Approximately 30% of foxes given two doses of an inactivated rabies antigen delivered directly into the intestinal tract developed an immune response as measured by rabies serum neutralizing antibodies....Full Text Available
A recent clinical trial of a T-cell-based AIDS vaccinedelivered with recombinant adenovirus type 5 (rAd5) vectors showed no efficacy in lowering viral load and was associated with increased risk of...Full Text Available
... a flu shot There is a new nasal spray version of the vaccine, and it contains weakened ... the LAIV (Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine). The nasal-spray flu vaccine contains three different live but weakened ...
home when you are sick helps everyone you care about Questions & Answers Flu Vaccine: Q&A Vaccine Dosage & Administration Vaccine Supply for 2011-12 Season Vaccine Supply and...
home when you are sick helps everyone you care about Questions & Answers Flu Vaccine: Q&A Vaccine Dosage & Administration Vaccine Supply for 2011-12 Season Vaccine Supply and...
home when you are sick helps everyone you care about Questions & Answers Flu Vaccine: Q&A Vaccine Dosage & Administration Vaccine Supply for 2011-12 Season Vaccine Supply and...
Ten children receiving maintenance dialysis were immunized with the standard dose of measles-mumps-rubella vaccine between 15 and 33 months of age. Immune responses to vaccination were determined using commercially available enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays for measles, mumps, and rubella viruses. Eight children responded to measles vaccine, 5 to mumps vaccine, 8 to rubella vaccine, and only 3 children to all three vaccines, compared with a seroconversion rate of over 90% to all three vaccines in healthy children (P less than 0.0001). We contend that the relatively poor immunocompetence of our dialysis patients explains their less than optimal vaccine response and suggest that children vaccinated while undergoing dialysis be tested to confirm serological evidence of immunity. PMID:1571219
The first candidate rotavirus vaccine was a live attenuated oral vaccine made by the classical empirical method of serial passage of virus in tissue culture cells. Current tetravalent vaccine candidates that are in the final stages of efficacy testing in the United States were made by genetic reassortment. This article briefly highlights how advances in the basic understanding of the molecular biology of rotaviruses have facilitated vaccine development. New approaches for second-generation vaccines and improvements in vaccine efficacy based on further exploitation of the tools and knowledge of rotavirus molecular biology and pathogenesis are discussed. PMID:8752289
Individual laser cooled atoms are delivered on demand from a single atom magneto-optic trap to a high-finesse optical cavity using an atom conveyor. Strong coupling of the atom with the cavity field allows simultaneous cooling and detection of individual atoms for time scales exceeding 15 s. The single atom scatter rate is studied as a function of probe-cavity detuning and probe Rabi frequency, and the experimental results are in good agreement with theoretical predictions. We demonstrate the ability to manipulate the position of a single atom relative to the cavity mode with excellent control and reproducibility.
A computer model of an electrothermal accelerator has been developed which applies to the plasma generator as well as the gun barrel, and it for the first time allows study of the interdependent physical processes in both components simultaneously. The code comprises a 2D transient description of the plasma arc, a 2D, two-phase interior ballistics module, and a preprocessor delivering the required plasma physical data. Some results on the flow field, pressure and temperature in a typical accelerator are presented, and probable limitations on the performance of such a system are discussed. The code is to be applied to different concepts of electrothermal chemical guns.
Ninety percent of foxes fed commercial ERA vaccine in a specially designed bait developed rabies serum neutralizing antibodies. The vaccine bait did not cause clinical signs of rabies when consumed...Full Text Available
BACKGROUND: Although the effectiveness of influenza vaccination in high-risk groups has been proven, vaccine coverage continues to be less than 50% in The Netherlands. To improve vaccination rates,...Full Text Available
SummaryBecause increasing numbers of HIV vaccine candidates are being tested globally, it is essential to differentiate vaccine-from virus-induced antibodies. Most of the currently...Full Text Available
The extensive diversity of Plasmodium falciparum antigens is a major obstacle to a broadly effective malaria vaccine but population genetics has rarely been used to guide vaccine design....Full Text Available
BackgroundThe first vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer has been licensed, and in future, vaccination may be routinely offered to 10–14 year...Full Text Available
There is a quest for the development of a new generation of vaccines consisting of well-defined subunit antigens. For a number of practical reasons it is attractive to develop vaccines on the basis...Full Text Available
The human immunodeficiency virus Tat protein is essential for virus replication and is a candidate vaccine antigen. Macaques immunized with Tat or chemically modified Tat toxoid having the same clade...Full Text Available
The development of an HIV vaccine will require a more precise understanding of the immunological and virological underpinnings of HIV infection. Magnetofection, the process of magnetizing HIV...Full Text Available
Although major inroads into making antiretroviral therapy available in resource-poor countries have been made, there is an urgent need for an effective vaccine administered shortly after birth, which...Full Text Available
... Weiss, S., D. Kobiler, H. Levy, H. Marcus, A. Pass, N. Rothschild, and Z ... of Bacillus anthracis spores conferred by a protective antigen-based vaccine in rabbits ...
The attitude of Nigerian mothers, mainly Yoruba, towards measles vaccine and other aspects of prevention are influenced by different perceptions of the cause of measles. There is a significant correlation...Full Text Available
The entire genome of rabies virus vaccine strain Flury-LEP-C, a Chinese variant of the rabies virus vaccine strain Flury-LEP, was sequenced. The overall length of the genome of Flury-LEP-C strain was...Full Text Available
BackgroundAlthough the World Health Organization had recommended that every child be vaccinated for Hepatitis B by the early 1980s, large multinational pharmaceutical companies held...Full Text Available
During the anamnestic response, the sera of four rabbits immunized with a polyvalent pneumococcal vaccine contained large amounts of cryoglobulins belonging to the G and M immunoglobulin classes. These...Full Text Available
Splenectomy or pretreatment of adult hamsters with cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan) increased the lethality of the TC-83 vaccine strain of Venezuelan encephalitis virus (VEE), inoculated subcutaneously, from 12% for normal hamsters to 75 and 76% respectively. A...
PurposeWe previously reported a randomized phase II clinical trial combining a poxvirus-based vaccine encoding PSA with radiotherapy in patients with localized prostate...Full Text Available
The effect of abatacept, a selective T-cell co-stimulation modulator, on vaccination has not been previously investigated. In this open-label, single-dose, randomized, parallel-group, controlled study,...Full Text Available
We studied the effect of booster injections and the long-term immune response after injections of an anti-human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) lipopeptide vaccine. This vaccine was injected alone...Full Text Available
A field study was conducted under commercial feedlot conditions at 2 sites in western Canada to determine the relative effects of a univalent viral vaccine (MLV 1) program versus a multivalent viral...Full Text Available
Introduction: Tumor-derived heat shock protein (HSP)-peptide complexes (HSPPCs) induced immunity against malignancies in preclinical trials, working across tumor types and bypassing the need to identify single immunogenic peptides. These results paved the way for the use of human gp96 obtained from autologous tumor samples as an anti-cancer vaccine. Areas covered: Autologous tumor-derived HSP gp96 peptide complex (HSPPC-96) vaccine is emerging as a tumor- and patient-specific cancer vaccine, with confirmed activity in several malignancies. It has been tested in Phase III clinical trials in advanced melanoma and kidney cancer with evidence for efficacy in patients with earlier stage disease. HSPPC-96-based vaccine demonstrated an excellent safety profile, thus emerging as a novel therapeuti...
The authors investigated the application of pulsed corona discharge process to the removal of SO{sub 2} and NO{sub x} from industrial flue gas of an ioron-ore sintering plant. This study was performed on a pilot scale, which is the most advanced demonstration of this process. The flow rate of 5000 m{sup 3}/h of the flue gas was successfully treated. The electrode structure of the corona reactor is the same with that of conventional electrostatic precipitator. The authors made use of magnetic pulse compression technology to produce repetitive high voltage pulse. Pulse width (full width at half maximum) was reduced to less than 1 {micro}s by connecting a resister in parallel with the corona reactor. An inductor was added to the resister in series to minimize the loss by restricting the current flowing through the resister. By this way, they were able to deliver pulse power with peak voltage of 110 kV and peak current of 2.3 kA to the corona reactor. Chemical ...
Multicast transmission has several distinctive traits as opposed to more commonly studied unicast networks. Specially, these include (i) identical packets must be delivered successfully to several nodes, (ii) outage could simultaneously happen at different receivers, and (iii) the multicast rate is dominated by the receiver with the weakest link in order to minimize outage and retransmission. To capture these key traits, we utilize a Poisson cluster process consisting of a distinct Poisson point process (PPP) for the transmitters and receivers, and then define the multicast transmission capacity (MTC) as the maximum achievable multicast rate times the number of multicast clusters per unit volume, accounting for outages and retransmissions. Our main result shows that if $\\tau$ transmission attempts are allowed in a multicast cluster, the MTC is $\\Theta\\left(\\rho k^{x}\\log(k)\\right)$ where $\\rho$ and $x$ are functions of $\\tau$ depending ...
RNA interference has become a powerful biological tool over the last decade. In this study, a tetracycline-inducible shRNA vector system was designed for silencing CFP expression and delivered alongside the yfp marker gene into Chinese hamster ovary cells using impalefection on spatially indexed vertically aligned carbon nanofiber arrays (VACNFs). The VACNF architecture provided simultaneous delivery of multiple genes, subsequent adherence and proliferation of interfaced cells, and repeated monitoring of single cells over time. Following impalefection and tetracycline induction, 53.1% 10.4% of impalefected cells were fully silenced by the inducible CFP-silencing shRNA vector. Additionally, efficient CFP-silencing was observed in single cells among a population of cells that remained CFP-expressing. This effective transient expression system enables rapid analysis of gene silencing effects using RNAi in single cells and cell populations.
If climate changes are expected, their regional impacts are of special interest. Up to now (and in the near future) global climate models have been unable to deliver applicable results to describe the climate situation within a selected region (IPCC, 1995). That is why the description of the climate development in such an area must be realised by another possibility of creating meteorological data. Of importance besides is that the consistency in space and time and also between all meteorological parameters is not infracted. The used method proceeds on the assumption that the large scale changes of several meteorological parameters for a defined region calculated by a GCM can be regarded as correct as regards their tendencies. Based on such an assumption, long-term observed time series are prepared by statistical methods in such a way that they reflect the GCM-calculated changes by a scenario. The advantage of this method lies in the reduction of the defects of the ...
In building new pipelines, the main preoccupation of the countries along the Persian Gulf is transport safety. The shortest or the most profitable route is no longer sought, but rather the politically least dangerous route. If in itself the decrease in dependency on a single route and the multiplication of pipelines reduce vulnerability, transport costs by pipeline are always higher than maritime transport costs. Moreover, still another economic factor has to be considered, that of drilling in the seas, which today represents about 20% of production, a percentage which is likely to increase. Oil produced on continental shelves can be delivered from a platform to tankers almost as it comes out of the well. In this case, it seems to be completely irrational to transport this oil through one or several countries and then to deliver it to a tanker. And so, dependency on the Straits of Hormuz is quasi-irreversible. In the event of a conflict, ...
Persistent hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection affects 170 million people worldwide. Acute HCV infection is often asymptomatic, but many infected individuals develop persistent infections that may lead to development of end-stage liver diseases, including liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Thus, an HCV vaccine that could significantly lower the chronicity rate would have a major impact on the disease burden. Unfortunately, HCV is a highly mutable virus, and escape mutations can undermine vaccine-induced virus-specific immunity. Also, HCV exists as multiple genotypes, and so genotype-specific vaccines might be required to achieve broad protection. Finally, vaccine development has been hampered by the lack of a small animal model and cell culture systems, but these are currently being established. Despite these obstacles, several vaccine candidates tested in the chimpanzee ...
IntroductionThe outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe intensified interest in the control and prevention of cholera. While there is agreement that safe water, sanitation, and personal...Full Text Available
Age-related alterations in the cellular composition of the B lineage are a major cause of the poor antibody response to vaccination and to infectious agents among the elderly population. The mechanisms...Full Text Available
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A letter of inquiry was sent to 21 countries in Europe to ascertain their experience of diphtheria during the last 20 years. An analysis of the 15 replies showed that all relied on childhood vaccination...Full Text Available
BackgroundAlthough advances in rehydration therapy have made cholera a treatable disease with low case-fatality in settings with appropriate medical care, cholera continues...Full Text Available
... view on the utility of such attacks, see JH Rothschild, Tomorrow's Weapons ... Aum Shinrikyo may have had a stolen vaccine anthrax strain incapable ...
Background and aims. The multiplicity of vaccine injections during childhood leads to iterative painful and stressful experiences which may lead in turn to anticipated pain and then possibly to a true needle phobia. We aimed at evaluating a multifactorial strategy of pain management combining pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches during vaccination, as compared to usual care, in 4- to 12-year-old children. Methods. In all, 239 children were enroled by 25 family practitioners in an open-label study. After a pseudo-randomization, usual pain management (n = 132) was compared to a multifactorial strategy (n = 107) associating preliminary application of an anesthesic patch, preferential use of specified vaccines, child education by the parents and the doctor, parental accompaniment...
BackgroundMycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis causes systemic infection and chronic intestinal inflammation in many species including...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe Plasmodium falciparum pre-erythrocytic stage candidate vaccine RTS,S is being developed for protection of young children against...Full Text Available
Vibrio cholerae 638 (El Tor, Ogawa), a new CTXΦ-negative hemagglutinin/protease-defective strain that is a cholera vaccine candidate, was examined for safety and immunogenicity...Full Text Available
Adenovirus vaccine vectors derived from rare human serotypes have been shown to be less potent than serotype 5 (Ad5) at inducing immune responses to encoded antigens. To identify highly immunogenic...Full Text Available
...INFORMATION Diarrhoeal disease Food safety and foodborne illness Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) Cholera WHO PROGRAMMES AND ACTIVITIES Child and Adolescent Health and Development (...FOS) Initiative for Vaccine Research (IVR) TECHNICAL INFORMATION Vaccine research: diarrhoeal diseases Cholera Water-related diseases Household water treatment and safe storage WHO Global Salm-Surv ...PUBLICATIONS Diarrhoea: child and adolescent health Diarrhoea: cholera RELATED TOPICS - Child health - Water - Food safety - Cholera - Travel - Breastfeeding ...
The use of tick vaccines in mammalian hosts has been shown to be the most promising alternative tick control method to current use of acaricides, which suffers from a number of limitations. However,...Full Text Available
The efficacy of a heat inactivated hepatitis B virus vaccine, containing 3 micrograms hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), was studied in a high risk group of 800 susceptible homosexual men by a randomised...Full Text Available
Veterinarians and farmers employing multivalent killed vaccines in lactating dairy cows have reported transient losses in milk production. Few studies have quantified this loss. In this report, effects...Full Text Available
The Yellow Fever Vaccine 17D (YFV17D) has been used as a vector for the Lassa virus glycoprotein precursor (LASV-GPC) resulting in construction of YFV17D/LASV-GPC recombinant virus. The virus...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe malaria vaccine candidate antigen RTS,S includes parts of the pre-erythrocytic stage circumsporozoite protein fused to the Hepatitis B surface antigen. Two Adjuvant...Full Text Available
Technology roadmaps serve as pathways to the future. They call attention to future needs for research and development; provide a structure for organizing technology forecasts and programs; and help communicate technological needs and expectations among end users and the research and development (R and D) community. Critical Technology roadmaps, of which the Robotics and Intelligent Machines (RIM) Roadmap is one example, focus on enabling or cross-cutting technologies that address the needs of multiple US Department of Energy (DOE) offices. Critical Technology roadmaps must be responsive to mission needs of the offices; must clearly indicate how the science and technology can improve DOE capabilities; and must describe an aggressive vision for the future of the technology itself. The RIM Roadmap defines a DOE research and development path for the period beginning today, and continuing through the year 2020. Its purpose is to identify, select and develop objectives that will satisfy ...
Increasing frequency of skin cancer, mycosis fungoides, Kaposi sarcoma etc, it need to treatment dose planning for total skin electron beam (TSEB) therapy. Appropriate treatment planning for TSEB therapy is needed to give homogeneous dose distribution throughout the entire skin surface. The energy of 6 MeV electron from the 18 MeV medical linear accelerator was adapted for superficial total skin electron beam therapy. The energy of the electron beam was reduced to 4.2 MeV by a 0.5cmx90cmx180cm acryl screen placed in a feet front of the patient. Six dual field beam was adapted for total skin irradiation to encompass the entire body surface from head to toe simultaneously. The patients were treated behind the acryl screen plate acted as a beam scatterer and contained a parallel-plate shallow ion chamber for dosimetry and beam monitoring. During treatment, the patient was placed in six different positions due to be homogeneous dose distribution for whole skin around ...
Optogenetics, the ability to use light to activate and silence specific neuron types within neural networks in vivo and in vitro, is revolutionizing neuroscientists' capacity to understand how defined neural circuit elements contribute to normal and pathological brain functions. Typically, awake behaving experiments are conducted by inserting an optical fiber into the brain, tethered to a remote laser, or by utilizing an implanted light-emitting diode (LED), tethered to a remote power source. A fully wireless system would enable chronic or longitudinal experiments where long duration tethering is impractical, and would also support high-throughput experimentation. However, the high power requirements of light sources (LEDs, lasers), especially in the context of the extended illumination periods often desired in experiments, precludes battery-powered approaches from being widely applicable. We have developed a headborne device weighing 2 g capable of wirelessly receiving power using a ...
BackgroundInternet education is increasingly provided to health professionals, but little is known about the most effective strategies for delivering the content. The purpose of...Full Text Available
Convection-enhanced drug delivery (CED) is a novel approach to delivering drugs into brain tissue. Drugs are delivered continuously via a catheter, enabling large volume distributions of high drug concentrations...Full Text Available
The issue of the duration of immunity, particularly for the modified live viral components of veterinary vaccines, has been a significant part of the recent vaccination debate. One manufacturer has increased the recommended booster interval for these components to 3 years give name and another now states `up to 4 years' immunity.There remain many unanswered questions regarding this duration of immunity (DOI). Studies suitable for data sheet claims are time consuming and costly and can only be performed in laboratory dogs under tightly controlled conditions. Evidence from rabies serology testing in the UK shows that the response of individual animals to routine vaccination is highly variable. Much of the published field evidence on the persistence of antibody titres originates from North Am...
In this paper we present an overview of the literature on efficacy and safety trials of the various pneumococcal conjugate vaccines on the market (PCV7) and in development (PCV9, PCV11 and allegedly PCV10 and PCV13), as well as of observations from post-licensure studies. Seven- (PCV7) and nine-valent PCV (PCV9) are reported to be sufficiently immunogenic after administration of a 3+1 schedule in infants in various RCTs. PncOMPC (PCV7 with a protein of N. meningitidis as a carrier) is less immunogenic, though this may have no repercussions for the protective efficacy against clinical disease. PCV7 is 82-97% efficacious against vaccine serotype (VT) IPD, 90% efficacious against (clinically diagnosed) pneumococcal pneumonia, and, like the 11-valent PCV, 57% efficacious against VT acute otiti...
Oral vaccination is the most desirable immunization method by which to prevent fish disease occurring at the early larval stage. We developed an Escherichia coli-based oral nervous necrosis virus (NNV) subunit vaccine and demonstrated its effectiveness in orange spotted grouper (Epinephelus coioides) fry. However, the incubation period was determined to be over 2weeks. To enhance the efficacy and shorten the incubation period, a safe and digestible biological adjuvant should be found. Vibrio anguillarum, a common marine bacterium with immune-stimulatory capability was selected as an expression host. An expression vector containing its heat shock protein 60 gene (groE) as an inducible promoter was constructed to express recombinant NNV coat protein as an antigen. The recombinant V. anguilla...
Recommended treatment of chronic hepatitis B with interferon-α and/or nucleos(t)ide analogues does not lead to a satisfactory result. Induction of HBV-specific T cells by therapeutic...Full Text Available
The trematode Fasciola hepatica (Fa.he.) is a common parasite of human and livestock. The hemoglobin (Hb) of Fa.he., a potential immunogen, was chosen for characterization...Full Text Available
BackgroundTrypanosoma cruzi, the etiologic agent of Chagas Disease, is a major vector borne health problem in Latin America and an emerging...Full Text Available
AbstractIndividual informed consent is a key ethical obligation for clinical studies, but empirical studies show that key requirements are often not met. Common recommendations to strengthen...Full Text Available
In the absence of a vaccine, there is an urgent need for the development of safe and effective topical microbicides to prevent the sexual transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)....Full Text Available
Genetically identical rhesus monkeys would have tremendous utility as models for the study of human disease and would be particularly valuable for vaccine trials and tissue transplantation studies where...Full Text Available
BackgroundPolychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) may cause immunotoxic effects, but the detailed dose–response relationship and possible vulnerable time windows of exposure are...Full Text Available
A preventive medicine program of rubella control for trainees at the Air Force Military Training Center, Lackland AFB, Texas, was begun in October 1977. Incoming trainees were screened for rubella susceptibility,...Full Text Available
...broad range of experience in designing and building research and development laboratories for products such as vaccines, blood and sera, biological products, medical devices, solid dosage forms , highly potent products and cytotoxic material. We also have experience in a range of modular laboratories for TSE research, ...
A prospective cohort study was undertaken in two commercial California dairies. The treatment group, 246 cows, received three doses of a whole cell bacterin of J5 Escherichia coli (mutant of E. coli...Full Text Available
BackgroundSurrogate immunologic markers for natural and vaccine-mediated protection against tuberculosis (TB) have not been identified.MethodsHIV-infected...Full Text Available
Israel has faced the challenge presented by epidemic poliomyelitis by using different immunization strategies. In the 1950s, inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) helped to reduce the total burden of...Full Text Available
In vivo plasminogen responses to various stimuli were studied. Plasminogen-125I was prepared and used first for metabolic studies of plasminogen in control dogs. The average results were:...Full Text Available
Cholera vaccine candidate Peru-15 was derived from a Vibrio cholerae O1 El Tor Inaba strain by deleting the cholera toxin genetic element, introducing the gene encoding cholera toxin B subunit into recA, and screening for nonmotility. In a controlled study, Peru-15 (2 x 10(8) cfu) was administered to 11 volunteers. No vaccinee developed diarrhea, and 10 of 11 had > 4-fold rises in vibriocidal antibody titers. One month later, 5 vaccinees and 5 control volunteers were challenged with wild type V. cholerae O1. Four of 5 controls developed diarrhea (mean, 1.9 L). Two Peru-15 vaccinees developed diarrhea, 1 with < 0.3 L and 1 with approximately 1.0 L; this latter volunteer had not developed a significant vibriocidal immune response to vaccination. Peru-15 shows promise as a single-dose, oral cholera vaccine that is safe, immunogenic, and protective. PMID:7561195
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus that cost nearly 800 lives. While there have been no recent outbreaks of the disease, the threat...Full Text Available
Antibodies against feline leukemia virus (FeLV) and the feline oncornavirus-associated cell membrane antigen (FOCMA) were transferred from pregnant cats to their suckling kittens. All of these kittens...Full Text Available
... were erroneous. The oriental rat flea, Xenopsylla cheopis Rothschild, is considered to be the primary vector of ... laboratory and production of Weigl's exanthematous typhus vaccine. In Maintenance of hum...
In this report we define the parameters of the human immune response after immunization with hepatitis B vaccine. 2 wk after booster immunization, there is significant spontaneous secretion of antibody...Full Text Available
The use of dendritic cells (DCs) as a cellular adjuvant is a promising approach to the immunotherapy of cancer. It has previously been demonstrated that DCs pulsed ex vivo with Toxoplasma gondii...Full Text Available
Increasing numbers of human cowpox virus infections that are being observed and that particularly affect young non-vaccinated persons have renewed interest in this zoonotic disease. Usually causing...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe objective of the study was to analyse the evolution of Bordetella pertussis population and the influence of herd immunity in different areas of the...Full Text Available
Evaluation of the protective efficacy of recombinant T-cell-reactive proteins of Coccidioides posadasii in a murine model of coccidioidomycosis has led to the discovery of potential...Full Text Available
BackgroundAntigen sparing and cross-protective immunity are regarded as crucial in pandemic influenza vaccine development. Both targets can be achieved by adjuvantation strategy...Full Text Available
Definition of the T-lymphocyte responses to dengue viruses should aid in the development of safe and effective vaccines and help to explain the pathophysiology of dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue...Full Text Available
The identification of the protein targets for dengue virus-specific T lymphocytes may be useful for planning the development of subunit vaccines against dengue. We studied the recognition by murine...Full Text Available
vaccination card during trial enrollment at the KEMRI/CDC site in Kenya. (Alan Rubin, KEMRI) KEMRI Clinical Officer Paul Ogai reviews a prospective participant's...
Public health activities, especially infectious disease control, depend on effective teamwork. We present the results of a pilot audit questionnaire aimed at assessing the quality of public health services...Full Text Available
... A better understanding of the links between nutrients, the gut microbiome and the intestinal immune system is likely to pave the way to the development of innovative approaches that target activation of specific immunological pathways for promoting the hostrsquo;s gut defense. Such knowledge should positively impact on the development of vaccine formulations and intervention strategies for improved control of enteric infections in developing countries. Registration fees # The Registration Fee is $715.00 on and before September 7, 2011. # After September 7, 2011, the ...
Correlates between immunological parameters and protection against Bacillus anthracis infection in animals vaccinated with protective antigen (PA)-based vaccines could provide surrogate markers to evaluate the putative protective efficiency of immunization in humans. In previous studies we demonstrated that neutralizing antibody levels serve as correlates for protection in guinea pigs (S. Reuveny et al., Infect. Immun. 69:2888-2893, 2001; H. Marcus et al., Infect. Immun. 72:3471-3477, 2004). In this study we evaluated similar correlates for protection by active and passive immunization of New Zealand White rabbits. Full immunization and partial immunization were achieved by single and multiple injections of standard and diluted doses of a PA-based vaccine. Passive immunization was carried out by injection of immune sera from rabbits vaccinated with PA-based vaccine prior to ...
In this paper we present an overview of the literature on efficacy and safety trials of the various pneumococcal conjugate vaccines on the market (PCV7) and in development (PCV9, PCV11 and allegedly PCV10 and PCV13), as well as of observations from post-licensure studies. Seven- (PCV7) and nine-valent PCV (PCV9) are reported to be sufficiently immunogenic after administration of a 3+1 schedule in infants in various RCTs. PncOMPC (PCV7 with a protein of N. meningitidis as a carrier) is less immunogenic, though this may have no repercussions for the protective efficacy against clinical disease. PCV7 is 82-97% efficacious against vaccine serotype (VT) IPD, 90% efficacious against (clinically diagnosed) pneumococcal pneumonia, and, like the 11-valent PCV, 57% efficacious against VT acute otitis media. Naturally, it would be of paramount public health interest if the same levels of efficacy and effectiveness could be achieved with fewer doses. ...
