business, to their social shape. The conclusion becomes that economic ethics have applied character in relation to theoretical, to obschenormativnoy ethics, hence, represent section of applied ethics. On the other hand, the specific standard maintenance characterizes economic ethics as ethics professional.

Two cases of benign polyps of the posterior urethra (ectopic prostatic tissue)

OpenAIRE

多田, 晃司; 山羽, 正義; 田村, 公一; 藤広, 茂; 河田, 幸道

1990-01-01

We report two cases of benign polyps of the posterior urethra. Their first symptoms were gross hematuria and urinary frequency. Both specimens obtained by transurethral resection were histologically identified as prostatic tissue. Discussion on benign polyps of the posterior urethra as ectopic prostatic tissue was done with review of literature.

Diradical character of some fluoranthenes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

SVETLANA MARKOVIĆ

2010-09-01

Full Text Available It is shown that some Kekuléan fluoranthenes are diradicals and that their ground state is a triplet. In the energetically less favorable singlet state, these hydrocarbons also exhibit pronounced diradical character. The diradical character y of the compounds under investigation was estimated using the unrestricted symmetry-broken (yPUHF and complete active space (yNOON methods. It was found that the yPUHF values better reproduce the diradical character of the investigated hydrocarbons. It was shown that singly occupied molecular orbital (SOMO and SOMO-1 of a diradical structure occupy different parts of space with a small shared region, resulting in a spin density distribution over the entire molecule. The spatial diradical distribution in the singlet diradical structures was examined by inspecting the HOMOs and LUMOs for a and b spin electrons. It was shown that the a-HOMO and the b-LUMO (as well as the b-HOMO and the a-LUMO occupy practically the same part of space. In this way, there are no unpaired electrons in a singlet diradical structure, yet two of them occupy different parts of space, thus allowing the p-electrons to delocalize.

Case report 359: Gigantic benign fibrous histiocytoma (nonossifying fibroma)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Remagen, W.; Nidecker, A.; Prein, J.

1986-01-01

In summary, a fascinating case is presented of an enormous 'blow-out' lesion in the left half of the mandible in a 17-year-old boy. The histological diagnosis was benign fibrous histiocytoma or non-ossifying fibroma. An extensive differential diagnosis was presented by the authors and although benign fibrous histiocytoma was their final diagnosis, they could not exclude an example of the rarely encountered entity called the Jaffe-Campanacci syndrome. This syndrome consists of multiple non-ossifying fibromas of the mandible, cafe-au-lait spots, various endocrine disorders, mental retardation, occular anomalies and cardiovascular malformations. (orig./SHA)

Spinal meningeal melanocytoma with benign histology showing leptomeningeal spread: Case report

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Ok Hwa; Kim, Seon Jeong; Choo, Hye Jung; Lee, Sun Joo; Kim, Ji Yeon; Kim, Hoon; Lee, In Sook

2013-01-01

Meningeal melanocytoma is a rare benign tumor with relatively good prognosis. However, local aggressive behavior of meningeal melanocytoma has been reported, especially in cases of incomplete surgical resection. Malignant transformation was raised as possible cause by prior reports to explain this phenomenon. We present an unusual case of meningeal melanocytoma associated with histologically benign leptomeningeal spread and its subsequent aggressive clinical course, and describe its radiological findings.

Spinal meningeal melanocytoma with benign histology showing leptomeningeal spread: Case report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Ok Hwa; Kim, Seon Jeong; Choo, Hye Jung; Lee, Sun Joo; Kim, Ji Yeon; Kim, Hoon [Inje University Haeundae Paik Hospital, Busan (Korea, Republic of); Lee, In Sook [Dept. of Radiology, Busan National University Hospital, Busan (Korea, Republic of)

2013-06-15

Meningeal melanocytoma is a rare benign tumor with relatively good prognosis. However, local aggressive behavior of meningeal melanocytoma has been reported, especially in cases of incomplete surgical resection. Malignant transformation was raised as possible cause by prior reports to explain this phenomenon. We present an unusual case of meningeal melanocytoma associated with histologically benign leptomeningeal spread and its subsequent aggressive clinical course, and describe its radiological findings.

Differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast tumors by high frequency molybdenum-target X-ray photography

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mai Yuanqi; Wang Maosheng; Huang Jian; Cui Guoru; Liang Zhicong; Lu Yingying

2008-01-01

Objective: To explore the X-ray Image of benign and malignant breast lesions (tumors) in order to improve their differcatial diagnostic level. Methods: X-ray image changes of 63 malignant breast neoplasms were described by the mammography and in comparision with those of 43 benign masses. Results: The accordance percentages between the X-ray and histological examinations for the benign and malignant neoplasms were shown as 85% and 90.6% respectively. Spiculated mass, calcification granules in clusters and other images were found to be indication of benign or malignant breast lesion. Conclusion: The High Frequency Molybdenum-target X-ray Photography can provide effective imaging data for diagnosis and distinguish between the benign and malignant breast lesions. (authors)

Cases requiring increased number of repositioning maneuvers in benign paroxysmal positional vertigo

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Mukadder Korkmaz

Full Text Available ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV is a clinical syndrome that is proposed to be caused by dislocated utricular debris into semicircular canals. Although the majority of patients are treated by one or two repositioning maneuvers, some of the patients need repeated maneuvers for relief. OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to investigate the factors associated with patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo who required multiple repositioning procedures for treatment. METHODS: Data were obtained from the clinical records of 153 patients diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Patients were treated by repositioning maneuvers. Demographic data and the factors including age, sex, canal type, duration of symptoms, comorbidities and number of repositioning maneuvers for relief were documented for statistical analysis. RESULTS: Age, sex, canal type and the duration of symptoms had no impact on the number of maneuvers. The most common comorbidity was spine problems. Hypertension was the only comorbidity that significantly associated with increased number of maneuvers. CONCLUSION: The presence of hypertension is a risk factor for repeated maneuvers in benign paroxysmal positional vertigo treatment. Physicians should be aware of the increased probability of repeated repositioning maneuvers in these group of patients. The role of comorbidities and vascular factors need to be further clarified in the course of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.

Cases requiring increased number of repositioning maneuvers in benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.

Science.gov (United States)

Korkmaz, Mukadder; Korkmaz, Hakan

2016-01-01

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is a clinical syndrome that is proposed to be caused by dislocated utricular debris into semicircular canals. Although the majority of patients are treated by one or two repositioning maneuvers, some of the patients need repeated maneuvers for relief. The goal of this study was to investigate the factors associated with patients with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo who required multiple repositioning procedures for treatment. Data were obtained from the clinical records of 153 patients diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Patients were treated by repositioning maneuvers. Demographic data and the factors including age, sex, canal type, duration of symptoms, comorbidities and number of repositioning maneuvers for relief were documented for statistical analysis. Age, sex, canal type and the duration of symptoms had no impact on the number of maneuvers. The most common comorbidity was spine problems. Hypertension was the only comorbidity that significantly associated with increased number of maneuvers. The presence of hypertension is a risk factor for repeated maneuvers in benign paroxysmal positional vertigo treatment. Physicians should be aware of the increased probability of repeated repositioning maneuvers in these group of patients. The role of comorbidities and vascular factors need to be further clarified in the course of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Copyright © 2015 Associação Brasileira de Otorrinolaringologia e Cirurgia Cérvico-Facial. Published by Elsevier Editora Ltda. All rights reserved.

A novel handwritten character recognition system using gradient ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

The issues faced by the handwritten character recognition systems are the similarity. ∗ ... tical/structural features have also been successfully used in character ..... The coordinates (xc, yc) of centroid are calculated by equations (4) and (5). xc =.

Palm Frond and Spikelet as Environmentally Benign Alternative Solid Acid Catalysts for Biodiesel Production

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yahaya Muhammad Sani

2015-04-01

Full Text Available A carbonization-sulfonation method was utilized in synthesizing sulfonated mesoporous catalysts from palm tree biomass. Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD, energy dispersive X-ray (EDX, and field emission scanning emission microscopy (FE-SEM analyses were used to evaluate the structural and textural properties of the catalysts. Further, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR spectroscopy and titrimetric analyses measured the strong acid value and acidity distribution of the materials. These analyses indicated that the catalysts had large mesopore volume, large surface area, uniform pore size, and high acid density. The catalytic activity exhibited by esterifying used frying oil (UFO containing high (48% free fatty acid (FFA content further indicated these properties. All catalysts exhibited high activity, with sPTS/400 converting more than 98% FFA into fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs. The catalyst exhibited the highest acid density, 1.2974 mmol/g, determined by NaOH titration. This is outstanding considering the lower reaction parameters of 5 h, 5:1 methanol-to-oil ratio, and a moderate temperature range between 100 and 200 °C. The study further illustrates the prospect of converting wastes into highly efficient, benign, and recyclable solid acid catalysts.

