Search

The most distinguished feature of the female silhouette is the buttock. As such, the Brazilian Butt Lift (BBL) has become the most popular plastic surgery procedures in recent years. Despite the popularity of this buttock reshaping and augmentation procedure, there remains no prevailing standard for evaluating, planning surgical design, and objectifying buttock size and shape outcomes. In fact, we have observed a wide range of preferred buttock size and shapes among our patients. We have previously published the BBL assessment tool that serves to guide patient communication of their preferred buttock size and shape. In this study, we demonstrate how the BBL assessment tool can serve to optimize Brazilian Buttock Lift results. We present 25 case studies of how the BBL assessment tool can serve to optimize BBL results by providing a guide for evaluation, surgical design, and objectification of outcomes.Level of Evidence IV Therapeutic study. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

The notion of approximate left $$\phi$$ -biflatness for Banach algebras is introduced, where $$\phi :A\longrightarrow {\mathbb {C}}$$ is a non-zero multiplicative linear functional. Under this new concept, the approximate left $$\phi$$ -biflatness for some algebras like group algebras and measure algebras are studied. Moreover, some hereditary properties of this notion are given. Furthermore, some examples to show the differences of our notion and the classical ones are presented.

In this paper, we investigate the homological notion of left $$\phi $$ -biprojectivity for certain Banach algebras, where $$\phi $$ is a nonzero multiplicative linear functional. Our initial result states that this notion is equivalent to left $$\phi $$ -contractibility, provided that $$\mathcal {A}$$ has a left approximate identity. As an application, we study left $$\phi $$ -biprojectivity of Banach algebras related to locally compact groups. For instance, we show that for a locally compact group $$\mathcal {G}$$ , the Segal algebra $$S(\mathcal {G})$$ is left $$\phi $$ -biprojective if and only if $$\mathcal {G}$$ is compact and the Fourier algebra $$A(\mathcal {G})$$ is left $$\phi $$ -biprojective if and only if $$\mathcal {G}$$ is discrete. Finally, we give some examples which show the differences between our new notion and the classical ones.

In this paper, we show that a matrix algebra $$\mathcal {LM}_{I}^{p}(\mathbb {C})$$ is pseudo-contractible if and only if I is finite. In addition, for each non-empty set I, we show that $$\mathcal {LM}_{I}^{p}(\mathbb {C})$$ is always pseudo-amenable. Amenability, approximate biprojectivity and approximate biflatness of upper triangular algebras with respect to $$\mathcal {LM}_{I}^{p}(\mathbb {C})$$ are discussed here, where $$1\le p\le 2$$ .

In nature, lectins are widely dispersed proteins that selectively recognize and bind to carbohydrates and glycoconjugates via reversible bonds at specific binding sites. Many viral diseases have been treated with lectins due to their wide range of structures, specificity for carbohydrates, and ability to bind carbohydrates. Through hemagglutination assays, these proteins can be detected interacting with various carbohydrates on the surface of cells and viral envelopes. This review discusses the most robust lectins and their rationally engineered versions, such as lectibodies, as antiviral proteins. Fusion of lectin and antibody’s crystallizable fragment (Fc) of immunoglobulin G (IgG) produces a molecule called a “lectibody” that can act as a carbohydrate-targeting antibody. Lectibodies can not only bind to the surface glycoproteins via their lectins and neutralize and clear viruses or infected cells by viruses but also perform Fc-mediated antibody effector functions. These functions include complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC), antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), and antibody-dependent cell-mediated phagocytosis (ADCP). In addition to entering host cells, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein S1 binds to angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and downregulates it and type I interferons in a way that may lead to lung disease. The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein S1 and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) envelope are heavily glycosylated, which could make them a major target for developing vaccines, diagnostic tests, and therapeutic drugs. Lectibodies can lead to neutralization and clearance of viruses and cells infected by viruses by binding to glycans located on the envelope surface (e.g., the heavily glycosylated SARS-CoV-2 spike protein).

