Syncillin in bacterial skin diseases

A multicentric open clinical trial was carried out by 8 practising specialists in dermatology or paediatrics in patients with bacterial skin diseases who were subjected to a systemic therapy with Syncillin (=Azidocillin). The Syncillin presentation for adults and schoolchildren was tablets of 750 mg each, and sachets of 125 mg or 250 mg for infants. The duration of treatment was 10 days. The parameters analyzed were bacteriological findings and the clinical course of disease. 71 (=74%) of the 96 patients included in this study were considered as cured, 21 (=22%) as improved and 4 patients (=4%) as unchanged. Bacterial identification was still positive in 10 cases after the termination of treatment. However, this did not preclude the assessments of "cured' (3 cases) or "improved' (7 cases). The tolerance of the preparation was considered as "very good' or "good' in 91 and as "poor' in 5 patients. The most common side effects were nausea and diarrhoea. Exanthema was observed in 2 cases. None of these side effects, however, made a discontinuation of medication necessary. The era of rational and well-directed chemotherapy enables good therapeutic approach also to bacterial skin diseases.     

Fabrication of Al/AlN composites by in situ reaction

The tensile properties and microstructures of various Al alloys fabricated by the pressureless infiltration method under a nitrogen atmosphere were examined. The spontaneous infiltration of molten metal into the powder bed occurred at 800 °C for 1 h under a nitrogen atmosphere. As a result, it was possible to fabricate Al alloys reinforced with AlN particles formed by in situ reaction. A significant strengthening even in the control alloy occurred due to the formation of in situ AlN particle even without an addition of artificial reinforcement. Strength values of the control alloy were increased with decreasing Al powders in bottom powders bed. In addition, tensile strength in Al–Mg alloys was increased with Mg content.     

Enhanced carrier confinement in AlInGaN-InGaN quantum wells in near ultraviolet light-emitting diodes

To increase carrier confinement, the GaN barrier layer was substituted with an AlInGaN quaternary barrier layer which was lattice-matched to GaN in the GaN-InGaN multiple quantum wells (MQWs). Photoluminescence (PL) and high-resolution X-ray diffraction measurements showed that the AlInGaN barrier layer has a higher bandgap energy than the originally used GaN barrier layer. The PL intensity of the five periods of AlInGaN-InGaN MQWs was increased by three times compared to that of InGaN-GaN MQWs. The electroluminescence (EL) emission peak of AlInGaN-InGaN MQWs ultraviolet light-emitting diode (UV LED) was blue-shifted, compared to a GaN-InGaN MQWs UV LED and the integrated EL intensity of the AlInGaN-InGaN MQWs UV LED increased linearly up to 100 mA. These results indicated that the AlInGaN-InGaN MQWs UV LED has a stronger carrier confinement than a GaN-InGaN MQWs UV LED due to the larger barrier height of the AlInGaN barrier layer compared to a GaN barrier layer.     

H.264/AVC baseline profile to MPEG‐4 visual simple profile transcoding to reduce the spatial resolution

In this study, we propose a heterogeneous transcoding method of converting an H.264/Advanced video coding (AVC) Baseline profile (BP) video bitstream into an MPEG‐4 Visual simple profile (VSP) video bitstream. The proposed method reduces the spatial resolution for mobile terminals, which support only low resolution video bitstreams. When the H.264/AVC BP video bitstream is transformed into the MPEG‐4 VSP video bitstream, the conversions between the H.264/AVC BP block types and the MPEG‐4 VSP block types are performed by analyzing the macroblocks (MBs) conversion probability and calculating the difference values of motion vector. The proposed transcoding method runs on average 5.5 times faster than the cascaded transcoding methods, for a degradation of the PSNR (peak‐signal‐to ratio) of less than 0.5 dB. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 16, 24–33, 2006     

A new LDPC decoding algorithm aided by segmented cyclic redundancy checks for magnetic recording channels

We introduce a new low-density parity-check (LDPC) decoding algorithm that exploits the cyclic redundancy check (CRC) information of data segments. By using the error detection property of the CRC, we can successively decode data segments of a codeword corrupted by random errors and erasures. The key idea is that the messages from the variable nodes with correct checksum are fixed to deterministic log likelihood ratio values during LDPC iterative decoding. This approach improves the decoding speed and codeword error rate without significant modification of the LDPC decoding structure. Moreover, the CRC is also used for an early stopping criterion of LDPC decoding. Simulation results verify our claims.     

A simple receding horizon control for state delayed systems and its stability criterion

In this paper, a simple receding horizon (or model predictive) control for state delayed systems is presented and its solution is given in a closed form by a reduction method. While the control for a time-delay system is usually complex, the proposed controller is simple to construct and therefore can be simply implemented in real applications. To check the closed-loop stability of the proposed controller, a sufficient condition is provided by linear matrix inequalities. In addition, a numerical algorithm is presented for computing the eigenvalues of systems with distributed time delays, which can be used as a necessary and sufficient condition to check closed-loop stability. It is shown by simulation that this simple control can be a stabilizing control for time-delay systems.     

Robust stability analysis and design method for the fuzzy feedbacklinearization regulator

A robust stability analysis and design method for a fuzzy feedback linearization regulator is presented. The well-known Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model is used as the nonlinear plant model. Uncertainties and disturbance are assumed to be included in the model structure with known bounds. For these structured uncertainties, stability robustness of the closed system is analyzed in both input-output sense and Lyapunov sense. The robust stability conditions are proposed using multivariable circle criterion and the relationship between input-output stability and Lyapunov stability. Also, based on the stability analysis, a systematic design procedure for the fuzzy feedback linearization regulator is provided. The effectiveness of the proposed analysis and design method is illustrated by a simple example     

Disk placement for arbitrary-rate playback in an interactive video server

Multimedia data, especially continuous media including video and audio objects, represent a rich and natural stimulus for humans, but require large amount of storage capacity and real-time processing. In this paper, we describe how to organize video data efficiently on multiple disks in order to support arbitrary-rate playback requested by different users independently. Our approach is to segment and decluster video objects and to place the segments in multiple disks using a restricted round-robin scheme, called prime round-robin (PRR). Its placement scheme provides uniform load balance of disks for arbitrary retrieval rate as well as normal playback, since it eliminates hot spots. Moreover, it does not require any additional disk bandwidth to support VCR-like operations such as fast-forward and rewind. We have studied the various effects of placement and retrieval schemes in a storage server by simulation. The results show that PRR offers even disk accesses, and the failure in reading segment by deadline occurs only at the beginning of new operations. In addition, the number of users admitted is not decreased, regardless of arbitrary-rate playback requests.     

Receding horizon finite memory controls for output feedback controls of state-space systems

In this paper, a new type of control, called a receding horizon finite memory control (RHFMC) or a model predictive finite memory control, is proposed as an optimal output feedback control for stochastic state-space systems. Constraints such as linearity, finite memory structure, and unbiasedness from the optimal state feedback control are required in advance, and in addition, the performance criterion of quadratic cost is required. Constraints for the input and the state are not assumed in this paper. The RHFMC is obtained directly by minimizing the performance criterion for stochastic state-space systems with the previous constraints. It is shown that the RHFMC can be separated into a receding horizon control and a finite-impulse response filter. The stability of the RHFMC is investigated. The validity of the proposed RHFMC is illustrated by a numerical example.