Peter as character in the Gospel of Matthew: complexity and inversion

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

João Leonel

2014-03-01

Full Text Available This article focuses on the apostle Peter as a character in the Gospel of Matthew.  It aims at identifying the nuances and changes of the character Peter in the Gospel. For this purpose, I take as a starting point that the gospel belongs to the literary genre of ancient Greco-Roman Biography, which presents Jesus Christ as the protagonist. The other characters are developed in relationship with him. The same is true with the Apostle Peter. The article unfolds from narrative theory, in particular the categorization of characters. I categorize, based on Erich Auerbach and Robert Alter, the features of biblical characters, developing comparisons with theories of the character in the modern novel. The analysis of the main texts from the Gospel of Matthew that portray the character Peter leads to the conclusion that its main features are complexity and inversion. They produce an overview of the involution of the character in the narrative of the Gospel of Matthew.

Radiotherapy of benign diseases

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haase, W.

1982-01-01

Still today radiotherapy is of decisive relevance for several benign diseases. The following ones are briefly described in this introductory article: 1. Certain inflammatory and degenerative diseases as furuncles in the face, acute thrombophlebitis, recurrent sudoriparous abscesses, degenerative skeletal diseases, cervical syndrome and others; 2. rheumatic joint diseases; 3. Bechterew's disease; 4. primary presenile osteoporosis; 5. synringomyelia; 6. endocrine ophthalmopathy; 7. hypertrophic processes of the connective tissue; 8. hemangiomas. A detailed discussion and a profit-risk analysis is provided in the individual chapters of the magazine. (MG) [de

Comparison of magnetic resonance elastography and diffusion-weighted imaging for differentiating benign and malignant liver lesions.

Science.gov (United States)

Hennedige, Tiffany P; Hallinan, James Thomas Patrick Decourcy; Leung, Fiona P; Teo, Lynette Li San; Iyer, Sridhar; Wang, Gang; Chang, Stephen; Madhavan, Krishna Kumar; Wee, Aileen; Venkatesh, Sudhakar K

2016-02-01

Comparison of magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) for differentiating malignant and benign focal liver lesions (FLLs). Seventy-nine subjects with 124 FLLs (44 benign and 80 malignant) underwent both MRE and DWI. MRE was performed with a modified gradient-echo sequence and DWI with a free breathing technique (b = 0.500). Apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps and stiffness maps were generated. FLL mean stiffness and ADC values were obtained by placing regions of interest over the FLLs on stiffness and ADC maps. The accuracy of MRE and DWI for differentiation of benign and malignant FLL was compared using receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis. There was a significant negative correlation between stiffness and ADC (r = -0.54, p 4.54kPa) and DWI (cut-off, benign and malignant FLLs. • MRE is superior to DWI for differentiating benign and malignant focal liver lesions. • Benign lesions with large fibrous components may have higher stiffness with MRE. • Cholangiocarcinomas tend to have higher stiffness than hepatocellular carcinomas. • Hepatocellular adenomas tend to have lower stiffness than focal nodular hyperplasia. • MRE is superior to conventional MRI in differentiating benign and malignant liver lesions.

Automated Degradation Diagnosis in Character Recognition System Subject to Camera Vibration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chunmei Liu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Degradation diagnosis plays an important role for degraded character processing, which can tell the recognition difficulty of a given degraded character. In this paper, we present a framework for automated degraded character recognition system by statistical syntactic approach using 3D primitive symbol, which is integrated by degradation diagnosis to provide accurate and reliable recognition results. Our contribution is to design the framework to build the character recognition submodels corresponding to degradation subject to camera vibration or out of focus. In each character recognition submodel, statistical syntactic approach using 3D primitive symbol is proposed to improve degraded character recognition performance. In the experiments, we show attractive experimental results, highlighting the system efficiency and recognition performance by statistical syntactic approach using 3D primitive symbol on the degraded character dataset.