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of the biofertilizers Azotobacter chroococcum and Pseudomonas fluorescens with metribuzin in soil on growth and development of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in competition with weeds. An experimental design of randomized complete blocks with 13 treatments and 3 replicates was performed. Three levels of metribuzin including 500, 1000 and 1500 g ha−1 were soil inoculated. The results reveal that tomato could better grow (considering the morphological and physiological characteristics) in competition with weeds when the biofertilizers and low doses of metribuzin are used interactively. The biofertilizers decreased the environmental stress of competition with weeds on tomato and showed no significantly positive effect on the dry weight of weeds. All the crop characteristics were significantly influenced by the biofertilizer treatments. It could be concluded that tomato survives better under the stress derived from weeds competition when biofertilizers and lower doses of metribuzin are applied.

In this paper we characterize the Johnson pseudo-contractibility of \(\ell ^{1}(S)\), where S is a uniformly locally finite inverse semigroup. We show that for a Brandt semigroup \(S=M^{0}(G,I)\) over a non-empty set I, \(\ell ^{1}(S)\) is Johnson pseudo-contractible if and only if G is amenable and I is finite. We give some examples to show the difference between Johnson pseudo-contractibility, pseudo-amenability and pseudo-contractibility among the semigroup algebras.

Extremophilic microbial derived lipases have been widely applied in different biotechnological processes due to their resistance to harsh conditions such as high salt concentration, elevated temperature, and extreme acidic or alkaline pH. The present study was designed to overproduce the halophilic, thermoalkalophilic lipase of Bacillus atrophaeus FSHM2 through chemically induced random mutagenesis and optimization of cultural medium components assisted by statistical experimental design. At first, improvement of lipase production ability of B. atrophaeus FSHM2 was performed through exposure of the wild bacterial strain to ethidium bromide for 5–90 min to obtain a suitable mutant of lipase producer (designated as EB-5, 4301.1 U/l). Afterwards, Plackett–Burman experimental design augmented to D-optimal design was employed to optimize medium components (olive oil, maltose, glucose, sucrose, tryptone, urea, (NH4)2SO4, NaCl, CaCl2, and ZnSO4) for lipase production by the EB-5 mutant. A maximum lipase production of 14,824.3 U/l was predicted in the optimum medium containing 5% of olive oil, 0.5% of glucose, 0.5% of sucrose, 2% of maltose, 2.5 g/l of yeast extract, 1.75 g/l of urea, 1.75 g/l of (NH4)2SO4, 2.5 g/l of tryptone, 2 g/l of NaCl, 1 g/l of CaCl2, and 1 g/l of ZnSO4. A mean value of 14,773 ± 576.9 U/l of lipase was acquired from real experiments.

Why does low-quality information go viral? A stylized model of social media predicts that under real-world conditions of high information load and limited attention, low- and high-quality information are equally likely to go viral.

Utilization of cyclostationarity is a fresh paradigm in texture classification. This paper employs the Strip Spectral Correlation Analyzer (SSCA) as the new and superior method of such a category. The SSCA has been much more computational efficient than the other spectral correlation estimators, such as the FFT-Accumulated Method (FAM) or Direct Frequency Smoothing (DFS). Further, for comparable efficacy of the cyclostationary based analyzers, two new algorithms for implementation of both SSCA and FAM are proposed. The algorithms are fast, parallel, and linear-algebraic based, which brings many advantages in computational competence, feature generation flexibility, simplicity, and hardware implementation. SSCA as the unused promising texture analyzer and the new FAM implementation are compared with other state of the art methods in the case of classification accuracy, noise resistance and feature efficiency.