The State Energy Conservation Office has executed its first Fuel Cell Project which was awarded under a Department of Energy competitive grant process. The Texas LPG Fuel Processor Development and Fuel Cell Demonstration Program is a broad-based public/private partnership led by the Texas State Energy Conservation Office (SECO). Partners include the Alternative Fuels Research and Education Division (AFRED) of the Railroad Commission of Texas; Plug Power, Inc., Latham, NY, UOP/HyRadix, Des Plaines, IL; Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), San Antonio, TX; the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). The team proposes to mount a development and demonstration program to field-test and evaluate markets for HyRadix?s LPG fuel processor system integrated into Plug Power?s residential-scale GenSys 5C (5 kW) PEM fuel cell system in a variety of building types and conditions of service. The program?s primary goal is ...
Data from 52 litters farrowed in two seasons of a cross-fostering experiment were analyzed to estimate variances and covariances for additive direct and maternal genetic effects on immune response to pseudorabies virus and B. bronchiseptica vaccine. Twenty purebred boars and 44 sows of the Duroc, Landrace and Yorkshire breeds were used. Immune response was measured after vaccine challenge. A modified-live pseudorabies (PR) vaccine was administered to piglets at 28 d of age; response was measured by log2 serum neutralization titers at 56 d. An inactivated B. bronchiseptica bacterin was administered at 28, 42 and 112 d. Antibody levels were measured relative to positive and negative controls at 28, 56 and 119 d by using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results from this study for heritability were .18 +/- .09 for PR titer and .15 +/- .07 and .52 +/- .15 for 56- and 119-d ELISA values, respectively. The ...
A method and apparatus for operating a compression ignition engine having a cylinder wall, a piston, and a head defining a combustion chamber. The method and apparatus includes delivering fuel substantially uniformly into the combustion chamber, the fuel being dispersed throughout the combustion chamber and spaced from the cylinder wall, delivering an oxidant into the combustion chamber sufficient to support combustion at a first predetermined combustion duration, and delivering a diluent into the combustion chamber sufficient to change the first predetermined combustion duration to a second predetermined combustion duration different from the first predetermined combustion duration.
Lentiviral vectors enter cells with high efficiency and deliver stable transduction through integration into host chromosomes, but their preference for integration within actively transcribing genes...Full Text Available
PurposeClinical trials have commenced to evaluate the feasibility of targeting malignant gliomas with genetically engineered cytolytic T-cells (CTLs) delivered directly...Full Text Available
The most frequent ultimate cause of death is myocardial arrest. In many cases this is due to myocardial hypoxia, generally arising from failure of the coronary macro- and microcirculation to deliver...Full Text Available
All Streptococcus pneumoniae strains isolated from paediatric clinical samples at Heraklion University General Hospital in the 10-year period 2000-2009 were tested for serotype and susceptibility to antimicrobials. Among a total of 258 strains, 159 were isolated in the 5-year period 2000-2004, before the introduction of the heptavalent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7), and 99 in the post-PCV7 5-year period 2005-2009. The prevalence of PCV7-included serotypes decreased in the post-PCV7 period (p?=?0.0002), but an increase was observed for serotypes 7F (p?=?0.002) and 19A (p?=?0.004). Pan-susceptibility rates and susceptibility to cotrimoxazole increased in the post-PCV7 period (p?=?0.01 and p?=?0.008, respectively), but serotype 19A emerged as a contributor to multi-resistance (p?=?0.007). PCV7 was followed by decreased S. pneumoniae resistance and prevalence of vaccine-related serotypes but increased prevalence of serotypes 7F and 19A. ...
Based on studies on the genetic and molecular basis of Shigella flexneri invasive properties, we have constructed and evaluated a double mutant of S. flexneri serotype 5 for utilization as a live attenuated oral vaccine against shigellosis. The first mutation, icsA, blocks intracellular spread of bacteria as well as cell-to-cell infection. It affects the capacity of the invasive pathogen to form large abscesses in epithelia. The second mutation, iuc, eliminates production of the siderophore aerobactin thus impairing growth of the bacterium within tissues. This double mutant, SC5700 appeared safe when administered intragastrically to macaque monkeys as three doses (5 x 10(10) c.f.u. each) at weekly intervals. Protection against a challenge by the wild type isolate (M90T) was observed 4 weeks after the last vaccine inoculation. Duration of carriage was considerably reduced as compared to the control group in which all animals had developed severe ...
European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.) is a marine species of great economic importance, particularly in Mediterranean aquaculture. However, numerous pathogenic viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites affect the species, causing various infectious diseases and thereby leading to the most heavy losses in aquaculture production of sea bass. In this respect, knowledge on molecular and genetic mechanisms of resistance to pathogens and specific features of immune response against various infectious agents should greatly benefit the development of effective vaccines and proper vaccination strategies in marker-assisted selection of fish resistant to a range of infections. To date, genetic knowledge on sea bass immune regulatory genes responsible for resistance to pathogens is relatively poor ...
Vaccine-mediated prevention of primary HIV-1 infection at the heterosexual mucosal portal of entry may be facilitated by highly optimised formulations or drug delivery devices for intravaginal (i.vag) immunization. Previously we described hydroxyethylcellulose (HEC)-based rheologically structured gel vehicles (RSVs) for vaginal immunization of an HIV-1 vaccine candidate, a soluble recombinant trimeric HIV-1 clade-C envelope glycoprotein designated CN54gp140. Here we investigated the efficacy of lyophilized solid dosage formulations (LSDFs) for prolonging antigen stability and as i.vag delivery modalities. LSDFs were designed and developed that upon i.vag administration they would reconstitute with the imbibing of vaginal fluid to mucoadhesive, site-retentive semi-solids. Mice were immunize...
AbstractBackground Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in the 1970s and early 1980s showed the polysaccharide serogroup A vaccine (SgAV) prevented serogroup A meningococcal meningitis (SGAMM). Subsequent non-RCTs suggested significant variations in the age-specific duration of protection among children. Objectives To determine the protective effect, duration of protection, age-specific effects and the effect of booster doses in children of the SgAV against SGAMM. Search strategy We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) (The Cochrane Library 2010, issue 2) which contains the Acute Respiratory Infections Group's Specialised Register, MEDLINE (January 1950 to May Week 3, 2010) and EMBASE (January 1974 to May 2010). Selection criteria We included RCTs. Non-RCTs ...
An inexpensive, extremely rapid manual method for simultaneous synthesis of large numbers of oligodeoxyribonucleotides on 50 or 150 nanomole scale is described. The oligonucleotides are assembled in...Full Text Available
A HPLC-DAD method was established for the simultaneous evaluation of five bioactive compounds in Ssanghwa tang (SHT) including glycyrrhizin, paeoniflorin, cinnamic acid, decursin and 6-gingerol. These...Full Text Available
The effect of spatial auditory information on a listener's ability to detect, identify, and monitor multiple simultaneous speech signals was evaluated using virtual audio technology. Factorial combinations of three variables - the number of localized spee...
This study investigates the doctrinal guidance available to a corps headquarters if required to serve as ajoint task force headquarters and simultaneously be required to warfight the corps. The study contends that a corps being required to simultaneously ...
A common approach used to fuse simultaneously recorded EEG and fMRI is to correlate trial-by-trial variability in the EEG, or variability of components derived therefrom, with the blood oxygenation...Full Text Available
We present a scheme for three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication by using EPR pairs. In the scheme, three legitimate parties can simultaneously exchange their secret messages. It is also proved to be secure against the intercept-and-resend attack, the disturbance attack and the entangled-and-measure attack.
Recently, Wang et al. proposed a three-party simultaneous quantum secure direct communication (3P-SQSDC) scheme with EPR pairs, which enables three involved parties to exchange their secret messages simultaneously by using an EPR pair. This work proposed an enhancement on Wang et al.'s scheme. With the enhancement, the communications in the improved 3P-SQSDC can be paralleled and thus improves the protocol efficiency.
A model-based method has been previously developed to estimate and compensate for the crosstalk and downscatter contamination in simultaneous123I∕99mTc dual-isotope SPECT...Full Text Available
Hepatitis B subviral particles, purified from plasma of asymptomatic carriers seropositive for hepatitis B e antigen, were treated with various conditions reported for the processing of vaccines. Thereafter,...Full Text Available
Serum and salivary responses of 95 infants to either a standard (4 x 10(4) plaque-forming units (PFU), 47 neonates) or a high dose (4 x 10(5) PFU, 48 neonates) of tetravalent reassortant rhesus rotavirus...Full Text Available
The ERA strain of rabies virus was propagated in a baby hamster kidney cell line (BHK-21/C13). The viral titer was 10(1.8) tissue culture infective doses (TCID) higher than that of commercial ERA vaccine....Full Text Available
To assess the influence of a live attenuated oral vaccine against porcine post-weaning colibacillosis (PWC) induced by enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) on mucosal lymphoid cell CD45 isoforms expression, experimental group of weaned pigs (n=6) was immunized orally with F4ac+ non-ETEC strain (day 0) and challenged with F4ac+ ETEC strain 7 days latter. Non-immunized ETEC-infected pigs (n=6) served as control. All pigs were killed on post-challenge day 7. The small intestine was excised for isolation of jejunal lamina propria (JLP) and ileal Peyer's patch (IPP) lymphocytes and immunohistochemical studies. The results obtained by immunophenotyping of isolated cells show that the proportion of CD45RA+ and CD45RC+ JLP, but not IPP, cells were higher in the non-ETEC-immunized ETEC-infected pigs versus non-immunized infected. Additionally, while CD45RA+ JLP cells increased only slightly, the expression of CD45RC isoform on the JLP cells was significantly higher ...
Two plasmids which express either nearly intact or truncated filamentous hemagglutinin (FHA) from Bordetella pertussis and which are marked with a tetracycline resistance (Tcr) gene were transformed into Salmonella dublin SL1438, an aroA deletion mutant intended for use as an attenuated oral vaccine against salmonellosis. These S. dublin recombinants, when fed to mice, induced serum immunoglobulin, immunoglobulin M (IgM), and sometimes IgA antibody responses to FHA and S. dublin. In addition, IgA antibodies against FHA were found in gut wash fluids. S. dublin carrying pDB2300, a multicopy plasmid encoding truncated FHA protein, induced a better antibody response than did S. dublin carrying pDB2000, a low-copy-number plasmid encoding full-sized FHA. Administration of tetracycline to mice enhanced the stability of recombinant plasmids, and tetracycline-treated mice developed higher anti-FHA titers. Although neither strain examined is suitable for use in a human oral ...
Newly hatched chicks were dosed orally with a Salmonella typhimurium wild-type strain, an S. enteritidis wild-type strain, and a genetically defined S. enteritidis aroA vaccine candidate, strain CVL30....Full Text Available
Type I interferon is important in anti-viral responses and in coordinating the innate immune response. Here we explore the use of interferon-β to adjuvant the response to a rabies virus...Full Text Available
BackgroundAfrican horse sickness virus (AHSV) causes a non-contagious, infectious disease in equids, with mortality rates that can exceed 90% in susceptible horse populations....Full Text Available
Among important candidates for babesial vaccines are apical complex proteins, including rhoptry-associated protein 1 (RAP-1) from Babesia bovis and B. bigemina, which...Full Text Available
In order to conserve vaccines in hot countries a solar refrigerator has been made by a French university. It is a photothermal refrigerator without batteries. It uses two gases: ammonia and calcium chloride. The refrigerator is autonomous and can work eleven days without sun. (N.C.)
The MiniBooNE experiment [1] is motivated by the LSND observation, [2] which has been interpreted as {nu}{sub {mu}} {yields} {nu}{sub e} oscillations, and by the atmospheric neutrino deficit, [3,4,5] which may be ascribed to {nu}{sub {mu}} oscillations into another type of neutrino. MiniBooNE is a single-detector experiment designed to: obtain {approx} 1000 {nu}{sub {mu}} {yields} {nu}{sub e} events if the LSND signal is due to {nu}{sub {mu}} {yields} {nu}{sub e} oscillations, establishing the oscillation signal at the > 5{sigma} level as shown in Fig. 1.1; extend the search for {nu}{sub {mu}} {yields} {nu}{sub e} oscillations significantly beyond what has been studied previously if no signal is observed; search for {nu}{sub {mu}} disappearance to address the atmospheric neutrino deficit with a signal that is a suppression of the rate of {nu}{sub {mu}}C {yields} {mu}N events from the expected 600,000 per year; measure the oscillation parameters as shown in Fig. 1.2 if ...
In this paper, the question of whether the new distribution system for the electricity supply industry can deliver a better service to customers, is discussed. In particular it discusses the requirement of customers for low cost and efficiency, with particular reference to Victoria in general and Solaris in particular. Solaris comprises the amalgamation of five ex-Municipal Electricity Undertakings and one distribution part of the former State Electricity Commission. Despite not having a set of objectives, a strategy, a common culture, appropriate processes or systems, key account management skills, marketing and customer service expertise, commercial financial expertise, commercial treasury expertise and strategic skill, it has been able to develop a business plan and strategy to satisfy the shareholder (the government), improve customer communication facilities, set up human resource management mechanisms and liaison with the community. The conclusion is that the ...
Transposons are promising systems for somatic gene integration because they can not only integrate exogenous genes efficiently, but also be delivered to a variety of organs using a range of transfection...Full Text Available
Effector proteins expressed in the esophageal gland cells of cyst nematodes are delivered into plant cells through a hollow, protrusible stylet. Although evidence indicates that effector proteins function...Full Text Available
For intensity modulated radiation treatment (IMRT) dose reconstruction, multileaf collimator (MLC) log files have been shown applicable for deriving delivered fluence maps. However, MLC log files are...Full Text Available
With specific energy of more than 200 Wh/kg, the Electric Fuel zinc-air battery delivers as much as eight times the energy of lead-acid traction battery, more than twice the energy of the nearest advanced-battery competitor, and as much energy as a tank of gasoline. (author)
...challenges faced by the industrial sector by implementing a Research Agenda for Embedded Computing Systems. The Artemis JU will manage and co-ordinate open ...5 billion research programme on Embedded Computing Systems. The programme is open to organisations within the EU Member States as well as Associated ...
To capitalize on the response of tumor cells to ionizing radiation, we developed a controlled-release nanoparticle drug delivery system using a targeting peptide that recognizes a radiation-induced...Full Text Available
Graphene nanosheets (GNSs) were synthesized and used as cathode active materials in a nonaqueous lithium-oxygen battery. The GNSs electrode delivered an extremely high discharge capacity in comparison to carbon powders, which is attributed to its unique morphology and structure. PMID:21779551
The development of a high power density sodium sulphur battery with a five-year maintenance-free life is described. These batteries are likely to be used in industrial trucks, milk floats, electric cars, storing power station output and power for satellites. (U.K.).
The Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon system represents an important alternative to viral integrating vector systems but may, as its viral counterparts, be subject to transcriptional silencing. To investigate...Full Text Available
BackgroundNew Zealand's Primary Health Care Strategy (NZPHCS) was introduced in 2002. Its features are substantial increases in government funding delivered as capitation payments,...Full Text Available
This report presents the full texts of the allocution delivered during the colloquium on the renewable energies and the public policies. It takes stock on the strategical environment and the political will of the renewable energies, the tracks of development in France and the necessity of a law on the renewable energies. (A.L.B.)
Effective small interfering RNA (siRNA)–mediated therapeutics require the siRNA to be delivered into the cellular RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC). Quantitative information of this essential...Full Text Available
Advances in neuroscience have resulted in the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic agents for potential use in the central nervous system (CNS). However, the ability to deliver the...Full Text Available
Briefing Note November 2009 The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme: UPDATE ...What is the CRC? ... The CRC is a mandatory emissions trading scheme that aims to deliver energy (and so
BackgroundPrevious research has shown that internet education can lead to short-term improvements in clinicians' knowledge, confidence and communication practices. We wished to better...Full Text Available
BackgroundLittle is known about the acceptability of internet and telephone treatments, or what factors might influence patient interest in receiving treatments via...Full Text Available
Purpose:To investigate the clinical usage of dose verification of Helical Tomotherapy plans by using 2D-array ion chambers, and to develop an efficient way to validate the dose delivered...Full Text Available
PurposeTo investigate the influence of inhomogeneity corrections on stereotactic treatment plans for non-small cell lung cancer and determine the dose delivered to the PTV and OARs.Full Text Available
IntroductionThe optimal dialysis dose for the treatment of acute kidney injury (AKI) is controversial. We sought to evaluate the relationship between renal replacement therapy (RRT)...Full Text Available
Clinical applications of genetic therapies, including delivery of short, interfering RNAs (siRNAs) for RNA interference (RNAi), are limited due to the difficulty of delivering nucleic acids...Full Text Available
BackgroundParticulate systems are well known to be able to deliver drugs with high efficiency and fewer adverse side effects, possibly by endocytosis of the drug carriers. On the...Full Text Available
Record production of heavy water was achieved: the plants at Glace Bay and Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia, produced a total of 560 megagrams. A shipment of 500 Mg was delivered on time to the Wolsung CANDU reactor in Korea. Energy conservation and waste hea...
Antinociceptive and anti-inflammatory activities of the ethanol extract from Annona muricata L. leaves were investigated in animal models. The extract delivered per oral route (p.o.)...Full Text Available
The Wolsung-type nuclear fuel localization project carried out since 1981 finally reached to a full-fledged phase in 1987. We successfully produced and timely delivered a yearly demand of nuclear fuel for Wolsung unit 1. In this report we studied and summ...
The question of whether storage of red blood cells (RBCs) alters their capacity to deliver oxygen and affects patient outcomes remains in a state of clinical equipoise. Studies of the changes...Full Text Available
Delivering the promise of personalised medicine is the challenge that the current generation of scientists face. The variations in human physiology and disease are considerable, and designing appropriate strategies to deliver what has been promised will require access to tissue from a large number of volunteers. The NHS provides an ideal infrastructure for sample acquisition, but requires two things to make this available?public consent and support for extra manpower and administration. There is a disconnection between the NHS and tissue based research that needs to be addressed on a number of levels to provide a translational platform. This should enable the path to be beaten to provide the ideal tailored treatment for future patients; one that preserves quality of life by curing the dise...
The advent of aberration correction for electron microscope lenses has produced a significant advance in the improvement of resolution in microscopy. This improvement, while significant in itself, promises to have its most profound impact in materials science when it delivers quantitative information to challenge models and modellers. This capability for an electron microscope-modelling synergy to deliver useful results at the atomic level is not yet firmly established. For this reason, one of the major challenges for electron microscopy in materials science over this decade is to study systems where electron microscopists and modellers can work collaboratively. This paper explores some examples.
The NuMI proton beam at Fermilab currently delivers 120 GeV protons to the neutrino production target with design beam power capability to 400 kW. Upgrade capability to 700 kW is being prepared, with planning toward delivering 2.3 MW beam provided by the Project X accelerator upgrade plan. We report on the system of beam diagnostics and control used in operation of the NuMI beam. Also considered are the steps to provide a robust system for transport and targeting beam of 2 MW and beyond.
Containing an epidemic at its origin is the most desirable mitigation. Epidemics have often originated in rural areas, with rural communities among the first affected. Disease dynamics in rural regions have received limited attention, and results of general studies cannot be directly applied since population densities and human mobility factors are very different in rural regions from those in cities. We create a network model of a rural community in Kansas, USA, by collecting data on the contact patterns and computing rates of contact among a sampled population. We model the impact of different mitigation strategies detecting closely connected groups of people and frequently visited locations. Within those groups and locations, we compare the effectiveness of random and targeted vaccinations using a Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered compartmental model on the contact network. Our simulations show that the targeted vaccinations of only 10% ...
Marburg virus belongs to the genus Marburgvirus in the family Filoviridae and causes a severe hemorrhagic fever, known as Marburg hemorrhagic fever (MHF), in both humans and nonhuman primates. Similar to the more widely known Ebola hemorrhagic fever, MHF is characterized by systemic viral replication, immunosuppression and abnormal inflammatory responses. These pathological features of the disease contribute to a number of systemic dysfunctions including hemorrhages, edema, coagulation abnormalities and, ultimately, multiorgan failure and shock, often resulting in death. A detailed understanding of the pathological processes that lead to this devastating disease remains elusive, a fact that contributes to the lack of licensed vaccines or effective therapeutics. This article will review the...
Motivation: Automatic recognition of cell identities is critical for quantitative measurement, targeting and manipulation of cells of model animals at single-cell resolution. It has been...Full Text Available
A binary mixture of imipramine HCl and chlordiazepoxide was determined by three different spectrophotometric methods. The first method involved determination of imipramine HCl and chlordiazepoxide using...Full Text Available
Weaning of beef calves is usually done abruptly and early compared to the natural weaning of the species, and is associated with simultaneous exposure of calves to a range of social and environmental...Full Text Available
This article addresses the need for new data on indirect effects of natural and anthropogenic aerosol particles on atmospheric ice clouds. Simultaneous measurements of the concentration and composition...Full Text Available
BackgroundEnzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is a standard immunoassay to estimate a protein's concentration in a sample. Deploying ELISA in a microarray format permits simultaneous...Full Text Available
Studies were conducted in northern Bohemia to simultaneously evaluate personal exposures to air pollution in the form of respirable particles containing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and biomarkers...Full Text Available
BackgroundThe function of a cylinder allowing simultaneous measurements of the opposition axis of the index finger and thumb of the hand and the magnitude of pinch force is described.Full Text Available
The present study is aiming at the visualization of the boiling structures for various pool boiling and flow boiling conditions by applying multiple visualization techniques simultaneously. The bubble growth rate and microlayer behavior were simultaneously visualized for an isolated boiling regime of a water by using a shadow graph and a total reflection technique, respectively
A rapid and accurate method for the direct simultaneous determination of nitrate and nitrite is proposed. The method is applied to the determination of nitrate and nitrite in rainwater and wastewater without preliminary separation. The determinations are performed by a CPA matrix method with ultraviolet spectrophotometric detection. The results obtained are in agreement with those obtained by conventional methods for the determination of nitrate and nitrite.
The use of stable indole-3yl-acetic acid (IAA) labeled by 6 atoms of 13C allowed, after [13C]IAA treatment, simultaneous gas chromatography-mass spectrometry quantifications of...Full Text Available
Abstract A diacrylate polysulfone oligomer is synthesized and used as the acrylic oligomer for the in situ synthesis of noble metal/PSU nanocomposites through UV-induced simultaneous radical polymerization of acrylic functionalities and NP formation by reduction of their precursors. Thus, silver or gold NPs are formed in situ during polymer network formation. FESEM analysis of the morphology of the cured systems demonstrates that the nanoparticles of the noble metals are homogeneously distributed in the network without macroscopic agglomeration.
Simultaneous bilateral femoral neck fractures are extremely rare and associated with various conditions. Up to now Most cases had correlations with major trauma, repetitive minor trauma, seizure, parathyroid...Full Text Available
Fiber delivered laser pulses emulsify thrombus by mechanical stresses that include a combination of pressure, tension and shear stress. Laser radiation is delivered to the locality of a thrombus and the radiation is absorbed by blood, blood dot, or other present materials. The combination of a leading pressure wave and subsequent vapor bubble cause efficient, emulsification of thrombus. Operating the laser in a low average power mode alleviates potential thermal complications. The laser is operated in a high repetition rate mode to take advantage of ultrasound frequency effects of thrombus dissolution as well as to decrease the total procedure time. Specific parameter ranges for operation are described. The device includes optical fibers surrounding a lumen intended for flow of a cooling agent. The fibers may be arranged concentrically around the lumen to deliver radiation and heat over as large an area as possible. An ...
ObjectivesThe expected result of the proposed research will be a complete technique for taking the decision maker through the complex process of determining what type types of flexibly delivered public transport service - if any - suits their requirements, and what service characteristics are best adapted to the constraints of their operating environment. To summarise, the objectives are to:~%~ Investigate the various factors which influence the development of an appropriate public transport system for ar [continued...]DescriptionCurrently, many statutory authorities and public transport operators are experimenting with or considering flexibly delivered public transport systems, now generally referred to as Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) services, mainly with a view to improving social inclusion in rural and urban areas that are difficult to cover by conventional public transport. Statutory authorities may have some understanding of the ...
As competition in the service industry grows, delivering high-quality service to meet customers' needs and expectations becomes paramount. In order to achieve a thorough understanding of customers, companies are increasingly adopting Customer Relationship Management (CRM) initiatives. However, CRM does not have the process vision necessary to cope with complex and cross-functional processes. This problem is better handled by Business Process Management (BPM) initiatives, which, by their turn, struggle to built-in customer intelligence in their systems. Based upon systems theory, we discuss the roles of CRM and BPM in an integrated approach to deliver customer fulfillment. As the evolution of service-oriented approaches requires us to consider both customer interactions and experiences as k...
Epiphyseal plates of growing bones are sensitive to ionizing radiation and this poses problems for the paediatric radiotherapist. In this case report we describe a child in whom electron beam therapy to the groin delivered only low dose radiation to the proximal hip epiphyses - 130 cGy fractionated over 5 weeks - but who suffered late maldevelopment. We explore the success of various radiotherapy techniques in minimizing the dose to the hip epiphyses in four other children. The appropriate positioning of the limb, the choice of treatment modality and, where possible, individual shielding blocks are considered and their effect on the dose to the hip estimated. Absorbed doses of radiation delivered to the midpoint of the proximal femoral epiphyses have been retrospectively determined. (author).
In today's maturing consumer markets, emphasis is shifting from straightforward sales to a more holistic approach to customer life cycle management, with a stronger emphasis on how sales are generated and service provided all along the customer journey. Effectively managing these different marketing, sales and service channels poses a significant challenge. Companies need new strategies, structures, processes and tools to deliver customer value across all channels. A multi-channel, integrative customer model that delivers customer value and significant return on investment (ROI) requires both a strong understanding of customer preferences and behaviours and a robust IT architecture that supports the overarching customer relationship management (CRM) strategy. Even those organizations that ...
Intra uterine growth retardation (IUGR) is a major complication of pregnancy, affecting ~5% to 10% of newborns. Hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) is an organochlorine pesticide that consists of eight stereoisomers and g-isomer is the only isomer that possesses insecticidal activity. The aim of the present study was to analyze the OCP residues in maternal and cord blood of women and to assess the level of oxidative stress markers as well as to establish correlation with OCP levels. Fifty women delivering neonates with low birth weight (IUGR) and equal number of women delivering normal birth weight babies (control) were recruited. We have observed higher levels of g-HCH and T-HCH and increased oxidative stress markers in IUGR subjects versus control subjects. Significant correlations were also fou...
