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Aim: Visual evoked potentials (VEP) represent an objective non-invasive and inexpensive dia­gnostic method, particularly in neuro-ophthalmology. A lot of possible dia­gnostic applications are limited because they are only examined with the use of robust equipment which is hardly transportable and immobile and handicapped patients cannot visit the specialized labs. The aim of our research work was the development of a portable inexpensive VEP device that could be used almost anywhere. Methods: All parts of the last prototype of the device (built-in visual stimulator, recording electrodes, 4-channel EEG amplifier, analog-digital converter, and control unit) with a total weight of 390 g are placed in a headset (plastic "shield" with an adjustable strap). The software for VEP recording and evaluation is used on a standard notebook (PC). The parameters of the device fulfill recommendations of the international societies for clinical electrophysiology of vision and clinical neurophysiology also enabling new applications of so far not routinely used variants of evoked potentials. Testing of the device was done so far in 91 control subjects and 135 neuroophthalmological patients. Results: Pilot studies proved comparable parameters of VEP and dia­gnostic sensitivity as in standard devices (equal results in 93% of cases). It was verified that the device is usable in various environments, at the patient's bedside, and also for basic self-examination. Conclusion: The portable device for VEP significantly increases the availability of their examination and thus enables much broader dia­gnostic applications of this method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Breast US is a mainstay of modern-day breast imaging, especially in the diagnostic and interventional realm. The BI-RADS atlas described six echo patterns relative to the subcutaneous mammary fat: anechoic, hypoechoic, complex cystic and solid, isoechoic, heterogeneous, and hyperechoic. Hyperechoic breast masses demonstrate increased echogenicity relative to subcutaneous mammary fat or equal to fibroglandular tissue. Pathologically, the hyperechoic pattern at breast US results from the intermingling of different components: adipose tissue, fibrous tissue or stroma, secretions, blood or vascularity, and calcifications. Most hyperechoic masses are benign, especially homogeneously hyperechoic masses. However, hyperechogenicity does not exclude malignancy. Two echo patterns have been identified in hyperechoic malignant lesions, including those with a hypoechoic center and hyperechoic rim known g as the rim pattern and a mass with hyperechoic areas distributed through the mass known as a dispersed pattern. This article aims to illustrate the echogenic patterns of breast lesions and various benign and malignant hyperechoic breast lesions with radiologic-pathologic correlation and to increase awareness of heterogeneously hyperechoic breast lesions as a manifestation of malignancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study is to identify promising areas of investment diplomacy in encouraging foreign investment in the economy of Azerbaijan. As a result of the study, the tasks of identifying areas of agreements with countries of the world to encourage foreign investment and identify areas belonging to attracting foreign investment have been solved. The author considers investments made in Azerbaijan; studies investments directed abroad. A limitation in the study was the lack of open information before 2000 on benefits and other measures in agreements between Azerbaijan and other countries, the lack of information on investment investments abroad by sectors of the economy, and the discrepancy in figures between the CBA and UNCTAD. The study used the methods of grouping, analysis and comparison. The legal framework, information from reports of international organizations, forums were used. The scientific novelty of the study is that the author considered new trends in the field of investment attractiveness and made proposals on the directions of Azerbaijan’s investment diplomacy. The author found that agreements, conventions and protocols have a different structure and significant differences in the content of bilateral investment treaties allow the country to retain certain leverage. In the sectoral context, the largest flows of investments were directed to the development of industry, construction and transport. Since 2006, there has been an increase in investment in the transport sector, and since 2014 in construction. Despite the growth of foreign investment in these sectors, statistics still recorded an increase in the inflow of foreign investment in the sector of crude oil and natural gas production. Also, 30% of Azerbaijan’s direct investment abroad is in the oil sector. In order to implement promising areas of Azerbaijan’s investment diplomacy in the near future, it was proposed to introduce active investment diplomacy.