The authors wish to retract this Letter as follow-up work has highlighted that two errors were committed in the analyses used to produce Figs 4d and 5. In Fig. 4d, a software bug led to an incorrect value of the discriminative power represented by the blue bar. The correct value is τ = 0.17, as opposed to the value τ = 0.15 reported in the Letter. In Fig. 5, the model plot was produced with erroneous data. Produced with the correct data, the authors’ model does not account for the virality of both high- and low-quality information observed in the empirical Facebook data (inset). In the revised figure shown in the correction notice, the distribution of high-quality meme popularity predicted by the model is substantially broader than that of low-quality memes, which do not become popular. Thus, the original conclusion, that the model predicts that low-quality information is just as likely to go viral as high-quality information, is not supported. All other results in the Letter remain valid.

Over the past 20 years evidence has accumulated confirming the immunomodulatory role of the appendix in ulcerative colitis (UC). This led to the idea that appendectomy might alter the clinical course of established UC. The objective of this body of research is to evaluate the short-term and medium-term efficacy of appendectomy to maintain remission in patients with UC, and to establish the acceptability and cost-effectiveness of the intervention compared to standard treatment.These paired phase III multicenter prospective randomised studies will include patients over 18 years of age with an established diagnosis of ulcerative colitis and a disease relapse within 12 months prior to randomisation. Patients need to have been medically treated until complete clinical (Mayo score3) and endoscopic (Mayo score 0 or 1) remission. Patients will then be randomised 1:1 to a control group (maintenance 5-ASA treatment, no appendectomy) or elective laparoscopic appendectomy plus maintenance treatment. The primary outcome measure is the one year cumulative UC relapse rate - defined both clinically and endoscopically as a total Mayo-score ≥5 with endoscopic subscore of 2 or 3. Secondary outcomes that will be assessed include the number of relapses per patient at 12 months, the time to first relapse, health related quality of life and treatment costs, and number of colectomies in each arm.The ACCURE and ACCURE-UK trials will provide evidence on the role and acceptability of appendectomy in the treatment of ulcerative colitis and the effects of appendectomy on the disease course.NTR2883 ; ISRCTN56523019.

In this paper we define the task of place learning and describe one approach to this problem. Our framework represents distinct places as evidence grids, a probabilistic description of occupancy. Place recognition relies on nearest neighbor classification, augmented by a registration process to correct for translational differences between the two grids. The learning mechanism is lazy in that it involves the simple storage of inferred evidence grids. Experimental studies with physical and simulated robots suggest that this approach improves place recognition with experience, that it can handle significant sensor noise, that it benefits from improved quality in stored cases, and that it scales well to environments with many distinct places. Additional studies suggest that using historical information about the robot‘s path through the environment can actually reduce recognition accuracy. Previous researchers have studied evidence grids and place learning, but they have not combined these two powerful concepts, nor have they used systematic experimentation to evaluate their methods‘ abilities.

The difference between the partial molal entropies of ferrocene and ferricinium\((\bar S_{{\text{Fc}}}^{\text{0}} - \bar S_{{\text{Fc}}^{\text{ + }} }^{\text{0}} )\) has been determined in nine solvents from the temperature dependence of the formal potential of the ferricinium-ferrocene redox couple using a nonisothermal electrochemical cell arrangement in order to probe possible structural reasons for the limitations of the ‘ferrocene assumption’ for estimating the transfer thermodynamics of single ions between different solvents. In contrast to the uniformly small positive values of\((\bar S_{{\text{Fc}}}^{\text{0}} - \bar S_{{\text{Fc}}^{\text{ + }} }^{\text{0}} )\) predicted by the Born model, the experimental quantities varied widely from small or even negative values in hydrogen-bonded solvents (−5 to 3 e.u.) to substantially larger values (11–14 e.u.) in dipolar aprotic media. These variations appear to arise chiefly from additional solvent ordering in the vicinity of the ferricinium cation compared to the ferrocene molecule which is enhanced in the aprotic solvents. The variations in\((\bar S_{{\text{Fc}}}^{\text{0}} - \bar S_{{\text{Fc}}^{\text{ + }} }^{\text{0}} )\) between water and a number of nonaqueous solvents provide a predominate contribution to the differences between the free energies of single ion transfer calculated using the ferrocene and alternative extrathermodynamic assumptions.