Fuji Electric has realized highly reliable and functional control systems by the dispersion type control system FOCUS, which uses the controller (ICS-2000) enjoying good reputation in controlling industrial plants for a long time and a personal computer with high windows operability, the former for controlling and the latter for MHI responsible for monitoring. The smelting process in a steel-making plant needs a highly reliable system for advanced control to ensure continuous operation. Fuji Electric delivered the FOCUS system to Kubota in 1998, as the smelting furnace instrumentation/control system for the cupola furnace. The system has been in service smoothly. Moreover, a total of four control systems have been delivered, 2 for steel-making furnaces and the other 2 for continuous casting. (NEDO)
ContextCost advantage has been one of the primary drivers of successful offshoring engagements of Indian software and services companies. However, the emphasis has shifted to the ability of the vendors to provide high quality over cost advantage in delivering software products and services. Meeting high quality requirements of the clients is a challenge due to the very nature of development and delivery of software through offshoring. ObjectiveThe objective of this research paper is to identify and evaluate the key determinants of quality in the case of software projects delivered through offshoring model. MethodA detailed survey was conducted among project managers/project leaders (leads) of a leading midsize Indian IT services company to evaluate the relationship of the determinants on t...
Adaptive radiation therapy for liver cancer has the potential to reduce normal tissue complications and enable dose escalation, allowing the potential for tumor control in this challenging site. Using adaptive techniques to tailor treatment margins to reflect patient-specific breathing motions and image-guidance techniques can reduce the high dose delivered to surrounding normal tissues while ensuring that the prescription dose is delivered to the tumor. Several treatment planning and delivery techniques have been developed for use in the liver, including a margin to encompass the full breathing motion, mean position techniques, which evaluate the probability of tumor location during breathing, breath hold, gating, and tracking. Patient selection, clinical workflow, and quality assurance m...
This issue has the following articles: (1) Deterrence with a Minimum Nuclear Stockpile - Commentary by Bruce T. Goodwin; (2) Enhancing Confidence in the Nation's Nuclear Stockpile - Livermore experts are participating in a national effort aimed at predicting how nuclear weapon materials and systems will likely change over time; (3) Narrowing Uncertainties - For climate modeling and many other fields, understanding uncertainty, or margin of error, is critical; (4) Insight into a Deadly Disease - Laboratory experiments reveal the pathogenesis of tularemia in host cells, bringing scientists closer to developing a vaccine for this debilitating disease. (5) Return to Rongelap - On the Rongelap Atoll, Livermore scientists are working to minimize radiological exposure for natives now living on or wishing to return to the islands.
Selected applications of novel techniques in Agricultural Biotechnology, Health Food formulations and Medical Biotechnology are being reviewed with the aim of unraveling future developments and policy changes that are likely to open new markets for Biotechnology and prevent the shrinking or closing of existing ones. Amongst the selected novel techniques with applications in both Agricultural and Medical Biotechnology are: immobilized bacterial cells and enzymes, microencapsulation and liposome production, genetic manipulation of microorganisms, development of novel vaccines from plants, epigenomics of mammalian cells and organisms, and biocomputational tools for molecular modeling related to disease and Bioinformatics. Both fundamental and applied aspects of the emerging new techniques are being discussed in relation to their anticipated, marked impact on future markets and present policy changes that are needed for success in either Agricultural or Medical ...
Abstract Development of inhibitors and vaccines that mitigate rumen-derived methane by targeting methanogens relies on knowledge of the methanogens present. We investigated the composition of archaeal communities in the rumens of farmed sheep (Ovis aries), cattle (Bos taurus) and red deer (Cervus elaphus) using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) to generate fingerprints of archaeal 16S rRNA genes. The total archaeal communities were relatively constant across species and diets, and were less variable and less diverse than bacterial communities. There were diet- and ruminant-species-based differences in archaeal community structure, but the same dominant archaea were present in all rumens. These were members of three coherent clades: species related to Methanobrevibacter ruminan...
The efficiency of dendrosome (a gene porter) was assessed in transferring recombinant human rotavirus VP2 cDNA into A549, a human lung cell line. After gene transferring, transmission electron microscopy showed core-like particles (CLPs) formation in the transfected cells both with dendrosome and lipofectamine porters. In addition, western blotting analysis showed that the expression of VP2 gene was almost equal in the dendrosome and lipofectamine-transfected cells. Also, the cytotoxicity studies revealed that dendrosome had a lower cytotoxicity than lipofectamine. Therefore, our study may introduce dendrosome as a possible carrier for gene transferring into the human lung cell line, especially, for intranasally administration of DNA vaccines.
Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae is associated with chronic non-progressive pneumonia of sheep and goats. As with many other mycoplasmas involved in animal diseases, protective immune responses have not been achieved with vaccines, even though antibody responses can be obtained. This study focuses on characterizing the interaction of M. ovipneumoniae with ovine PBMC using carboxy-fluorescein-succinimidyl-ester (CFSE) loading and flow cytometry to measure lymphoid cell division. M. ovipneumoniae induced a strong in vitro polyclonal suppression of CD4^+, CD8^+, and B blood lymphocyte subsets. The suppressive activity could be destroyed by heating to 60^oC, and partially impaired by formalin and binary ethyleneimine treatment that abolished its viability. The activity resided on the surface-exposed m...
Three in vivo assays were used to measure the immunocompetence of chickens in two generations of a selection experiment. The obtained data were used to estimate the variance components for sire and dam for antibody production to Pasteurella multocida and Mycoplasma gallisepticum vaccines, for T-cell-mediated immunity evaluated by a phytohemagglutinin wing web assay, and for clearance of foreign particles from the circulatory system. Heritabilities of and genetic correlations among these immunological traits were calculated from the sire variance components. Heritability estimates of the immunological traits based on the sire component of variance ranged from .06 to .53, and genetic correlations among immunological traits were generally negative. PMID:1956847
Chitosan (a?-(1-4)-amino-2-deoxy-b?-D-glucan) is a deacetylated form of chitin, a polysaccharide from crustacean shells. Its unique characteristics, such as positive charge, biodegradability, biocompatibility, nontoxicity, and rigid structure, make this macromolecule ideal for an oral vaccine delivery system. We prepared reverse-phase evaporation vesicles (REVs) sandwiched by chitosan (Chi) and polyvinylic alcohol (PVA). However, in this method, there are still some problems to be circumvented related to protein stabilization. During the inverted micelle phase of protein nanoencapsulation, hydrophobic interfaces are expanded, leading to interfacial adsorption, followed by protein unfolding and aggregation. Here, spectroscopic and immunological techniques were used to ascertain the effects ...
Brucella melitensis is a Gram-negative coccobacillus bacteria belonging to the Alphaproteobacteria subclass. It is an important zoonotic pathogen that causes brucellosis, a disease affecting sheep, cattle, and sometimes humans. The B. melitensis strain M5-90, a live attenuated vaccine cultured from the B. melitensis virulent strain M28, has been an effective tool to control brucellosis in goats and sheep in China. Here we report the complete genome sequences of B. melitensis M28 and M5-90, strains with different virulence backgrounds, which will serve as a valuable reference for future studies. PMID:21478357
Background: Chloroquine has in-vitro activity against influenza and could be an ideal candidate for worldwide prevention of influenza in the period between onset of a pandemic with a virulent influenza strain and the development and widespread dissemination of an effective vaccine. We aimed to assess the efficacy of such an intervention. Methods: In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial done at a single centre in Singapore, we randomly assigned (1:1) healthy adults to receive chloroquine phosphate (500 mg/day for 1 week, then once a week to complete 12 weeks) or matching placebo by use of a computer-generated randomisation list. Participants filled an online symptom diary every week, supplemented by daily diaries and self-administered nasal swabs when unwell. Haemagglutin...
Summary The antigenic relationship between the phocine distemper virus (PDV) strain causing the epidemic in 2002 and the PDV strain of 1988, canine distemper virus from two dogs and one marten, and one measles virus strain was investigated in vivo and in vitro using monospecific polyclonal and monoclonal antibodies directed against five different proteins of canine or phocine distemper virus (N, P, M, F, H). Epitopic mapping revealed no difference between the PDV strains causing the epidemics in 1988 or 2002. However, the use of these antibodies allowed discrimination between different morbilliviruses including a vaccine strain of canine distemper virus. The major differences among the investigated morbilliviruses were found in the H protein.
VWS Westgarth, a subsidiary of Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies (VWS), has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co (DSME), under which it will design, supply and deliver two treatment units for use on a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel.
The use of absorbable polyglactin 910 mesh (Vicryl) is described in a case of Ewing's sarcoma of the pelvis. An operation was performed to hold the small bowel and colon out of the pelvis for a temporary period during which radical radiotherapy was delivered. The mesh allowed the temporary displacement of bowel and obviated bowel radiation morbidity. (author).
DescriptionThis new research programme activity on Urban Atmospheric Science will deliver aspects of the NERC strategy: Next Generation Science for Planet Earth. It has been developed as part of the Environment, Pollution & Human Health theme. Research in the Environment, Pollution & Human Health theme is directed at elucidating key environmental processes that form part of a causal pathway between an environmental hazard and disease outcome, and providing a predictive capability of the risk to human heal [continued...
... Space weather is the biggest driver of ozone depletion and much else we are only beginning to understand. Solar Cycle 24 may turn out to be weak in terms of sun spot count but the amount of energy delivered by CME/SPE will probably not be. Remember that the Carrington Event in 1859 happened during a cycle with a lowish sun spot count. Recommend (1) Report abuse ...
The NuMI beam at Fermilab has delivered over 5 x 10{sup 20} 120 GeV protons to the neutrino production target since the start for MINOS [1] neutrino oscillation experiment operation in 2005. We report on proton beam commissioning and operation status, including successes and challenges with this beam.
The second in a series of flights to assemble the Japanese segment of the International Space Station saw the mammoth Kibo module delivered to the complex complements of Discovery and its crew on the STS-124 mission. Kibo, the Japanese word for u201chopeu201d would house dozens of experiments and serve as a platform for external payloads brought to the complex on subsequent Shuttle flights and the Japanese u201cKounotoriu201d H-2 Transfer Vehicle cargo ship.
The major purpose of the Police Family Life Education Project (FLEP) is 'to develop and deliver a program that will provide police recruits and their immediate family members with stress management education that focuses on the role and responsibilities o...
We present a monolithic, self-starting, all-PM, stabilized Yb-fiber laser, pulse-compressed in a hollow-core PM photonic crystal fiber, providing the 370 fs pulses of 4 nJ energy with high mode quality.
From the frequency of diagnostic radiologic examinations and their radiation dose delivered to the population the risk of cancer induction and genetic damage is calculated on the basis of the risk factors given by the ICRP. Thus 0.38 % and 3 % of the total mortality for cancer and leukemia, resp., can be attributed to X-ray diagnostics. Chest examinations alone result in 0.07-0.7 damages per 100,000 persons depending on the imaging technique applied. (author).
This document contains 59 extended synopses of the presentations delivered at the conference during oral and poster sessions. The four oral sessions were devoted to: The role of nuclear forensics in combating illicit trafficking and nuclear terrorism; Current capabilities and past experiences; Analytical techniques; and Challenges and alternative approaches. Each of the synopses was indexed separately
A method of reconstructing three-dimensional, in vivo dose distributions delivered by intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) is presented. A proof-of-principle experiment is described where an inverse-planned IMRT treatment is delivered to an anthropomorphic phantom. The exact position of the phantom at the time of treatment is measured by acquiring megavoltage CT data with the treatment beam and a research prototype, flat-panel, electronic portal imaging device. Immediately following CT imaging, the planned IMRT beams are delivered using the multiple-static field technique. The delivered fluence is sampled using the same detector as for the CT data. The signal measured by the portal imaging device is converted to primary fluence using an iterative phantom-scatter estimation technique. This primary fluence is back-projected through the previously acquired megavoltage CT model of the phantom, with ...
The clinical and metabolic effects of two regimens of total parenteral nutrition delivering the same amino-acid (2·8 g/kig per 24 h), fat (4·8 g/kg per 24 h), and glucose (12 g/kg per...Full Text Available
In this paper, the adaptive optics (AO) system at Keck Observatory is characterized. The AO system is described in detail. The physical parameters of the lenslets, CCD and deformable mirror, the calibration procedures and the signal processing algorithms are explained. Results of sky performance tests are presented: the AO system is shown to deliver images with an average Strehl ratio of up to 0.37 at 1.59 {micro}m using a bright guide star. An error budget that is consistent with the observed image quality is presented.
SummaryIn the classic example of the McGurk effect, when subjects see a speaker say /ga/ and hear a simultaneous /ba/, they typically perceive /da/, a syllable that was not presented...Full Text Available
A catalytic process for the oxidation of sulfur-containing gases , E.G., sulfur dioxide and simultaneous production of sulfuric acid wherein a sulfur-containing gas is reacted with an oxygencontaining gas in the presence of a catalyst comprising an iron group metal on a solid support comprising a zeolite in a silicaalumina matrix.
In utero electroporation is widely used to study neuronal development and function by introducing plasmid DNA into neural progenitors during embryogenesis. This is an effective and...Full Text Available
Clostridium thermohydrosulfuricum and Clostridium thermosulfurogenes produced ethanol and amylases with different components as primary metabolites of starch fermentation....Full Text Available
Generation of reactive oxygen species by the NADPH oxidase complex is an important bactericidal weapon of phagocytes. Phorbol myristate acetate (PMA) is a potent agonist for this “respiratory...Full Text Available
Experiments on Xanthium leaf discs were carried out to determine whether concomitant photoreactivation could be detected and if so, to compare its effects with photoreactivation due...Full Text Available
BackgroundEfficient and safe transection of biological tissue in liver surgery is strongly dependent on the ability to address both parenchymal division and hemostasis simultaneously....Full Text Available
The presence of Legionella spp. in the water of a Portuguese spa was ascertained during the spa season, between May and November. Simultaneously the prevalence of anti-legionella antibodies in people...Full Text Available
Most codon indices used today are based on highly biased nonrandom usage of codons in coding regions. The background of a coding or noncoding DNA sequence, however, is fairly random, and can be characterized...Full Text Available
Mar 2, 2011 ... CCT's software is capable of simultaneously handling incoming ... has been using CCTK to automate its remote control rocket cryogenic fueling systems. ... seismic, infrared, and proximity sensor data with auto-tracking ...
A high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) procedure suitable for the simultaneous determination of the molecular size and concentration of macromolecular hyaluronate and proteoglycans in synovial...Full Text Available
The sensitivity of different renal regions to xenobiotics requires the development of a multiplex immunoassay for the simultaneous analysis of kidney biomarkers. Calbindin D28K is a distal tubule-specific...Full Text Available
Acquisition of three-alternative simultaneous matching-to-sample and oddity-from-sample was investigated. Five goldfish were trained on matching and five on oddity for a minimum of 70 days. Subsequently,...Full Text Available
Simultaneous or prior exposure to one chemical may alter the concurrent or subsequent response to another chemical, often in unexpected ways. This is particularly true when the two chemicals...Full Text Available
This dissertation presents the development of the novel mechanical testing technique of in situ nanoindentation in a transmission electron microscope (TEM). This technique makes it possible to simultaneously observe and quantify the mechanical behavior of nano-scale volumes of solids.
Field campaigns were conducted in 1981 and 1982/83 on the Dutch coast near Egmond. Measurements were made of surface elevations, water velocities and sediment concentrations in 3 to 8 surf zone locations and 2 to 5 offshore locations simultaneously. A des...
Sep 9, 2009... a French Ariane rocket successfully launched a new Earth-observing satellite ... The payload is a pair of identical sensors known as "high-resolution ... the resulting image) are activated simultaneously by incoming radiation; ...
Endocervical swabs from 212 women and urethral swabs from 100 men were tested by the routine methods for McCoy cell culture and simultaneously by a novel enzyme amplified immunoassay test to detect...Full Text Available
The first derivative thoracic impedance cardiogram, phonocardiogram, and electrocardiogram were recorded in three groups of 22 subjects each. In Group 1 (control), simultaneous impedance cardiogram,...Full Text Available
A two-channel optical system has been developed to provide spatially resolved simultaneous imaging of singlet molecular oxygen (1O2) phosphorescence and photosensitizer (PS) fluorescence...Full Text Available
Attention has shifted from the treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC) to chemoprevention using aspirin and folic acid as agents capable of preventing the onset of colon cancer. However, no sensitive...Full Text Available
BackgroundIn animal groups such as herds, schools, and flocks, a certain distance is maintained between adjacent individuals, allowing them to move as a cohesive unit. Proximate...Full Text Available
A controlled bidirectional quantum secret direct communication scheme is proposed by using a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state. In the scheme, two users can exchange their secret messages simultaneously with a set of devices under the control of a third party. The security of the scheme is analysed and confirmed.
A photon-induced x-ray fluorescence method allowing the simultaneous determination of iron, copper, zinc, bromine and rubidium in human blood and blood plasma samples is described. The method is reliable and has a good sensitivity for a wide range of elements. (author).
Rapid development in genomics in recent years has allowed the simultaneous measurement of the expression levels of thousands of genes using DNA microarrays. This has offered tremendous potential...Full Text Available
Integration of positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance (MR) has become a topic of increasing interest to the imaging community over the past two years. In this text, the authors attempt to distinguish facts from fiction concerning such integrated systems. Analysis of existing information of combined imaging on existing brain PET/MR systems and imaging experience with PET-computed tomography (CT) is reviewed. Various types of system integration of PET and MR are discussed with completely independent systems on one hand and completely integrated systems with the possibility of simultaneous data acquisition on the other hand. Furthermore, it is discussed, what simultaneous data acquisition with nuclear imaging systems combined with MR or CT really means, as technical simultaneity may not be relevant in light of the pharmacokinetics of the nuclear tracers used. The authors conclude that combining PET/MR is an ...
Background and AimsSecondary growth via successive cambia has been intriguing researchers for decades. Insight into the mechanism of growth layer formation is, however, limited to...Full Text Available
Developing in vitro engineered hepatic tissues that exhibit stable phenotype is a major challenge in the field of hepatic tissue engineering. However, the rapid dedifferentiation of...Full Text Available
This article presents a decentralized control scheme for the complex problem of simultaneous position and internal force control in cooperative multiple manipulator systems. The proposed controller is composed of a sliding mode control term and a force robustifying term to simultaneously control the payloads position/orientation as well as the internal forces induced in the system. This is accomplished independently of the manipulators dynamics. Unlike most controllers that do not require prior knowledge of the manipulators dynamics, the suggested controller does not use fuzzy logic inferencing and is computationally inexpensive. Using a Lyapunov stability approach, the controller is proven to be robust in the face of varying systems dynamics. The payloads position/orientation and the inte...
We analyse the capacity of a simultaneous quantum secure direct communication scheme between the central party and other M parties via M+1-particle GHZ states and swapping quantum entanglement. It is shown that the encoding scheme should be secret if other M parties wants to transmit M+1 bit classical messages to the centre party secretly. However, when the encoding scheme is announced publicly, we prove that the capacity of the scheme in transmitting the secret messages is 2 bits, no matter how large M is.
Instrumental neutron activation analysis is used for simultaneously determination of macrocomponents in ferroelectric materials LLZT. Pb, Zr, Ti have been determined by "2"0"3Pb, "8"9Zr and "4"8Sc nuclides created by fast neutron (14.5 MeV) activation. Application of paraffine as neutron moderator and reflector allows to simultaneously determine lanthanum by "1"4"0La nuclide. It has been shown that zirconium, titanium and lanthanum can be determined with the accuracy of #+-#0.1 mas. % and lead - #+-#0.7 mas. %.
A gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS) has been built and delivered to the Mercury MESSENGER spacecraft which launched on August 3, 2004, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The GRS, a part of seven scientific instruments on board MESSENGER, is based on a coaxial high-purity germanium detector. Gamma-ray detectors based on germanium have the advantage of providing excellent energy resolution, which is critical to achieving the science goals of the mission. However, germanium has the disadvantage that it must operate at cryogenic temperatures (typically {approx}80 K). This requirement is easy to satisfy in the laboratory but difficult near Mercury, which has an extremely hot thermal radiation environment. To cool the detector, a Stirling cycle mechanical cooler is employed. In addition, radiation and conduction techniques a are used to reduce the GRS heat load. Before delivering the flight sensor, a complete thermal prototype was built and tested. The results ...
This work estimates the power requirements for using photochemical processes driven by space nuclear power to counteract the Earth's ozone layer depletion. The total quantity of ozone (O_3) in the Earth's atmosphere is estimated to be about 4.7 x 10"3"7 molecules. The ozone production and destruction rates in the stratosphere are both on the order of 4.9 x 10"3"1 molecules/s, differing by a small fraction so that the net depletion rate is about 0.16 to 0.26% per year. The delivered optical power requirement for offsetting this depletion is estimated to be on the order of 3 GW. If the power were produced by satellite reactors at 800 km altitude (orbit decay time #approx# 300 years), some means of efficient power beaming would be needed to deliver the power to stratospheric levels (10--50 km). Ultraviolet radiation at 140--150 nm could have higher absorption rates in O_2 (leading to production of atomic oxygen, which can combine with O_2 to form ...
The quality insurance in radiotherapy in the frame of highly complex technical process as Intensity modulated radiotherapy (I.M.R.T.) needs independent control of the delivered dose to the patient. Actually, up to now, most of the radiotherapy treatments rely only on computed dosimetry through a rather complicated series of linked simulation tool. This dosimetry approach requires also qualified treatment means based on cautious quality insurance procedures. However, erroneous parameters could be difficult to detect and systematical errors could happen leading to radiotherapy accidents. In this context, in vivo dosimetry has a critical role of final control of the delivered dose. As many beam incidences and ports are used for any photon therapy treatment, external control could be very tedious and time consuming. Therefore, innovations are needed for in vivo dosimetry to provide ergonomic and efficient tools for these controls. This paper ...
Object: To control the average liquid level of each steam generator at a constant level irrespective of the flow rate of sodium thereby to decrease change in the retained amount of sodium and at the same time to improve the load response characteristic. Construction: A method for decreasing to as large an extent as possible a change in the amount of sodium retained in a steam generator due to change in the flow rate, which comprises the steps of detecting the main recirculating flow rate of liquid sodium by the use of a sodium flow rate detector, amplifying the detected flow rate signal depending upon the ratio between the flow rates respectively in a super-heater and a re-heater (distribution ratio), delivering the amplified signal to a function generator which generates a liquid level setting signal for maintaining the respective average liquid levels of the super-heater and the re-heater at constant levels irrespective of the flow rates, and ...
A preliminary design effort directed toward a low concentration ratio photovoltaic array system based on 1984 technology and capable of delivering multi-hundred kilowatts (300 kW to 100 kW range) in low Earth orbit is described. The array system consists of two or more array modules each capable of delivering between 113 kW to 175 kW using silicon solar cells or gallium arsenide solar cells, respectively. The array module deployed area is 1320 square meters and consists of 4356 pyramidal concentrator elements. The module, when stowed in the Space Shuttle's payload bay, has a stowage volume of a cube with 3.24 meters on a side. The concentrator elements are sized for a geometric concentration ratio (GCR) of six with an aperture area of 0.5 meters x 0.5 meters. Drawings for the preliminary design configuration and for the test hardware that was fabricated for design evaluation and test are provided.
A preliminary design effort directed toward a low concentration ratio photovoltaic array system capable of delivering multihundred kilowatts (300 kW to 1000 kW range) in low earth orbit is described. The array system consists of two or more array modules each capable of delivering between 113 kW to 175 kW using silicon solar cells or gallium arsenide solar cells, respectively. The array module deployed area is 1320 square meters and consists of 4356 pyramidal concentrator elements. The module, when stowed in the Space Shuttle's payload bay, has a stowage volume of a cube with 3.24 meters on a side. The concentrator elements are sized for a geometric concentration ratio (GCR) of six with an aperture area of .25 sq. m. The structural analysis and design trades leading to the baseline design are discussed. It describes the configuration, as well as optical, thermal and electrical performance analyses that support the design and overall ...
Background: the authors report on the conception and first clinical application of a donut-shaped high-dose configuration for proton therapy (PT). This approach allows one to intensify target volume dose coverage for targets encompassing a critical, dose-limiting structure - like here, the cauda equina -, whilst delivering minimal dose to other healthy structures surrounding the target, thereby reducing the integral dose. Methods and results: intensity-modulated PT methods (IMPT) for spot scanning were applied to create and deliver a donut-shaped high-dose configuration with protons, allowing treating > 75% of the target with at least 95% of the prescribed dose of 72.8 CGE, whilst restricting dose to the cauda equina to 60-65 CGE. Integral dose was lower by a factor of 3.3 as compared to intensity-modulated radiotherapy with photons (IMXT). Conclusion: IMPT and spot scanning technology allow a potentially clinically useful approach which ...
Background: the authors report on the conception and first clinical application of a donut-shaped high-dose configuration for proton therapy (PT). This approach allows one to intensify target volume dose coverage for targets encompassing a critical, dose-limiting structure - like here, the cauda equina -, whilst delivering minimal dose to other healthy structures surrounding the target, thereby reducing the integral dose. Methods and results: intensity-modulated PT methods (IMPT) for spot scanning were applied to create and deliver a donut-shaped high-dose configuration with protons, allowing treating > 75% of the target with at least 95% of the prescribed dose of 72.8 CGE, whilst restricting dose to the cauda equina to 60-65 CGE. Integral dose was lower by a factor of 3.3 as compared to intensity-modulated radiotherapy with photons (IMXT). Conclusion: IMPT and spot scanning technology allow a potentially clinically useful approach which is ...
The CleverFarm project started out to build an integrated monitoring system for wind farms, where all information would be available and could be used across the wind farm for maintenance and component health assessments. This would enable wind farm operators to prioritise their efforts, since they have a good view of the farm status from home. A large emphasis was placed on the integration of condition monitoring approaches in the central system, enabling estimates of the remaining lifetime of components, especially in the nacelle. During the 3,5 years of the project, software and hardware was developed and installed in two wind farms in Denmark and Germany. The connected hardware included two different condition monitoring systems based on vibration sensors from Gram&Juhl and ISET, plus a camera system developed by Overspeed. Additionally, short-term predictions of the wind farm output were delivered by DMI and Risoes Prediktor system throughout the ...
Launched in 2006, over 8,700 residential energy upgrades have been completed through Austin Energy's Home Performance with Energy Star (HPwES) program. The program's lending partner, Velocity Credit Union (VCU) has originated almost 1,800 loans, totaling approximately $12.5 million. Residential energy efficiency loans are typically small, and expensive to originate and service relative to larger financing products. National lenders have been hesitant to deliver attractive loan products to this small, but growing, residential market. In response, energy efficiency programs have found ways to partner with local and regional banks, credit unions, community development finance institutions (CDFIs) and co-ops to deliver energy efficiency financing to homeowners. VCU's experience with the Austin Energy HPwES program highlights the potential benefits of energy efficiency programs to a lending partner.
