Descriptive epidemiology of childhood cancers in Bangalore, India

While fairly complete and reliable incident data on childhood cancers are available from the registries in India, mortality and survival information is not. Information concerning the latter was obtained by the Bangalore cancer registry through active follow-up involving visits to homes of patients. Between 1982 and 1989, 617 cases of cancers in childhood were registered, giving an age-standardized incidence rate of 84.8 and 48.4 per million in male and female children, respectively. Active follow-up provided mortality/survival information in 532 or 86.2 percent of these cases. Overall, observed five-year survival was 36.8 percent (both genders combined) with a relative survival of 37.5 percent when childhood mortality in the general population was taken into account. The five-year relative survival was best for thyroid carcinoma (100 percent) followed by Hodgkin's disease (73 percent) and retinoblastoma (72.9 percent). Survival was comparatively low, being 9.9 percent in acute nonlymphatic leukemia and less than 20 percent in rhabdomyosarcoma and the category grouped as 'other malignant neoplasms.' Survival in Hodgkin's disease was influenced by clinical stage at presentation, but was not statistically significant possibly due to small numbers.     

Using time-driven activity-based costing to manage digital forensic readiness in large organisations

A digital forensic readiness (DFR) programme consists of a number of activities that should be chosen and managed with respect to cost constraints and risk. Traditional cost systems, however, can not provide the cost of individual activities. This makes it difficult or impossible for organisations to consider cost when making decisions about specific activities. In this paper we show that the relatively new cost system, time-driven activity-based costing (TDABC), can be used to determine the cost of implementing and managing activities required for DFR. We show through analysis and simulation that the cost information from a TDABC model can be used for such decisions. We also discuss some of the factors that ought to be considered when implementing or managing the use of TDABC in a large organisation.     

Microstructure refinement with forced convection in aluminium and superalloys

The cooling and average local solidification times were determined for slow solidifiation of Al-4.4 wt% Cu alloy under natural convection and under electromagnetically forced axisymmetric rotation during liquid cooling and solidification in graphite moulds. Cooling rates were measured within situ thermocouples. The conditions needed to stabilize the radial temperature gradient with rotation were established. The microstructure size decreased with increasing rotation, as did the local solidification times. The average grain and dendrite size without imposed rotation is coarser near the mould wall compared with the centre of the casting. This trend is reversed with imposed rotation. Rotation also led to a smaller spread of grain and dendrite size at any chosen height of the casting. These results are discussed in relation to existing theories, and several reasons for an improved heat transfer coefficient with rotation are presented. Forced convective solidification was then carried out for various shapes of integral investment cast Nimonic-90 alloy solidifying under modified conditions that prevented columnar grain formation. Similar results to those recorded for the aluminium case were obtained and are presented here. The major conclusion is that observations indicating a reduction of microstructure spacing during forced convection should also consider improved heat extraction at the mould-metal interface.List of symbols Gr Grashof number =gTZ ^{3 3}/ ³ - g _r acceleration in radial direction - g acceleration in direction - g _z acceleration inZ direction (gravity) - h heat transfer coefficient - k _l thermal conductivity of liquid - Nu _z Nusselt number =hZ/k _l - Pr Prandtl number =/ - Ra Rayleigh numberGr Pr - R radius of mould - Re _r Reynolds number =V ₀ R/ - T temperature - T temperature difference in radial direction - Ta Taylor number = ²4H ⁴ W ²/ ² - V velocity - W r.p.m. - thermal diffusivity - coefficient of volume expansion - viscosity - density Mr G. S. Reddy is also a post graduate student registered at the Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.     

Simulation Study of Dielectric Modulated Dual Material Gate TFET Based Biosensor by Considering Ambipolar Conduction

Silicon - In this paper, a dielectric modulated dual material gate TFET (DM-DMG_TFET)based biosensor is proposed. In order to detect various biomolecules, a nanogap cavity is formed by the...     

