CNC codes conversion from linear and circular paths to NURBS curves

A novel approach is proposed for converting NC files of G01/G02/G03 codes into NURBS curves. The NC points are first acquired from an NC file composed of lines and arcs. A segmentation algorithm based on the angles and lengths evaluated from adjacent points is then used to subdivide the entire group of points into segments. An error-bounded constrained curve fitting algorithm is implemented to fit each segment of points into a curve, maintaining the accuracy, smoothness and boundary continuity between the curves. The chord errors between the NC points and the fitted curves are controlled, which ensures the accurate recovery of NC paths. Also, a knot insertion algorithm is proposed to determine the appropriate number of control points automatically, allowing effective fitting of all segments. Several examples are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach.     

Management of small infected tibial defects with antibiotic-impregnated autogenic cancellous bone grafting

Between January of 1991 and December of 1993, 36 patients who had tibia fractures complicated by small infected tibia defects were treated at the authors' service. The group included 30 men and 6 women whose average age was 36.5 years (range, 18-72 years). The average follow-up period was 3.7 years. By using the Cierney-Mader staging classification of chronic osteomyelitis, 26 of 36 patients (72%) were stage 4A and 10 of 36 patients (28%) were stage 4B. Ten patients required muscle transfer. All patients were treated with a two-stage protocol. In the first stage, antibiotic-impregnated polymethylmethacrylate bead chains were used to obliterate the debrided osseous defect. In the second stage, the beads were removed, and the defects were reconstructed with antibiotic-impregnated autogenic cancellous bone graft. The time between the first and second stage was 2 to 8 weeks for patients without muscle transfer and 8 to 12 weeks for the patients with muscle transfer. The bone defects ranged from 2 to 4 cm. Wound healing and bony union were achieved in all patients. Only two patients had recurrent infections. The infection arrest rate was 94.4%. Minor pin tract infection of the external skeletal fixation was seen in two patients. Two patients developed skin rashes secondary to antibiotic therapy. Radiographs at an average follow-up of 3.7 years showed good consolidation and hypertrophy of grafted bones in all patients. After 3 to 5 years of follow-up, our results suggest that the use of impregnating antibiotics have no adverse effects on autogenic cancellous bone graft incorporation and may help to eliminate infection. This treatment protocol provided rapid recovery from osteomyelitis. The use of antibiotic-impregnated autogenic bone graft seems to be an effective and safe method for the management of small infected tibial defects.     

Modeling and simulation of the transcritical CO2 heat pump system

In this study, a CO₂ transcritical cycle model without imposing any excessive constraints such as fixed discharge pressure and suction pressure is developed. The detailed geometrical variation of the gas cooler and the evaporator have been taken into account. The model is validated with the experimental measurements. Parametric influences on the CO₂ system with regard to the effect of dry bulb temperature, relative humidity, inlet water temperature, compressor speed, and the capillary tube length are reported. The COP increases with the dry bulb temperature or the inlet relative humidity of the evaporator. Despite the refrigerant mass flowrate may be increased with the inlet water temperature, the COP declines considerably with it. Increasing the compressor speed leads to a higher heating capacity and to a much lower COP. Unlike those of the conventional sub-critical refrigerant, the COP of the transcritical CO₂ cycle does not reveal a maximum value against the capillary tube length.     

Identification of a common cytochrome P450 epitope near the conserved heme-binding petide with antibodies raised against recombinant cytochrome P450 family 2 proteins

The cytochrome P450 (P450) proteins constitute a superfamily of enzymes involved in various oxidations and related activities. Polyclonal antibodies raised against bacterial recombinant human P450s varied in specificity, depending upon the individual rabbits used. Several of the antisera raised against P450s 2C10 and 2E1 recognized a number of P450 family 1, 2, and 3 proteins, and two of the less selective antibodies were used to identify cross-reactive epitopes. P450 2C10 peptides reacting with anti-P450 2E1 and P450 2E1 peptides reacting with anti-P450 2C10 were isolated after electrophoresis/immunoblotting and analyzed by Edman degradation. Several of these were in a region near the highly conserved Cys that is a putative axial ligand to the heme. Peptides corresponding to the most conserved regions in this area were synthesized. Anti-P450 2C10 sera did not recognize 14-mer peptides corresponding to the heme-binding region (2C10 410-423 or 2E1 409-422) or the 14-mer peptides immediately C-terminal to these (2C10 425-438 or 2E1 424-437), but anti-P450 2E1 sera showed weak reaction with the latter two synthetic peptides. A longer peptide (29-mer) of P450 2E1 containing parts of both regions (412-440) reacted with both anti-P450 2C10 and anti-P450 2E1 antisera. Antibodies raised against a conjugate of the 29-mer peptide (with hemocyanin) recognized this antigen, the more C-terminal 14-mer peptides (2C10 425-438 and 2E1 424-437), P450s 2C10 and 2E1, and P450s 1A1, 11A1, and 17A. The 29-mer peptide showed considerable alpha-helix structure as judged by CD spectroscopy, in contrast to any of the 14-mers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Hematogenous osteomyelitis with inflammatory cyst formation mimicking a soft-tissue tumor

Reported is a case of hematogenous osteomyelitis of the femur with inflammatory cyst formation mimicking a soft-tissue tumor. A 15-year-old boy with a three-year history of a gradually enlarging soft-tissue mass of his left thigh was found to have an aborted acute hematogenous osteomyelitis complicated by an inflammatory cyst that was probably caused by inadequate antibiotic therapy. The osteomyelitis and its inflammatory cyst were treated with excisional debridement and six weeks of antibiotic therapy. The patient remains well five years later, with no clinical or radiologic evidence of recurrence. This is a new variant of chronic osteomyelitis that has not previously been reported.     