An electric propulsion concept suitable for delivering heavy payloads from low earth orbit (LEO) to high energy earth orbit is proposed. The system consists of a number of pulsed inductive plasma thrusters powered by a 100 kWe space nuclear power system. The pulsed plasma thruster is a relatively simple electrodeless device. It also exhibits adequate conversion to thrust power in the desired I sub sp regime of 1500 to 3000 seconds for optimal payload transfer from low earth to high earth orbit. Because of these features and the fact that the nuclear power unit will be capable of delivering sustained high power levels throughout the duration of any given mission, the system presented appears to be a very promising propulsion candidate for advanced orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) applications. An OTV, which makes use of this propulsion system and which has been designed to lift a 9000-lb payload into geosynchronous earth orbit, (GEO) is also ...
The objective of this work is to develop a model for the simultaneous mass transfer of two acid gases in tertiary amines accompanied by reversible chemical reactions. The model has been applied to the industrially important system of simultaneous absorption or desorption of CO/sub 2/ and H/sub 2/S in aqueous methyldiethanolamine (MDEA). In most applications the treated gas must be virtually free of H/sub 2/S; however, it is often not necessary or economical to remove substantial amounts of CO/sub 2/. Hence, selective removal of H/sub 2/S from gas streams such as natural or synthetic gases which contain CO/sub 2/ is desirable. In this research a film theory model describing the simultaneous diffusion and reversible reaction of two gases into reactive liquid has been used to predict the mass transfer enhancement factors of CO/sub 2/ and H/sub 2/S in aqueous MDEA solutions. The resulting unstable two point boundary value ...
The simultaneous diffusion of Si and the dopants B, P, and As has been studied by the use of a multilayer structure of isotopically enriched Si. This structure, consisting of 5 pairs of 120 nm thick natural Si and {sup 28}Si enriched layers, enables the observation of {sup 30}Si self-diffusion from the natural layers into the {sup 28}Si enriched layers, as well as dopant diffusion from an implanted source in an amorphous Si cap layer, via Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS). The dopant diffusion created regions of the multilayer structure that were extrinsic at the diffusion temperatures. In these regions, the Fermi level shift due to the extrinsic condition altered the concentration and charge state of the native defects involved in the diffusion process, which affected the dopant and self-diffusion. The simultaneously recorded diffusion profiles enabled the modeling of the coupled dopant and self-diffusion. From the modeling of the ...
Globalization and technological innovation are creating dynamic networks or chains of interconnected players, often known as value delivery networks or supply chains, in which a firm, whether manufacturing or service, holds the key to creating and delivering value in the form of offerings to the customers. This idea of value creation and exchange is the foundation stone of relationship marketing and it is considered successful when closeness is said to have been established in the relationship which subsequently leads toward the achievement of objectives. In order to study and understand the creation of value through relationship closeness in a value delivery network particularly at the backward end, a literature review is conducted. A framework is further developed with the help of Interp...
The literature is littered with reports presenting the proportion of patients admitted with ischaemic stroke receiving thrombolysis. This gives some measure of activity and the efficiency of prehospital and hospital triage. Some stroke centres have reported rates of thrombolysis as high as 20%, but without knowing the population that such services serve, these proportions do not indicate how well or equitably the treatment is being delivered. Here, we explore various metrics to monitor our efforts to provide equitable access to stroke thrombolysis in Lothian, a region in the South East of Scotland. PMID:21086712
Brachytherapy is a radiotherapeutic modality that makes use of radionuclides to deliver a high radiation dose to a well-defined volume while sparing surrounding healthy structures. At the National Institute for Cancer Research of Genova a High Dose Rate remote afterloading system provides Ir(192) endocavitary brachytherapy treatments. We studied the possibility to use the Geant4 Monte Carlo simulation toolkit in brachytherapy for calculation of complex physical parameters, not directly available by experiment al measurements, used in treatment planning dose deposition models.
This article presents the text of a lecture delivered by American Educational Research Association President Carol D. Lee at the 29th Annual Charles H. Thompson Lecture-Colloquium Series which was held on November 5, 2008. In her lecture, Lee discussed several points of similarities between W. E. B. Du Bois and President Barack Obama. These similarities in background, education, and in their ideas on politics and power are historically connected with implications for educating Black people though race consciousness.
The conceptual design for a cyclotron that could possibly deliver a 10 MW proton beam, presented at the previous ADTT conference, is discussed in comparison with the operational experience gained with 0.9 MW beam power in the upgraded cyclotron facility at PSI that has reached the design goal of 1.5 mA at 590 MeV in 1995. Some critical aspects of the design are e.g. RF power and beam loading, beam loss and activation, space charge effects and bunching. 12 refs., 2 figs., 1 tab.
The paper takes as its starting point the diffusion of ICT applications associated with so-called 'customer relationship management' (CRM). CRM encourages organisations to shift their understanding of customers from an episodic and transaction-based perspective to one that emphasises continuous 'relationship management'. CRM applications thus promise to deliver more, real-time accurate information about consumer habits and behaviours therefore allowing organisations to maximise their extraction of business value. This paper explores the ways in which such inscriptive technologies are not merely referential but also constitutive of contemporary re-presentations and ideals of the consuming subject. Focusing on what we might call the 'digital doubles' of customer relationship management the a...
Purpose - This paper seeks to analyse the hypothesis that sustainability is destined to become the operating paradigm for construction education in the UK. Design/methodology/approach - An international literature review is used to assess the relationship between sustainability and the built environment. The viewpoints of the construction-related professions are examined by analysing the accreditation policies of key professional bodies and through a survey of public sector-based UK building professionals. International and national policy initiatives on educating for sustainability are reviewed and a survey of UK universities delivering construction degrees is used to explore the environmental content of construction courses. A brief case study describes recent efforts to systematically e...
A high pressure waterjet has been used to study the surface roughening of superalloys as preparation for thermal spraying. Designed experiments for Mar-M 509 and Rene 80 were carried out for the effects of jet pressure and mass of water delivered per unit area. Comparisons were made of several superalloys in terms of erosion, surface roughness and topology. The mechanism of jet erosion of Rene 80 was studied in relation to its metallurgical microstructure. An MCrAlY coating by shrouded plasma spray was made over a waterjet prepared surface with excellent bonding and having an ideally clean interface.
The Savannah River Site has successfully used robots, teleoperators, and remote video to reduce exposure to ionizing radiation, improve worker safety, and improve the quality of operations. Previous reports have described the use of mobile teleoperators in coping with a high level liquid waste spill, the removal of highly contaminated equipment, and the inspection of nuclear reactor vessels. This report will cover recent applications at the Savannah River, as well as systems which SRS has delivered to other DOE site customers.
The activities of the radiochemical section (part of the Analytical Chemistry Group) deal mostly with problems of composition. Activation analysis with thermal neutrons serves for most of the trace element analyses either with or without chemical separations. Ge(Li) spectrometry has been increasingly automated so that many analyses can now be performed by relatively unskilled personnel. In a number of analyses an A.V.F.-cyclotron was employed: such an accelerator can deliver not only different types of charged particles at variable energies but also fast neutrons. (T.G.).
Macroautophagy is a multistep, vacuolar, degradation pathway terminating in the lysosomal compartment, and it is of fundamental importance in tissue homeostasis. In this review, we consider macroautophagy in the light of recent advances in our understanding of the formation of autophagosomes, which are double-membrane-bound vacuoles that sequester cytoplasmic cargos and deliver them to lysosomes. In most cases, this final step is preceded by a maturation step during which autophagosomes interact with the endocytic pathway. The discovery of AuTophaGy-related genes has greatly increased our knowledge about the mechanism responsible for autophagosome formation, and there has also been progress in the understanding of molecular aspects of autophagosome maturation. Finally, the regulation of au...
The achievement of governmental transformation through the use of electronically delivered services is a worthy goal that requires significant planning and research to achieve. In order to reach transformational paradigm shifts in governmental operation, it will first be necessary to understand and optimize present governmental e-Service provisions. Of these, the revenue function of taxation is paramount. This paper describes factors related to the use and acceptance by accounting professionals of information technology intended to facilitate electronic tax filing systems. Though tested in the context of governmental tax management systems in Turkey, our findings on the use and acceptance of e-Tax systems are relevant and applicable to a great number of nations and contexts as the ongoing ...
The main scope of this study has been to calculate the future cost for decommission and dismantling the Isotope central at the Studsvik site using the OMEGA CODE. Detailed empirical information is used in the study for 'bench-marking' purposes, in such cases when there is a need to supplement and correct field data from the industry. In the present study, data has been retrieved and organized such that the estimated costs for decommissioning of the Isotope Central become transparent and reliable. This approach gives a preliminary qualitative indication about the accuracy of the cost estimate delivered by the industry
Neon 19, a 17-second positron-emitting radioelement, is produced continously by 23 MeV alpha particle bombardment of oxygen. For a 12 ..mu..A particle current the method of preparation described delivers 14 mCi of neon 19 per min to the functional exploration room. The radiochemically pure radioactive gas is diluted in air and breathed continously by the patient lying under a positron tomographic camera. The regional lung ventilation distribution is obtained on 2 cm thick sections of organ with a transverse resolution of 17 mm. Quantification of the ventilation output per unit lung volume is contemplated.
This talk reviews the history of the Canadian nuclear-electric program highlighting Canada's first nuclear power station, the Nuclear Power Demonstration or NPD. NPD was commissioned and delivered electricity to Canadian consumers for the first time on june 4, 1962. The Canadian nuclear-electric program is based on the CANDU-PHW (Canadian Deuterium Uranium - Pressurized Heavy Water) concept which was conceived between 1955 and 1958 at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratory (CRNL) of AECL, located a few miles from Deep River. This talk covers the history of the Canadian nuclear-electric activities dating back to 1939.
A dual fuel engine control system for controlling the power output of a dual fuel compression ignition engine. The engine includes mixing means for combining an oxidizer and a primary fuel at a substantially constant ratio of oxidizer to primary fuel. The power output of the engine is controlled through the use of a throttle valve controlling the quantity of combustible mixture delivered to the combustion chamber. The fuel control system minimizes the quantity of ignition fuel required by controlling the quantity of combustible mixture rather than the fuel of air ratio. (author) figs.
We have developed a novel laser ray-tracing method to measure aberrations in optical systems. It consists of delivering narrow laser pencils (by a laser scanner), recording the spots that are formed on the image plane (with a CCD camera), and computing the position of each centroid. This approach could be considered an experimental (approximate) implementation of standard numerical ray tracing. Several tests and experiments, including a direct comparison with a Hartmann-Shack wave-front sensor, provided highly satisfactory results that confirmed the validity of the method and revealed potential advantages. PMID:18073906
Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) of lung perfusions permits to map functioning lung parenchyma with higher sensitivity than CT. Delivering higher radiations doses it used to increase local control in lung carcinoma; this strategy is based on radiobiological and clinical studies. Lung parenchyma is a dose-limiting tissue in patients irradiated for lung cancer. Functional mapping based on SPECT and CT findings permits to design radiation beams such as to minimize irradiation of functioning lung.
An in vitro system for studying Pu uptake by, and removal from, macrophages was developed to provide data for the actinide therapy program. We have shown that "2"3"9PuO_2 particle uptake in vitro resembles the process in vivo with respect to the intracellular localization of phagocytized particles. At the end of 7 days of culture of Pu-loaded cells, 54% of the cells were viable even though 71% of the cells in the culture initially contained enough "2"3"9PuO_2 to deliver more than 53 intracellular #alpha#-disintegrations.
Background This report describes the authors? experience with a unique endoluminal, endoscopically delivered and retrieved gastroduodenojejunal bypass sleeve, including short-term weight loss and changes in comorbidities. Methods A prospective, single-center trial was designed. The patients were morbidly obese individuals who met the National Institutes of Health criteria for bariatric surgery. The device used was a unique gastroduodenojejunal bypass sleeve secured at the esophagogastric junction with endoscopic and laparoscopic techniques and designed to create an endoluminal gastroduodenojejunal bypass. At completion of the trial, the device was explanted with endoscopic retrieval. The primary end points were safety and incidence of adverse events. The secondary outcomes included the per...
This paper will track the design and results of an injection molding tool developed to manufacture microfluidic chips. The mold design and injection molding process was complicated by the presence of integrated capillary fluidic interconnects. We determined that design of the runner and gate system responsible for delivering molten plastic to the cavity had a significant impact on the quality of parts produced by the mold and the size of the process window. Numerical results confirm our findings that reducing gate lengths and increasing part thickness dramatically improved the filling profile and lowered injection pressures by 37%. Finally, the influence of gate location on part shrinkage is analyzed and discussed.
...Climate Change : News Categories : Department of Energy and Climate Change Articles in Smart energy meters Results There are 2 articles listed in Smart energy ... meters DECC lays foundations for smart meters rollout A crucial step in delivering the UK's energy security and low carbon future was taken today ...Nuclear Prices Renewable energy Renewable Heat Incentive Saving energy and CO2 Science Smart energy meters Statistics Statistics and projections Transparency Wave and tidal Wind ...
The CyberKnife Robotic Radiosurgery System (Accuracy Incorporated, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) is used worldwide to treat tumors and neurological disorders anywhere in the body with sub-millimetre beam delivery accuracy. Accuracy has developed a number of new technologies in recent years to enhance the treatment of cancer patients. Such new technologies include a fast Monte Carlo Dose Calculation algorithm, Sequential Optimization dose planning, the IrisTM Variable Aperture Collimator, an 800 MU/min Linear Accelerator, and Optimized Path Traversal. These technologies enable physicists and physicians to plan treatments quickly and easily and deliver them with unrivalled accuracy and precision
Prostate cancer can be successfully treated using dynamic adaptive external beam radiation techniques along with interstitial brachytherapy to deliver curative therapies with low urinary, rectal and erectile function morbidity. Through the use of sophisticated, state-of-the art radiographic imaging for staging and treatment planning, a precise, individual design for treatment is accomplished. Symptom management and patient education are of paramount importance and are integrated throughout the treatment process.
Convective cooling of turbine hot parts using a closed loop system is disclosed. Preferably, the present invention is applied to cooling the hot parts of combustion turbine power plants, and the cooling provided permits an increase in the inlet temperature and the concomitant benefits of increased efficiency and output. In preferred embodiments, methods and apparatus are disclosed wherein air is removed from the combustion turbine compressor and delivered to passages internal to one or more of a combustor and turbine hot parts. The air cools the combustor and turbine hot parts via convection and heat is transferred through the surfaces of the combustor and turbine hot parts.
The paper discusses the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on Aviation and the Global Atmosphere (published in 1999). It was considered necessary to treat air transport on its own since aircraft are unique in delivering emissions into the upper atmosphere rather than at ground level. The study was commissioned at the request of the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the Montreal Protocol. More than 300 experts contributed and the report has quantified the effect of aviation on the atmosphere on a world wide basis and highlighted areas where improved data are required. (UK)
Marketing-led enterprise change management initiated by a major UK contractor is explored in this paper as a contrast to procurement-led changes to projects driven by clients. Procurement-led initiatives try to induce changes to behaviour through market governance. Relationship marketing and management proactively change organizational behaviour, the enterprise taking responsibility for its own destiny. Investment and resource allocation, and organizational behaviour have posed constraints, particularly concerning service continuity in construction. Overcoming these constraints offers opportunities for delivering service improvements and adding value for clients and yielding further increases in repeat business and increasing profitability. Relationship marketing is the conceptual starting...
A high-power microwave Free Electron Laser (FEL) experiment has been performed to study the inherent electron beam bunching that occurs in the FEL interaction. An induction linac delivered a 1 kA, 2.2 MeV electron beam to a FEL amplifier. In the process of amplifying the input signal of frequency 35 GHz to power levels of the order of 10 MW, the electron beam was bunched by the ponderomotive force. In this paper we describe the FEL experiment and the optical technique that was used to observe the bunches. Their properties as functions of the basic FEL parameters are discussed. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics.
Ensuring security of e-government applications and infrastructures is crucial to maintain trust among stakeholders to store, process and exchange information over the e-government systems. Due to dynamic and continuous threats on e-government information security, policy makers need to perform evaluation on existing information security strategy as to deliver trusted e-government services. This paper presents an information security evaluation framework based on new fuzzy multi criteria decision making (MCDM) to help policy makers conduct comprehensive assessment of e-government security strategy.
Electric vehicles that can`t reach trolley wires need batteries. In the early 1900`s electric cars disappeared when owners found that replacing the car`s worn-out lead-acid battery costs more than a new gasoline-powered car. Most of today`s electric cars are still propelled by lead-acid batteries. General Motors` Impact, for example, uses starting-lighting-ignition batteries, which deliver lots of power for demonstrations, but have a life of less than 100 deep discharges. Now promising alternative technology has challenged the world-wide lead miners, refiners, and battery makers into forming a consortium that sponsors research into making better lead-acid batteries. Horizon`s new bipolar battery delivered 50 watt-hours per kg (Wh/kg), compared with 20 for ordinary transport-vehicle batteries. The alternatives are delivering from 80 Wh/kg (nickel-metal hydride) up to 200 Wh/kg (zinc-bromine). A Fiat Panda travelled 260 km on ...
The needs of large industrial, commercial, and institutional energy consumers are more closely connected with the needs of power utilities and energy services companies, a result of the evolving global energy environment. Consumer choice, competition amongst energy suppliers, and increased demand are brought about in some regions by deregulation. Increasingly, large energy consumers expect high levels of quality and reliability from the energy delivered. As a result, management of the cost and the quality of the energy product and the energy assets that produce, deliver, control and consume it requires different strategies. Three major challenges must be overcome: (1) requirement to support economic and efficient delivery, purchasing and use of energy, (2) requirement to guarantee higher levels of power quality and reliability, and (3) requirement to supply the growing demand for energy while establishing a market-based pricing system. The ...
Simultaneous nitriding and ageing heat treatments of precipitation hardenable tool steel was carried out inside a DC-pulsed plasma nitriding reactor. A single heat treatment cycle was done, as the plasma nitriding and age hardening processes occur approximately at the same ranges of temperatures and times. Specimens of Cr-Ni-Mo-Al age hardenable steel, in the solubilized and solubilized and aged conditions, were tested. Plasma nitriding and ageing, carried out at 500 deg. C for times ranging between 2 and 8 h, increased the surface hardness up to 1000 HV, producing case depths between 100 and 200 {mu}m. The core hardness of solubilized samples increased from 30 to 39 Rockwell C after the plasma nitriding treatment proving the possibility of nitriding and ageing at the same treatment cycle. The pre-aged samples did not show any overageing after the simultaneous plasma nitriding and ageing treatments. The corrosion resistance after plasma ...
Simultaneous nitriding and ageing heat treatments of precipitation hardenable tool steel was carried out inside a DC-pulsed plasma nitriding reactor. A single heat treatment cycle was done, as the plasma nitriding and age hardening processes occur approximately at the same ranges of temperatures and times. Specimens of Cr-Ni-Mo-Al age hardenable steel, in the solubilized and solubilized and aged conditions, were tested. Plasma nitriding and ageing, carried out at 500 deg. C for times ranging between 2 and 8 h, increased the surface hardness up to 1000 HV, producing case depths between 100 and 200 #mu#m. The core hardness of solubilized samples increased from 30 to 39 Rockwell C after the plasma nitriding treatment proving the possibility of nitriding and ageing at the same treatment cycle. The pre-aged samples did not show any overageing after the simultaneous plasma nitriding and ageing treatments. The corrosion resistance after plasma ...
A series of 27 reflood experiments has been carried out in a full-length electrically heated rod bundle facility. The primary objective of these tests was to study the effects of a simultaneous upper plenum and downcomer coolant injection and to provide data for the verification of computer codes. The experimental results indicate that an upper plenum injection alone cools the test rods slowly, a simultaneous coolant injection to the downcomer improves cooling significantly, and a downcomer injection alone cools the test rod bundle best if the total value of the coolant flow rate is the same in these three different cases. If the coolant injected to the upper plenum increases the total flow rate, the quench time of the test rods decreases at all elevations. Quenching time and clad temperature histories calculated with the computer codes NORCOOL-I and FLOOD4 are in a reasonable quantitative agreement with experiments in the case of pure ...
Consider the simultaneous relay channel which consists of a set of relay channels where the source wishes to transmit common and private information to each of the destinations. This problem is recognized as being equivalent to that of sending common and private information to several destinations in presence of helper relays where each channel outcome becomes a branch of the broadcast relay channel (BRC). Cooperative schemes and capacity region for a set of two relay channels are investigated. The proposed coding schemes, based on Decode-and-Forward (DF) and Compress-and-Forward (CF), must be capable of transmitting information simultaneously to all destinations in such set. Inner bounds on the capacity region of the general BRC are based on three cases. First the channels from source-to-relays of both destinations are assumed to be stronger than the others and the cooperation is based on DF strategy for both users (DF-DF region), secondly the ...
A rickettsia related to but distinct from the spotted fever agent, Rickettsia rickettsii, has been detected in 167 (18.9%) of 884 Rhipicephalus sanguineus taken off dogs in central and northern Mississippi. The organisms could readily be isolated in male meadow voles (Microtus pennsylvanicus), where it produced massive infections in the tissues of tunica vaginalis. It was practically nonpathogenic for male guinea pigs, although inoculation of these animals with infected tunica vaginalis of voles afforded in 30 of 38 instances solid immunity to challenge with virulent R. rickettsii. The Rhipicephalus rickettsia grew well in monolayers of chicken embryo fibroblast, Vero, mouse L, and HeLa cells. Cytopathogenic effects were minimal unless large concentrations of rickettsiae were used as inocula. It also could be established in embryonated hen eggs but only after injection of massive doses of L cell-propagated organisms. Serological tests (complement fixation, microagglutination and/or ...
We evaluated the use of a novel gene porter (Den123-a nontoxic self-assembled dendritic spheroidal nanoparticle made of biodegradable monomers), aiming to enhance and improve the desired immune response in protection from allergy. Footpad DNA immunization in Balb/c mice was done three times using the Bet v 1a gene with or without Den123 with 2-week intervals followed by sensitization with rBetv1 (5mg) in alum twice in a weekly interval. Different doses of pCMV-Betv1 were used (10mg and 100mg). The protective role of different formulations was evaluated by measuring the IgG1, IgG2a and IgE antibody production, cytokine release of isolated splenocytes and b-hexosaminidase release from the RBL cells. Higher and increasing ratios of IgG2a/IgG1 were seen in mice which received plasmids in combi...
Xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) was discovered in human prostate tumors and later in some chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) patients. However, subsequent studies have identified various sources of potential contamination with XMRV and other murine leukemia virus (MLV)-related sequences in test samples. Biological and nucleotide sequence analysis indicates that XMRV is distinct from known xenotropic MLVs and has a broad host range and cell tropism including human cells. Therefore, it is prudent to minimize the risk of human exposure to infection by evaluating XMRV contamination in cell lines handled in laboratory research and particularly those used in the manufacture of biological products. Nested DNA PCR assays were optimized for investigating XMRV gag and env sequences in various cell lines, which included MRC-5, Vero, HEK-293, MDCK, HeLa, and A549, that may be used in the development of some vaccines and other cell lines broadly used in ...
OBJECTIVES: The authors examine the rationale and efficacy of pre-travel hepatitis B immunization strategies based on itinerary and presumed on-travel risk behaviour. METHODS: A large survey among 26,640 Danes survey provided data on journey lengths and destinations, immunization coverage, risk behaviour and knowledge. RESULTS: The estimated cumulative lifetime stay in endemic areas outside Europe is 4.3 months. The majority of risk situations are involuntary and unforeseeable. The majority of risk situations occur on short-term journeys. 5% nonimmune and 5% short-term travellers experienced at least one risk situation such as injections/operations/tattoos on their journey. The level of knowledge of hepatitis A and B is low. CONCLUSIONS: The rationale and efficacy of current immunization strategies are challenged. Based on the results presented here and the availability of vaccines with long-lasting coverage, the authors find that recommendations of immunization ...
1. Gamma globulin metabolism and distribution were studied employing rabbit gamma globulin (RGG)I(131) 24 times in 13 control rabbits. Similar studies were performed before and during the ananmestic response in 4 rabbits previously sensitized with a polyvalent pneumococcal vaccine. 2. During the ananmestic response, gamma-globulin levels increased from 1.0 to 6.0 gm/100 ml, and the gamma-globulin pool increased from 0.7 to 4.7 gm/kg. There was no change in the intravascular-extravascular partition of gamma globulin. 3. Gamma globulin degradation increased from 0.06 to 0.33 gm/kg/day during the 28 days of the immunization period while gamma globulin synthesis increased even further to average 0.47 gm/kg/day. Following the attainment of elevated gamma globulin levels the fractional rate of RGG-I(131) turnover increased from 8.0 to 12.5 per cent/day. 4. No differences were noted in the metabolism of homologous or autologous gamma globulin regardless of the allotypic ...
Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have remained at the forefront of stem cell research for the past 50 years, since the therapeutic potential of bone marrow transplantation was realized. Uniquely, among stem and progenitor cells, research progress has been made in parallel between the laboratory benchtop and hospital bedside during this period. Integral to this work has been the role of the transfusion medicine services in the collection, storage, and processing of HSCs. The next decade promises to bring further developments: with new fields of cellular therapies, stem cell vaccination, and stem cell drug testing opening up. This article summarizes exciting areas of research concerning the behavior and potential clinical applications of HSCs. For the purposes of clarity, we describe in turn the trafficking and transfer of HSCs; ex vivo expansion of HSC units from different sources; and finally, applications of specifically selected subsets of hematopoietic cells and ...
Global meat and milk consumption is exponentially increasing due to population growth, urbanization and changes in lifestyle in the developing world. This is an excellent opportunity for developing countries to improve the livestock sector by using technological advances. Biotechnology is one of the avenues for improved production in the "Livestock revolution". Biotechnology developments applied to livestock health, nutrition, breeding and reproduction are improving with a reasonable pace in developing countries. Simple bio-techniques such as artificial insemination have been well implemented in many parts of the developing world. However, advanced technologies including transgenic plant vaccines, marker assisted selection, solid state fermentation for the production of fibrolytic enzymes, transgenic fodders, embryo transfer and animal cloning are confined largely to research organizations. Some developing countries such as Taiwan, China and Brazil have considered ...
Summary Background Treatment of localised renal cell carcinoma consists of partial or radical nephrectomy. A substantial proportion of patients are at risk for recurrence because no effective adjuvant therapy exists. We investigated the use of an autologous, tumour-derived heat-shock protein (glycoprotein 96)-peptide complex (HSPPC-96; vitespen) as adjuvant treatment in patients at high risk of recurrence after resection of locally advanced renal cell carcinoma. Methods In this open-label trial, patients were randomly assigned to receive either vitespen (n=409) or observation alone (n=409) after nephrectomy. Randomisation was done in a one to one ratio by a computer-generated pseudo-random number generator, with a block size of four, and was stratified by performance score, lymph node stat...
