Quality of life in dialysis: A Malaysian perspective

There is a growing interest to use quality of life as one of the dialysis outcome measurement. Based on the Malaysian National Renal Registry data on 15 participating sites, 1569 adult subjects who were alive at December 31, 2012, aged 18 years old and above were screened. Demographic and medical data of 1332 eligible subjects were collected during the administration of the short form of World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQOL‐BREF) in Malay, English, and Chinese language, respectively. The primary objective is to evaluate the quality of life among dialysis patients using WHOQOL‐BREF. The secondary objective is to examine significant factors that affect quality of life score. Mean (SD) transformed quality of life scores were 56.2 (15.8), 59.8 (16.8), 58.2 (18.5), 59.5 (14.6), 61.0 (18.5) for (1) physical, (2) psychological, (3) social relations, (4) environment domains, and (5) combined overall quality of life and general health, respectively. Peritoneal dialysis group scored significantly higher than hemodialysis group in the mean combined overall quality of life and general health score (63.0 vs. 60.0, P < 0.001). Independent factors that were associated significantly with quality of life score in different domains include gender, body mass index, religion, education, marital status, occupation, income, mode of dialysis, hemoglobin, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, cerebral vascular accident and leg amputation. Subjects on peritoneal dialysis modality achieved higher combined overall quality of life and general health score than those on hemodialysis. Religion and cerebral vascular accident were significantly associated with all domains and combined overall quality of life and general health.     

Comparison of energy efficiency between ball mills and stirred mills in coarse grinding

Stirred mills are primarily used for fine and ultra-fine grinding. They dominate these grinding applications because greater stress intensity can be delivered in stirred mills and they can achieve better energy efficiency than ball mills in fine and ultra-fine grinding. Investigations were conducted on whether the greater performance of stirred mills over ball mills in fine grinding can be extended to coarse grinding applications. Four different laboratory ball mills and stirred mills have been tested to grind seven ore samples with feed sizes ranging from 3.35 mm to 150 μm. A case study on full scale operations of a 2.6 MW IsaMill replacing the existing 4 MW regrind ball mill at Kumtor Gold Mine in Kyrgyzstan is also included. This paper summarizes the major findings from these investigations.     

Mineral content of some herbs and herbal teas by infusion and decoction

Sage (Salvia fruticosa L.), anise (Pimpinella anisum L.), Hawthorn (Crataegus orientalis), rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis L.), mountain tea (Sideritis spp), basil (Ocimum basilicum L.), lime flower (Tilia cordata), nettle (Urtica dioica L.), thyme (Thymbra spicata), coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.), rosehip (Rosa canina L.), mentha (Mentha piperita L.), balm (Melissa officinalis L.), tea (Camelia sinensis L.) (Black and green), sena leaf (Casia angustifolia), camomile (Matricaria chamomilla), tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus L.), cinnamon (Cinnamomum casia) and fennel (Foeniculum vulgare L.) were used as plant material in this study. Decoction was applied to R. canina, A. dracunculus and C. casia, and infusion was applied to other plant materials. Ten, 15 and 20 min were used as a time parameter for both infusion and decection. Inductive coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AEs) has been used for the determination of the elements in all infusions, decoctions and plant material.     

Impact of impregnation with boron compounds on the surface hardness of varnished wood

This study was performed to determine the impact of impregnation with boron compounds on the surface hardness of varnished wood materials. For this purpose, test specimens prepared from Oriental beech (Fagus orientalis Lipsky) and oak (Quercus petreae Lipsky), which met the requirements of ASTM D 358, were impregnated according to ASTM D 1413 with boric acid and borax by a vacuum technique. After impregnation, the surfaces were coated by cellulosic, synthetic, polyurethane, waterborne, acrylic, and acid hardening varnishes in accordance with ASTM D 3023. The surface hardness of the specimens after the varnishing process was determined in accordance with ASTM D 4366. According to the wood type, impregnation material, and varnish type, the surface hardness was highest for the oak impregnated with borax and acrylic varnish and lowest for the oak impregnated with borax and synthetic varnish. Therefore, impregnation with boron compounds showed an increasing impact on the surface hardness of the varnished wood. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007     

Modeling and Design of Multilevel Bang–Bang CDRs in the Presence of ISI and Noise

Multilevel clock-and-data recovery (CDR) systems are analyzed, modeled, and designed. A stochastic analysis provides probability density functions that are used to estimate the effect of intersymbol interference (ISI) and additive white noise on the characteristics of the phase detector (PD) in the CDR. A slope detector based novel multilevel bang-bang CDR architecture is proposed and modeled using the stochastic analysis and its performance compared with a typical multilevel Alexander PD-based CDR for equal-loop bandwidths. The rms jitter of the CDRs are predicted using a linear jitter model and a Markov chain and verified using behavioral simulations. Jitter tolerance simulations are also employed to compare the two CDRs. Both analytical calculations and behavioral simulations predict that at equal-loop bandwidths, the proposed architecture is superior to the Alexander type CDR at large ISI and low signal-to-noise ratios.