Evanescent amplification in a single-mode optical fibre

By replacing a portion of the cladding of a single-mode fibre with a laser dye, amplification can be achieved by means of an evanescent field interaction. External gains as high as 22 dB have been measured by guiding both a pulsed pump and CW signal within the single-mode fibre.     

Isovaleric acidemia. Study and treatment in 3 brothers

The cases of 3 sibs presenting with isovaleric acidemia are reported. The first infant died when he was 9 day-old. The two others appear to have benefited from a controlled leucine diet which was introduced from the first days on of life. The clinical symptomatology, highly typical of the disease, is described. Diagnosis was not assessed on amino-acids chromatography but on the chromatography of volatile fatty acids. The mode of treatment is described: peritoneal dialysis, with the object of rounding a crucial cape, and overall controlled leucine diet, but supplemented by essential amino-acids.     

以用户为中心的新兴电力市场模式

随着可再生能源在现代能源产业中的占比不断提高,其对现行电力系统和电力市场的运行机制所带来的影响也日趋明显;同时,通过与数字信息产业深度结合,分布式能量管理手段也处于飞速发展阶段。在这二者的驱动下,一种以用户为中心的新兴电力市场模式正以不同的表现形式出现在世界各地。文章以高度概括的方式介绍了这一新兴电力市场模式,浅析了其在不同表现形式下的机理和特征。基于这一新兴电力市场模式在短期内所取得的发展成就,有理由相信此类新兴电力市场模式将逐步成为未来电力市场中的重要组成部分。     

Brachytherapy seed localization using geometric and linear programming techniques

We propose an optimization algorithm to solve the brachytherapy seed localization problem in prostate brachytherapy. Our algorithm is based on novel geometric approaches to exploit the special structure of the problem and relies on a number of key observations which help us formulate the optimization problem as a minimization integer program (IP). Our IP model precisely defines the feasibility polyhedron for this problem using a polynomial number of half-spaces; the solution to its corresponding linear program is rounded to yield an integral solution to our task of determining correspondences between seeds in multiple projection images. The algorithm is efficient in theory as well as in practice and performs well on simulation data (approximately 98% accuracy) and real X-ray images (approximately 95% accuracy). We present in detail the underlying ideas and an extensive set of performance evaluations based on our implementation.     

On maximum power of reverse osmosis separation processes

This paper considers the application of finite time thermodynamics (FTT) to reverse osmosis (RO) processes. A new thermodynamically ideal model of the endoreversible RO process is proposed and combined with basic transport equations for the irreversible mass transfer through the membrane. This approach is then applied to a simplified case of RO desalting of a concentrated sodium chloride solution. The results emphasize the trade-off between the permeate flow rate and the recovery rate. It also shows the existence of a maximum value for the power of separation which corresponds to the maximum conversion rate of mechanical exergy into chemical exergy. Finally the environmental and technical significances of the criteria such as power of separation are discussed on an example of the RO process.