In a systematic survey of ternary fission induced by thermal neutrons at the Lohengrin spectrometer of the ILL/Grenoble, the target nucleus {sup 249}Cf has recently been added to the list of actinides under study. Special emphasis was put on the search for the heaviest ternary particles. At the limit of detection (some 10{sup -9} per fission), the heaviest isotopes observed for {sup 249}Cf(n{sub th},f) are {sup 37}Si and {sup 37}S. Another rare process in low energy fission is quaternary fission. Here two light charged particles accompany the main fragments. The reaction {sup 233} U(n,f) has been studied at a cold neutron beam of the ILL. Two processess have to be disentangled: simultaneous and sequential quaternary fission. In the simultaneous decay the most probable combination of particles is ({alpha} + {alpha}) with a yield of {approx}10{sup -7}/fission.
BackgroundSince implementation of the Model for End-stage Liver Disease (MELD), the number of simultaneous liver-kidney transplantations (SLKT) has increased in the United States. However, predictors and survival benefit of SLKT compared to liver transplantation alone (LTA) are not well defined. MethodsOrgan Procurement and Transplantation Network data of patients with end-stage liver disease (ESLD) with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) <60 mL/min/1.73 m2 who had not been on dialysis while on the waiting list and underwent liver transplantation between 2002 and 2008 were analyzed. To identify predictors of undergoing SLKT versus LTA, multiple logistic regression analysis was performed. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to assess the association between...
We report the simultaneous formation of self-assembled surface ripples in Cd{sub 2}Nb{sub 2}O{sub 7} pyrochlore caused by focused ion beam (FIB) patterning and uniformly distributed metallic nanodots induced by phase decomposition under ion bombardment. The characteristic wavelength of the surface ripples is controllable from the nm to the sub-{micro}m scale. High-density Cd metallic nanoparticles, {approx} 5 nm, formed and the distribution of nanoparticles is consistent with the morphological characteristics of the ripple pattern. This approach provides a means of fabricating surface nanostructure with various patterns and a controllable particle size and distribution by combining ion beam-induced phase decomposition with high-precision FIB patterning.
In order to realize simultaneous reduction of NO{sub x} and Particulate emissions, effects of combustion chamber geometry were investigated in a high speed direct-injection diesel engine. The reentrant combustion chambers with different throat diameter were compared in terms of engine performance, combustion characteristics and emissions such as NO{sub x}, particulate and THC. The phenomena of combustion process were also observed with endoscopic high speed photography. The results showed that when the throat diameter of a reentrant combustion chamber was reduced to an extent, NO{sub x} and particulate decreased simultaneously due to retarded injection timing and the intensified squish. (author)
The effects of repeated low-level nerve agent exposure on animal performance and lethality are a major concern of USAF Medical Research. This concern has generated interest in the role that pretreatment drugs such as pyridostigmine may play during simultaneous exposure to soman. This role was investigated by recording lethality, weights, symptoms, and cholinesterase (ChE) inhibition in rats chronically exposed to 4 levels of soman (32, 39, 48 or 59 micrograms/kg/day) while simultaneously receiving 10.0 milligrams/kg/day pyridostigmine, 1.0 milligrams/kg/day pyridostigmine, or vehicle via an osmotic pump. No effect (either protective or detractive) was found in the soman-poisoned animals due to the presence or absence of pyridostigmine. However, rat blood biochemistry is different from that of the primate, warranting further study in the primate before extrapolation to man.
Phenotypic plasticity can facilitate reproductive strategies that maximize mating success in variable environments and lead to differences in sex allocation among populations. For simultaneous hermaphrodites with sperm competition, including Serranus tortugarum a small coral reef fish, proportional male allocation (testis in total gonad) is often greater where local density or mating group size is higher. We tested whether S. tortugarum reduced male allocation when transplanted from a higher density site to a lower density site. After 4?months, transplants mirrored the sex-allocation patterns of the resident population on their new reef. Transplants had significantly lower male allocation than representatives from their source population, largely as a result of reduced testis mass relative...
A newly developed method to support tissue characterization in routine MR imaging is presented. It represents a compromise between the practical requirements of clinical routine (short measurement time, multisection imaging) and the necessary accuracy of the relaxation parameter evaluation. The sequence employed is a modification of the PHAPS technique and works with two excitation pulses. It allows the simultaneous acquisition of all measurement data for the subsequent T1, T2, and rho evaluations. T1 is determined with a specially designed computation formula based on four signal ratios. A multiexponential T2 analysis is performed with use of 28 echoes. From these parameters, relative proton density can be computed.
The North Dakota Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) approach to removing NO{sub x} from flue gas emitted by coal-fired utility boilers or for the control of NO{sub x} formation by advanced combustion techniques involves the development of a catalytic fabric filter (CFF) for simultaneous NO{sub x} and particulate control. The NO{sub x}is removed by catalytic reduction with ammonia to form nitrogen and water. Bench-scale experimental results have shown that over 90% NO{sub x} removal can be achieved. This report details the strengths and areas for for development in this project.
In this work, a water-soluble polymer, polyethylenimine (PEI) was used for the simultaneous separation and preconcentration of trace Cu and Mn prior to their determination by flame atomic absorption spectrometry. For this purpose, the sample and the PEI solution were mixed and the metal-bound polymer was precipitated by adding acetone. The precipitate was separated and dissolved in a minimum amounts of water and aspirated into a flame AAS. By increasing the ratio of the volumes of sample to water used in dissolving the precipitate, the analyte elements were concentrated as needed. The sorption is quantitative in the pH ?6. Detection limits were 5.2 ?g/L for Cu and 5.4 ?g/L for Mn. This method is simple, fast and precise.
This contribution deals with identification of fractional-order dynamical systems. System identification, which refers to estimation of process parameters, is a necessity in control theory. Real processes are usually of fractional order as opposed to the ideal integral order models. A simple and elegant scheme of estimating the parameters for such a fractional order process is proposed. This method employs fractional calculus theory to find equations relating the parameters that are to be estimated, and then estimates the process parameters after solving the simultaneous equations. The said simultaneous equations are generated and updated using particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique, the fitness function being the sum of squared deviations from the actual set of observations. The data used for the calculations are intentionally corrupted to simulate real-life conditions. Results show that the proposed scheme offers a very high degree of ...
The authors describe an effect of suppression of invasion of the guinea pig eye conjunctiva and the HEp-2 epithelial cells by virulent Sh. flexneri bacilli, with a simultaneous administration of the same dose of avirulent shigella mutants, genetically connected with them. The data of morphological study and experiments with 3H-glucose labeled shigellae carried out on the cell species model indicated that the bacterial competition for the specific sites for absorption on the epithelial cells underlay the observed phenomenon. PMID:331774
The measurement of thyroidal uptake of radioiodine using a gamma camera and computer is described. In 12 children there was good agreement with simultaneous measurements using a probe, while in a further 14 patients the uptake values were consistent with the clinical diagnosis. The technique should be especially useful for infants and small children.
We investigate theoretically subwavelength imaging by acoustic metamaterial slabs immersed in the liquid matrix. A near-field subwavelength image formed by evanescent waves is achieved by a designed metamaterial slab with negative mass density and positive modulus. A subwavelength real image is achieved by a designed metamaterial slab with simultaneously negative mass density and modulus. These results are expected to shed some lights on designing novel devices of acoustic metamaterials.
Monochromator stabilization (MOSTAB) is a feedback control system to stabilize an x-ray beam of synchrotron radiation. It applies a feedback voltage to a piezo electric transducer attached to a double-crystal monochromator. We developed MOSTAB modules and examined their performances using SPring-8 beamlines. The x-ray beam position stabilization using MOSTAB was realized simultaneously with the x-ray beam intensity stabilization. As an example of its application, we performed EXAFS measurement with MOSTAB. (author)
At DORIS II/HASYLAB a vertical beam position control system is in regular operation. It controls the position and angle of a photon beam simultaneously, and can stabilize beam movements up to frequencies of 0.1 Hz. To suppress beam vibrations up to 50 Hz and above, a prototype beam stabilization system for these frequencies was built and tested successfully. The present beam oscillations at the HASYLAB beamlines are explained, the quality of the beam position control system and the results of the prototype test are presented.
Here the authors try to dissolve some commonly held misconceptions about the operation of eddy current probes used for inspecting heat exchanger tubes. With the help of computer model results, the authors demonstrate that, for optimized operation, absolute/differential probes should be operated with coil current flowing in phase with another. This month's feature should be of interest to researchers as well as for NDT field personnel.
The feasibility of performing a multiplex assay for the detection of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNAs and hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA is demonstrated. This...Full Text Available
The model of transient enhanced diffusion of ion-implanted As is formulated and the finite-difference method for numerical solution of the system of equations obtained is developed. The nonuniform distribution of point defects near the interface and more accurate description of arsenic clustering are simultaneously taken into account. Simulation of As diffusion during rapid annealing gives a reasonable agreement with the experimental data. (authors)
The rate of appearance of labeled thyroxine (T4) and albumin in lymph from various areas after simultaneous i.v. injection of the labeled substances in conscious ambulatory sheep has been used to estimate...Full Text Available
The developments of fields in deep waters (5000 ft and more) is a common occurrence. It is inevitable that production systems will operate under multiphase flow conditions (simultaneous flow of gas-oil-and water possibly along with sand, hydrates, and wax...
We study the dynamics of the scalar tensor cosmological model in the presence of tachyon field. In an alternative approach, in two exponential and power law form of the scalar field functions in the model, field equations are solved by simultaneously best fitting the model parameters with the most recent observational data. This approach gives us an observationally verified interpretation of the dynamics of the universe. We then discuss the best fitted of equation of state parameter, the statefinder parameters and the reconstructed scalar field in the model.
The numerical modelling of gravity changes resulting from the simultaneous effects of mass relocation and rock deformation is described. The method is supported by FEMMA (Finite Element Method for Multipurpose Applications) software, and has been used for modelling expected gravity changes in a large open pit coal mine in Poland. The results are in good agreement with conventional calculations of gravity changes for a simple geometry of relocated mass. 10 refs., 6 figs., 2 tabs.
This paper investigates the calculation of availability for parallel transmission lines (two or more) in the same tower or on the same right of way. As in many studies, the development of mathematical models is an important step. The models are justified using historical data and known characteristics of power system elements. A statistical method was used to generalize the failure rate and repair rate from real operating data. Application of the new model (which combines common-mode, simultaneous independent, and dependent outages) is discussed.
Object: To prevent a sudden drop in the level of a coolant in a annular pipe encased within a downcomer pipe. Structure: The coolant levels in annular pipes encased within downcomer pipes are simultaneously measured by level gauges which generate signals representative of coolant levels. The signals are fed to a level control system which will actuate valves to regulate the cover gas pressure in order to average the level differences among the annular pipes in different downcomer pipes. (Kamimura, M.).
The complex formation of zirconium with biphenyl mono- and biscatecholyazo derivatives has been studied spectrophotometrically. The composition of the complexes, form and charge of complex-forming zirconium ions have been established. A procedure is suggested for calculation of molar absorptivities and stability constants for each of the complexes formed simultaneously in the system. Possible complex formation schemes have been studied. The data obtained were used to develop a spectrophotometric method of determining zirconium in the presence of large amounts of copper.
Laser direct-write etching of the refractory metals Mo and W was developed using reactions in chlorine and nitrogen trifluoride vapors. Rate and high spatial resolution are simultaneously optimized using a two-vapor halogenation/development sequence, based on surface modification. Local-area laser chlorination of the metal surface is used to predispose areas to subsequent bulk etching.
Methods of solving Navier-Stokes equations for turbulent channel flow are given. These numerical solutions utilize either Neumann or Dirichlet boundary conditions. Computer codes were written and tested and are discussed. Digital image processing of flow visualization video sequences, taken simultaneously with vorticity probe measurements in a turbulent boundary layer, were carried out. 4 figs. (GHH)
The membrane transport of the two stable lithium isotopes, {sup 6}Li and {sup 7}Li, by erythrocytes has been studied using a dual channel atomic absorption spectroscopic technique. {sup 6}Li appears to be taken up preferentially to {sup 7}Li, in the ratio of 10 to 40%, depending on the concentration of total lithium and on the lithium isotopic ratio in the external medium.
The governor model is extended to include the asymmetric shape of nuclei which allows a simultaneous analysis of the data for both the ground state and the #gamma#-vibrational bands in deformed even-even nuclei. The rotationally invariant core is assumed to be a spheroid with an axis of symmetry parallel to the axis of rotation. The calculations are carried out under the assumption of no stretching. The static #gamma#-deformation results are compared with the VMI(ARM) and Krutov values, and the calculated energies are in good agreement with the experimental data.
A method of simultaneously removing SO.sub.2 and NO from oxygen-containing flue gases resulting from the combustion of carbonaceous material by contacting the flue gas with an aqueous scrubber solution containing an aqueous sulfur dioxide sorbent and an active metal chelating agent which promotes a reaction between dissolved SO.sub.2 and dissolved NO to form hydroxylamine N-sulfonates. The hydroxylamine sulfonates are then separated from the scrubber solution which is recycled.
This paper shows a computerized system, that adopt a statistical methodology and simultaneous measurements of wind velocity and environment temperature, as an experiences at the power transmission lines with environmental monitoring systems. 9 figs., 16 refs.
It is shown that the section of the energy surface corresponding to the longitudinal mode by the principal xy-plane for the A-15 compounds will degenerate into four points at the corners of a square at very low temperatures in the cubic phase. When the quasi-shear mode propagating along the (110) direction becomes soft, simultaneously the longitudinal mode will exhibit unusually high phonon focussing. (author).
Migration-based methods have been recently proposed to improve the estimation of angle-dependent reflectivity in the presence of complex structures. An anisotropic prestack reverse-time migration is developed to estimate the reflectivity as function of the local illumination angle. This migration method generates four simultaneous images which corresponds to the in-depth (local) plane-wave response for PP, PS, SP and SS reflections, and can be used in a Zoeppritz-based elastic inversion scheme. (author)
The radiologic appearance of inflammatory and tumorous lesions in the iliac bone is characterized by destructive alterations and consolidations simultaneously. This pattern is nonspecific. The value of plain films of this area is compromised by the anatomy of the iliac bone and by overlying structures. Therefore tomography, computer tomography and bone scans are necessary. Difficulties in differentiation between benign and malignant lesions are discussed and case reports are given. The importance of histologic examination is stressed.
Coal liquefaction technology aims to obtain a liquid fuel from coal by cracking the coal under elevated temperature and pressure and simultaneously adding hydrogen, either directly as a gas or by way of a suitable solvent. The author describes the work being done on coal liquefaction in Japan, where this technology is being developed as part of a large-scale national project.
The developments of oil and gas fields in deep waters (5000 ft and more) will become more common in the future. It is inevitable that production systems will operate under multiphase flow conditions (simultaneous flow of gas-oiland water possibly along wi...
Radionuclide X-ray fluorescence method with a Si/Li semiconductor detector and "2"3"8Pu exciting source was used in the determination of Cr, Fe, Ni, Cu, and Zn content in industrial wastewaters. Simultaneously, the effects of the wastewaters on activated sludge biocenose were evaluated. (author) 6 refs.; 1 fig.; 1 tab.
In the positive column of a neon glow discharge, two different types of ionization waves occur simultaneously. The low-dimensional chaos arising from the nonlinear interaction between the two waves is controlled by a continuous feedback technique. The control strategy is derived from the time-delayed autosynchronization method. Two spatially displaced points of observation are used to obtain the control information, using the propagation characteristics of the chaotic wave.
A decrease of inhibitor concentration in a medium is always desirable even if the inhibitor is not toxic. In this connection, a sharp increase in the protective effect of certain corrosion inhibitors when cathodic polarization was applied to the metal is reviewed. The importance of a simultaneous account of the chemical structure of inhibitor and the nature of the metal corrosion under cathodic polarization is outlined. Some examples of applying this combined protection of metals are discussed.
AimsTwo-dimensional echocardiographic (2DE) continuity-equation derived aortic valve area (AVA) in aortic stenosis (AS) relies on non-simultaneous measurement of left ventricular...Full Text Available
Acoustic waves propagation of in composite of water with embedded double-layered silicone resin/silver rods is considered. Approximate values of effective dynamical constitutive parameters are obtained. Frequency ranges of simultaneous negative constitutive parameters are found. Localized surface states on the interface between metamaterial and ``normal'' material are found. Doppler effect in metamaterial is considered. Presence of anomalous modes is shown.
A time coincidence long baseline (250 km) cosmic ray detection system has been developed to search for bursts of high energy #gamma#-rays (E_0>= 10"1"3 eV) of extra-terrestrial origin. The system design incorporates the possibility of simultaneous observation over a variety of time scales between 1 #mu#s and 10 s. (Auth.).
A novel, one-pot, multicomponent synthesis of 4-arylidene-3-methyl-1-(4-arylthiazol-2-yl)-1H-pyrazol-5(4H)-ones is described using phenacyl bromides, thiosemicarbazide, ethylacetoacetate, and aryl aldehydes. This synthesis involves simultaneous formation of two heterocycles like thiazole and pyrazolone along with condensation of active methylene group by aldehydes via Knoevenagel reaction. The methodology is mild, efficient, and high yielding. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT[image omitted
The Control Rod Drive(CRD) nozzles for PWR nuclear power plants(NPP) house the control rod drives. The number of nozzle penetrations range from the mid-30's to over 100 in each reactor head. The integrity of CRD nozzles is very important, because the primary pressure boundary is established with the J-groove weld joining the nozzle to the head clad surface. The Alloy 600 PWSC CRD nozzle leaks discovered in the fall of 2000 and spring of 2001 in several US plants. Therefore the NRC has recommended a more proactive effort by US utilities to inspect similarly susceptible nozzles in all US plants. The primary safety concern is circumferential cracks that can permit the nozzles to separate from the head at high velocity and produce a large-break leak in the reactor vessel. A secondary concern is head leakage from any through-wall cracks in the nozzle or J-groove weld area. Numerous inspection and repair tools have been developed to address CRD nozzle inspection and repair issues. ...
The patient positioning and repositioning control in radiation therapy all along the treatment can be conducted using a variety of X-ray sources and imaging detector devices. The development of image guided radiation therapy techniques leads to more frequent use of this imaging control. In this article we summarize the current methods for measuring the dose delivered by X-ray imaging devices used in radiation therapy, as well as basic proposals to take account of these imaging doses for prescribing, recording and reporting radiation therapy treatment. (authors)
Purpose - To sustain competitive advantage, it is necessary to understand consumers and their psychological fears and deliver them a service solution which is best under existing conditions so as to ensure consumer loyalty and retention. This paper seeks to conceptualise and operationalise customer relationship management (CRM) through two component model (operational CRM (OCRM) and analytical CRM (ACRM)), particularly in the healthcare sector. Design/methodology/approach - The relationship between OCRM, based on three patient-staff constructs (physicians, nurses and support staff) and ACRM based on four constructs (satisfaction, repatronization, recommendation and organizational performance) was analysed using confirmatory factor analysis (AMOS). The data for the model were collected from...
For the reuse of a waste salt from an electrorefining process of a spent oxide fuel, a separation of rare earth elements by an oxidative precipitation in a LiCl-KCl molten salt was tested without using precipitate agents. From the results obtained from the thermochemical calculations by HSC Chemistry software, the most stable rare earth compounds in the oxygen-used rare earth chlorides system were oxychlorides (EuOCl, NdOCl, PrOCl) and oxides (CeO2, PrO2), which coincide well with results of the Gibbs free energy of the reaction. In this study, similar to the thermochemical results, regardless of the sparging time and molten salt temperature, oxychlorides and oxides were formed as a precipitant by a reaction with oxygen. The structure of the rare earth precipitates was divided into two sha...
An oxidative precipitation reaction of rare-earth chlorides in a LiCl-KCl molten salt was successfully carried out by a lab-scale apparatus. The conversion efficiency of the used rare earth chlorides into the insoluble precipitates was increased with the sparging time and temperature and was affected on oxygen sparger type. In the conditions of 700 .deg. C molten salt temperature and above 540min sparging time, the final conversion efficiencies were over 99% for all the experimented rare-earth chlorides. The hydrodynamic characteristics of an oxygen-molten salt two phase flow system are very important for a co-oxidative precipitation of rare earth elements.
An oxidative precipitation reaction of rare-earth chlorides in a LiCl-KCl molten salt was successfully carried out by a lab-scale apparatus. The conversion efficiency of the used rare earth chlorides into the insoluble precipitates was increased with the sparging time and temperature and was affected on oxygen sparger type. In the conditions of 700 .deg. C molten salt temperature and above 540min sparging time, the final conversion efficiencies were over 99% for all the experimented rare-earth chlorides. The hydrodynamic characteristics of an oxygen-molten salt two phase flow system are very important for a co-oxidative precipitation of rare earth elements
The type III secretion system among Gram-negative bacteria is known to deliver effectors into host cell to interfere with host cellular processes. The type III secretion system in Yersina, Pseudomonas and Enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli have been well documented to be involved in the bacterial pathogenicity. The existence of type III secretion system has been demonstrated in neuropathogenic E. coli K1 strains. Here, it is observed that the deletion mutant of type III secretion system in E. coli strain EC10 exhibited defects in the invasion and intracellular survival in Acanthamoeba castellanii (a keratitis isolate) compared to its parent strain. Next, it was determined whether type III secretion system plays a role in E. coli K1 survival inside Acanthamoeba during the encystment process...
The Tevatron is a proton anti-proton accelerator collider operating at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The machine is currently delivering beam for the CDF and D0 experiments, which expect increasing luminosity until the conclusion of Run II, planned for 2009. The Laboratory defined a plan for achieving higher luminosity, and one of the tasks is the upgrade of the accelerator's beam position monitor (BPM). The Tevatron was built during the early eighties and some of its control systems, including the BPMs, are still the original ones. This paper describes the front-end software of the Tevatron BPM upgrade, from the requirements to the implementation, and the underlying hardware setup. The front-end software designed is presented, emphasizing its modularity and reusability, allowing it to be applied to other Fermilab machines.
The antimicrobial activity of simulated solar disinfection (SODIS) in the presence and absence of riboflavin against various protozoa and helminth organisms was investigated in this study. Assays were conducted in transparent 12 well microtitre plates containing a suspension of test organisms in the presence or absence of 250mM riboflavin. Plates were exposed to simulated sunlight at an optical irradiance of 550Wm^-^2 (watts per square metre) delivered from a SUNTEST(TM) CPS+ solar simulator. Aliquots of the test suspensions were taken at set time points and the viability of the test organisms was determined by either culture, microscopy or flow cytometry where applicable. With Acanthamoeba, Naegleria, Entamoeba and Giardia exposure to SODIS at an optical irradiance of 550Wm^-^2 for up to ...
Improved biosorption of uranium by Kluyveromyces marxianus IMB3 biomass was achieved by increasing the electric field strength of delivered pulses from 1.25kV/cm to 2.5kV/cm. Although this had little or no effect on the maximum biosorption capacity (q(max)), at low concentrations of uranium the amount bound to the biomass increased from 70 to 140mg uranium/g biomass. Significant increases in the maximum biosorption capacities (119-180 mg uranium/g biomass) were observed when the pulse field strength was increased from 2.5kV/cm to 3.25kV/cm. (Author).
Objective A number of effective treatments for bulimia nervosa have been developed, but they are infrequently used, in part due to problems with dissemination. The goal of this study was to examine the cost effectiveness of telemedicine delivery of cognitive behavioral therapy for bulimia nervosa. Method A randomized controlled trial of face-to-face versus telemedicine cognitive behavioral therapy for bulimia nervosa. One hundred twenty eight women with DSM-IV bulimia nervosa or eating disorder, not otherwise specified subsyndromal variants of bulimia nervosa were randomized to 20 sessions of treatment over 16 weeks. A cost effectiveness analysis from a societal perspective was conducted. Results The total cost per recovered (abstinent) subject was $9324.68 for face-to-face CBT, and $7300....
The measurements performed at CERN on prototypes and first pre-series main dipole magnets confirm the need of an active control of the Large Hadron Collider to compensate the dynamic field changes during the proton beam injection and acceleration. This control requires in turn an accurate forecast of the magnetic field in the accelerator. We plan to predict the field on the basis of two elements: theoretical field models tailored through the accumulated knowledge of the main magnets during series tests, and an on-line measurement system running on few reference magnets tracking the LHC current cycle. Data coming from this "Multipoles Factory" will result from the fusion of the two sources. Based on this system we foresee to deliver calibration information for pre-defined accelerator cycles as well as real time information for the active control. In this paper we report the conceptual design of the system, and we discuss the features and performance of the models ...
Abstract An increase in chronic disease prevalence is contributing to health care cost growth and decreased quality of life in industrialized nations worldwide. Inadequate management of chronic diseases is a leading cause of hospitalizations and, thus, avoidable expenditures. In this study, we evaluated the impact of nurse-delivered care calls, the primary intervention of a proactive chronic care management (CCM) program, in a population aged 65 and older in Germany. In this analysis, hospital admission rates were evaluated among program enrollees who were diagnosed with diabetes, heart failure, coronary heart disease, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Intervention group comprised those members who participated in care calls (n?=?13,486), whereas the Comparison group included e...
Changes in technology have resulted in new ways for bankers to deliver their services to costumers. Electronic banking systems in various forms are the evidence of such advancement. However, information security threats also evolving along this trend. This paper proposes the application of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology to guide decision makers in banking industries to deal with information security policy. The model is structured according aspects of information security policy in conjunction with information security elements. We found that cultural aspect is valued on the top priority among other security aspects, while confidentiality is considered as the most important factor in terms of information security elements.
This report covers the second year of the 28 month grant current grant to Clarkson University to study the chemical and physical behavior of the polonium 218 atom immediately following its formation by the alpha decay of radon. Because small changes in size for activity result in large changes in the delivered dose per unit exposure, this behavior must be understood if the exposure to radon progeny and it dose to the cells in the respiratory tract are to be fully assessed. Two areas of radon progeny behavior are being pursued; laboratory studies under controlled conditions to better understand the fundamental physical and chemical process that affect the progeny`s atmospheric behavior and studies in actual indoor environments to develop a better assessment of the exposure of the occupants of that space to the size and concentration of the indoor radioactive aerosol. This report describes the progress toward achieving these objectives.
