Susceptibility of penicillin-susceptible and -resistant pneumococci to CFC-222, a new fluoroquinolone

Rotavirus (RV) strains infecting newborns often have unique neutralization antigens (P serotypes) on their outer capsids that are distinct from those found on RV strains that cause diarrhea in older children. We examined the hypothesis that unusual RV strains preferentially infect newborns because the newborns lack maternal neutralizing antibodies to these strains. To test this hypothesis, sera and saliva samples collected from neonates infected with 116E-like (P[11]G9) strains in the maternity ward of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hospital in New Delhi were tested for neutralizing antibodies against common RV strains and those infecting newborns and these titers were compared with those of newborns who did not become infected (controls). The infected neonates had significantly lower levels of cord blood neutralizing antibodies to 116E than the controls, suggesting that immunity to neonatal RV infection is acquired transplacentally through maternal antibodies. Further, this study confirmed the immunogenicity of the AIIMS neonatal strain 116E, a vaccine candidate, in its ability to evoke a potent RV-specific immunoglobulin A and neutralizing antibody response in serum and saliva among the infected babies. Our findings have important implications for the development of an effective RV vaccine. In India, where G9 strains are common in the community, the use of 116E as a vaccine, together with the rhesus tetravalent vaccine, may provide a broader protection against all the circulating RV serotypes, including serotype G9, which is not represented in the current rhesus RV tetravalent vaccine (G1-G4).     

All-trans beta-carotene is absorbed preferentially to 9-cis beta-carotene, but the latter accumulates in the tissues of domestic ferrets (Mustela putorius puro)

The algae Dunaliella bardawil and Dunaliella salina naturally contain large concentrations of all-trans and 9-cis beta-carotene (betaC). The purpose of this study was to compare the relative serum and tissue accumulation of all-trans and 9-cis betaC in ferrets fed different ratios of all-trans/9-cis betaC derived from two commercial sources, D. bardawil or D. salina (Betatene). Male ferrets (7 wk old) were fed carotene-free, pelleted diets for 27 d. Beginning on d 18, groups of ferrets (n = 6 or 7) received daily, one of six oral supplements varying in ratios of 9-cis and all-trans betaC mixed with approximately 1.0mL of Ensure. Four supplements containing 5.2-8.3 micromol total betaC were prepared from a 20% Betatene preparation, D. bardawil, a high-cis Betatene preparation, and Betatene further enriched in 9-cis betaC with all-trans betaC/9-cis betaC ratios of 2.2, 1.5, 0.6 and 0.4, respectively. Two control supplements, high and low betaC, were prepared from commercial betaC beadlets. The high control supplement had an all-trans/9-cis ratio of 19.0, whereas 9-cis betaC was not detected in the low supplement. On d 27, serum and tissues were obtained for HPLC analysis of betaC and its isomers. Analysis of livers showed that all-trans betaC was the primary isomer present, but 9-cis and other isomers were also detected in all groups. The hepatic all-trans/9-cis ratios were 5.9, 4.9, 2.5, 1.4, 52.2 and47.5, respectively, for the groups listed above. Lower amounts of all-trans and 9-cis betaC were found in kidneys compared with the liver, but ratios of all-trans/9-cis were not different among groups. Only trace amounts of 9-cis betaC were found in serum. These results demonstrate that the algae D. bardawil and D. salina provide a bioavailable source of betaC isomers, but, as in humans, absorption of 9-cis betaC is poor and any 9-cis betaC absorbed is apparently cleared by the liver.     

Optimal design of hybrid laminated composite plates with dynamic and static constraints

Optimization procedures are presented that consider the static and dynamic characteristic constraints for laminated composite plates and hybrid laminated composite plates subject to a concentrated load on the center of the plate. The design variables adopted are ply angle or ply thickness. Considered constraints are deflection, natural frequency and specific damping capacity. Using a recursive linear programming method, nonlinear optimization problems are solved, and by introducing the design scaling factor, the number of iterations is reduced significantly. Relating interactive optimization procedures with the finite element method analysis, various hybrid composite plates with arbitrary boundary conditions can be designed optimally. In the optimization procedure, verification of analysis and design of the laminated composite plates are compared with a previous paper. Various design results are presented on laminated composite plates and hybrid laminated composite plates.     

