Pre‐exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV infection has been introduced in only a few European countries. We investigated the potential to provide PrEP in the Central and Eastern European region, and in neighbouring countries.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the process of service capability base development in manufacturing firms. While scholars mostly studied capabilities in isolation we argue that it seems to be important to assess how service capabilities are interrelated as well as how a firm orchestrate their development and deployment. Study cross-compare 10 national subsidiaries of one capital equipment manufacturer to explore the effectiveness of their service capability base development processes. Results suggest that successful organizations opt for a sequential development of three service capability clusters, which we subsequently label the ‘presence’ (first), ‘progress’ (second) and ‘process’ cluster (third). Furthermore, our cases suggest that less successful organizations either fail to fully develop one or more of these capability clusters; they develop them simultaneously or in a different sequence. The understanding of the process may assist the decision makers to prioritize activities and gradually i...

Sounds produced by acoustic activity of the heart are series (sequences) of quasi-periodic events which are repeated throughout life, one period (cycle) of these events lasts less than one second. The advancements in technology have enabled us to create various tools for audio and graphic representations of these events. Physicians, by using such tools, can more accurately determine diagnosis by interpretation of heart sound and/or by visual interpretation of graphic displays of heart sounds. This paper presents frequency parameters and graphic illustrations of heart sound signals for two groups of heart murmurs: innocent Still’s murmur and pathologic heart murmur of Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD). Also, on behalf of the frequency analysis of acoustic cardiac signals with Still’s murmur was given a medical explanation of cause and origin of Still’s murmur.

It has recently been proven that the invariance of observables with respect to angle dependent phase rotations of reaction amplitudes mixes multipoles changing also their relative strength [1]. All contemporary partial wave analyses (PWA) in $\eta$ photoproduction on protons, either energy dependent (ED) [2-5] or single energy (SE) [6] do not take this effect into consideration. It is commonly accepted that there exist quite some similarity in the $E0+$ multipole for all PWA, but notable differences in this, but also in remaining partial waves still remain. In this paper we demonstrate that once this phase rotations are properly taken into account, all contemporary ED and SE partial wave analysis become almost identical for the dominant $E0+$ multipole, and the agreement among all other multipoles becomes much better. We also show that the the measured observables are almost equally well reproduced for all PWA, and the remaining differences among multipoles can be attributed solely to the difference of predictions for unmeasured observables. So, new measurements are needed.

It is intriguing that a rare, inherited lysosomal storage disorder Niemann-Pick type C (NPC) shares similarities with Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We have previously reported an enhanced processing of β-amyloid precursor protein (APP) by β-secretase (BACE1), a key enzyme in the pathogenesis of AD, in NPC1-null cells. In this work, we characterized regional and temporal expression and processing of the recently identified BACE1 substrates seizure protein 6 (Sez6) and seizure 6-like protein (Sez6L), and APP, in NPC1-/- (NPC1) and NPC1+/+ (wt) mouse brains. We analysed 4-weeks old brains to detect the earliest changes associated with NPC, and 10-weeks of age to identify changes at terminal disease stage. Sez6 and Sez6L were selected due to their predominant cleavage by BACE1, and their potential role in synaptic function that may contribute to presentation of seizures and/or motor impairments in NPC patients. While an enhanced BACE1-cleavage of all three substrates was detected in NPC1 vs. wt-mouse brains at 4-weeks of age, at 10-weeks increased proteolysis by BACE1 was observed for Sez6L in the cortex, hippocampus and cerebellum of NPC1-mice. Interestingly, both APP and Sez6L were found to be expressed in Purkinje neurons and their immunostaining was lost upon Purkinje cell neurodegeneration in 10-weeks old NPC1 mice. Furthermore, in NPC1- vs. wt-mouse primary cortical neurons, both Sez6 and Sez6L showed increased punctuate staining within the endolysosomal pathway as well as increased Sez6L and BACE1-positive puncta. This indicates that a trafficking defect within the endolysosomal pathway may play a key role in enhanced BACE1-proteolysis in NPC disease. Overall, our findings suggest that enhanced proteolysis by BACE1 could be a part of NPC disease pathogenesis. Understanding the basic biology of BACE1 and the functional impact of cleavage of its substrates is important to better evaluate the therapeutic potential of BACE1 against AD and, possibly, NPC disease.

The steady-state behavior of thermal transport in bulk and nanostructured semiconductors has been widely studied, both theoretically and experimentally. On the other hand, fast transients and frequency dynamics of thermal conduction has been given less attention. The frequency response of thermal conductivity has become more crucial in recent years, especially in light of the constant rise in the clock frequencies in microprocessors and terahertz sensing applications. Thermal conductivity in response to a time-varying temperature field starts decaying when the frequency exceeds a cut-off frequency Ωc, which is related to the inverse of phonon relaxation time τ , on the order of 2-10 ps in most bulk semiconductors. Phonons in graphene have much longer phonon relaxation times, which we show leads to far lower Ωc. Our calculations, based on the phonon Boltzmann equation coupled with first-principles dispersion, show that dynamical thermal conductivity of graphene resembles a low-pass filter that decays beyond an Ωc ranging from 100 MHz to 10 GHz, controlled by temperature and ribbon width. The response parallels the Drude model of electrons, but with far lower cut-off. Moreover, the presence of strong normal processes in graphene results in a complex-valued conductivity and gradual transition around Ωc, with the resistive contribution to the heat flux having higher cutoff frequency and smaller phase lag than the hydrodynamic part. The dynamical conductivity will impact dissipation in high-frequency applications of graphene. Our findings also provide a platform for future studies of hydrodynamic transport and wave-like, or second sound, heat transfer by tuning the frequency of the applied temperature field.

In this paper is presented a procedure for the application of one computational geometry algorithm in the process of generating hidden cryptographic keys from one segment of the 3D image. The presented procedure consists of three phases. In the first phase, is done the separation of one segment from the 3D image and determination of triangulation of the separated polygon. In the second phase, is done a conversion from the obtained triangulation of the polygon in the record which represent the Catalan key. In the third phase, the Catalan-key is applied in encryption of text based on the balanced parentheses combinatorial problem.