Fibrinolysis, antithrombin III, and protein C in neonates during cardiac operations

Fibrinolysis and coagulation were studied in 10 neonates undergoing cardiac operations for congenital heart defects. Coagulation was activated during cardiopulmonary bypass as evidenced by highly increased prothrombin fragment 1 + 2 levels compared with preoperative values. Prothrombin fragment 1 + 2 levels remained elevated until postoperative day 3. Unlike coagulation, fibrinolysis was not activated during cardiopulmonary bypass but did show late activation on postoperative day 3, as evidenced by elevated levels of the fibrin degradation product D-dimer. Lack of fibrinolytic activation during bypass and its appearance on postoperative day 3 were partly explained by changes observed in tissue plasminogen activator and its inhibitor. During bypass, levels of tissue plasminogen activator and its inhibitor increased by 3.4-fold and 3.2-fold, respectively. In the postoperative period, levels of plasminogen activator inhibitor normalized rapidly whereas tissue plasminogen activator remained elevated, resulting in late fibrinolytic activation on postoperative day 3. In accordance with elevated prothrombin fragment 1 + 2, platelet count, antithrombin III, protein C, prothrombin, and factor VII were decreased on postoperative day 2, indicating ongoing consumptive coagulopathy. Nine patients had antithrombin III and six had protein C levels below age-specific normal ranges, consistent with an acquired deficiency state. Three had central venous thrombosis by postoperative day 4 or 5. In all three, thrombosis was preceded by antithrombin III deficiency, protein C deficiency, and highly elevated plasminogen activator inhibitor (3.7 to 37 times the mean of the other patients) on postoperative days 1 to 3. In conclusion, cardiopulmonary bypass in neonates caused rapid and profound alterations in the coagulation and fibrinolytic systems and initiated consumptive coagulopathy lasting until at least postoperative day 3. Thrombophilic abnormalities in antithrombin III, protein C, and fibrinolysis were frequently found and were associated with serious thrombotic complications.     

Semi-automated user agents in distributed change management

Flexible integration of distributed design and manufacturing activities is one of the key issues in applying just-in-time principles along the logistics chain. The potential of AI based approaches in this field is clear, but the inherent asynchrony, concurrency, and inconsistency of distributed operations has reduced enthusiasm so far.This paper discusses coordination in the context of geographically distributed manufacturing of one-of-a-kind products. Cooperation of partners is based on semi-automated user agents which operate as an integrative layer between more dedicated tools and systems. The management of order changes in elevator manufacture is used as a case example.The work reported here is part of the DIMUN project (DIMUN, 1989) in the RACE program.     

The ortho-to-para conversion in solid hydrogen,catalyzed by hydrogen atoms

The combined techniques of ESR and NMR were used to investigate the process of ortho-para conversion in solid molecular hydrogen, containing small amounts ( 500 ppm) of hydrogen atoms as impurity. Although the impurity atoms catalyze the effective conversion of the neighboring ortho-H₂, the total catalyzed conversion rate at temperatures from 2.2 K to 4.4 K is much less than expected from the rate of the H atoms recombination. A possible explanation is given in terms of the diffusion of H atoms, which is confined to some defects in the crystal.     

A Parametric Texture Model Based on Joint Statistics of Complex Wavelet Coefficients

We present a universal statistical model for texture images in the context of an overcomplete complex wavelet transform. The model is parameterized by a set of statistics computed on pairs of coefficients corresponding to basis functions at adjacent spatial locations, orientations, and scales. We develop an efficient algorithm for synthesizing random images subject to these constraints, by iteratively projecting onto the set of images satisfying each constraint, and we use this to test the perceptual validity of the model. In particular, we demonstrate the necessity of subgroups of the parameter set by showing examples of texture synthesis that fail when those parameters are removed from the set. We also demonstrate the power of our model by successfully synthesizing examples drawn from a diverse collection of artificial and natural textures.     

Computer program for automated sleep depth estimation

In this article, we present a new implementation of an amplitude-independent method for continuous-scale sleep depth estimation. Having been implemented as an add-on analysis module under commercially available biosignal recording and analysis software, it can be easily applied in clinical routine. The software gives the user full freedom to change all the analysis parameters inside theoretical limits. Computational sleep depth profiles produced by the presented software compare favourably with visual classifications. Future work will concentrate on systematic optimization of analysis parameters, further evaluation of the method with disturbed sleep and application of the method for automated adaptive sleep analysis.     

On the realization of periodic functions

In this article, canonical and spectrally minimal infinite-dimensional state space realizations for periodic functions are considered. It is shown that the periodic functions having ℓ₁ Fourier coefficients are precisely those realizable by a Riesz spectral system (RSS) in which the system operator generates a periodic strongly continuous semigroup and the observation operator is bounded. This realization can easily be converted to a canonical and spectrally minimal form. It is shown how the use of RSS and Cesáro sums of Fourier series allows the construction of a state space realization for a given periodic function merely integrable over its period. Simple finite-dimensional approximations with error bounds are derived for the RSS realization. Regular well-posed linear systems (WPLS) are used to construct a Fuhrmann-type realization for a given periodic function integrable over its period. It is shown that the RSS realizations and WPLS realizations are precisely equally good at coping with the possible ill behavior of a given bounded periodic function integrable over its period, but the WPLS realization is not always spectrally minimal or canonical.     

MuseumFinland—Finnish museums on the semantic web

This article presents the semantic portal MuseumFinland for publishing heterogeneous museum collections on the Semantic Web. It is shown how museums with their semantically rich and interrelated collection content can create a large, consolidated semantic collection portal together on the web. By sharing a set of ontologies, it is possible to make collections semantically interoperable, and provide the museum visitors with intelligent content-based search and browsing services to the global collection base. The architecture underlying MuseumFinland separates generic search and browsing services from the underlying application dependent schemas and metadata by a layer of logical rules. As a result, the portal creation framework and software developed has been applied successfully to other domains as well. MuseumFinland got the Semantic Web Challence Award (second prize) in 2004.     

Quality-aware images.

We propose the concept of quality-aware image, in which certain extracted features of the original (high-quality) image are embedded into the image data as invisible hidden messages. When a distorted version of such an image is received, users can decode the hidden messages and use them to provide an objective measure of the quality of the distorted image. To demonstrate the idea, we build a practical quality-aware image encoding, decoding and quality analysis system, which employs: 1) a novel reduced-reference image quality assessment algorithm based on a statistical model of natural images and 2) a previously developed quantization watermarking-based data hiding technique in the wavelet transform domain.     

Comparison of analytical and numerical modeling approaches for sizing of seasonal storage solar heating systems

Analytical and numerical approaches for the predesign of central solar heating plants with seasonal storage (CSHPSS) systems are compared. The results indicate that the analytical approach employed in SOLCHIPS predesign tool is significantly faster and more powerful than the traditional numerical methods for predesign of high solar fraction seasonal storage solar heating systems.