多中继放大转发协作通信中的中继数量与位置的联合优化

本文研究了基于单用户下行遍历容量的多中继放大转发模型中中继数量与位置的联合优化问题.首先建立了单用户蜂窝中继小区协作通信模型,提出了位置-数量遍历容量.然后建立了问题优化模型,分析了位置-数量遍历容量与中继数量、中继节点位置的关系:位置-数量遍历容量随中继数量增大而增加;当中继数量给定时,位置-数量遍历容量随中继节点位置距离增大先增加后减少.最后提出了先依据容量随中继数量提升百分比的门限确定中继数量,再确定中继节点位置的方法.     

Service-oriented smart home applications: composition, code generation, deployment, and execution

A smart home usually has a variety of devices or home appliance, instead of designing software for a specific home, this paper proposes a service-oriented framework with a set of ontology systems to support service and device publishing, discovery of devices and their services, composition of control software using existing control services that wrap devices, deployment, and execution of the composed service in an computing environment, monitoring the execution, and recovery from device failure. The ontology systems specify semantic information about devices, services, and workflows used in various smart home, and users can compose and recompose services for their specific needs. New devices, workflows, and services can be added into ontology. Most of the steps in this process can be automated including code generation. For example, service composition will be carried out in three steps: abstract workflow design, function construction, and device discovery, and different codes can be generated for different computing platforms such as Java and Open Services Gateway initiative environments. In this way, a variety of smart home can be constructed rapidly using the framework by discovery and composition using existing services and workflows. This paper illustrates this framework using a media control example to illustrate the ontology, discovery, composition, deployment, execution, monitoring, and recovery.     

An efficient search mechanism for supporting partial filename queries in structured peer-to-peer overlay

Accompanying the growth of the Internet, computers throughout the world can connect to each other and exchange information, increasing the convenience and efficiency of information-based work. The advent of data-sharing applications, such as Napster and Gnutella, has made peer-to-peer (P2P) systems popular for widespread exchange of resources and voluminous information between millions of users. In recent years, research issues associated with P2P systems have been discussed widely. To resolve the file-availability problem and improve the workload, a method called the Distributed Hash Table (DHT) has been proposed. However, DHT-based systems in structured architectures cannot support efficient queries, such as a similarity query, range query, and partial-match query, due to the characteristics of the hash function. This study presents a novel scheme that supports filename partial-matches in structured P2P systems. The proposed approach supports complex queries and guarantees result quality. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

储能设备获最大功率的改进型光伏充电系统设计

针对光伏充电系统中能量利用率不高的问题,给出了改进型光伏充电系统的硬件及软件系统的设计方法。该系统基于低功耗单片机MSP430F1611,利用扰动观察法,通过控制数字电位器来间接调节MPPT变换器的输出电压,从而光伏电池功率与MPPT变换器效率在比值最优的情况下,可使得储能设备获得最大功率。经过仿真验证,该方法可以达到预期的效果,储能设备在同等条件下能获得更多的电能。     

Deep Web 研究现状与展望

随着Deep Web数量和规模的快速增长,通过对其发起查询请求以得到存储在后台数据库中的相关信息,日渐成为用户获取信息的主要方式。为了方便用户有效地利用Deep Web中的信息,越来越多的研究者致力于这一领域的研究,重点之一是Deep Web后台数据库的数据集成。由于Deep Web后台数据库存储的主要是文本信息,使得从文本处理角度出发,针对Deep Web中存储的内容进行查询与检索的研究具有十分广阔的应用前景。本文对Deep Web的研究现状进行了较为详细的分析,同时对研究的发展方向进行了展望。     

虚拟肝脏的规则和非规则手术切除技术

为了提高肝癌手术治疗计划的可靠性,在利用腹部CT图像数据进行肝脏三维重建的基础上,实现了任意角度对虚拟肝脏进行平面切割和切割面结构的显示;通过构造可以调节大小、位置的球体模型,实现了球体切除;通过在肝脏三维模型表面上勾画不规则封闭区域,实现了任意曲面肝脏切除;并依据肝内血管结构进行肝段划分,实现了解剖性肝段切除.临床实验结果表明,文中所述的技术能够满足虚拟手术的需求,有利于医生制定安全可靠的术前计划,提高手术成功率.