This report covers the second year of the 28 month grant current grant to Clarkson University to study the chemical and physical behavior of the polonium 218 atom immediately following its formation by the alpha decay of radon. Because small changes in size for activity result in large changes in the delivered dose per unit exposure, this behavior must be understood if the exposure to radon progeny and it dose to the cells in the respiratory tract are to be fully assessed. Two areas of radon progeny behavior are being pursued; laboratory studies under controlled conditions to better understand the fundamental physical and chemical process that affect the progeny's atmospheric behavior and studies in actual indoor environments to develop a better assessment of the exposure of the occupants of that space to the size and concentration of the indoor radioactive aerosol. This report describes the progress toward achieving these objectives.
This paper reports on current dual fuel engines utilizing standard mechanical (Bosch type) fuel injection systems set to 5--6 percent pilot delivery that do not appear capable of reducing NO{sub x} emissions much below the current minimum of 4 g/bhp-h without incurring substantial penalties in efficiency and operability. A prototype Electronic Pilot Fuel Injector (EPFI) was designed that overcomes the shortcomings of the mechanical injection system, consistently delivering 3 percent or less pilot at pressures as high as 20,000 psi. The EPFI was installed and tested in one cylinder of a standard production dual fuel engine operating at a waste water treatment facility.
RFID technology is gaining adoption on an increasing scale for tracking and monitoring purposes. Wide deployments of RFID devices will soon generate an unprecedented volume of data. Emerging applications require the RFID data to be filtered and correlated for complex pattern detection and transformed to events that provide meaningful, actionable information to end applications. In this work, we design and develop SASE, a com-plex event processing system that performs such data-information transformation over real-time streams. We design a complex event language for specifying application logic for such transformation, devise new query processing techniques to effi-ciently implement the language, and develop a comprehensive system that collects, cleans, and processes RFID data for deliv-ery of relevant, timely information as well as storing necessary data for future querying. We demonstrate an initial prototype of SASE through a real-world retail management ...
The goal of this three-year project was to improve the production systems in use by steel foundries in the United States. Improvements in the production systems result in less rework, less scrap, and less material handling, all of which would significantly reduce the energy demands of the process. Furthermore, these improvements would allow the companies to be more competitive, more responsive to customers' needs, deliver products with less lead time and require less capital. The ultimate result is a stronger domestic steel casting industry, which uses less energy. A major portion of this research involved the deployment of student researchers at steel foundries, to study their production systems and collect data.
Summary Objective- To evaluate the role of prophylactic trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (co-trimoxazole) antibacterial prophylaxis in reducing morbidity and mortality in HIV-infected post-natal women in southern Africa. Methods- Double-blind placebo-controlled trial. HIV-infected women with WHO stage 2 or 3 HIV disease who had recently delivered in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia were randomised to receive daily co-trimoxazole (cotox) or matched placebo daily for the duration of the trial. Participants were followed up for a minimum of 1-year. Primary outcome measures were mortality from any cause or hospital admission and serious adverse events. Results- Of 600 women randomised, follow-up information was available from 355 (18...
This contribution is an informal essay based on a talk delivered at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) in Minneapolis, under the summer program in molecular biology, July 18-22, 1994. I exclude many technical details, which can be found elsewhere, and instead focus on the basic ideas of molecular dynamics simulations, with the goal of conveying to students and non-specialists the key concepts of the theory and practice of large-scale simulations. Following a description of the basic idea in molecular dynamics, I discuss some of the practical details involved in simulations of large biological molecules, the numerical timestep problem, and approaches to this problem based on implicit-integration techniques. I end with a perspective of open challenges in the field and directions for future research. 79 refs., 6 figs., 1 tab.
Currently the construction of small-scale hydroelectric and pumped storage plants is booming in the USA. The technology is attractive because of its relatively cheap construction methods and operation. Electric utilities are seeing it as a viable source of peaking power and a means of system regulation. Two schemes are described. One is a high-head/small flow river project designed to generate 3.5 MW and is about to come on line having overcome tight environmental and commercial constraints. The second is a pumped-storage project using two man-made reservoirs with an average elevation difference of 1280 ft. It is deemed to be of minimum environmental impact construction and good physical characteristics. Completion is hoped for by 1995 and the plant will deliver 1000 MW. (UK)
The first meeting on e{gamma}/{gamma}{gamma} colliders was held on September 28 and 29, 1993, at the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics. After general remarks were delivered, lectures were given on QED in intense laser field, photon linear collider, laser focusing, luminosity distribution in the e{gamma}/{gamma}{gamma} colliders, QCD correction for {gamma}{gamma}{yields}H, radiation correction for e{gamma}/{nu}W process, SUSY particle production at the e{gamma} and {gamma} gamma colliders, formation of e{sup *} in e{gamma} collision, and general remarks on the theory. Discussion was carried out on `Where are we going from here?` In this book, the gists of the lectures are collected. (K.I.).
An automotive powertrain includes a conventional piston engine, a continuously variable ratio transmission, an engine speed sensor and a feedback control system. The control system adjusts both the transmission ratio and the throttle valve in the engine carburetor or fuel metering system in response to the position of the accelerator pedal and in response to the crankshaft speed as measured by the engine sensor. The transmission provides extreme overdrive gear ratios which allow the engine to be operated at wide open throttle even during moderate cruising, and, in addition, the engine carburetor or fuel metering system is calibrated to deliver to the engine a stoichiometric air-fuel mixture which is combined, before combustion, with a special proportion of recirculated exhaust gas. As a result of extensive wide open throttle engine operation with the above mentioned intake charge composition, combustion variables are optimized to produce exceptional fuel economy.
...Polymer Fuel Cells Challenge Publications News Events Login Register Search Content type All Web pages Case studies Publications News Video Home ...Buildings Carbon capture & storage Combined heat & power Electricity transmission & distribution Energy storage Fuel cells Geothermal Hydroelectric Hydrogen Industry Lighting Marine Metering Nuclear Solar Transport Wind ...Home Emerging technologies Current focus areas Polymer Fuel Cell Challenge Polymer Fuel Cells Challenge The objective of the Polymer Fuel Cells Challenge is to develop,...prove and commercialise novel polymer fuel cell technologies that have the potential to deliver a step-change in overall system cost. What are ...
A photoacoustic (PA) imaging system based on an ultrasonic Fresnel zone plate (FZP) transducer is developed for the purpose of imaging biological tissue. This FZP transducer has a two-zone negative zone plate piezoelectric material pattern, and an optical fibre is integrated with the transducer on the symmetric axis of the zone plates to deliver laser pulses to the sample. The focal characteristic of the FZP transducer is analysed by theoretical prediction and experimental measurement, and the measured results are in good agreement with the predicted results. The limited-field back-projection deconvolution algorithm combined with the coherence-factor weighting technique is used to reconstruct the optical absorption distribution. The experiments were performed with phantoms and the blood vessels of chicken embryo chorioallantoic membrane. The results demonstrate that PA imaging using the FZP transducer has the ability to image biological tissue and has potential ...
For the development of a long-lived, electrically rechargeable zinc-air battery the structure and wettability of pasted zinc electrodes were optimized. Pasted zinc electrodes containing 1 to 10% cellulose, but having almost the same nominal capacities, were prepared and tested in zinc/oxygen cells. The effect of discharge rate on cell voltage and delivered capacity, as well as the maximum power, were measured. Furthermore, cell charge-discharge behaviour and cycle life were examined. After different times of operation, the porosity and the pore size distribution of the pasted zinc electrodes were measured by means of mercury porosimetry. The life cycle and peak power drain capability of the Zn/oxygen battery could be substantially improved by the addition of 10 wt% cellulose to the pasted zinc electrode. (author)
The confluence of technology development and market readiness is opening up major business opportunities for photovoltaic (PV) systems throughout the developing world. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories in Abuquerque (Sandia), working on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, have launched pilot projects in several countries throughout the world over the past 3 years. The focus of these pilot projects has been the development of in-country institutional capabilities necessary to deliver the promise of PV electricity to the rural populations. In addition to country-specific activities, NREL is conducting several technology, information, and partnership projects focused on further accelerating the education, training, business, and technology developments necessary to bridge the gap between promise and reality. This paper summarizes these efforts.
A computer-based beam dosimetry measurement system for boron neutron capture therapy provides accurate, sensitive, and rapid readout and recording of all beam dose components, epithermal and thermal neutron flux, and gamma-ray dose rate. This dosimetric system includes input from the characterization of the epithermal neutron beam developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, actual BPA pharmacokinetic data from a specific human subject being irradiated, output of MacNCTPLAN, a treatment planning system developed by the authors group, and input from the five on-line beam detectors. The purpose of this system and associated readout systems is to ensure that the desired dose is delivered to the subject within acceptable dose tolerances, e.g., {+-}5% of the target dose, and that any perturbations in the neutron beam that may occur during irradiation can be rapidly evaluated and the appropriate measures taken.
A computer-based beam dosimetry measurement system for boron neutron capture therapy provides accurate, sensitive, and rapid readout and recording of all beam dose components, epithermal and thermal neutron flux, and gamma-ray dose rate. This dosimetric system includes input from the characterization of the epithermal neutron beam developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, actual BPA pharmacokinetic data from a specific human subject being irradiated, output of MacNCTPLAN, a treatment planning system developed by the authors group, and input from the five on-line beam detectors. The purpose of this system and associated readout systems is to ensure that the desired dose is delivered to the subject within acceptable dose tolerances, e.g., #+-#5% of the target dose, and that any perturbations in the neutron beam that may occur during irradiation can be rapidly evaluated and the appropriate measures taken.
A set of nomographs to estimate the levelized energy cost for photovoltaic systems are presented. These are designed to assist system designers, analysts, and planners in estimating the effects of research and development and system-design optimization on the delivered cost of energy. The nomographs are based on a refined version of the energy cost estimation equation that appears in the National Photovoltaics Program Five-Year Research Plan. The nomographs have been prepared to emphasize technologies with the potential of producing low-cost energy (<$0.40/kWh levelized in nominal terms or $0.17/kWh in 1982 dollars), and thus primarily apply to far-term or advanced intermediate photovoltaic technologies. Separate sets of nomographs are presented to encompass both flat-plate and concentrator technologies. To supplement the nomographs, a set of tabular solutions of the energy cost equation are included as an appendix.
The Superconducting super Collider Laboratory is a complex of particle accelerators being built in Ellis County, Texas. It will have a dedicated global communications network that will deliver control messages and provide for general data acquisition. This network will connect thousands of computer nodes over a very large geographic area. In order to meet the demanding availability requirements being levied on the system, it will need comprehensive network management. A large number of the computer nodes are embedded systems that traditionally do not support network management services. This presents unique challenges to standard network management practices. The Simple Network Management Protocol, SNMP, is widely accepted by industry as a tool to manage network devices. In this paper the authors examine the performance characteristics and usefulness of an SNMP agent in a real-time environment.
Details of the interaction of photons with tissue phantoms are elucidated using Monte Carlo simulations. In particular, photon sampling volumes and photon pathlengths are determined for a variety of scattering and absorption parameters. The Monte Carlo simulations are specifically designed to model light delivery and collection geometries relevant to clinical applications of optical biopsy techniques. The Monte Carlo simulations assume that light is delivered and collected by two, nearly-adjacent optical fibers and take into account the numerical aperture of the fibers as well as reflectance and refraction at interfaces between different media. To determine the validity of the Monte Carlo simulations for modeling the interactions between the photons and the tissue phantom in these geometries, the simulations were compared to measurements of aqueous suspensions of polystyrene microspheres in the wavelength range 450-750 nm.
A miniature x-ray source utilizing a hot filament cathode. The source has a millimeter scale size and is capable of producing broad spectrum x-ray emission over a wide range of x-ray energies. The miniature source consists of a compact vacuum tube assembly containing the hot filament cathode, an anode, a high voltage feedthru for delivering high voltage to the cathode, a getter for maintaining high vacuum, a connector for initial vacuum pump down and crimp-off, and a high voltage connection for attaching a compact high voltage cable to the high voltage feedthru. At least a portion of the vacuum tube wall is fabricated from highly x-ray transparent materials, such as sapphire, diamond, or boron nitride.
Subcutaneous involvement frequently occurs in maxillary sinus carcinoma. Radical resection does not include removal of the skin at risk. In standard postoperative wedge-pair treatment plans, the surface dose is dependent upon beam weighting, beam energy, and patient contour. Thermoluminescent dosimetry (TLD) measurements were performed to evaluate the surface dose of patients undergoing postoperative irradiation of maxillary sinus carcinoma following primary resection. When 60 Gy was delivered to isocenter with a 45 degrees wedge pair and 6 MV photons with 1 cm bolus, the subcutaneous tissues at risk received {approximately} 30 Gy. Based upon presented TLD measurements, supplemental electron beam therapy to the subcutaneous tissues if primarily involved should be considered.
This paper reports on the mathematical model developed by Sunu and Bennion that has been extended to include the separator, precipitation of both solid ZnO and K{sub 2}Zn(OH){sub 4}, and the air electrode, and has been used to investigate the behavior of a primary Zn-Air battery with respect to battery design features. Predictions obtained from the model indicate that anode material utilization is predominantly limited by depletion of the concentration of hydroxide ions. The effect of electrode thickness on anode material utilization is insignificant, whereas material loading per unit volume has a great effect on anode material utilization; a higher loading lowers both the anode material utilization and delivered capacity. Use of a thick separator will increase the anode material utilization, but may reduce the cell voltage.
A set of 35 uranium ore and 10 yellow cake samples, collected worldwide from different mines and production sites, were analyzed for their impurity spectrum by ICP-MS. Pattern recognition techniques such as cluster analysis were applied to the data set in order to characterize samples with relation to their geographical origin. The results obtained show a clear relationship between samples taken from the same geological origin and constitute a satisfactory fingerprint for establishing the origin of the material. In addition to the impurity data, data on the isotopic composition of radiogenic lead is used to resolve ambiguity when impurity cluster analysis fails to deliver unambiguous origin data. (author)
A totally-enclosed, fan-cooled, rib-cooled type induction motor is adopted for an exhauster which is to be installed in a ventilation station for dust catcher in a tunnel. It has the highest capacity in Japan for the above purpose, and is provided with a cooling fan inside to recirculate cooled air, thereby improving cooling efficiency and reducing size and weight. Three-row combined angular ball bearings are used as the thrust bearings, and grease lubrication system is adopted to simplify the inspection/maintenance works. It is to be delivered to Japan Highway Public Corporation's Shizuoka Construction Bureau, Yaizu site office. Its electric specifications are 455 kW, 440 V, 890 A and 510 rpm, and its mechanical specifications are thrust load: 16 kN and impeller load: 7.2 kN. (translated by NEDO)
BACKGROUNDSome studies have suggested an association between paternal subfertility and hypospadias among their sons, although the association has not been systematically investigated. We therefore compared male reproductive health among a group of fathers of boys with hypospadias and a group of fathers to normal children.METHODSA total of 64 fathers of boys with hypospadias participated; 349 partners of pregnant women served as a control group. All men delivered a semen sample, had a blood sample drawn, underwent a physical examination and completed a questionnaire.RESULTSFathers of boys with hypospadias had a significantly lower median sperm concentration (54.1 x 106/ml) (P = 0.004) and total sperm count (222.0 x 106) (P = 0.009) than the controls (81.2 and 326.0 x 106/ml). In addition, t...
This paper is part of a study that assessed the level of commitment of primary schools of remote area dwellers (RADs) to basic education between October 2004 and April 2005. The research question focused on the level of commitment of schools to universal basic education, school-community partnership in school governance and parental involvement in the way the curriculum was delivered. Questionnaire and interviews were used. The results show a significant relationship between teachers' perceptions and variables such as district, qualifications, age, location, and experience. There is consistency between teachers' perceptions and children's academic performance. It has been found that learner achievement in RADs schools is low and that parents are not actively involved in their children's education due to the policy environment and school management practices.
Man's wastes are polluting the oceans from various sources and delivered by various routes. The result has been the loss of habitat and the irreversible altering of marine ecosystems. Development in the coastal zones and offshore activities that disrupt biologically sensitive areas have led to international negotiations to regulate these impacts and develop a law of the sea. Basic to international cooperation, however, is the need to develop answers to questions about the ecological consequences of development programs and the carrying capacity of the oceans. Current information does not demonstrate long-term global impacts, making it difficult to detect and predict incremental changes and causal relationships. Society needs to determine how much environmental damage it will accept and then to develop appropriate technology, such as biomonitoring. Society also needs to reexamine its positions on technology-based regulatory controls to see if the effects of ...
The closed-cycle hydrogen-oxygen PEM regenerative fuel cell (RFC) at Nasa Glenn Research Center has successfully demonstrated closed-cycle operation at rated power for multiple charge/discharge cycles. During the charge cycle the RFC has absorbed input electrical power simulating a solar day cycle ranging from zero to 15 kWe peak, and delivered steady 5 kWe output power for periods exceeding 8 h. Orderly transitions from charge to discharge mode, and return to charging after full discharge, have been accomplished without incident. The RFC is beginning to demonstrate its potential as an energy storage device for aerospace solar power systems such as solar electric aircraft, lunar and planetary surface installations - any airless environment where minimum system weight is critical. This hard...
A 46.3-ft-dia 20-degree conical ribbon parachute has been designed to retard a 2200-lb payload delivered at speeds up to 800 KCAS and at altitudes as low as 150 feet above ground level. The parachute uses both Kevlar and nylon materials, some of which were developed specifically for this parachute. The canopy design incorporates a patented construction geometry to minimize stress concentrations. A cluster of three 3.8-ft-dia ribbon parachutes is used to deploy the main parachute in the presence of severe aircraft flow field effects and large payload angles of attack. The results of over 30 full-scale flight tests indicate that fundamental limitations imposed by the dynamics of the air masses inside and behind the canopy determine the ultimate performance of a single large parachute when it is used at a release altitude of 150 ft.
The paper proposes a concept of power driver for industrial thermonuclear reactor based on inertial thermonuclear synthesis (ITS). The circuit is based on the application of free electron laser (FEL) as a energy source for thermonuclear target compression which becomes feasible due to the application of a radically new circuit of FEL-amplifier. In the project under consideration the FEL-based laser system operates on the wave length of 0.5 micrometer. The full energy of laser radiation equals 1 MJ. This energy is delivered to the target in the pulse whose length is controlled within the range of 0.1-2 ns. The laser system brightness is 4 x 10"2"2 W cm"-"2. The FEL operating pulse repetition frequency is 40 Hz, full efficiency of electricity conversion into the energy of optical radiation is 11%. 9 refs., 3 figs., 2 tabs.
An attempt to develop a simple framework for financial evaluation of renewable energy technologies (RETs) such as photovoltaic (PV) pump, windmill pump, biogas and producer gas-driven dual fuel engine pumps for irrigation water pumping has been made. The unit cost of water and unit cost of useful energy delivered by the RETs have been estimated. The monetary benefits that accrued to the end-user have been quantified in terms of the amount of diesel or electricity saved. Financial figures of merit for the investments made in the RETs have been estimated. The effect of fuel price escalation on these measures of financial performance has also been evaluated along with the estimation of the break-even prices of fuels likely to be substituted by RETs. Results of some exemplifying calculations are presented and briefly discussed.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explain some tax management complications for onshore and offshore hedge funds posed by US FIN 48, Uncertain Tax Positions, and to emphasize the hedge fund manager's responsibility for careful tax planning and compliance. Design/methodology/approach - The paper discusses a hedge fund's objective to deliver tax-efficient results to investors, explains the background of FIN 48, and illustrates five types of situations in which conservative auditors following FIN 48 may raise "red flags." Findings - With the advent of FIN 48's standards careful tax planning and compliance are more important than ever for a hedge fund. Significant complications may arise from unwise, tardy, or missed tax elections; filing an IRS Form 8275, Disclosure Statement, stating...
An experimental investigation on the air/water counter-current two-phase flow in a horizontal rectangular channel connected to an inclined riser has been conducted. This test-section representing a model of the hot leg of a pressurized water reactor is mounted between two separators in a pressurized experimental vessel. The cross-section and length of the horizontal part of the test-section are (0.25mx0.05m) and 2.59m, respectively, whereas the inclination angle of the riser is 50degree. The flow was captured by a high-speed camera in the bended region of the hot leg, delivering a detailed view of the stratified interface as well as of dispersed structures like bubbles and droplets. Countercurrent flow limitation (CCFL), or the onset of flooding, was found by analyzing the water levels mea...
Abstract Gaseous microemboli (GME) remain a challenge for cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) because there is a positive correlation between microemboli exposure during CPB and postoperative neurological injury. Thus, minimizing the number of GME delivered to pediatric patients undergoing CPB procedures would lead to better clinical outcomes. In this study, we used a simulated CPB model to evaluate the effectiveness of capturing GME and the degree of membrane pressure drop for a new membrane oxygenator, Capiox Baby FX05 (Terumo Corporation, Tokyo, Japan), which has an integrated arterial filter with open and closed purge line. We used identical components in this study as our clinical CPB circuit. Three emboli detection and classification quantifier transducers were placed at prepump, preoxygena...
In this paper, we investigate the epidemic spreading for SIR model in weighted scale-free networks with nonlinear infectivity, where the transmission rate in our analytical model is weighted. Concretely, we introduce the infectivity exponent $\\alpha$ and the weight exponent $\\beta$ into the analytical SIR model, then examine the combination effects of $\\alpha$ and $\\beta$ on the epidemic threshold and phase transition. We show that one can adjust the values of $\\alpha$ and $\\beta$ to rebuild the epidemic threshold to a finite value, and it is observed that the steady epidemic prevalence $R$ grows in an exponential form in the early stage, then follows hierarchical dynamics. Furthermore, we find $\\alpha$ is more sensitive than $\\beta$ in the transformation of the epidemic threshold and epidemic prevalence, which might deliver some useful information or new insights in the epidemic spreading and the correlative immunization schemes.
Porous SnO2 nanotubes were prepared via electrospinning followed by calcination in air. As anode materials for lithium ion batteries, the porous nanotubes delivered a high discharge capacity of 807mAhg^-^1 after 50cycles. Even after cycled at high rates, the electrode still retained a high fraction of its theoretical capacity. Such excellent performances of porous SnO2 nanotubes could be attributed to the porous and hollow structure which facilitated liquid electrolyte diffusion into the bulk materials and buffered large volume changes during lithium ions insertion/extraction. Furthermore, the nanoparticles of nanotubes provided the shorter diffusion length for lithium ions insertion which benefited in retaining the structural stability and good rate performance. Our results demonstrated t...
Three papers on the Egyptian educational system were delivered at the World Assembly of the International Council of Education for Teaching in Cairo, Egypt, in 1981. The first paper, "Recent Educational Reforms in Egypt," by M. M. Radwan, describes the changes in Egyptian education since 1952, including the adoption of universal basic education. The four authors (Hussein Fawzi Al Najjar, Mohamed Abdelmagid Ibrahim, Sayad M. Kheiralla, and Hassan Mostafa) of the second paper, "Egytian Education Today," focus on the Egyptian characteristics of the educational system, citing teacher education and the problem of illiteracy as outstanding national issues. In the third paper, "Educational Technology: Its Application to Inservice Teacher Training in Egypt," by Kamal Yousef Iskander, the use of educational technology in inservice teacher education is outlined, with reference to the problems anticipated in training 130,000 teachers for Egypt's new educational system. (FG)
The need for safe food products has motivated food scientists and industry to find novel technologies for antimicrobial delivery for improving food safety and quality. Controlled release packaging is a novel technology that uses the package to deliver antimicrobials in a controlled manner and sustain antimicrobial stress on the targeted microorganism over the required shelf life. This work studied the effect of controlled release of nisin to inhibit growth of Micrococcus luteus (a model microorganism) using a computerized syringe pump system to mimic the release of nisin from packaging films which was characterized by an initially fast rate and a slower rate as time progressed. The results show that controlled release of nisin was strikingly more effective than instantly added (?formulated...
Purpose: In this paper, we present an alternative to the originally proposed technique for the delivery of spatially fractionated radiation therapy (GRID) using multi-leaf collimator (MLC) shaped fields. We employ the MLC to deliver various pattern GRID treatments to large solid tumors and dosimetrically characterize the GRID fields. Methods and materials: The GRID fields were created with different open to blocked area ratios and with variable separation between the openings using a MLC. GRID designs were introduced into the Pinnacle3 treatment planning system, and the dose was calculated in a water phantom. Ionization chamber and film measurements using both Kodak EDR2 and Gafchromic EBT film were performed in a SolidWater phantom to determine the relative output of each GRID design as w...
Abstract While the techniques and technologies associated with contaminated sediment remediation are relatively mature, there are several issues associated with these practices that make them unattractive. The inability of currently used mechanical mixing implements to place amendments in aqueous environments and their intrusive behavior toward benthic communities are just two examples of a necessity for an improved delivery method. Waterjets may be a viable option for placement of particulate remediation amendments, such as activated carbon and granular iron, at depth. A custom waterjet nozzle and injection system has been fabricated by the authors to examine this delivery concept. The developed injection system's performance was tested by characterizing the waterjet-delivered amendment (...
Micro-batteries are one of the key components that restrict the application of autonomous Microsystems. However little efforts were made to solve the problem. We have proposed a new planar zinc/air micro-battery, suitable for autonomous microsystem applications. The micro-battery has a layered structure of zinc electrode/alkaline electrolyte/air cathode. A 3D zinc electrode with a high density of posts was designed to obtain a high porosity, hence to offer a best performance. A model of the micro-battery is developed and the device performances were simulated and discussed. A four-mask process was developed to fabricate the prototype micro-batteries. The preliminary testing results showed the micro-batteries is able to deliver a maximum power up to 5 mW, and with an average power of 100 {mu}W at a steady period for up to 2hrs. Fabrication process is still under optimization for further improvement.
We report progress in an effort to develop and demonstrate a refuelable zinc/air battery for fleet electric vehicle applications. A refuelable module consisting of twelve bipolar cells with internal flow system has been refueled at rates of nearly 4 cells per minute refueling time of 10 minutes for a 15 kW, 55 kWh battery. The module is refueled by entrainment of 0.5-mm particles in rapidly flowing electrolyte, which delivers the particles into hoppers above each cell in a parallel-flow hydraulic circuit. The concept of user-recovery is presented as an alternative to centralized service infrastructure during market entry.
Background Photopolymerizable poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogels offer a platform to deliver cells in vivo and support three-dimensional cell culture but should be designed to degrade in sync with neotissue development and endure the physiologic environment. Questions/purposes We asked whether (1) incorporation of degradation into PEG hydrogels facilitates tissue development comprised of essential cartilage macromolecules; (2) with early loading before pericellular matrix formation, the duration of load affects matrix production; and (3) dynamic loading in general influences macroscopic tissue development. Methods Primary bovine chondrocytes were encapsulated in hydrogels (n?=?3 for each condition). The independent variables were hydrogel degradation (nondegrading PEG and degrading olig...