Distributional Similarity for Chinese: Exploiting Characters and Radicals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Peng Jin

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Distributional Similarity has attracted considerable attention in the field of natural language processing as an automatic means of countering the ubiquitous problem of sparse data. As a logographic language, Chinese words consist of characters and each of them is composed of one or more radicals. The meanings of characters are usually highly related to the words which contain them. Likewise, radicals often make a predictable contribution to the meaning of a character: characters that have the same components tend to have similar or related meanings. In this paper, we utilize these properties of the Chinese language to improve Chinese word similarity computation. Given a content word, we first extract similar words based on a large corpus and a similarity score for ranking. This rank is then adjusted according to the characters and components shared between the similar word and the target word. Experiments on two gold standard datasets show that the adjusted rank is superior and closer to human judgments than the original rank. In addition to quantitative evaluation, we examine the reasons behind errors drawing on linguistic phenomena for our explanations.

Stereological estimation of nuclear volume in benign melanocytic lesions and cutaneous malignant melanomas

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Flemming Brandt

1989-01-01

a favorable prognosis. No significant differences in vV could be demonstrated among different noninvasive tumor types. Two-dimensional estimates only distinguished benign from malignant tumors with considerable overlap and with significantly varying influence from other factors among different benign lesional...

Differential diagnosis between benign and malignant pleural effusion with dual-energy spectral CT.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Xirong; Duan, Haifeng; Yu, Yong; Ma, Chunling; Ren, Zhanli; Lei, Yuxin; He, Taiping; Zhang, Ming

2018-01-01

To investigate the value of spectral CT in the differential diagnosis of benign from malignant pleural effusion. 14 patients with benign pleural effusion and 15 patients with malignant pleural effusion underwent non-contrast spectral CT imaging. These patients were later verified by the combination of disease history, clinical signs and other information with the consensus of surgeons and radiologists. Various Spectral CT image parameters measured for the effusion were as follows: CT numbers of the polychromatic 140kVp images, monochromatic images at 40keV and 100keV, the material density contents from the water, fat and blood-based material decomposition images, the effective atomic number and the spectral curve slope. These values were statistically compared with t test and logistic regression analysis between benign and malignant pleural effusion. The CT value of benign and malignant pleural effusion in the polychromatic 140kVp images showed no differences (12.61±3.39HU vs. 14.71±5.03HU) (P>0.05), however, they were statistically different on the monochromatic images at 40keV (43.15±3.79 vs. 39.42±2.60, p = 0.005) and 100keV (9.11±1.38 vs. 6.52±2.04, p<0.001). There was difference in the effective atomic number value between the benign (7.87±0.08) and malignant pleural effusion (7.90±0.02) (P = 0.02). Using 6.32HU as the threshold for CT value measurement at 100keV, one could obtain sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 66.7% with area-under-curve of 0.843 for differentiating benign from malignant effusion. In addition, age and disease history were potential confounding factors for differentiating malignant pleural effusion from benign, since the older age (61.13±12.51 year-old vs48.57±12.33 year-old) as well as longer disease history (70.00±49.28 day vs.28.36±21.64 day) were more easily to be found in the malignant pleural effusion group than those in the benign pleural effusion group. By combining above five factors, one could obtain sensitivity

Malignant transformation from benign papillomatosis of the external auditory canal.

Science.gov (United States)

Miah, Mohammed S; Crawford, Mairi; White, Sharon J; Hussain, Syed Shah Musheer

2012-06-01

Report a case of malignant transformation of benign ear canal papillomatosis to malignant squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the temporal bone. A 73-year-old with papillomata involving the posterior and inferior walls of the right external auditory canal (EAC), which subsequently transformed into SCC. Radical mastoidectomy and excision of the tumor and then radical radiotherapy. Loco-regional disease control. Recovery of facial nerve function. Approximately 20 months post-treatment, the patient remains disease free. No recovery of facial nerve function. Malignant transformation of a benign EAC papilloma to SCC of the temporal bone has not been reported previously. The association of human papillomavirus with temporal bone SCC has been reported in small number of studies with human papillomavirus subtypes 16 and 18 isolated in a high proportion of cases. With the increased availability in genotyping, the question over whether there should be further genetic analysis of benign lesions to assess their susceptibility to malignant transformation has merit.

Meeting Characters in Caldecotts: What Does This Mean for Today's Readers?

Science.gov (United States)

Koss, Melanie D.; Martinez, Miriam; Johnson, Nancy J.

