Drug therapy of hemiballism. Review of the literature and personal observations

Hemiballism is a rare hyperkinetic disorder which is characterized by irregular vigorous rotatory movements of the limbs of one side of the body. The disabling and exhausting movements with their high risk of severe injuries require an acute drug treatment. However, there are no common guidelines for the treatment of this disorder. Therefore we reviewed the available literature to establish a concept for a rational symptomatic drug treatment. Furthermore, own observations in 6 patients with hemiballism of different origins are reported.     

Transport properties of oxygen-deficient YBa2Cu3O7−x thin films

We report on measurements of the in-plane resistivityρ and Hall coefficientR _H (B∥c) of various oxygen-deficient epitaxial films of YBa₂Cu₃O_7?x in the normal state. The superconducting transition temperaturesT _c of the samples vary from 14 to 90 K. Both the resistivity and the Hall coefficient exhibit a strong dependence on the oxygen content and the temperature. Asx increases,T _c decreases continuously, whileρ andR _H gradually increase in magnitude. Furthermore, also the characteristic linear dependences ofραT andR _Hα T ^?1 of the highly doped compounds changes to a nonlinear behavior for the samples withT _c lower than 60 K. The unusual doping and temperature dependence ofR _H will be compared to the predictions of our calculations, based on a two-dimensional tight-binding model using the relaxation-time approximation. The model considers also the next-nearest-neighbor hopping, which strongly influences the predicted Hall coefficient. Additionally, the cotangent of the Hall angle cot(Θ _H ) is discussed in the framework of the two-dimensional Luttinger liquid theory.     

In-Situ and Real-Time Investigation of Columnar-to-Equiaxed Transition in Metallic Alloy

In this article, we present a review of observations during Al-3.5 wt pct Ni alloy solidi.cation experiments performed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble. These experiments provide direct access to dynamical phenomena during columnar growth (initial transient and breakdown of a planar solid-liquid interface), and for the first time to the transition from columnar-to-equiaxed microstructure (nucleation ahead of a columnar front and blocking of a columnar front by an equiaxed microstructure) and fully equiaxed growth (propagation of an effective front). Based on these experimental observations, critical parameters such as columnar growth velocity variation during the transition or equiaxed-grain diameter are measured and discussed. This article is based on a presentation made in the symposium entitled “Solidi.cation Modeling and Microstructure Formation: In Honor of Prof. John Hunt,” which occurred March 13–15, 2006, during the TMS Spring Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, under the auspices of the TMS Materials Processing and Manufacturing Division, Solidification Committee.     

Putting it all together – Formal verification of the VAMP

In the verified architecture microprocessor (VAMP) project we have designed, functionally verified, and synthesized a processor with full DLX instruction set, delayed branch, Tomasulo scheduler, maskable nested precise interrupts, pipelined fully IEEE compatible dual precision floating point unit with variable latency, and separate instruction and data caches. The verification has been carried out in the theorem proving system PVS. The processor has been implemented on a Xilinx FPGA. A shorter version of this article with the title “Instantiating uninterpreted functional units and memory system: functional verification of the VAMP” appeared in [8]. The work reported here was done while all the authors were with Saarland University.     

The microscopy cell (MicCell), a versatile modular flowthrough system for cell biology, biomaterial research, and nanotechnology

We describe a novel microfluidic perfusion system for high-resolution microscopes. Its modular design allows pre-coating of the coverslip surface with reagents, biomolecules, or cells. A poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) layer is cast in a special molding station, using masters made by photolithography and dry etching of silicon or by photoresist patterning on glass or silicon. This channel system can be reused while the coverslip is exchanged between experiments. As normal fluidic connectors are used, the link to external, computer-programmable syringe pumps is standardized and various fluidic channel networks can be used in the same setup. The system can house hydrogel microvalves and microelectrodes close to the imaging area to control the influx of reaction partners. We present a range of applications, including single-molecule analysis by fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), manipulation of single molecules for nanostructuring by hydrodynamic flow fields or the action of motor proteins, generation of concentration gradients, trapping and stretching of live cells using optical fibers precisely mounted in the PDMS layer, and the integration of microelectrodes for actuation and sensing.