Gastrointestinal problems in diabetes

Gastrointestinal symptoms are often encountered in patients with diabetes mellitus. Symptoms may arise in any region of the alimentary tract; common symptoms are heartburn, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, fecal incontinence, and abdominal pain. This article reviews practical approaches to the identification of the pathophysiologic mechanisms involved in diabetic enteropathies and their complications and briefly outlines strategies to treat these symptoms. Particular emphasis is placed on applied physiologic tests and the choice of pharmacotherapy (e.g., cisapride, erythromycin, or octeotide). The current role of pancreatic transplantations also is briefly reviewed.     

Increasing the service properties of weld joints by electrohydroimpulse treatment

Known examples of the positive influence of electrohydroimpulse treatment on the quality of weld joints of various steels, particularly including an increase in their long-term and cyclic strength and also corrosion resistance, are analyzed. It is shown that in this case there is a reduction in residual macro- and micro-stresses and also a change in the parameters of the dislocation structure of the joint metal in the direction of stabilization of it.Translated from Problemy Prochnosti, No. 4, pp. 119–123, April, 1996.     

Thermal expansion of semiconductor materials

The thermal expansion of tellurides of germanium, bismuth, and intermetallic compounds is investigated over the temperature range 293-973 K.Belarusian Agricultural Technical University, Minsk. Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 66, No. 5, pp. 612–616, May 1994.     

On the Possibility of Observing Third Sound on 3He

This paper focuses on the hydrodynamics of third sound on a superfluid ³ He film. We solve the hydrodynamical equations in the limit of thick films with weak interaction with the substrate. The surface tension at the free interface is shown to have a large effect on the third sound velocity and on the attenuation for frequencies larger than 1Hz. In the case of a diffusely scattering substrate a ripplon-like dispersion relation is found for this frequency range.     

Molecular cloning of human Frizzled-6

The Frizzled genes encode receptors for WNTs, secreted glycoproteins implicated in development as well as in carcinogenesis. In this paper, we report molecular cloning of Hfz6, the human homologue of Mfz6. Nucleotide sequence analysis showed that the Hfz6 gene encodes the 706 amino-acid protein with seven transmembrane domains, a cystein-rich domain in the N-terminal extracellular region, two N-linked glycosylation sites, and two cystein residues in the second and third extracellular loops. Hfz6 mRNA 4.4-kb in size was detected in various normal adult and fetal tissues, and a larger amount of Hfz6 mRNA was detected in both fetal lung and fetal kidney. The Hfz6 gene has been mapped to human chromosome 8q22.3-q23.1. In conclusion, we have cloned Hfz6, which encodes a seven-transmembrane receptor with the cystein-rich domain in the N-terminal extracellular region, but without the Ser/Thr-X-Val motif in the C-terminus.     

Clinical risk factors determining recurrence in Crohn''s disease

Absorbable and nonabsorbable buried sutures were studied in primary cleft lip repair. Group 1 (N = 56) consisted of patients repaired with buried nonabsorbable material (monofilament nylon). Group 2 (N = 47) consisted of patients repaired with absorbable materials (polyglyconate, polydioxanone). All patients were monitored for 12 months. There were stitch abscesses in Group 1 (14%). There were no abscesses in Group 2. This difference was significant (p = 0.007). Abscesses were located in the suture line with no identifiable distribution. There was no significant difference in the cosmetic appearance of the scars in Groups 1 and 2. These results support the view that absorbable sutures are preferable to nonabsorbable sutures for primary cleft lip repair.     

Value analysis of intermittent generation sources from the systemoperations perspective

The objective of this study is to determine the economic and operational impact on energy cost of incorporating large photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy conversion systems (WECS) into the electric utility generation mix. In most cases, PV and WECS power outputs are subtracted from the utility load with the expectation that conventional generation would meet the residual load. This approach is valid for small penetration levels and/or for PV and WECS facilities connected near load centers, However, several constraints such as thermal generation characteristics, fuel supply and delivery, spinning reserve requirements, and hydro availability are not adequately represented in this process. To determine the optimal value of large-scale PV and WECS applications, a new methodology that would take into account the aforementioned constraints as well as a more global penetration is developed. Results indicate that while high hydro availability increases PV penetration levels, high ramping rates can also significantly increase penetration levels     

Shear horizontal wave propagation in periodically layeredcomposites

The transverse resonance approach to guided wave analysis is applied to shear horizontal (SH) wave propagation in periodically layered composites. It is found for SH waves that at high values of the guided wavevector β, the wave energy is trapped in the slower of the two media and propagates accordingly at the slower wavespeed. At low values of β, however, the modes demonstrate a clustering behavior, indicative of the underlying Floquet wave structure. The number of modes in a cluster is observed to correlate with the number of unit cells in the layered plate. New physical insights into the behavior of these systems are obtained by analyzing the partial waves of the guided SH modes in terms of Floquet waves. We show that the fast and slow shear waves in the periodically layered composite play an analogous role to the longitudinal and shear partial waves comprising Lamb waves in a homogeneous plate