Fosphenytoin in infants

In comparison with phenytoin preparations, which have a pH value of 11, fosphenytoin, a phosphorylated prodrug of phenytoin, has a pH value of only 8.6, which decreases the risk of cardiovascular and cutaneous side effects. The near-neutral pH value of fosphenytoin allows effective intravenous or intramuscular administration. A 1-mg phenytoin equivalent (PE) of fosphenytoin is converted to 1 mg of phenytoin in adults. We describe four infants whose seizures were treated with intravenous fosphenytoin. We had difficulty maintaining therapeutic serum phenytoin levels of 10 to 20 microg/mL on doses of 5 to 8 mgPE/kg/day, and many bolus doses of 5 to 10 mgPE/kg or maintenance doses of more than 10 mgPE/kg/day were given. Despite increased doses in three out of the four patients, a therapeutic serum phenytoin level was not maintained. From our experience, careful and individual dosing of fosphenytoin in this age group can be considered.     

Reaction-Bonded Niobium Carbide on Graphite via a Novel Solution Impregnation Process

A simple and rapid process has been developed that allows the preparation of NbC-C composite rods. Graphite rods are impregnated with an ethanolic solution of NbOCl₂ and resistively fired (> 1900°C) under an argon atmosphere. The final composite product is found to contain residual carbon particles within a NbC-C matrix.     

Multi-sensor data fusion using NIHS transform and decomposition algorithms

Multi-spectral image fusion is to enhance the details present in multi-spectral bands with the spatial information available in the panchromatic image. Fused images have the effect of spectral distortions and lack of structural similarity. To overcome these limitations, three methods are proposed using intensity, hue, saturation (IHS) and nonlinear IHS (NIHS) transform along with the Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) and 2D-Empirical Mode Decomposition (2D-EMD or IEMD). An intensity plane is calculated from the NIHS transform. The modes are constructed using DMD by considering the variations between the intensity plane computed using NIHS transforms of a low resolution multi-spectral image and a panchromatic image. Similarly, 2D-EMD is also used for image fusion. Modes are subjected to weighted fusion rule to get an intensity plane with spatial and edge information. Finally, the calculated intensity plane is concatenated along with the hue and saturation plane of low-resolution multi-spectral image and transformed into RGB color space. Thus, the fused images have high spatial and edge information on spectral bands. The experiments and its quality assessment assure that proposed methods perform better than the existing methods.     

Oil resistant thermoplastic elastomers of nitrile rubber and high density polyethylene blends

Different grades of oil resistant thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) based on blends of nitrile rubber (NBR) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) have been developed. Chemical treatment of HDPE to evolve compatibility with NBR and dynamic vulcanization with different curatives have been studied. Determination of physico‐mechanical and thermal properties and relative crystallinity of these blends have been carried out. Oil resistance characteristics of the blends have been evaluated in different commercially used oils and fuels for applications as a substitute for NBR/polyvinyl chloride (PVC) blends.     

Optimal Multistage Scheduling of PMU Placement: An ILP Approach

This paper addresses various aspects of optimal phasor measurement unit (PMU) placement problem. We propose a procedure for multistaging of PMU placement in a given time horizon using an integer linear programming (ILP) framework. Hitherto, modeling of zero injection constraints had been a challenge due to the intrinsic nonlinearity associated with it. We show that zero injection constraints can also be modeled as linear constraints in an ILP framework. Minimum PMU placement problem has multiple solutions. We propose two indices, viz, BOI and SORI, to further rank these multiple solutions, where BOI is bus observability index giving a measure of number of PMUs observing a given bus and SORI is system observability redundancy index giving sum of all BOI for a system. Results on IEEE 118 bus system have been presented. Results indicate that: (1) optimal phasing of PMUs can be computed efficiently; (2) proposed method of modeling zero injection constraints improve computational performance; and (3) BOI and SORI help in improving the quality of PMU placement.     