2016-01-01

We examined representations of main characters in Caldecott Award winner and honor books over the past 25 years. Each book containing a human main character was coded for the following features: culture/ethnicity, gender, age, place where character lives, time period in which the character lives, disability, religion, socioeconomic status, and…

Benign and malignant neurogenic tumors of nerve sheath origin on FDG PET

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yun, M. J.; Go, D. H.; Yoo, Y. H.; Shin, K. H.; Lee, J. D

2004-01-01

The differentiation between benign and malignant nerve sheath tumors is difficult based on conventional radiological imaging. This study was undertaken to investigate the value of FDG PET in distinguishing benign from malignant neurogenic tumors of nerve sheath origin. We performed a retrospective review of the medical record to select patients with nerve sheath tumors who had underdone FDG PET imaging. Fifteen patients (7F: 8M) with benign or malignant nerve sheath tumors were included in this study. Of the 15 patients, 9 were diagnosed with the known neurofibromatosis type I. A total of 19 nerve sheath tumors were included from the 15 patients. All patients had undergone FDG PET to evaluate for malignant potential of the known lesions. Images of FDG PET were semi-quantitatively analyzed and a region of interest (ROI) was placed over the area of the maximum FDG uptake and an average standardized uptake value was taken for final analysis. There were 5 malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors, 5 schwannomas, and 9 neurofibromas. The mean SUV was 2 (ranged from 1.6 to 3.3) for schwannomas, 1.3 (0.7 to 2.5) for neurofibromas, and 8.4 (4.6 to 12.2) for malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors. Of 14 benign tumors, all except one schwannoma showed a SUV less than 3. When a cutoff SUV of 4 was used to differentiate the nerve sheath tumors, all tumors were correctly classified as benign or malignant, respectively. Among the 9 patients diagnosed with neurofibromatosis type I. 4 had malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumors and FDG PET accurately detected all the 4 lesions with malignant transformation. According to our results, FDG PET seems to have a great potential for accurately characterizing benign versus malignant nerve sheath tumors. It appears to be extremely useful for patients with neurofibromatosis to localize the lesion with malignant transformation

Repositioning chairs in benign paroxysmal positional vertigo

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

West, Niels; Hansen, Søren; Møller, Martin Nue

2016-01-01

The objective was to evaluate the clinical value of repositioning chairs in management of refractory benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) and to study how different BPPV subtypes respond to treatment. We performed a retrospective chart review of 150 consecutive cases with refractory vertigo...

Playing MMORPGs: connections between addiction and identifying with a character.

Science.gov (United States)

Smahel, David; Blinka, Lukas; Ledabyl, Ondrej

2008-12-01

Addiction to online role-playing games is one of the most discussed aspects of recent cyberpsychology, mainly for its potentially negative impact on the social lives of young people. In our study, we focus on some aspects of youth and adolescent addiction to MMORPGs. We investigated connections between players and their game characters and examined if, and in what ways, player relationship to their character affected potential addiction. Players attitude to their characters seems to play a specific role, since players who tend to be addicted view their characters as being superior and more often wish to be like their characters in their real lives. Our research also confirmed that younger players are generally more prone to addiction.

Genus-two characters of the Ising model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Choi, J.H.; Koh, I.G.

1989-01-01

As a first step in studying conformal theories on a higher-genus Riemann surface, we construct genus-two characters of the Ising model from their behavior in zero- and nonzero-homology pinching limits, the Goddard-Kent-Oliveco set-space construction, and the branching coefficients in the level-two A 1 /sup (1)/ Kac-Moody characters on the higher-genus Riemann surface

An investigation of player to player character identification via personal pronouns

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hichens, Michael; Drachen, Anders; Richards, Deborah

2012-01-01

The player character is an important feature of many games, where it is through the character that the player interacts with game world. There has been considerable interest in the relationship between the player and the player character. Much of this work has examined the identification of players......, third) as an indication of the relationship between player and character. Results indicate that the presence of story and information about the player character had no effect on identification with the plater character. However, characteristics of the players, particularly gender and general experience...... in playing video games, did have a statistically significant affect, indicating that different levels of identification are more dependent on the player than on the game. This indicates that players are not a homogeneous group with respect to player character identification and is an important consideration...

