the placenta, it appears that one important factor in maintaining its concentration continuously at such high levels must be the specific impermeability of the placenta to this sugar which prevents its passage into the maternal circulation. Evidence has been reported (Karvonen & Raiha, 1954; Davies, 1955) that a similar relative placental impermeability to fructose may occur also in the rat, ra...

In the Sixth NTCIR Workshop, we organized the Patent Retrieval Task and performed three subtasks; Japanese Retrieval, English Retrieval, and Classification. This paper describes the Japanese Retrieval Subtask and English Retrieval Subtask, both of which were intended for patent-to-patent invalidity search task. We report the evaluation results of the groups participating in those subtasks.

†Background and Aims Mimetic seeds simulate the appearance of fleshy fruits and arilled seeds without producing nutritive tissues as a reward for seed dispersers. In this strategy of seed dispersal, seeds may remain attached to the mother plant for long periods after maturity, increasing their availability to naı̈ve seed dispersers. The hypothesis that seed coat impermeability in many tropical F...

The argument from illusion attempts to establish the bold claim that we are never perceptually aware of ordinary material objects. The argument has rightly received a great deal critical of scrutiny. But here we develop a criticism which, to our knowledge, has not hitherto been explored. We consider the canonical form of the argument as it is captured in contemporary expositions. There are two ...

BACKGROUND The issue of safety in the surgical procedure has recently been widely and openly discussed at the World Health Organization. The use of latex gloves is the current standard of protection during surgery, as they remain intact throughout the procedure. The present study was designed to evaluate the rate of glove perforation during a two-hand technique using polyester sutures in a cont...