Copper-induced green hair. Treatment with a penicillamine containing shampoo

A male patient with green hair is described. The cause was exogenous deposition of copper from domestic tap water which contained an increased copper concentration. The discolouration disappeared promptly following the use of a penicillamine containing shampoo.     

Flexible generation mix under multi objectives and uncertainties

Criteria for evaluating flexibility of a generation mix are presented, and an efficient computational algorithm for determining a flexible generation mix considering uncertainties in the power system expansion planning is developed. The flexible generation mix problem is formulated as a multiobjective optimization problem and solved by the dynamic programming technique in which type of generation plant is selected as a stage and generation capacity is selected as a state. The proposed method can treat easily not only the uncertainties but also many constraints of generation planning such as integer solutions of generation capacities, reliability constraints, and so on. The effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method are demonstrated on a typical power system model     

Laser interferometer with fine-focused beams to monitor the spatial position of an object

Analogies with interferometers using a light source with low temporal coherence are used to analyze the principles of the construction of laser interferometers with averaging over the photodetector aperture, whose sensitivity to the position of an object being monitored at the maximum of the output signal is as good as that of low-coherence interferometry and tomography. Pis’ma Zh. Tekh. Fiz. 24, 19–24 (February 26, 1998)     

The safer choices project: methodological issues in school-based health promotion intervention research

Randomized trials of school-based health promotion programs present unique design and analytical issues not widely discussed in the research literature. This article describes the Safer Choices study--a school-based program for prevention of HIV, other sexually transmitted diseases, and pregnancy--to illustrate critical methodological issues involved in large-scale, school-based intervention trials, particularly those evaluating interventions with a school-wide focus. The issues presented are: 1) comparability of the intervention and control groups even when few units are randomized; 2) factors that affect the decision to use a cohort or cross-sectional design; and 3) appropriate analysis strategy when the unit of randomization and intervention is at the school level, but observations are at the student level.     

The potential for energy efficiency in electric end usetechnologies

The authors summarize a recent study conducted by the Electric Power research Institute (EPRI) that contains estimates of potential energy savings that will result if the most efficient electricity technologies readily available immediately attain complete market saturation in the year 2000. They first define and contrast various efficiency scenarios and then summarize the energy savings forecast associated with demand-side management measured by sector. These estimates have been developed through discussions with a wide range of experts both inside and outside the utility industry, review of the trade and technical literature, and simulations and forecasts using several end-use models. The main results for efficient technologies that reduce electric usage are presented     

Automated derivation of time bounds in uniprocessor concurrentsystems

The successful development of complex real-time systems depends on analysis techniques that can accurately assess the timing properties of those systems. This paper describes a technique for deriving upper and lower bounds on the time that can elapse between two given events in an execution of a concurrent software system running on a single processor under arbitrary scheduling. The technique involves generating linear inequalities expressing conditions that must be satisfied by all executions of such a system and using integer programming methods to find appropriate solutions to the inequalities. The technique does not require construction of the state space of the system and its feasibility has been demonstrated by using an extended version of the constrained expression toolset to analyze the timing properties of some concurrent systems with very large state spaces