Value of Quantitative Three-dimensional Doppler Ultrasound in the Differentiation of Benign and Malignant Thyroid Nodules.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Wen-Bo; Zhang, Bo; Jiang, Yu-Xin; Zhu, Qing-Li; Zhang, Qing; Sun, Jian

2015-06-01

To investigate the role of quantitative three-dimensional (3D) power Doppler ultrasound in differentiating malignant and benign thyroid nodule. A total of 92 lesions in 86 patients were preoperatively examined using 3D power Doppler ultrasound. The Virtual Organ Computer-aided Analysis(VOCAL)-imaging program was used to analyze the stored volume ultrasound. The differences in the mean gray value (MG), vascularization index (VI), flow index(FI), and vascularization flow index (VFI) were compared between benign and malignant lesions. The MG of the malignant thyroid nodules was significantly lower than that of the benign ones (28.27±7.21 vs. 32.89±8.73,P=0.007). The benign nodules had significantly higher VI,FI,and VFI than the malignant nodules [VI:(40.43±26.55)% vs. (26.87±23.06)%,P=0.011;FI:41.03±7.19 vs. 37.51±7.17,P=0.022;VFI:18.23±14.60 vs. 11.47±12.47, P=0.009]. Also,76.5% (39/51) of the malignant nodules and 92.7% (38/41) of the benign nodules had higher VIs in the shell of the lesion than that of the whole lesion,and 80.4%(41/51) of the malignant nodules and 95.1% (39/41) of the benign nodules had higher FIs in the shell of the lesion than that of the whole lesion. Quantitative 3D power Doppler ultrasound provides a useful tool in distinguishing benign and malignant thyroid nodules. The malignant thyroid nodules have lower echoes than the benign nodules, wherese the benign nodules have larger blood flow than the malignant nodules.

Transvesical prostatectomy in the management of benign prostatic ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Nigerian Journal of Clinical Practice ... Context: The surgical management of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is evolving away from open surgery. ... Parameters examined included age, clinical features, investigations, type of postoperative ...

Blue breath holding is benign.

OpenAIRE

Stephenson, J B

1991-01-01

In their recent publication in this journal, Southall et al described typical cyanotic breath holding spells, both in otherwise healthy children and in those with brainstem lesions and other malformations. Their suggestions regarding possible autonomic disturbances may require further study, but they have adduced no scientific evidence to contradict the accepted view that in the intact child blue breath holding spells are benign. Those families in which an infant suffers an 'apparently life t...

Effect of Gratitude on Benign and Malicious Envy: The Mediating Role of Social Support.

Science.gov (United States)

Xiang, Yanhui; Chao, Xiaomei; Ye, Yanyan

2018-01-01

Gratitude has been investigated in various areas in psychology. The present research showed that gratitude had some positive effects on some aspects of our life, such as subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and social relationships. It can also help us relieve negative emotions. However, the existing literature has not studied the influence of gratitude on envy. The present study used structural equation modeling to test the mediating role of social support between gratitude and two types of envy (malicious and benign). We recruited 426 Chinese undergraduates to complete the Gratitude Questionnaire, Malicious and Benign Envy Scales, and the Multi-Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Results showed that gratitude positively predicted benign envy and negatively predicted malicious envy. In addition, the indirect effect of gratitude on two types of envy via social support was significant. These results revealed the direct relationship between gratitude and malicious/benign envy, and the mediating effect of social support, which will contribute to find effective measures to inhibit malicious envy and promote benign envy from the perspective of cultivating gratitude and increasing individuals' social support.

Effect of Gratitude on Benign and Malicious Envy: The Mediating Role of Social Support

Science.gov (United States)

Xiang, Yanhui; Chao, Xiaomei; Ye, Yanyan

2018-01-01

Gratitude has been investigated in various areas in psychology. The present research showed that gratitude had some positive effects on some aspects of our life, such as subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and social relationships. It can also help us relieve negative emotions. However, the existing literature has not studied the influence of gratitude on envy. The present study used structural equation modeling to test the mediating role of social support between gratitude and two types of envy (malicious and benign). We recruited 426 Chinese undergraduates to complete the Gratitude Questionnaire, Malicious and Benign Envy Scales, and the Multi-Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Results showed that gratitude positively predicted benign envy and negatively predicted malicious envy. In addition, the indirect effect of gratitude on two types of envy via social support was significant. These results revealed the direct relationship between gratitude and malicious/benign envy, and the mediating effect of social support, which will contribute to find effective measures to inhibit malicious envy and promote benign envy from the perspective of cultivating gratitude and increasing individuals' social support. PMID:29867595

Effect of Gratitude on Benign and Malicious Envy: The Mediating Role of Social Support