To define the quantitative and qualitative effects of gossypol (GP) on deer (Cervus elaphus) semen, the animals were fed cottonseed (CS). Adult stags each received 350?g of CS for 109?days. Animals received 15?mg of gossypol per kilogram body weight per day. Quantitative and qualitative parameters of experimental ejaculates (n?=?182) were compared to ejaculates (n?=?571) of control animals (n?=?5) collected during three previous natural reproductive seasons. Ejaculate fractions were evaluated by classical methods used in domestic animals. In this paper, we show that mature male deer fed CS exhibited morphological changes and decreased motility of spermatozoa and abnormalities in spermatogenesis. Radioimmunoassay measured concentrations of various steroid hormones (T-testosterone, A4-andros...
This volume contains papers delivered at a technical conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers held on June 25-27, 1991 in Seattle, Washington. The conference dealt with the physical aspects of sediment processes in the coastal environment. The papers are presented under three general themes: fundamentals of coastal sediment transport, coastal geologic processes, and engineering applications. The topics of the role of long waves in coastal sediment processes and cross-shore transport are highlighted. Examples of the topics covered include: sediment transport; beach and nearshore sedimentation; shoreline and beach profile changes; longshore and cross-shore transport; storm erosion; inlet sediment processes; gravel transport; coastal structure and sediment interaction; and dredging.
This report describes the requirements, designs, performance, and development histories for the T1576 power supply and the MC3935 rechargeable battery. These devices are used to power Permissive Action Link (PAL) ground controllers. The T1576 consists of a stainless steel container, one SA3553 connector, and one MC3935 battery. The MC3935 is a vented nickel/cadmium battery with 24 cells connected in series. It was designed to deliver 5.5 Amp-hours at 25{number_sign}C and the one-hour rate, with a nominal voltage of 28 V. The battery was designed to operate for 5 years or 500 full charge/discharge cycles. The power supply is expected to last indefinitely with replacement batteries and hardware.
ObjectivesCoastal ecosystems in developing countries supply a diverse range of services to local communities and national economies, including fish production, protection against floods and storms and support to tourism. Multiple drivers of change are influencing the status of the ecosystems, most of which are anthropogenic (Brown et al., 2006). Managing coastal ecosystems requires recognition of the diverse range of uses and users, and coordination between structures and processes, many of which are curr [continued...]DescriptionCommitment to the management of coastal ecosystems through addressing both ecological and social objectives already exists in East and Southern Africa (Glavovic 2006; Gustavson et al. 2009). More understanding, however, of the ecosystem services of priority to the poor and to poverty alleviation would strengthen the capacity of these initiatives to deliver on poverty alleviation and resource sustainability. The coastal regions of Tanzania, ...
At present the cooler synchrotron COSY a synchrotron and storage ring for medium energy physics is being commissioned at Juelich. The construction of the ring was finished during September 1992. The cooler ring will deliver protons in the momentum range from 270 to 3300 MeV/c. The phase density of the circulating protons will be increased with electron cooling at injection and with stochastic cooling at momenta between 1500 and 3300 MeV/c. High luminosity internal experiments as well as high resolution external experiments will be possible. Details of the lattice, to match the different ion optical requirements for cooling, acceleration, internal experiments and ultra-slow extraction will be discussed. An overview of the performance of the ion sources, the injector cyclotron, the ring, the injection beamline are given. The realization status of the extraction beamlines to the external experimental area is given. The experience on the commissioning of the cooler ...
Using a case-study, inductive, narrative approach, this article explores the history, drivers, benefits, and barriers to the Bakun Hydroelectric Project in East Malaysia. Situated on the island of Borneo, Bakun Dam is a 204m high concrete face, rock filled dam on the Balui River in the Upper Rajang Basin in the rainforests of Sarawak. Bakun Dam and its affiliated infrastructure could be the single largest and most expensive energy project ever undertaken in Southeast Asia. Based on data collected through site visits, original field research in Sarawak, and more than 80 research interviews, the article begins by teasing out the complex history and drivers behind the Bakun project before identifying a set of potential social, political, and economic benefits the project could deliver. It the...
Root growth is a highly dynamic process influenced by genetic background and environment. This paper reports the development of R scripts that enable root growth kinematic analysis that complements a new motion analysis tool: PlantVis. Root growth of Arabidopsis thaliana expressing a plasma membrane targeted GFP (C24 and Columbia 35S:LTI6b-EGFP) was imaged using time-lapse confocal laser scanning microscopy. Displacement of individual pixels in the time-lapse sequences was estimated automatically by PlantVis, producing dense motion vector fields. R scripts were developed to extract kinematic growth parameters and report displacement to ?0.1 pixel. In contrast to other currently available tools, Plantvis-R delivered root velocity profiles without interpolation or averaging across the root s...
A thermal analysis of the Omnium-G receiver is presented and the technique is shown to be generally applicable to solar thermal receivers utilizing a directly heated thermal mass. The thermal loss coefficient, including reradiation losses, is calculated and shown to agree quite well with the experimentally measured thermal loss coefficient. The rate of heat transfer to the working fluid is also analyzed and the analysis is used to show that the Omnium-G receiver is well matched to the water/steam working fluid because the steam outlet temperature is almost the same as the receiver temperature. A general procedure for calculating receiver performance is presented. With this procedure, the energy delivery to any working fluid, the delivered temperature of the working fluid, and the pressure drop through the receiver can be determined. An example of the calculation is also presented.
We discuss the current state of the art in the IGC Internal Tin Nb_3Sn process which routinely is delivering current densities greater than 1 x 10"3 A/mm"2 at 10 Tesla. We focus especially on the conductors suitability for high current density applications such as High Energy Physics and small magnets. Projections are also made as to its suitability for high field applications such as in Fusion. A discussion of the manufacturing process is given with comparisons made to other accepted Nb_3Sn processes and NbTi. Superconductor characteristics such as filament quality and Nb_3Sn phase uniformity are compared to those obtained in conventional bronze process.
Novel and unprecedented ion exchange resin cleaning system, for use in BWR plants and featuring a vibration separator and basic design factors of Radiological Solutions, Inc., had been delivered to Tokai No. 2 Power Station, Japan Atomic Power Company, in October 2005. This compactly-designed system effectively separates crud and resin fines from ion exchange resins, with no clogging of separation screens. It generates minimized waste liquid and has a specially designed over-pack cleaning tank. The system has been in operation for about 2 years and half now and favorable operational data, such as crud and sulfate concentration decrease in feed water and reactor water respectively, and evaluation results have been reported from Japan Atomic Power Company and so on. (author)
We have developed a flexible radioactive polyurethane patch incorporating {beta}-emitting radionuclide (166Ho) to treat malignant skin lesions. We covered the tumor surface (n=133) with the radioactive patch for 33.58 {+-} 5.33 minutes. Radiation dose delivered was 35 Gy for Bowen's disease (n=78), Kaposi sarcoma (n=25), actinic keratosis (n=5), and 50 Gy for BCC (n=17) and squamous carcinoma (n=8). Complete response was observed in 91.7% after the first therapeutic trial, 96.2% after 2nd and 97.7% after 4th trial with excellent cosmetic outcome for 31.15{+-}13.88 months of follow-up. Radioactive patch therapy is effective for superficial skin cancers that are impractical for surgery.
Allyl acetate (AAC), allyl alcohol (AAL), and acrolein (ACR) are used in the manufacture of detergents, plastics, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals and as agricultural agents. A metabolic relationship exists between these chemicals in which allyl acetate is metabolized to allyl alcohol and subsequently to the highly reactive, a,b-unsaturated aldehyde, acrolein. Due to the weaker reactivity of the protoxicants, allyl acetate and allyl alcohol, relative to acrolien we hypothesized the protoxicants would attain greater systemic exposure and therefore deliver higher doses of acrolein to the internal organs. By extension, the higher systemic exposure to acrolein we hypothesized should lead to more internal organ toxicity in the allyl acetate and allyl alcohol treated animals relative to those trea...
The deep borehole heat exchanger (BHE) of Weggis is operational since 1994. During the years 1995 to 2000 the BHE has produced for both, direct heating and as a source for the heat pumps, a yearly amount of heat of 220 MWh. The share of direct heating has been more than 60%. The global average power delivered to all consumers has been about 100 kW. This has yielded to a mean source temperature out of the deep BHE of 40.5 {sup o}C and to a mean return temperature of 33.3 {sup o}C. During the years 2000 and 2001 three additional multi-family dwellings have been connected as heat consumers to the BHE. The amount of delivered heat has nearly been doubled (from 220 to 440 MWh per year) as well as the nominal load. This has induced a small reduction of the delivery temperature and a significant reduction of the return temperature to the BHE (37.2 {sup o}C and 29.9 {sup o}C respectively). As a result, the direct heating share has been reduced to 8%. ...
Autophagy is an intracellular recycling route in eukaryotes whereby organelles and cytoplasm are sequestered in vesicles, which are subsequently delivered to the vacuole for breakdown. The process is induced by various nutrient-responsive signaling cascades converging on the Autophagy-Related1 (ATG1)/ATG13 kinase complex. Here, we describe the ATG1/13 complex in Arabidopsis thaliana and show that it is both a regulator and a target of autophagy. Plants missing ATG13 are hypersensitive to nutrient limitations and senesce prematurely similar to mutants lacking other components of the ATG system. Synthesis of the ATG12-ATG5 and ATG8-phosphatidylethanolamine adducts, which are essential for autophagy, still occurs in ATG13-deficient plants, but the biogenesis of ATG8-decorated autophagic bodies does not, indicating that the complex regulates downstream events required for autophagosome enclosure and/or vacuolar delivery. Surprisingly, levels of the ATG1a and ATG13a ...
The objectives of the project were to demonstrate and evaluate several small-scale methods of harvesting small (200 mm or less) trees and chipping them for fuel, as well as a method of processing such chips for use in dry chip-fired heating appliances. Nine field trials were conducted using various combinations of equipment. The trials consisted of 2 slash reclamation tests, 2 thinning tests, and 5 clear-cutting tests. The tests were conducted on various sites ranging from 0.2 to 1.8 hectares in area. The trees harvested were small; their average stem diameter was 70 mm. Every site was measured before harvest to predict the amount of biomass present. The amount of material obtained from the sites varied from 50% to 80% of the biomass present. Harvesting consisted of chain-saw felling and delimbing, skidding to roadside using winch, and then chipping into a 30 m{sup 3} portable bin. At the processing facility, the chips were weighed and dumped, reclaimed, metered, screened and ...
Reactive Magnetron Sputtering is a complex process and huge efforts are made addressing the understanding of its fundamental phenomena and the simulation of the deposition process by e.g. Particle in Cell/Monte Carlo (PIC/MC). One of the most uncertain parameters in this reactive sputtering process is the incorporation coefficient of the reactive gas in the growing layer, i.e. the real-time sticking coefficient during deposition. In this work, mass spectrometry is used to deliver more insights on this complex matter. Earlier, a method was developed to determine the incorporation coefficient of the reactive gas molecules in the growing metal film, using mass spectrometry combined with thin film analysis techniques (electron probe microanalysis and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy). This method delivers a global, realistic incorporation coefficient which can be used in models for the reactive sputtering process. In this work, new insights have ...
Parenting programmes are effective interventions for preventing and treating conduct problems in young children. Up to 20% of children in disadvantaged areas have conduct disorder. Recent government initiatives such as targeting early years services to designated disadvantaged Flying Start areas in Wales have resulted in increased nursery-care provision for pre-schoolers, yet little has been done to equip nursery staff with effective child behaviour management strategies. The purpose of this non-randomised trial platform study was to establish the feasibility of delivery and the effectiveness of the new Incredible Years Toddler Parent Programme in supporting nursery staff in managing difficult behaviour in the nursery. The Parent Programme is a 12-session (a two-hour session/week) course for carers/parents of children aged one to three years old, which encourages carers to: establish positive relationships with children through play and child-centred activities; use praise, rewards and ...
Full text: Certain groups of patients have been excluded from ventilation lung scanning due to their inability to comply with instruction. Tetley Manufacturing have recently developed a Positive Ventilation Delivery System (PVDS) which assists in delivering Technegas to patients who are unable to cooperate fully. The aim of this study is to evaluate the PVDS in the clinical setting. Fifteen frail aged and psychogeriatric patients (n=l 5), mean age 78 years (range 60-93), were ventilated with Technegas using the PVDS. The decision to ventilate the patient with the PVDS was based on an initial assessment of the patients ability to comply with instructions, or failure of the conventional ventilation method, to produce an adequate count rate. Technegas was prepared in the usual manner and then delivered to the patients lungs by squeezing a black anesthetic bag synchronously with the patients breathing, until a count rate of approximately 1000 ...
Purpose: In this paper, we present an alternative to the originally proposed technique for the delivery of spatially fractionated radiation therapy (GRID) using multi-leaf collimator (MLC) shaped fields. We employ the MLC to deliver various pattern GRID treatments to large solid tumors and dosimetrically characterize the GRID fields. Methods and materials: The GRID fields were created with different open to blocked area ratios and with variable separation between the openings using a MLC. GRID designs were introduced into the Pinnacle"3 treatment planning system, and the dose was calculated in a water phantom. Ionization chamber and film measurements using both Kodak EDR2 and Gafchromic EBT film were performed in a SolidWater phantom to determine the relative output of each GRID design as well as its spatial dosimetric characteristics. Results: Agreement within 5.0% was observed between the Pinnacle"3 predicted dose distributions and the measurements for the ...
This study was a retrospective evaluation of the efficacy of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) in patients with >4 metastases to the brain. Materials and Methods: Between January 2004 and December 2006, 68 patients with ?4 multiple brain metastases were included and reviewed retrospectively. Twenty-nine patients received SRS and 39 patients received whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT). Patients with small cell lung cancers and melanomas were excluded. The primary lesions were non-small cell lung cancer (69.0%) and breast cancer (13.8%) in the SRS group and non-small cell lung cancer (64.1%), breast cancer (15.4%), colorectal cancer (12.8%), esophageal cancer (5.1%) in the WBRT group. SRS involved gamma-knife radiosurgery and delivered 10?20 Gy (median, 16 Gy) in a single fraction with a 50% marginal dose. WBRT was delivered daily in 3 Gy fractions, for a total of 30 Gy. After completion of treatment, a follow-up brain MRI or a contrast-enhanced ...
The Geothermal Energy Association ({open_quotes}GEA{close_quotes}) will create and manage a Geothermal Heat Pump ({open_quotes}GHP{close_quotes}) Training Center to deliver GHP and HVAC courses throughout California in response to imminent demand driven by national promotion. GEA services include providing management structure, cadre, curricula, promotion and physical equipment. The Center is dedicated to infrastructure strengthening goals of the Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium, Inc. ({open_quotes}GHPC{close_quotes}), the California Energy Commission ({open_quotes}CEC{close_quotes}) and Interagency Geothermal Heat Pump Task Force, and Geothermal Energy Association ({open_quotes}GEA{close_quotes}). Second-half 1996 start-up is co-funded by GHPC, CEC, GEA and three California utilities. Initial support is to five utilities representing 70 percent of California power users. Goals include becoming market driven by year No. 3 and self-finding by year No. 5. AR training ...
The CANDU-type nuclear fuel localization project started in 1981, and mass-production system completed in 1987 through the pilot scale demonstration of fuel manufacturing. Since the completion of the mass-production system, about 24,000 fuel bundles (450 ton-U) had been delivered to Wolsung Nuclear Power Plant by the end of 1992, according to the fuel supply contracts with KEPCO. The superiority of KAERI-made nuclear fuel has been demonstrated by having achieved the highest utilization factor in the world in 1992. In 1993, as contracted, 4,824 fuel bundles well fabricated and delivered to Wolsung Nuclear Power Plant. The process improvement, quality control, safety management, safeguards of nuclear materials and various kinds of audits have also been performed in the course for fuel manufacturing. Especially in 1993, the difficulties of the reduction of participating work-force were overcome by improving the manufacturing techniques, and ...
Gold and silver nanoparticles display extraordinarily large apparent refractive indices near their plasmon resonance (PR) wavelengths. These nanoparticles show good contrast in a narrow spectral band but are poorly resolved at other wavelengths in differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy. The wavelength dependence of DIC contrast of gold/silver nanoparticles is interpreted in terms of Mie's theory and DIC working principles. We further exploit this wavelength dependence by modifying a DIC microscope to enable simultaneous imaging at two wavelengths. We demonstrate that gold/silver nanoparticles immobilized on the same glass slides through hybridization can be differentiated and imaged separately. High-contrast, video-rate images of living cells can be recorded both with and without illuminating the gold nanoparticle probes, providing definitive probe identification. Dual-wavelength DIC microscopy thus presents a new approach to the ...
The WIDeField telescope for Gamma-ray burst Early Timing (WIDGET) is used for a fully automated, ultra-wide-field survey aimed at detecting the prompt optical emission associated with Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs). WIDGET surveys the HETE-2 and Swift/BAT pointing directions covering a total field of view of 62 degree x 62 degree every 10 secounds using an unfiltered system. This monitoring survey allows exploration of the optical emission before the gamma-ray trigger. The unfiltered magnitude is well converted to the SDSS r' system at a 0.1 mag level. Since 2004, WIDGET has made a total of ten simultaneous and one pre-trigger GRB observations. The efficiency of synchronized observation with HETE-2 is four times better than that of Swift. There has been no bright optical emission similar to that from GRB 080319B. The statistical analysis implies that GRB080319B is a rare event. This paper summarizes the design and operation of the WIDGET system and the ...
We study the high-energy emission of the Galactic black hole candidate GX 339-4 using INTEGRAL/SPI and simultaneous RXTE/PCA data. By the end of January 2007, when it reached its peak luminosity in hard X-rays, the source was in a bright hard state. The SPI data from this period show a good signal to noise ratio, allowing a detailed study of the spectral energy distribution up to several hundred keV. As a main result, we report on the detection of a variable hard spectral feature (>150 keV) which represents a significant excess with respect to the cutoff power law shape of the spectrum. The SPI data suggest that the intensity of this feature is positively correlated with the 25 - 50 keV luminosity of the source and the associated variability time scale is shorter than 7 hours. The simultaneous PCA data, however, show no significant change in the spectral shape, indicating that the source is not undergoing a canonical state transition. We ...
The simultaneous effects of irradiating full grown pupae of Spodoptera Littoralis with doses 30 and 40 krad followed by topical treatment of adults with methomyl were studied. Gamma rays decreased the toxicity of methomyl against adult moths. The obtained LD_5_0 values for male moths emerging from unirradiated or irradiated pupae with 30 or 40 krad were 7, 9.93 and 10.33 u g/g. b.wt., respectively. F1 larvae (produced from unirradiated females mated to irradiated males) became more tolerant to methomyl by increasing radiation doses from 5 to 30 krad. The toxicity of methomyl to F1, F2 and F3 larvae (whose male parents had been irradiated in the pupal stage with 10 krad) was less than its toxicity to the larvae produced from unirradiated parents. F2 and F3 larvae were more tolerant to methomyl effect than the F1 larvae.
We report on the spectral cross-calibration results of the Konus-Wind, the Suzaku/WAM, and the Swift/BAT instruments using simultaneously observed gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). This is the first attempt to use simultaneously observed GRBs as a spectral calibration source to understand systematic problems among the instruments. Based on these joint spectral fits, we find that 1) although a constant factor (a normalization factor) agrees within 20% among the instruments, the BAT constant factor shows a systematically smaller value by 10-20% compared to that of Konus-Wind, 2) there is a systematic trend that the low-energy photon index becomes steeper by 0.1-0.2 and Epeak becomes systematically higher by 10-20% when including the BAT data in the joint fits, and 3) the high-energy photon index agrees within 0.2 among the instruments. Our results show that cross-calibration based on joint spectral analysis is an important step to understanding the ...
Results from ultimate analysis, proximate and petrographic analyses of a wide range of Kentucky coal samples were used to predict coal rank parameters (vitrinite maximum reflectance (R{sub max}) and gross calorific value (GCV)) using multivariable regression and artificial neural network (ANN) methods. Volatile matter, carbon, total sulfur, hydrogen and oxygen were used to predict both R{sub max} and GCV by regression and ANN. Multivariable regression equations to predict R{sub max} and GCV showed R{sup 2} = 0.77 and 0.69, respectively. Results from the ANN method with a 2-5-4-2 arrangement that simultaneously predicts GCV and R{sub max} showed R{sup 2} values of 0.84 and 0.90, respectively, for an independent test data set. The artificial neural network method can be appropriately used to predict R{sub max} and GCV when regression results do not have high accuracy. (author)
The potential to increase the productivity of fuel straw harvest and transportation was examined. When harvesting straw for energy purposes, only the long fraction is currently collected. However, technological improvements have now rendered it possible to harvest chaff, thus increasing the amount of harvest residues and bale density. The purpose of this study was to determine how harvest yield, bale density, field-drying behaviour and combustion characteristics are affected by the simultaneous harvest of straw and chaff. Field experiments were conducted in 2009 for long- and short-stalked winter wheat crops. Combine harvesting was carried out with 2 different types of combine harvesters. A high-density baler was used to bale the crop residues. Mixing chaff in with the straw swath by combine harvesting gave a lower initial moisture content compared with straw only. The density and the weight of each bale were not affected by the treatments. However, the added chaff ...
The simultaneous biosorption of Cr(VI) and Cu(II) on free Rhizopus arrhizus in a packed column operated in the continuous mode was investigated and compared to the single metal ion situation. The breakthrough curves were measured as a function of feed flow rate, feed pH, and different combinations of metal ion concentrations in the feed solutions. Column competitive biosorption data were evaluated in terms of the maximum (equilibrium) capacity in the column, the amount of metal loading on the R. arrhizus surface, the adsorption yield, and the total adsorption yield. In the single-ion situation the adsorption isotherms were developed for optimum conditions, and it was seen that the adsorption equilibrium data fit the noncompetitive Freundlich model. For the multicomponent adsorption equilibrium the competitive adsorption isotherms were also developed. The competitive Freundlich model for binary metal mixtures represented most the column adsorption equilibrium data ...
The bulk of the results from this project, besides being found in the research reports, are in the form of two theses presented for advanced degrees by two different students at two different institutions. Francis E. Porbeni is a Master`s Degree student in Chemistry at Clark Atlanta University and has prepared his Master`s Thesis entitled Simultaneous SO{sub 2} Oxidation and NO Decomposition over Copper Oxide on {gamma}-Alumina Catalysts: An Infrared Diffuse Reflectance Study. Sumit Rao, a Ph.D. student in Chemical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology has defended his thesis entitled Role of Copper Ensemble Size in Silica and Zeolite Supported Catalysts for Nitric Oxide Decomposition. These two documents, which will be forwarded when final copies are available, provide the details of the bulk of the research accomplished over the duration of this project. These two documents are summarized, and other results from the project are given.
In the Hokuriku area along the coast of the Japan Sea, thunderstorms often occurred not only in summer but also in winter, and this resulted in the shutdown of electricity supply or damage of equipment. This study was concerning the observation of the lightning channels in the Hokuriku area through a year by many still cameras equipped with liquid-crystal shutters. The following conclusions were obtained: Among 165 lightning incidents photographed during 2 years, there included 172 incidents of the falling thunderstorms and 23 incidents of simultaneously falling thunderstorms at multi-area. In the case of winter, frequency to occur simultaneously falling thunderstorms at multi-area was higher and the upward falling thunderstorms were more. There was a tendency that the duration time of the lightning current in winter was longer than in summer. In winter, frequency to occur the upward falling thunderstorms was higher, about 61% of the upward ...
In this thesis the rate constants for a number of radical reactions in aqueous solution have been studied in a wide temperature range. The reactions of H with H_2O_2, OH and HO_2 and the reactions of HO_2 with OH, Fe"2"+ and Cu"2"+ have been studied. For each reaction rate constants have been determined as a function of temperature using the technique of high temperature, high pressure (HTP) pulse radiolysis. The rate constants were obtained by fitting a kinetic computer model to the experimental data. From an Arrhenius plot the activation energy of each reaction was determined. The data determined in this way are important for modeling of radiolysis in nuclear light water reactors. A previously developed model for calculation of the effect of water radiolysis products on oxidation and dissolution of spent nuclear fuel has been improved. In the new model, called TraRaMo, simultaneous transport by diffusion and chemical reactions induced by radiolysis can be ...
In 1995, MAN B&W Diesel launched a dual-fuel version of the successful L + V (in-line and vee) configurations of the 32/40 diesel engine series, covering a power range between 2.4 and 7.2 MW. In 1996, the company is launching a dual-fuel version of the L + V 48/60 engine series, moving the power range of dual-fuel engines to 16.2 MW. With its new dual fuel type 32/40 DG and 48/60 DG engines, MAN B&W Diesel has designed prime movers offering a high efficiency at low operating costs, while simultaneously meeting the most stringent NO{sub x} emission limits without any exhaust gas after-treatment. These engines are based on the successful HFO-operated four-stroke diesel engines. They offer environment-friendly and, operating at high mean effective pressures, simultaneously cost effective propulsion alternatives, especially if natural gas is used as a fuel. Extension of the compatibility to permit further kinds of gas such as sewage gas to ...
Stripping Voltammetry (SV) at microelectrodes has gained increased interest in the analysis of aqueous solutions due to its ability to analyze low concentrations (ppb) of electroactive metallic species in solution. Existing integrated circuit (IC) technology allows the inexpensive fabrication of microelectrodes with dimensions on the order of microns and with a high degree of uniformity and reproducibility. Additional circuitry, both multiplexing and signal conditioning, can be placed directly onto the sensor offering increased sensitivity and flexibility. Multi-element electrochemical sensors containing arrays of Pt, Au, and Ag electrodes and capable of individual measurement through built-in multiplexing or simultaneous measurement at the appropriate potential ranges for each individual electrode were fabricated using existing 2 micron IC technology. Results of simultaneous measurements of low concentrations of Cd, Pb, Cu, As, and Hg in ...
The 12 GeV upgrade at Jefferson Lab has identified two new large spectrometers as Physics detectors for the project. The first is a 7.5 Gev/c 35 m-sr. spectrometer that requires a pair of identical Combined Function Superconducting Magnets (CFSM) that can simultaneously produce 1.5 T dipole fields and 4.5 T/m quadrupole fields inside a warm bore of 120cm. The second is an 11 GeV/c 2 m-sr. spectrometer that requires a CFSM that simultaneously produces a dipole field of 4.0 T and a quadruple field of 3.0 T/m in a 60 cm warm bore. Magnetic designs using TOSCA 3D have been performed to realize the magnetic requirements, provide 3d fields for optics analysis and produce field and force information for the engineering feasibility of the magnets. A two-sector cos( theta )/cos(2 theta ) design with a low nominal current density, warm bore and warm iron design has been selected and analyzed. These low current densities are consistent with the limits for ...