Efficient mining of discriminative co-clusters from gene expression data

Discriminative models are used to analyze the differences between two classes and to identify class-specific patterns. Most of the existing discriminative models depend on using the entire feature space to compute the discriminative patterns for each class. Co-clustering has been proposed to capture the patterns that are correlated in a subset of features, but it cannot handle discriminative patterns in labeled datasets. In certain biological applications such as gene expression analysis, it is critical to consider the discriminative patterns that are correlated only in a subset of the feature space. The objective of this paper is twofold: first, it presents an algorithm to efficiently find arbitrarily positioned co-clusters from complex data. Second, it extends this co-clustering algorithm to discover discriminative co-clusters by incorporating the class information into the co-cluster search process. In addition, we also characterize the discriminative co-clusters and propose three novel measures that can be used to evaluate the performance of any discriminative subspace pattern-mining algorithm. We evaluated the proposed algorithms on several synthetic and real gene expression datasets, and our experimental results showed that the proposed algorithms outperformed several existing algorithms available in the literature.     

Uptake of Pb(II) and Cd(II) by a new phenolformaldehyde polymer resin derived by the insertion of sulfur ligands in the form of xanthate

A new phenolformaldehyde polymer resin containing potential soft‐type donor atoms (sulfur atoms) was synthesized by the reaction of sodium salt of 2,4‐dihydroxyacetophenone formaldehyde resin with carbon disulfide. The resin was characterized by elemental analysis, IR, and ¹H‐NMR spectral studies. Because of its insolubility in aqueous media, the resin was successfully used in the removal of Pb(II) and Cd(II). Parameters such as the effect of pH, the effect of time, competitive studies, the effect of initial metal‐ion concentration, and the recyclability of the polymer resin were studied. The amount of metal removed by the resin was determined with atomic absorption spectrophotometry. The retention properties were strongly dependent on pH. The elution of metal ions was investigated in acid media. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 91: 1932–1936, 2004     

Hydrogels based on graft copolymers of collagen synthesis

Graft copolymerization of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate in combination with hydrophobic monomers onto soluble collagen was employed in the synthesis of hydrogels. The hydrogels were formed by simultaneous graft copolymerization and crosslinking. In order to study the effect of various crosslinking agents on the water retention character of the hydrogels, three different crosslinking agents, namely, N,N′-methylene bis acrylamide, 1,4-butanediol dimethacrylate, and hexamethylene urethanediacrylate were used. Hexamethylene urethanediacrylate crosslinked systems require a minimum amount of crosslinking agent to attain maximum water content in comparison to the other systems.     

GRAPHICAL SOLUTION OF MULTISTAGE FLUIDIZED BED HEAT EXCHANGER

The design of multistage fluidized beds for heat exchange necessitates the solution of the mass and energy balance equations combined with the equilibrium relations for each stage. This paper presents a novel way of applying well known methodology to a different technology, one where it has not been widely applied.

In the present work a McCabe-Thiele type of graphical approach is presented for both counter-current and cross-current contacting multiple fluidized beds. The necessary equations for a multistage calciner are developed and the application of the proposed method is demonstrated. Generalized fluidized bed efficiency for counter-current and cross-current multiple fluidized bed is presented.     

Solubility and thermodynamic properties of Y2O3 in LiF-YF3 melts

A systematic investigation was undertaken to measure the solubility of Y₂O₃ in several LiF-YF₂ melts, with the YF₃ composition ranging from 20 to 50 mole pct, in the temperature range of 998 to 1273 K. Experimental results showed that the solubility of Y₂O₄ in the melts increased with increase in temperature and also with increased YF₃ content. The activity of Y₂O₃ was calculated using the free energy of fusion of Y₂O₃, . The was deduced from the values of enthalpy, heat of fusion, and melting point of Y₂O₃. From the known values of activity, the activity coefficients of Y₂O₃ as a function of temperature and melt composition were calculated. Considering the ionic nature of the melt, activity coefficients were also calculated using Temkin’s ideal mixing and electrically equivalent fraction methods. The thermodynamic data, such as integral molar enthalpy, entropy, and free energy of formation, were calculated as a function of composition and temperature. The calculated thermodynamic data showed that the melt exhibited a negative deviation from ideal conditions.