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yanhui Xiang

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Gratitude has been investigated in various areas in psychology. The present research showed that gratitude had some positive effects on some aspects of our life, such as subjective well-being, life satisfaction, and social relationships. It can also help us relieve negative emotions. However, the existing literature has not studied the influence of gratitude on envy. The present study used structural equation modeling to test the mediating role of social support between gratitude and two types of envy (malicious and benign. We recruited 426 Chinese undergraduates to complete the Gratitude Questionnaire, Malicious and Benign Envy Scales, and the Multi-Dimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Results showed that gratitude positively predicted benign envy and negatively predicted malicious envy. In addition, the indirect effect of gratitude on two types of envy via social support was significant. These results revealed the direct relationship between gratitude and malicious/benign envy, and the mediating effect of social support, which will contribute to find effective measures to inhibit malicious envy and promote benign envy from the perspective of cultivating gratitude and increasing individuals' social support.

Apparent diffusion coefficient measurements in the differentiation between benign and malignant lesions: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Vermoolen, M A; Kwee, T C; Nievelstein, R A J

2012-08-01

To systematically review the value of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measurement in the differentiation between benign and malignant lesions. A systematic search of the Medline/Pubmed and Embase databases revealed 109 relevant studies. Quality of these articles was assessed using the Quality Assessment of the Studies of Diagnostic Accuracy Included in Systematic Reviews (QUADAS) criteria. Reported ADC values of benign and malignant lesions were compared per organ. The mean quality score of the reviewed articles was 50%. Comparison of ADC values showed marked variation among studies and between benign and malignant lesions in various organs. In several organs, such as breast, liver, and uterus, ADC values discriminated well between benign and malignant lesions. In other organs, such as the salivary glands, thyroid, and pancreas, ADCs were not significantly different between benign and malignant lesions. The potential utility of ADC measurement for the characterisation of tumours differs per organ. Future well-designed studies are required before ADC measurements can be recommended for the differentiation of benign and malignant lesions. These future studies should use standardised acquisition protocols and provide complete reporting of study methods, to facilitate comparison of results and clinical implementation of ADC measurement for tumour characterisation.

Quantitative analysis of enhanced malignant and benign lesions on contrast-enhanced spectral mammography.

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Chih-Ying; Juan, Yu-Hsiang; Cheung, Yun-Chung; Lin, Yu-Ching; Lo, Yung-Feng; Lin, GiGin; Chen, Shin-Cheh; Ng, Shu-Hang

2018-02-27

To retrospectively analyze the quantitative measurement and kinetic enhancement among pathologically proven benign and malignant lesions using contrast-enhanced spectral mammography (CESM). We investigated the differences in enhancement between 44 benign and 108 malignant breast lesions in CESM, quantifying the extent of enhancements and the relative enhancements between early (between 2-3 min after contrast medium injection) and late (3-6 min) phases. The enhancement was statistically stronger in malignancies compared to benign lesions, with good performance by the receiver operating characteristic curve [0.877, 95% confidence interval (0.813-0.941)]. Using optimal cut-off value at 220.94 according to Youden index, the sensitivity was 75.9%, specificity 88.6%, positive likelihood ratio 6.681, negative likelihood ratio 0.272 and accuracy 82.3%. The relative enhancement patterns of benign and malignant lesions, showing 29.92 vs 73.08% in the elevated pattern, 7.14 vs 92.86% in the steady pattern, 5.71 vs 94.29% in the depressed pattern, and 80.00 vs 20.00% in non-enhanced lesions (p < 0.0001), respectively. Despite variations in the degree of tumour angiogenesis, quantitative analysis of the breast lesions on CESM documented the malignancies had distinctive stronger enhancement and depressed relative enhancement patterns than benign lesions. Advances in knowledge: To our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating the feasibility of quantifying lesion enhancement on CESM. The quantities of enhancement were informative for assessing breast lesions in which the malignancies had stronger enhancement and more relative depressed enhancement than the benign lesions.

Affective affordances: Improving interface characters engagement through interaction.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van Vugt, H.C.; Hoorn, J.F.; Konijn, E.A.; De Bie Dimitriadou, A.

2006-01-01

The nature of humans interacting with interface characters (e.g. embodied agents) is not well understood. The I-PEFiC model provides an integrative perspective on human-character interaction, assuming that the processes of engagement and user interaction exchange information in explaining user

Affective affordances: Improving interface character engagement through interaction