Physical-layer network coding (PNC) is a promising approach for wireless networks. It allows nodes to transmit simultaneously. Due to the difficulties of scheduling simultaneous transmissions, existing works on PNC are based on simplified medium access control (MAC) protocols, which are not applicable to general multi-hop wireless networks, to the best of our knowledge. In this paper, we propose a distributed MAC protocol that supports PNC in multi-hop wireless networks. The proposed MAC protocol is based on the carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) strategy and can be regarded as an extension to the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. In the proposed protocol, each node collects information on the queue status of its neighboring nodes. When a node finds that there is an opportunity for some of its neighbors to perform PNC, it notifies its corresponding neighboring nodes and initiates the process of packet exchange using PNC, with the node itself as a ...
Experimental and theoretical research has been conducted jointly at the Livermore and Los Alamos National laboratories on dc electromagnetic railgun Lorentz accelerators. Pellets weighing a few grams to tens of grams have been launched at velocities up to better than 11 km/s. The research is addressed to attaining repeated launches of samples at hypervelocity in target impact experiments. In these experiments, shock-induced pressures in the tens of megabars range are obtained for high pressure equation-of-state research. Primary energy sources of the order of several hundred kJ to a MJ and induction currents of the order of 1 or more MA are necessary for these launches. Erosion and deformation of the conductor rails and the accelerated sample material are continuing problems. The heating, stress, and erosion resulting from simultaneous imposition of rail induction current, dense plasma (armature) interaction, current distribution, magnetic field stresses and ...
The staring point of the project was to design and construct, by taking the silvicultural point of view into account, a harvesting and processing system especially for energy-wood, containing manually driven bundling harvester, automatizing of the harvester, and automatized loading. The equipment forms an ideal method for entrepreneur`s-line harvesting. The target is to apply the system also for owner`s-line harvesting. The profitability of the system promotes the utilization of the system in both cases. The objectives of the project were: to construct a test equipment and prototypes for all the project stages, to carry out terrain and strain tests in order to examine the usability and durability, as well as the capacity of the machine, to test the applicability of the Eko-Log system in simultaneous harvesting of energy and pulp woods, and to start the marketing and manufacturing of the products. The basic problems of the construction of the bundling harvester have ...
The significant technical and industrial aspects which have led to main coolant line (MCL) materials selection are addressed from a long term experience and operational practice point of view. They are based on the Siemens/KWU developed basic material concept for its nuclear power plants. It considers the choice of appropriate materials, the evaluation and qualification of the materials and the materials manufacturer, the use of appropriate semi-finished products, the tailoring of material and semi-finished products to the specific requirements of the various systems, the application of adequate manufacturing processes and the proof of the requirements by specifying proper tests and examinations. The main systems are assigned to safety classes in accordance with their safety relevance. Summarizing the operation time of nuclear power plants with ferritic MCL equipped by Siemens/KWU, more than 200 years of operation experience exist and no upgrading or replacement of MCL was necessary up ...
The research on the therapy of brain tumors and others by the thermal neutron irradiation using research reactors is to kill tumor cells by accumulating boron at a tumor part, and using {alpha} particles and {sup 7}Li generated by {sup 10}B(n, {alpha}){sup 7}Li reaction of thermal neutrons, which is known as boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT). In Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, the medical irradiation facility was installed in the thermal neutron column of the JRR-2, and as of March, 1994, 22 cases of irradiation have been carried out. In order to monitor the variation of thermal neutron flux during irradiation, the real time measurement using a simultaneous monitor is carried out, but there is the variation of measured values in the Si semiconductor, p-n junction detector possibly due to its direction dependence. The experiment was carried out to quantity the direction dependence of the detector by using the neutron radiography facility at the JRR-3M. Si ...
IMRT with inverse planning allows simultaneous integrated boost strategies that exploit the heterogeneous dose distribution within the planning target volumes (PTVs). In this scenario, the location of cold spots within the target becomes a crucial issue and has to be related to the distribution of the clonogenic cell density (CCD). The main aim of this work is to provide the means to calculate the optimal prescription dose in a relative inhomogeneous dose distribution. To achieve this, the prescription dose has to be assigned to obtain the same tumor control probability (TCP) as the ideal homogeneous distribution, taking into account different CCDs in different PTVs (i.e. visible and subclinical regions). An adapted formulation of the linear-quadratic model, within the F-factor formalism, has been derived to preserve a chosen TCP value for the whole target volume. The F-factor has been investigated to show its potential applications in clinical practice.
We propose a simultaneous quantum secure direct communication scheme between one party and other three parties via four-particle GHZ states and swapping quantum entanglement. In the scheme, three spatially separated senders, Alice, Bob and Charlie, transmit their secret messages to a remote receiver Diana by performing a series of local operations on their respective particles according to the quadripartite stipulation. From Alice, Bob, Charlie and Diana's Bell measurement results, Diana can infer the secret messages. If a perfect quantum channel is used, the secret messages are faithfully transmitted from Alice, Bob and Charlie to Diana via initially shared pairs of four-particle GHZ states without revealing any information to a potential eavesdropper. As there is no transmission of the qubits carrying the secret message in the public channel, it is completely secure for the direct secret communication. This scheme can be considered as a network of communication ...
We report on the results of a simultaneous monitoring campaign employing eight Chandra X-ray (0.5-10 keV) and six VLA/EVLA (8.4 GHz) radio observations of NGC 4051 over seven months. Evidence for compact jets is observed in the 8.4 GHz radio band; This builds on mounting evidence that jet production may be prevalent even in radio-quiet Seyferts. Assuming comparatively negligible local diffuse emission in the nucleus, the results also demonstrate an inverse correlation of L_radio proportional to L_X-ray ^(-0.72+/-0.04) . Current research linking the mass of supermassive black holes and stellar-mass black holes in the "low/hard" state to X-ray luminosities and radio luminosities suggest a "fundamental plane of accretion onto black holes" that has a positive correlation of L_radio proportional to L_X-ray^(0.67+/-0.12) . Our simultaneous results differ from this relation by more than 11 sigma, indicating that a separate mode of accretion and ...
The principle is described of X-ray fluorescence analysis and the manner of detecting the emitted characteristic radiation. The advantages are presented of radionuclide X-ray fluorescence analysis which consist primarily in the possibility of conducting a totally non-destructive analysis, and of accurate and relatively narrow localization of the analyzed area, the simultaneous qualitative and quantitative determinations of a large number of elements in the order of concentrations 10"1 to 10"-"4%, stability of excitation radiation flux, simple design and relatively low capital costs. The so-called matrix effect is pointed to. A number of examples is given of the use of the cited method, including its use in the analysis of art objects. (J.B.).
An optimization of fuel bundle geometry using the subchannel code ASSERT is performed in support of Candu fuel design to enhance the thermohydraulics performance. The new bundle design is based on a reference CANFLEX bundle with changes to the centre and inner-ring element diameters and pitch-circle diameters (PCDs) of various element rings. Different methods of varying the PCDs for reaching the optimized geometry are considered in an attempt to minimize the optimization effort. The optimized geometry in the present analysis is the one that maximizes the dryout power and that has simultaneous CHF (critical heat flux) initiation involving more than one subchannel rings. (authors)
We study luminosities of millisecond pulsars in globular clusters by fitting the observed luminosity distribution with single and double power laws. We use simulations to model the observed distribution as the brighter part of some parent distribution for Terzan 5 and try to find a model which simultaneously agrees with the observed diffuse radio flux, total predicted number of pulsars and observed luminosity distribution. We find that wide ranges of parameters for log-normal and power-law distributions give such good models. No clear difference between the luminosity distributions of millisecond pulsars in globular clusters and normal disk pulsars was seen.
The Dynamic Analog Scale (DAS) is introduced as a technique for generating single-item measures of personality traits. The DAS is comprised of extensive trait definitions and an analog scale on which respondents simultaneously rate themselves and others. In two studies the Big Five personality traits were assessed with the DAS and compared to a multiple-item questionnaire that measured the same traits. Statistical analysis supported the validity of the DAS for predicting self-reported behavioral acts, drinking behaviors, affect, and religiosity in ways similar to the multiple-item questionnaire. Consistent with previous research, both studies supported the viability of measuring personality traits with single items.
Multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were functionalized with a photosensitizer, rosebengal (RB), and folicacid (FA), an anti-cancer drug simultaneously and individually, which was characterized with various analytical instruments like Fourier Transform Iinfrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, UV?Vis spectroscopy, Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Transmission electron microscopy (TEM). FTIR spectra confirmed the chemical modification of MWCNT. The chemical functionalization of MWCNT with RB was further supported by UV?Vis and PL spectra.
Enhanced recovery by chemical flooding using surfactant and/or polymers simultaneously implies the following: (1) a fundamental knowledge of the physical chemistry of micellar systems and interfaces; (2) the proper formulation of mathematic models handling the basic mechanisms of oil recovery; and (3) the use of field-scale pilot units to test the validity of the models and to acquire technical knowledge. Efforts have been made by the French in these directions, and the main results are described. Special attention is paid to the search for new products and the improvement of manufacturing processes. 10 references.
Results of studies dealing with improvement of the currently employed technology of iodine and bromine production by processing iodine- and bromine-containing borehole effluent water were considered. Potentiality of selective oxidation of iodide-ions in the presence of bromide-ions in acidified borehole effluent water with addition of ozone for initiating oxidation of iodide-ions and iron(2) salt to prevent bromine evolution was confirmed experimentally. Conditions were determined that rule out bromine formation in the solution, but simultaneously permit varying the yield of iodine within 70-100%
Methods of X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy were used to study the microstructure of dispersion-strengthened Cu-Al2O3 nanocomposites obtained by the method of simultaneous deposition of Cu and Al2O3 from the vapor phase. The effect of the size of particles of the oxide (Al2O3) and of their content on the electrical resistance of the composite has been considered. The results obtained make it possible to suppose that the main structural factor that determines the electrical resistance of the composite are nanodispersed particles of Al2O3 with a size of less than 20 nm.
Production decline-curve analysis is accepted for prediction of future performance of oil and gas wells and fields. One type of decline-curve analysis involves the hyperbolic-decline-curve equation. The challenge with this equation is to determine simultaneously three parameters. The new method creates a computer spreadsheet containing a set of production data. Then, the specific arrangement of cells and columns containing data and/or formulas allows for statistical fits of the data. Finally, setting-up the nonlinear solver allows for optimization of the three parameters by maximization of the square of the regression coefficient. Eight field cases demonstrated the repeatable and rapid curve-fitting of the method.
To study the plasma evolution and spatial structure at the L/H transition, the double hysteresis is examined by use of the 1-dimensional transport model equations. Three mechanisms for the bipolar losses, i.e., the loss cone loss, collisional bulk viscosity loss of ions and the anomalous loss are simultaneously retained. Five-fold multiple bifurcations are found to exist at the plasma edge, similar to the previous 0-dimensional study. Double hysteresis causes a self-generated oscillation, which is attributed to the compound dither, a kind of ELMs. Spatio-temporal evolution of the compound dither is analyzed. (author)
We have measured the neutron capture and fission cross section of "2"3"3U at the neutron time-of-flight facility n-TOF at CERN in the energy range from 1 eV to 1 MeV with high accuracy by using a high performance 4#pi# BaF_2 Total Absorption Calorimeter (TAC) as a detection device. The method, based on the shape analysis of the TAC energy response, allowing to disentangle between #gamma#'s originating from fission and capture will be presented as well as the first very preliminary results. (authors)
This paper describes a signal simulator which is designed to calibrate eddy current probes. By using simultaneously an excitation coil and an electrically conducting plane, the simulator can emulate signals which correspond to spot welds with different flaws. The presence of a conducting plane allows a wide variation of the amplitude and phase of the excitation coil voltage during the calibration of a probe. A mathematical model for the simulator is derived and used to study the variation of the impedance change upon the parameters of the probe. Numerical computation shows that the impedance change depends in an important way on the frequency of the excitation coil current.
Abstract Over the last decade, the environmental sciences have witnessed an incredible movement towards the utilization of high-throughput molecular tools that are capable of detecting simultaneous changes of hundreds, and even thousands, of molecules and molecular components after exposure of organisms to different environmental stressors. These techniques have received a great deal of attention because they not only offer the potential to unravel novel mechanisms of physiological and toxic action but are also amenable to the discovery of biomarkers of exposure and effects. In this article, we review the state of knowledge of one of these tools in ecotoxicological research: proteomics. We summarize the state of proteomics research in fish, and follow with studies conducted with aquatic in...
Subcritical source-driven noise measurements are simultaneous Rossia and randomly pulsed neutron measurements that provide measured quantities that can be related to the subcritical neutron multiplication factor. In fact, subcritical source-driven noise measurements should be performed in lieu of Rossia measurements because of the additional information that is obtained from noise measurements such as the spectral ratio and the coherence functions. The basic understanding of source-driven noise analysis measurements can be developed from a point reactor kinetics model to demonstrate how the measured quantities relate to the subcritical neutron multiplication factor.
Discusses Czechoslovak regulations for determining moisture content in brown coal. Standard formulae for determining total moisture content and residual water content are described. Factors that influence accuracy in determining moisture content under laboratory conditions are analyzed: brown coal type, season of the year, air humidity, method and duration of coal sample drying, number of coal samples simultaneously dried in 1 dryer, ash content of coal. On the basis of analysis recommendations for a modified method of determining moisture content in brown coal are made. 5 refs.
;Table of Contents: Gaseous Pollutants Emissions from Coal Combustors and Their Control Technologies in Japan; Simultaneous Determination of Cooper (II) and Iron (III) Using 8-Quinolinol by Solvent Extraction Flow-injection Method; Fundamental Studies on Red Mud as a Catalyst for Coal Liquefaction: Studies on Active Components in Red Mud and Possibilities for Improvement of Its Catalytic Activities; Elution Behavior of Coal-derived Liquids with Sephadex LG-20; Characteristic of Activated Carbon Produced from Scrap Tires at Different Activation Temperatures; Energy Saving Snow Melting System.
The improved facilities of the ISOLDE isotopic separator on-line with the 600 MeV synchrocyclotron at CERN opened the possibility to reach nuclei very far from stability (as far as 22 neutrons deficient in the Cs region and 27 neutrons deficient in the Hg region). Simultaneously the development of on-line spectrometry allowed the study of nuclei with very short half-lives and low counting rates. Results recently obtained in the odd-A iridium region are presented after a short summary of recent on-line devices developments and results. (Auth.).
The neutron elastic magnetic form factor was extracted from quasielastic electron scattering on deuterium over the range Q{sup 2}=1.0-4.8 GeV{sup 2} with the CLAS detector at Jefferson Lab. High precision was achieved with a ratio technique and a simultaneous in situ calibration of the neutron detection efficiency. Neutrons were detected with electromagnetic calorimeters and time-of-flight scintillators at two beam energies. The dipole parametrization gives a good description of the data.
The neutron elastic magnetic form factor was extracted from quasielastic electron scattering on deuterium over the range Q2=1.0-4.8 GeV2 with the CLAS detector at Jefferson Lab. High precision was achieved with a ratio technique and a simultaneous in situ calibration of the neutron detection efficiency. Neutrons were detected with electromagnetic calorimeters and time-of-flight scintillators at two beam energies. The dipole parametrization gives a good description of the data.
In this paper the humidification?dehumidification desalination process is studied and its performance optimized using mathematical programming. An advantage of this method is consideration of the simultaneous effect of various parameters on process performance. An NLP system model is solved for three objective functions: minimization of specific thermal energy consumption, maximization of productivity and maximization of condenser heat recovery. The solutions have been improved especially from a productivity point of view in comparison with previous studies. The productivity objective function leads to the best solution if there is no limitation for the humidifier inlet water temperature. Otherwise, the specific energy objective function seems to be better than others. In the next step the...
Hydrogen piston engines can be simultaneously optimized for improved thermal efficiency and for extremely low emissions. Using these engines in constant-speed, constant-load systems such as series hybrid-electric automobiles or home cogeneration systems can result in significantly improved energy efficiency. For the same electrical energy produced, the emissions from such engines can be comparable to those from natural gas-fired steam power plants. These hydrogen-fueled high-efficiency, low-emission (HELE) engines are a mechanical equivalent of hydrogen fuel cells. HELE engines could facilitate the transition to a hydrogen fuel cell economy using near-term technology.
We propose using large Air Cerenkov Telescopes (ACT's) to search for optical, pulsed signals from extra-terrestrial intelligence. Such dishes collect tens of photons from a nanosecond-scale pulse of isotropic equivalent power of tens of solar luminosities at a distance of 100 pc. The field of view for giant ACT's can be on the order of ten square degrees, and they will be able to monitor 10 to 10$^2$ stars simultaneously for nanosecond pulses of about 6th mag or brighter. Using the Earth's diameter as a baseline, orbital motion of the planet could be detected by timing the pulse arrival times.
Using U-120 cyclotron in the course of correlation experiment one studied mechanisms of excitation and decay of "1"2C nucleus states resulting from irradiation of deuterium-polyethylene target by 27.2 MeV energy #alpha#-particle beam via recording of #alpha#-#alpha#-coincidence simultaneously with investigations of #alpha# + d-interactions. Production of "1"2C excited states decaying with the escape of #alpha#-particle and "8Be nucleus in the ground and the excited states is the basic mechanism of the studied #alpha# + "1"2C interaction
The paper is devoted to analysis of Russian nuclear education system: its current status, specific features, difficulties and prospects. Russian higher education system in nuclear engineering has been created simultaneously with the development of nuclear industry, and the system completely satisfied all industrial demands for the specialists of different qualification levels. For the past several decades, nuclear education has lost its attractiveness to young people. The paper discusses the actions to be undertaken for reversing the situation. The paper underlines particularly the special role of international collaboration and all-European integration of nuclear educational programmes for further development of nuclear education all over the world. (author)
We have constructed an apparatus to study electron impact ionization of ions which should provide additional insight into the mechanisms involved. Using multiparameter coincidence techniques, we will detect both outgoing electrons from ionization process and will be able to analyze the momenta of both particles simultaneously. Coupled with a high resolution electron gun, this information should have broad application to the difficult problem of three bodies interacting via the long range Coulomb force. If sufficient accuracy can be achieved, information regarding the relative phase of the outgoing electron wavefunctions can be obtained.
A method to achieve NMR of dilute samples in the earth's magnetic field by applying para-hydrogen induced polarization is presented. Maximum achievable polarization enhancements were calculated by numerically simulating the experiment and compared to the experimental results and to the thermal equilibrium in the earth's magnetic field. Simultaneous 19F and 1H NMR detection on a sub-milliliter sample of a fluorinated alkyne at millimolar concentration (1018 nuclear spins) was realized with just one single scan. A highly resolved spectrum with a signal/noise ratio higher than 50:1 was obtained without using an auxiliary magnet or any form of radio frequency shielding.
A detailed examination of the aging processes that may take place in solid-dielectric extruded-type high voltage transmission cables under dry conditions is presented. Particular emphasis is placed on the aging process as affected by the separate and simultaneous action of four main aging factors, namely the electrical, mechanical and thermal stresses, and the physical and chemical environment. A number of pertinent aging models are considered and their validity and applicability to accelerated aging tests on solid-type transmission cables are discussed.
This paper summarizes the investigation of horizontal direction drilling and the subsequent experimental installation of a natural gas network in a suburb of Paris, France. Three aspects of drilling were studied prior to implementation: (1) reliability of the technique and quality of pipelaying to ensure long-term supply main operation; (2) ability to assess the successfulness of the work by assessing preliminary conditions; and (3) economonic viability. Measurement of tensile stress on polyethylene pipe during pulling and comparative accelerated aging tests on scratched pipe were performed. In the implementation phase, 300 meters of pipe were laid daily, by using three machines simultaneously, at a cost comparable to that of conventional techniques.
Experimental data in the hybridised compound YbPd{sub 2}Si{sub 2} is compared with the results obtained with a recently proposed hybridisation model, based on the ''large-degeneracy expansion'' approximation, which takes into account the crystal field splittings of the rare earth ion energy levels. With a unique set of parameters, satisfactory agreement is simultaneously obtained for the thermal variation of the electronic specific heat, of the magnetic susceptibility and of the electric field gradient at the Yb site, as well as for the field variation of the low temperature magnetisation. (orig.).
Experimental results on study of helium concentration influence on degree of molybdenum radiation hardening for various method of cyclotron doping differing in degree and damage character are presented. It is established that accumulation of helium atoms in molybdenum for simultaneous formation of radiation defects caused by low energetic primary-knocked atoms leads to higher degree of hardening than for high energetic ion irradiation. It is shown that with increase of helium atom concentration the degree of radiation hardening for the same level of damage increases. 4 refs.; 3 figs. (author).
High interelectrode voltage peaks have been observed simultaneously with the emission of hard X-ray bursts from a flash X-ray tube. The magnitude of the voltage peaks may exceed twice the initial charging voltage. It has also been observed that the discharge emits bursts of X-and P-band microwaves radiation which are coincident with the emission of the hard X-ray bursts. The results indicate that the microwaves and X-rays have a common origin in discharge plasma movements and an acceleration model for electrons in the plasma is presented as one possible explanation of the observed phenomena.
The magnetoresistance in an FeNi submicron-structure comprising two wires of 80 and 200 nm in width connected in series was measured at 77 K. When the external magnetic field was applied parallel to the wire axis, two switching fields corresponding to the distinct coercive force of the two wires were observed. When the external magnetic field was applied at an angle of {theta}>30 deg. to the wire axis one switching field was observed, indicating simultaneous magnetization reversal in both wires. This indicates that the domain-wall trapping around the joint can be controlled systematically in terms of the direction of the external magnetic field.
The development of a capability to infer wind velocities simultaneously at a number of ranges along one direction in real time is described. The elastic backscatter lidar data used was obtained using the XM94 lidar, developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory for the US Army Chemical and Biological Detection Command. In some respects this problem is simpler than measuring wind velocities on meso-meteorological scales. Other requirements, particularly high temporal fidelity, have driven the development of faster software algorithms and suggested opportunities for the evolution of the hardware.
Abstract First results showing the viability of combining laser chemical processing (LCP) and aerosol jet printing (AJP) technologies to produce a high-efficiency front side for silicon solar cells are presented. LCP simultaneously opens the anti-reflection coating (ARC) and highly dopes the underlying silicon to create a selective emitter, while AJP is the first in a two-step fine-line contact formation procedure. The electrical properties as well as the morphology of the resulting structures are presented. Performance similar to that achieved with evaporated TiPdAg metallization is demonstrated. Copyright 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
We present a protocol for quantum key distribution using discrete modulation of coherent states of light. Information is encoded in the variable phase of coherent states which can be chosen from a regular discrete set ranging from binary to continuous modulation similar to phase-shift keying in classical communication. Information is decoded by simultaneous homodyne measurement of both quadratures and requires no active choice of basis. The protocol utilizes either direct or reverse reconciliation both with and without postselection. We analyze the security of the protocol and show how to enhance it by the optimal choice of all variable parameters of the quantum signal.
The structure of the low-lying levels of the [sup 91]Zr nucleus is discussed in a framework of the cluster-phonon coupling model. In order to describe simultaneously positive- and negative-parity states, octupole as well as quadrupole vibrations of the [sup 88]Sr core are allowed. The cluster states include two single protons coupled to a single neutron. The residual interaction among the cluster particles is assumed to be the modified surface [delta] interaction. Energy levels and electromagnetic properties are calculated and compared with the experimental data.
Mild steel samples were studied by chronoamperometry in sodium sulfide (Na[sub 2]S) aqueous solution. Pit nucleation and growth also were monitored by optical microscopy. The influence of variables such as temperature, polarization potential, surface roughness, the presence of electrochemically generated oxide layers, and the simultaneous presence of potassium hydroxide (KOH) was studied. The influence of each parameter on pit shape and growth was reviewed. Different reactions and competitive processes were proposed based on the experimental results.
Intensive measurements of organic acids, inorganic acids, aldehydes and peroxyacetyl nitrate (PAN) in urban air were carried out at a Southern California smog receptor site, Glendora, CA, August 12-22, 1986. The objective of this project was to augment the data base regarding organic acids in urban air and to assess their role with emphasis on ambient levels, diurnal variations, phase distribution, emissions, in-situ formation and removal. The relative abundance of organic acids and inorganic acids was determined for the first time from simultaneous measurements carried out during this study.
The exergy method is used to compare different production processes and various methods for emission abatement with respect to their overall environmental impact. Some ammonium nitrate production processes are studied as examples, because the pollutants (ammonia and ammonium nitrate), emitted from these processes into the air and/or into the water, are really a feedstock and a product from the production process. Therefore, the essential result of the waste flows treatment is the recycling of the pollutants (ammonia and ammonium nitrate) back into the production process, decreasing simultaneously the exergy input and cumulative exergy consumption. (author)
A one parameter family of iterative methods for the simultaneous approximation of simple complex zeros of a polynomial, based on a cubically convergent Hansen-Patricks family, is studied. We show that the convergence of the basic family of the fourth order can be increased to five and six using Newtons and Halleys corrections, respectively. Since these corrections use the already calculated values, the computational efficiency of the accelerated methods is significantly increased. Further acceleration is achieved by applying the Gauss-Seidel approach (single-step mode). One of the most important problems in solving nonlinear equations, the construction of initial conditions which provide both the guaranteed and fast convergence, is considered for the proposed accelerated family. These cond...
This paper presents a mathematical model to analyze the solar evaporation in a shallow pond in steady state, when the inlet flow rate, concentration, surface area and solar radiation are given. The simultaneous heat and mass transfer mechanisms are considered for quantifying the amount of evaporated water to the atmosphere and the actual absorbed heat by wastewater is calculated to obtain the bottom temperature of water pond. The heat losses to air by radiation and convection mechanisms are considered and the heat transmission across the water film is evaluated by the forced convection mechanism. 6 refs., 5 figs., 1 tab.
The humidification?dehumidification process is an interesting technique that has been adapted for water desalination. Previous works experimentally investigated desalination processes in the shell and tube columns, where the humidification and dehumidification were thermally coupled and simultaneously performed at the tube and shell sides, respectively. In this work, a comprehensive steady-state mathematical model was developed for such a humidification?dehumidification desalination process by taking into account the heat and mass balances on both sides of the desalting column, the mass transfer rate at the humidification side, and the heat transfer rate between the dehumidification side and humidification side. Meanwhile, the mass transfer coefficient at the humidification side and the to...
This paper reports the development of a relay coordination package specially designed as a teaching aid. Fault studies required for relay coordination has been performed by using a newly developed loop impedance matrix. This new method of forming loop impedance matrix is particularly suitable for multiple fault studies environment as required in relay coordination. A simple topology searching technique has been used to find all loops of the network. This package simultaneously serves the purpose of teaching relay coordination, loop analysis technique and the method of topology searching.