Objectives: Fibromatosis of the breast is an uncommon neoplasm with potential for local recurrence. Treatment has traditionally been surgical excision with current trends toward conservative management. Given the option of observation after diagnosis by core needle biopsy (CNB), we sought to evaluate the accuracy of CNB for diagnosing fibromatosis.Methods: We identified a total of 31 cases in which fibromatosis had been diagnosed or included in the differential diagnosis on a CNB, an excision, or both. Morphology and immunohistochemical results were reviewed.Results: Aberrant nuclear immunoreactivity for β-catenin and absent staining for CD34 were the most useful studies to diagnose fibromatosis, and one or both were performed in 21 (68%) cases. High molecular weight cytokeratins and p63 were helpful to exclude spindle cell carcinoma. Of 26 cases confirmed as fibromatosis on excision, 22 (85%) were diagnosed as fibromatosis or fibromatosis was favored in the differential diagnosis on CNB. More frequent use of immunohistochemistry would likely have resulted in a greater number of definitive diagnoses. Fibromatosis was rarely mistaken for other nonmalignant stromal lesions, with no cases misdiagnosed as carcinoma.Conclusions: CNB can be an accurate method of diagnosing fibromatosis, allowing observation for a select group of patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Octopuses are high organized invertebrates with big brains and complex behavior. The architecture of their brain is very different than in mammals or other vertebrates. However, they have a high level of behavioral plasticity, which, obviously, has the neuronal substrate. Understanding the functioning of the octopus brain will expand our knowledge of the mechanisms of neuronal control of behavior. For this, we need the instruments, and the registration of local field potentials (LFP, or less precise term electroencephalogram) is one of the most simple, cheap, but powerful methods. Recording LFP in nonanesthetized freely-behaving octopus is challenging. Using wired devices is problematic because of the number, length, and strength of animals' arms. Wireless radio-based systems are not suitable because of the shielding properties of water which is a mandatory component of the cephalopods' environment. To solve this problem, we have developed a specialized water-resistant container for the NeuroLogger® (Newbehavior AG, Zurich, Switzerland) device. The electrodes (4 data and 1 reference) were implanted into the brain of three adult Octopus cyanea (2.5-4.2kg) under anesthesia. The capacity of the device was enough to obtain approximately 13 hours of LFP records while the animals were in the housing tank. The animals were filmed, then the video was synchronized to LFP, and behavior was manually scored by two experts. Unlike some previous reports, the LFP from octopus brains did not look like that of mammalian brains with regular oscillations during at least some behavioral states. LFP waves were mostly irregular and slow (<1Hz), with short periods of sinusoid-like activity or spikes. To reveal the possible correlation between LFP and behavioral states, we split the record into 10 s epochs and calculated the root mean square (RMS) of the signals' amplitudes. Three distinct behavioral states were selected for this analysis: sleeping (SL), non-sleeping not moving (NM), and non-sleeping actively moving (MV). Then RMS values were compared between different states for each animal. There were significant differences between at least two states in every channel and all animals. Interestingly, in some electrodes sleep activity had greater amplitudes than awake (both active and quiet). In others, the difference was the opposite. Since there is no stereotaxic atlas for the octopus brain, the positions of electrodes could be slightly different, and this results in some inconsistency across the animals. We need to collect further data to reveal the electrophysiological correlates of the octopuses' behavioral patterns. This may be real using our approach to record the brain electrical activity of these animals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tarim River basin, located in Xinjiang, NW China, is the largest endorheic river basin in China and one of the largest in all of Central Asia. Due to the extremely arid climate, with an annual precipitation of less than 100 mm, the water supply along the Aksu and Tarim rivers solely depends on river water. This is linked to anthropogenic activities (e.g., agriculture) and natural and semi-natural ecosystems as both compete for water. The ongoing increase in water consumption by agriculture and other human activities in this region has been enhancing the competition for water between human needs and nature. Against this background, 11 German and 6 Chinese universities and research institutes have formed the consortium SuMaRiO (Sustainable Management of River Oases along the Tarim River; http://www.sumario.de), which aims to create a holistic picture of the availability of water resources in the Tarim River basin and the impacts on anthropogenic activities and natural ecosystems caused by the water distribution within the Tarim River basin. On the basis of the results from field studies and modeling approaches as well as from suggestions by the relevant regional stakeholders, a decision support tool (DST) will be implemented that will then assist stakeholders in balancing the competition for water, acknowledging the major external effects of water allocation to agriculture and to natural ecosystems. This consortium was formed in 2011 and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. As the data collection phase was finished this year, the paper presented here brings together the results from the fields from the disciplines of climate modeling, cryology, hydrology, agricultural sciences, ecology, geoinformatics, and social sciences in order to present a comprehensive picture of the effects of different water availability schemes on anthropogenic activities and natural ecosystems