Brain scanning with the Anger multiplane tomographic scanner as a second examination evaluation by the ROC method

The disposition kinetics and systemic availability of ketamine, a dissociative anaesthetic agent, was studied in normal domestic cats. A similar dose (25 mg/kg) of ketamine hydrochloride was administered by the i.v. and i.m. routes; drug concentrations in plasma were measured by a gas-liquid chromatographic procedure. A rapid distribution phase (t1/2 (alpha) = 3 min) was followed by a slower first-order elimination phase. The half-life of the drug (66.9 +/- 24.1 min) was independent of the route of parenteral administration. Absorption from i.m. site of administration was rapid, with peak plasma level at 10 min, and ca. 92 per cent of the dose was available systemically. Extent of plasma protein binding, measured in vitro at 5 and 20 mug/ml by equilibrium dialysis technique, was 53 per cent and independent of ketamine concentration. Simulated plasma and tissue level curves, which were generated by an analogue computer programmed with the individual rate constants of the two-compartment open model, showed that 10 and 15 per cent of the dose were present in the central and peripheral compartments, respectively, at 90 min after i.v. administration of the drug. Peak tissue level of 42 per cent of the dose was reached at 12 to 15 min. Parenteral administration of ketamine, at the dosage rate studied, quickly produced an immobilizing effect of variable duration (0.75 to 1.75 hr) in normal cats.     

Distribution of aflatoxin M1 in cheese obtained from milk artificially contaminated

Small-scale manufacture of cheese using artificially AFM1 contaminated milk as raw material to study the distribution of such toxin both in whey and in cheese, was carried out. Whole milk with undetectable levels of AFM1 was used. The toxin was added in concentration that varied from 1.7 to 2.0 microg/l of milk. After the home-made production of cheese, the concentration of AFM1 was determined both in whey and in cheese, using the enzymatic immunoassay technique. The greatest proportion, 60%, was detected in whey while 40% AFM1 remained in cheese.     

On the calculation of heat and momentum transport in a round jet

This communication deals with the determination of the turbulent Prandtl number and some constants which appear in the mixing length, k/ε and k/w turbulence models. The determination is carried out in a heated round jet by means of a finite-difference algorithm whose results are compared with the available experimental data. It is shown that in round jets the constants that multiply the production terms in the ε- and w- equations have values of 1.52 and 1.50, and the turbulent Prandtl number is 0.80.     

Pattern Recognition Applied to Monitoring Waveforms

This paper demonstrates that fetal heart rate (FHR) patterns can be classified by algorithmically determined linear discriminants. A nonparametric learning algorithm was applied to 17 samples of five-vectors. The coordinates of each sample vector were visual features derived from the FHR curve and the simultaneous uterine contraction pressure data in accord with medical training-literature. Data were obtained from strip-chart recordings from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, where an FHR monitoring and on-line computer processing system based on an IBM System/7 is being installed. The algorithm converged to linear discriminants that correctly classified all the 17 training samples under four different combinations of initial weights, training sequence, and correction increment. Each of the four linear decision rules so obtained was applied to 14 new sample vectors. Three classified 11 samples correctly and one classified 13 samples correctly. Medical anomalies (atypical data) were present in all three misclassified patterns. A perfect success record was found in classifying all seven medically ominous new sample vectors.     

Polymerization rate and mechanical properties of polymer-impregnated mortar

The influence of different types of monomer on the mechanical properties of mortar impregnated composite were analyzed. Additionally a semi-empirical model developed by Auskern was applied to predict the strength of the composites from the obtained values of porosity before and after impregnation. The velocity of polymerization and the catalytic effect of the cement on this reaction were analyzed through the continuous recording of temperature by means of embedded thermocouples. The molecular weight of the polymer inside the specimens was also obtained. Microscopic observation of the fracture surface is presented.     

Efficacy of sorbates on the control of the growth of Eurotium species in bakery products with near neutral pH

The effects of sorbic acid and potassium sorbate on growth of different Eurotium isolates when added to a bakery product analogue were tested under different environmental conditions. Water activity of the products was adjusted to values in the range of 0.75-0.90, and storage temperatures were in the range of 15-30 degrees C. Preservatives were added in concentrations ranging from 0.025% to 0.2%. It was observed that 0.025% and 0.05% concentrations always enhanced the isolates growth, while 0.1% had little preservative effect. Finally, even the highest concentration (0.2%) was not suitable as it only controlled fungal growth under certain water activity and temperature levels. It was concluded that these weak-acid preservatives are not useful when added to bakery products with near to neutral pH.     

Multi-Agent Systems Specification and Certification: A Situation and State Calculus Approach

We address the topic of specifying multi-agent systems using the situation and state calculus (SSC). SSC has been proposed as an extension of the situation calculus to overcome some limitations of the usual notion of state. The envisaged multi-agent system specification framework allows the uniform treatment of both local and global properties, providing also techniques for reasoning about such specifications. When a certain intended property is not inferred from a specification, we cannot always just add to it the corresponding formula. Indeed, it is often the case that specification axioms are required to be formulae of a certain kind. The task of identifying the new axioms that should be added to the specification in order to ensure the intended property has an abductive nature. Herein, we develop abductive reasoning techniques to tackle this problem.     

Parallel scheduling of the PCG method for banded matrices rising from FDM/FEM

An implicit time-linearized finite difference discretization of partial differential equations on regular/structured meshes results in an n-diagonal block system of algebraic equations, which is usually solved by means of the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (PCG) method. In this paper, an analysis of the parallel implementation of this method on several computer architectures and for several programming paradigms is presented. For three-dimensional regular/structured meshes, a new implementation of the PCG method with Jacobi preconditioner is proposed. For the computer architectures and number of processors employed in this study, it has been found that this implementation is more efficient than the standard one, and can be applied to narrow-band matrices and other preconditioners, such as, for example, polynomial ones.