Severe pulmonary hypertension reversed by antibiotics in a patient with Whipple's disease

The case is described of a 58 year old man with systemic Whipple's disease with pericardial and pleural effusions and severe pulmonary hypertension. After three months of antibiotic treatment there was a complete resolution, not only of the symptoms known to be associated with Whipple's disease (diarrhoea, arthralgia, pericardial and pleural effusions), but also of pulmonary hypertension.     

Multidimensional augmented current equation including velocityovershoot

The augmented drift-diffusion current equation, which includes velocity overshoot effects through the space derivatives of the electric field, cannot be directly extended beyond one dimension. A new formalism is developed which considers the carrier heating and the distribution relaxation effects to obtain a multidimensional augmented drift diffusion current equation. The equivalent mobility containing the velocity overshoot correction is derived from the perturbation analysis on the carrier temperature using the energy balance equation. The issues related to the numerical implementation of this generalized model and the validity of the assumptions are also discussed     

A system for recognizing a large class of engineering drawings

We present a system for recognizing a large class of engineering drawings characterized by alternating instances of symbols and connection lines. The class includes domains such as flowcharts, logic and electrical circuits, and chemical plant diagrams. The output of the system, a netlist identifying the symbol types and interconnections, may be used for design simulation or as a compact portable representation of the drawing. The automatic recognition task is divided into two stages: 1) domain-independent rules are used to segment symbols from connection lines in the drawing image that has been thinned, vectorized, and preprocessed in routine ways; 2) a drawing understanding subsystem works in concert with a set of domain-specific matchers to classify symbols and correct errors automatically. A graphical user interface is provided to correct residual errors interactively and to log data for reporting errors objectively. The system has been tested on a database of 64 printed images drawn from text books and handbooks in different domains and scanned at 150 and 300 dpi resolution     

Cost Effective VLSI Architectures for Full-Search Block-Matching Motion Estimation Algorithm

In this paper, we present efficient VLSI architectures for full-search block-matching motion estimation (BMME) algorithm. Given a search range, we partition it into sub-search arrays called tiles. By fully exploiting data dependency within a tile, efficient VLSI architectures can be obtained. Using the proposed VLSI architectures, all the block-matchings in a tile can be processed in parallel. All the tiles within a search range can be processed serially or concurrently depending on various requirements. With the consideration of processing speed, hardware cost, and I/O bandwidth, the optimal tile size for a specific video application is analyzed. By partitioning a search range into tiles with appropriate size, flexible VLSI designs with different throughput can be obtained. In this way, cost effective VLSI designs for a wide range of video applications, from H.261 to HDTV, can be achieved.     

Distribution of recombination currents in the space charge regionof heterostructure bipolar devices

This paper addresses the problem of the space charge region Shockley-Read-Hall (SRH) recombination currents in heterojunctions with one noncrystalline side. A formulation which generalizes previous works is discussed. The approach is based on the drift-diffusion model with a thermionic-field emission boundary condition. The main physical parameters which determine the relative contribution of each zone of the space charge region (SCR) to the total recombination current are identified. The general analysis is applied for the first time to amorphous/crystalline heterojunctions and design criteria are established to minimize the total recombination current     

Long-wavelength 640×486 GaAs-AlGaAs quantum well infraredphotodetector snap-shot camera

A 9-μm cutoff 640×486 snap-shot quantum well infrared photodetector (QWIP) camera has been demonstrated. The performance of this QWIP camera is reported including indoor and outdoor imaging. The noise equivalent differential temperature (NEΔT) of 36 mK has been achieved at 300 K background with f/2 optics. This is in good agreement with expected focal plane array sensitivity due to the practical limitations on charge handling capacity of the multiplexer, read noise, bias voltage, and operating temperature     

Surveillance after colorectal cancer surgery

Early diagnosis of local and distant recurrences of colorectal cancer remains difficult and there is no agreement on the effectiveness of follow-up in these patients. The aim of this study is to assess the value of our method of follow-up. We consider 239 patients with colorectal cancer and at least 2 years follow-up following radical resection. A local recurrence appeared in 26 patients (10.9%), a distant metastasis in 41 (17.1%), while in seven (2.9%) local and distant recurrences appeared simultaneously. Local recurrence was detected because of an increase in carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level in 15 patients (57.7%), during a scheduled endoscopy in four (15.4%) and because of symptoms in seven (26.9%). In seven patients (26.9%) a radical resection was possible. Distant metastases were detected by CEA levels in 20 patients (48.8%), by ultrasonography (U.S.) in 12 (29.3%) and by chest X-ray in five (12.2%). In 13 of 26 patients with liver metastases a resection was performed. This study shows that few patients benefit from follow-up and only CEA levels and liver U.S. performed intensively between 15 and 36 months after surgery are useful in early detection of recurrences. A modification of the follow-up to the single patient, according to the stage, location and grading of cancer, could improve the results, so lowering the costs of this expensive practice.