along the Tarim River. The second objective is to present the project structure of the whole consortium, the current status of work (i.e., major new results and findings), explain the foundation of the decision support tool as a key product of this project, and conclude with application recommendations for the region. The discharge of the Aksu River, which is the major tributary of the Tarim, has been increasing over the past 6 decades. From 1989 to 2011, agricultural area more than doubled: cotton became the major crop and there was a shift from small-scale to large-scale intensive farming. The ongoing increase in irrigated agricultural land leads to the increased threat of salinization and soil degradation caused by increased evapotranspiration. Aside from agricultural land, the major natural and semi-natural ecosystems are riparian (Tugai) forests, shrub vegetation, reed beds, and other grassland, as well as urban and peri-urban vegetation. Within the SuMaRiO cluster, focus has been set on the Tugai forests, with Populus euphratica as the dominant tree species, because these forests belong to the most productive and species-rich natural ecosystems of the Tarim River basin. At sites close to the groundwater, the annual stem diameter increments of Populus euphratica correlated with the river runoffs of the previous year. However, the natural river dynamics cease along the downstream course and thus hamper the recruitment of Populus euphratica. A study on the willingness to pay for the conservation of the natural ecosystems was conducted to estimate the concern of the people in the region and in China's capital. These household surveys revealed that there is a considerable willingness to pay for conservation of the natural ecosystems, with mitigation of dust and sandstorms considered the most important ecosystem service. Stakeholder dialogues contributed to creating a scientific basis for a sustainable management in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender is presumed to be one of the factors causing interindividual variability in the brain's electrophysiological parameters. Our aim was to characterize the role of gender in visual evoked potentials (VEPs), event-related potentials (ERPs), visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) and the spectral characteristics of the EEG. We examined 42 healthy volunteers (21 women and 21 men, aged 20-29 years). We measured VEPs in response to pattern-reversal and motion-onset stimulation, ERPs in an oddball paradigm and vMMN in response to a combination of motion directions presented in the visual periphery. P100 peak latency for 40' reversal VEPs was significantly shorter in women than in men as determined using a non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test. In addition, women showed higher relative EEG spectral power in the alpha band (p=0.023) and lower power in the theta band (p=0.004). Our results in this small but homogeneous group of subjects confirm previously reported gender influences on pattern-reversal VEPs and the EEG frequency spectrum. Gender should be taken into consideration in establishing norms on these measures. We found no statistically significant differences between women and men for any of the other stimuli presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine the efficacy and toxicity of irinotecan combined with carboplatin, we conducted a phase II trial. Eligibility criteria were: chemotherapy-naïve, small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), good performance status (PS: 0-2), age

The COVID-19 pandemic has created substantial and dynamic disruptions in society, personal behavior, and potentially chronic sound exposures, which are associated with hearing loss, cardiovascular disease, and other health impacts. Leveraging preliminary data from our unique nationwide Apple Hearing Study, we explored changes in personal sound exposures resulting from COVID-19-related social distancing. Volunteer participants opted to share environmental sound data from their Apple Watch and headphone sound data from their iPhone. Participants for this analysis were chosen from four states which exhibited diverse responses to COVID-19. Equivalent continuous average sound exposures (in A-weighted decibels, dBA) were computed per person-day and normalized to 8 hour L _EX8h exposures. Daily mean L _EX8h exposures across two time periods, a baseline period (before the first known US COVID-19 death at the time of analysis) and an intervention period (starting with each state’s first COVID-related public health social distancing announcement and ending on April 22, 2020) were defined to assess changes in sound exposure. We modeled sound levels across 5,894 participants and 516,729 monitored days using a linear mixed-effects model with random effects for participant. The overall reduction in LEX8h between baseline and intervention was 2.6 ± 0.05 dBA (mean ± SE). There was a significant day-of-week effect during the baseline period, with the lowest exposures on Monday and the highest on Saturday. This effect was not noted during the intervention period. COVID-19 social distancing measures were associated with an approximately 3 dBA reduction in personal environmental sound exposures; this represents a substantial and meaningful reduction in this harmful exposure. Our analysis demonstrates the utility of everyday use devices in detecting behavior and exposure changes associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, and the usefulness of longitudinal, large-scale characterization of personal exposures and health impacts using wearable technology.

A 193 kDa protein consisting of 58 kDa subunits, which has pI values of 8.50 and 8.65, was purified from bovine brain cytosol. It formed heavy precipitates with tubulin, and the molar ratio of tubulin dimer to this protein in the precipitate was 3.2. In contrast to microtubules containing ordinary microtubule-associated proteins, these complexes remained stable against cold and 1 mM CaCl. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]