Role of the ROS-JNK Signaling Pathway in Hypoxia-Induced Atrial Fibrotic Responses in HL-1 Cardiomyocytes

By promoting atrial structural remodeling, atrial hypoxia contributes to the development of the atrial fibrillation substrate. Our study aimed to investigate the modulatory effect of hypoxia on profibrotic activity in cultured HL-1 cardiomyocytes and explore the possible signaling transduction mechanisms of profibrotic activity in vitro. Hypoxia (1% O₂) significantly and time-dependently increased the expression of hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α and fibrotic marker proteins collagen I and III (COL1A and COL3A), transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 and α-smooth muscle actin (SMA). Western blot or immunohistochemistry analysis showed that hypoxia-induced increase in COL1A and COL3A was significantly attenuated by the addition of SP600125 (a specific c-Jun N-terminal kinase [JNK] inhibitor) or expression of dominant-negative JNK before hypoxia treatment. The inhibition of hypoxia-activated phosphorylation of JNK signal components (JNK, MKK4, nuclear c-Jun and ATF-2) by pre-treatment with SP600125 could suppress hypoxia-stimulated HIF-1α upregulation and fibrotic marker proteins expression. Hypoxia significantly increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in cultured HL-1 atrial cells. Pre-treatment with N-acetylcysteine significantly abrogated the expression of nuclear HIF-1α, JNK transduction components and fibrotic marker proteins. Taken together, these findings indicated that the hypoxia-induced atrial profibrotic response occurs mainly via the ROS/JNK pathway, its downstream upregulation of HIF-1α and c-Jun/ATF2 phosphorylation and nuclear translocation to up-regulate the expression of fibrosis-related proteins (COL1A, COL3A, TGF-β1 and α-SMA). Our result suggests that suppression of ROS/JNK signaling pathway is a critical mechanism for developing a novel therapeutic strategy against atrial fibrillation.     

Joint detection for OFDM-CDMA communications in multipath fading channels

This paper proposes and compares four block joint detection algorithms for the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-code division multiple access (CDMA) communication systems. The performance of the proposed OFDM-CDMA joint detectors with orthogonal and non-orthogonal spreading sequences are investigated in mobile radio channels. The proposed OFDM-CDMA detectors are zero forcing (ZF) and minimum mean square error (MMSE) detectors with decision feedback (DF) structures. The proposed joint detectors do not require discrete Fourier transform (DFT) or fast Fourier transform (FFT) operations and can be used to compensate the channel distortion. Hence for hardware implementation, the proposed detectors are more efficient than the conventional methods. The channel sorting method offers approximately 2 dB gain for the DF joint detectors and reduces the impairing effect of error propagation. The bit error rate (BER) performance of orthogonal codes is better than that of non-orthogonal ones in time varying channels. Simulation examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed detectors.     

Stresses around a pin-loaded hole in orthotropic plates with arbitrary loading direction

Lekhnitskii's method of complex stress function is extensively used to solve the pin-loaded circular hole problem in an infinite orthotropic plate. The approach is similar to the one used earlier by the authors, but extended into a more general fashion. The direction of pin-load is arbitrary and the presence of friction is considered.An analytic solution which satisfies the major displacement boundary conditions on the pin-loaded hole has been obtained. Certain parameters are introduced for simplifying the expressions. These formulas can be used for computing the stress distribution around a pin-loaded hole and estimating the effect of direction of the pin-load and the presence of friction. The degree of such an effect depends on the orthotropy of the material. Some numerical results have been calculated and presented in this paper. They are compared with other results available in the literature.     

Adaptive blind equalization using second- and higher orderstatistics

This paper presents two classes of adaptive blind algorithms based on second- and higher order statistics. The first class contains fast recursive algorithms whose cost functions involve second and third- or fourth-order cumulants. These algorithms are stochastic gradient-based but have structures similar to the fast transversal filters (FTF) algorithms. The second class is composed of two stages: the first stage uses a gradient adaptive lattice (GAL) while the second stage employs a higher order-cumulant (HOC) based least mean squares (LMS) filter. The computational loads for these algorithms are all linearly proportional to the number of taps used. Furthermore, the second class, as various numerical examples indicate, yields very fast convergence rates and low steady state mean square errors (MSE) and intersymbol interference (ISI). MSE convergence analyses for the proposed algorithms are also provided and compared with simulation results