Sex and Depot Differences in Palmitoleic Acid Content of Human Blood and Fat

Palmitoleic acid has been classified as an insulin-sensitizing lipokine, but evidence for this from human studies has been inconsistent. We hypothesized that this is related to either the types of samples or conditions under which samples are collected. We measured plasma palmitoleic acid and total free fatty acids (FFA) using ultra-performance liquid chromatography in blood samples collected from 34 adults under a variety of conditions. We collected duplicate samples of adipose (n = 10), FFA (n = 9), and very low density lipoprotein triacylglycerol (VLDL-TAG) (n = 7) to measure the palmitoleic acid as a percentage of total fatty acids. We tested whether the percentage of palmitoleic acid was correlated with insulin resistance, as measured by homeostatic model of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). Adipose stearoyl-coenzyme A desaturase 1 (SCD-1) protein was measured by capillary Western blotting. FFA-palmitoleic acid percentage increased as a function of total FFA and was greater (p < 0.005) in females than males. Adipose palmitoleic acid percentage was greater in females than males (p < 0.001), as was adipose SCD-1. Palmitoleic acid was greater in femoral fat than in abdominal fat in both females and males (p < 0.001), and correlated positively with HOMA-IR only in females. The test–retest reliability values for percentage palmitoleic acid were 7 ± 10% for adipose, 24 ± 26% for VLDL, and 53 ± 31% for FFA. Because FFA-palmitoleic acid percentage varies as a function of total FFA, investigators should re-evaluate how palmitoleic acid data is presented. The positive relationship between adipose palmitoleic acid and HOMA-IR in females suggests that it is not a potent insulin-sensitizing lipokine in humans.     

Defocusing image to pattern contact holes using attenuated phase shift masks

The patterning of contact holes by selecting out-of-focus image plane (defocus) using attenuated phase shift masks (APSM) has been studied. Defocus is found to enhance the image modulation at low partial coherence for contact holes with negative local average of mask function. Semi-dense holes up to 130 nm in 8% APSM have been printed by 0.5 μm defocus at a partial coherence of 0.31 using KrF scanner with highest numerical aperture of 0.68. However, these holes were closed with in-focus imaging. Defocus is also found to be beneficial for patterning the pitches that have extensive side lobes with in-focus imaging.     

An application of chemometric techniques to analyze the effects of the wave function modifications on the intermolecular stretching frequencies of the hydrogen-bonded complexes

Factorial design and principal component models are used to determine how ab initio H-bond stretching frequencies depend on characteristics of the molecular orbital wave functions of acetylene–HX, ethylene–HX and cyclopropane–HX π-type hydrogen complexes with X=F, Cl, CN, NC and CCH. The results obtained for the three sets of complexes show that factorial design and principal component analyses complement each other. Factorial design calculations clearly show that these frequencies are affected mostly by inclusion of electron correlation on the calculation level. On average, their values are increased by about 25 cm⁻¹ due to a change from the Hartree–Fock (HF) to Möller–Plesset 2 (MP2) level. Valence, diffuse and polarization main effects as well as valence–diffuse, diffuse–correlation and polarization–correlation interaction effects are also important to better describe a factorial model to the H-bond stretching frequencies of these hydrogen complexes. This simplified model has been successful in reproducing the complete ab initio results, which correspond to two hundred and forty calculations. Principal component analyses applied only to hydrogen-bonded complexes whose experimental frequencies are known, has revealed that the six-dimensional original space can be accurately represented by a bidimensional space defined by two principal components. Its graphical representation reveals that the experimental intermolecular stretching frequencies are in closest agreement with the MP2/6–31+G and MP2/6–311+G ab initio results.     

Adaptive motion control using neural network approximations

In this paper, we present a new adaptive technique for tracking control of mechanical systems in the presence of friction and periodic disturbances. Radial Basis Functions (RBFs) are used to compensate for the effects of nonlinearly occurring parameters in the friction and periodic disturbance model. Theoretical analysis, such as stability and transient performance, is provided. Furthermore, the performance of the adaptive RBF controller and its non-adaptive counterpart are compared.     

Acoustic Properties of Amorphous Solids at Very Low Temperatures: The Quest for Interacting Tunneling States

We discuss the strain dependence of the acoustic properties of amorphous metals in both normal and superconducting states, in the temperature range 0.1 mK<T<1 K. A crossover is found when the strain energy is of the order of the effective interaction energy between tunneling systems at the corresponding temperature. Our results provide clear evidence for the interaction between tunneling systems, whose energy is in quantitative agreement with theoretical expectations, and reveal that without the knowledge of the corresponding strain dependences, the measured temperature dependences below ～50 mK of the acoustic properties of disordered solids are rather meaningless.     

Managing logical channel configurations in complex satellite architectures

As a result of the increased switching complexity of many communications satellites, often transponders are available with a variety of configuration options offering flexibility in power, bandwidth, and coverage. Many of these configurations share resources that prevent them from being simultaneously active, making it a challenge to understand and manage the satellite capacity inventory. In this paper we define the logical channel configuration (LCC) as an unambiguous unit of the inventory and present a novel method of modelling the interdependencies between these LCCs using linear algebra. In particular, a projector matrix is defined which can be used to update the activation state of all LCCs when the state of one or more of these is changed. As a result, a number of valid LCC scenarios can be easily generated and evaluated for optimal use of the satellite resources. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Topology preservation of template-based 6-subiteration reduction operations

Generally, a reduction operation (e.g., thinning and shrinking) on 3D binary images can be represented as a set of reduction templates where every object voxel of the image satisfying any template is turned to a background voxel. Generally, it is rather difficult, error-prone and time-consuming for verifying the topological soundness of a 3D parallel reduction operation. This paper proposes sufficient conditions of time complexity O(n) for verifying the topological soundness of 3D parallel 6-subiteration reduction operations of n templates where such a kind of 3D reduction operations is performed alternatively from the six orthogonal directions to turn object voxels to background voxels. By such sufficient conditions, the topology soundness of a 3D 6-subiteration parallel reduction operation can be verified by checking each and every of its templates.     

Control of discrete time nonlinear systems with a time-varying structure

In this paper, we present a control methodology for a class of discrete time nonlinear systems that depend on a possibly exogenous scheduling variable. This class of systems consists of an interpolation of nonlinear dynamic equations in strict feedback form, and it may represent systems with a time-varying nonlinear structure. Moreover, this class of systems is able to represent some cases of gain scheduling control, Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy systems, as well as input-output realizations of nonlinear systems which are approximated via localized linearizations. We present two control theorems, one using what we call a “global” approach (akin to traditional backstepping), and a “local” approach, our main result, where backstepping is again used but the control law is an interpolation of local control terms. An aircraft wing rock regulation problem with varying angle of attack is used to illustrate and compare the two approaches.