Using notification data, diffusion of pandemic human influenza A (H1N1) 2009 in Hong Kong was explored with geographic information system (GIS) methodology. Point data were displayed and then analysed with interpolation and the application of SaTScanTM. Beginning from 6 initial foci, the spatial distribution has remained heterogeneous at the end of the first three months, with students function...

Azathioprine (AZA), 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP), and thioguanine (TG) are thiopurine drugs. These agents are indicated for the treatment of various diseases including hematologic malignancies, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), rheumatoid arthritis, and as immunosuppressants in solid organ transplants. Thiopurine drugs are metabolized, in part, by thiopurine methyltransferase (TPMT). TPMT displays g...

Background: The world is currently confronting the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century. Influenza vaccination is an effective preventive measure, but the unique epidemiological features of swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) (pH1N1) introduce uncertainty as to the best strategy for prioritization of vaccine allocation. We sought to determine optimal prioritization of vaccine distribution a...

Background: A Surveillance System was established for 19 diseases/syndromes in order to prevent and control communicable diseases after 2012 East Azerbaijan earthquakes. This study was conducted to investigate the strengths and weaknesses of the established SS. Methods: This study was carried out on an interview-based qualitative study using content analysis in 2012. Data was collected by semi-...

Excitable cells rely on selective ionic conductances for electrical signaling. The work of Hodgkin and Huxley (1) propelled the modern dissection of the mechanisms of selectivity. Their formulation postulated two independent sets of ionic conductances, Na and K, whose relative permeabilities changed during the course of excitation. Mullins subsequently proposed that Na and K traverse the membra...

Cued Speech (CS) is a manual code that complements lipreading to enhance speech perception from visual input. The phonetic translation of CS gestures needs to combine the manual CS information with information from the lips, taking into account the desynchronization delay (Attina et al. [1], Aboutabit et al. [2]) between these two flows of information. This paper focuses on HMM recognition of t...

The research described in this paper tries to explain the emergence and structure of systems of speech sounds. It investigates how a coherent system of speech sounds can emerge in a population of agents and how the constraints under which the system emerges impose structure through self-organisation. If self-organisation can explain structure, then innate and biologically evolved mechanisms are...

English. Machine learning offers two basic strategies for morphology induction: lexical segmentation and surface word relation. The first one assumes that words can be segmented into morphemes. Inducing a novel inflected form requires identification of morphemic constituents and a strategy for their recombination. The second approach dispenses with segmentation: lexical representations form par...

While phonetically-motivated change from below is a fundamental concept in contemporary approaches to phonology and variation, empirical data is sparse (Cedergren, 1973; Trudgill, 1974; Labov 2001), partly because changes usually go unnoticed until long after their inception, and because articulatory data (which can shed light on phonetic motivations) is often unavailable. This paper documents ...

thrombosis secondary to temporary cannulation with a Cordis sheath and Swan-Ganz catheter. An observation made in our institution is worthy of note. A 32-year-old woman with incomplete endocardial cushion defect and mild pulmonary hypertension underwent cor rective surgery. After induction of anesthesia, a Swan-Ganz catheter was placed through a Cordis sheath introduced into the internal jugula...