Fate of pentabrominated diphenyl ethers in soil: abiotic sorption, plant uptake, and the impact of interspecific plant interactions

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are potentially harmful and persistent environmental pollutants. Despite evidence that soils are a major sink for PBDEs, little is known regarding their behavior in this medium. An environmentally relevant level of a commercial penta-BDE mixture (75 microg kg(-1)) was added to topsoil, and the extractability of three congeners (BDE-47, -99, and -100) was monitored over 10 weeks in planted and unplanted treatments. The extractability of each congener decreased rapidly in the experimental soil due largely to abiotic sorption to soil particles, which was demonstrated by low PBDE recovery from sterilized and dry soils. Monoculture plantings of zucchini and radish did not affect the recovery of PBDEs from soil. However, PBDE recovery from mixed species plantings was nearly 8 times higher than that of unplanted and monoculture treatments, indicating that interspecific plant interactions may enhance PBDE bioavailablity in soil. Evidence for competitive interactions between the two species was revealed by reduced shoot biomass of zucchini plants in mixed treatments relative to pots containing only zucchini. Both plant species accumulated PBDEs in root and shoot tissue (<5 microg kg(-1) plant tissue). PBDE uptake was higher in zucchini, and translocation of PBDEs to zucchini shoots was congener-specific. Our results suggest that although abiotic sorption may limit the potential for human exposure to PBDEs in soil, plants may increase the exposure risk by taking up and translocating PBDEs into aboveground tissues and by enhancing bioavailability in soil.     

Modified MACOP-B chemotherapy for intermediate and high grade non Hodgkins lymphomas

The distribution of calcitonin gene-related peptidergic (CGRP) nerve endings in rat nasal mucosa was investigated with immunocytochemical technique (ABC method). The results showed that CGRP endings had a robust localization along the walls of arterioles, venules and around the acini of glands, with the endings near the wall of arterioles being most strongly stained. The typical morphology of CGRP endings could be recognized as multistage-branched terminals with rosary varicosities. CGRP immunoreactive neurons were also found in the trigeminal ganglion (TG). Supported by morphological evidence, we suggest that CGRP endings in rat nasal mucosa are the peripheral fibers originating from the ganglion cells in TG. These fibers may be involved in the perception of mucosal stimuli and the propagation of nerve impulse to the central terminals and will thus release CGRP in the brain stem. There is also possibility that CGRP may be peripherally released following local stimulation in the nasal mucosa and exert influences on the mucosal functions.     

Cellular expression of a GPI-linked T cell activation protein

A T cell activation protein was identified by generating a monoclonal antibody (anti-D2) against a gamma delta T cell receptor bearing gibbon ape T cell line (MLA144). Immunoprecipitation studies revealed three polypeptides of 180, 150, and 120 kDa. The antigen was also found to be expressed on endothelial cells in vivo and in vitro and on tumor cell lines from a variety of tissues. Studies performed using a variety of antibodies reveal this protein to be identical to an endothelial cell protein previously identified by several antibodies to T cell activation proteins (CDw109). We demonstrate that this protein is anchored in the membrane via a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) tail in T cells, tumor cells, and endothelial cells. An analysis of tissue sections reveals this protein to be normally highly expressed on vascular endothelial cells.     

A complete factorization of paraunitary matrices with pairwisemirror-image symmetry in the frequency domain

The problem of designing orthonormal (paraunitary) filter banks has been addressed in the past. Several structures have been reported for implementing such systems. One of the structures reported imposes a pairwise mirror-image symmetry constraint on the frequency responses of the analysis (and synthesis) filters around π/2. This structure requires fewer multipliers, and the design time is correspondingly less than most other structures. The filters designed also have much better attenuation. We characterize the polyphase matrix of the above filters in terms of a matrix equation. We then prove that the structure reported in a paper by Nguyen and Vaidyanathan (1988), with minor modifications, is complete. This means that every polyphase matrix whose filters satisfy the mirror-image property can be factorized in terms of the proposed structure