Involvement of zinc in intracellular oxidant/antioxidant balance

Methods to directly and indirectly identify the central sulcus are presented. In the axial plan, direct method is remarkable but obviously requires good visualization of the sulci in the central region. Sulci are readily visible in 90% of the cases on CT scans and in 50% of the cases on MRI. The method can also be applied when tumoral development erases the cerebral sulci by direct lecture of the controlateral rolandic region and right-left transfer. Within the precision limits of the method, it can be considered that the central sulci are symmetrical. The main signs are: the relative morphologies of the superior frontal sulcus and the precentral sulcus, the hook-shaped aspect of the middle part of the central sulcus, the internal end of the central sulcus projection anteriorly to the pars marginalis, the bifid nature of the internal end of the posterior central sulcus contouring the pars marginalis, and the lesser thickness of the posterior central gyrus compared with the precentral gyrus. The indirect method is less precise and is used when the direct method is unsuccessful. The central sulcus is identified on the sagittal images and, using the lateral view of the skull as a reference image, the topographic information is transferred to the axial images.     

Einsatzmöglichkeiten neuronaler Netze in der Industrierobotik

Zusammenfassung Es werden die prinzipiellen Einsatzm?glichkeiten neuronaler Netwwerke zur Modellbildung, Steuerung und Regelung von Robotern sowie zur Unterstützung sensomotorischer Aktionen dargelegt. Einige ausgew?hlte neuronale Regelungskonzepte werden vorgestellt und auf ihre Stabilit?t, Robustheit, Genauigkeit sowie Echtzeitf?higkeit hin untersucht. Ferner wird gezeigt, wie sich neuronale Regelungskonzepte in industrielle Robotersteuerungen integrieren lassen.     

Residual stresses and transformation toughening in MoSi2 composites reinforced with partially stabilized zirconia

The results of study of the effects of yttria stabilization (0–6 mol.%) on the room-temperature fracture behavior and toughening mechanisms in zirconia-reinforced MoSi₂ are presented in this paper. Transformation toughening is shown to occur only in composites reinforced with zirconia particles stabilized with 2 mol.% yttria. However, the fracture toughness levels are comparable in the other composites with yttria levels between 0 and 6 mol.%. Toughening in the other composites is attributed to the combined effects of residual stress, microcrack shielding/anti-shielding and/or crack deflection. A rigorous micromechanics-based model is presented for the estimation of residual stress levels in brittle materials reinforced with phases that can transform during cooling or under stress. The model is applied successfully to the rationalization of the observed fracture and toughening phenomena.     

Polarization control in a vertical cavity surface emitting laser submitted to optical feedback

We study experimentally and theoretically two polarization effects in a vertical cavity surface emitting laser submitted to optical feedback. In a first experiment, we obtain flips between two linearly polarized laser modes up to a frequency of 50 MHz using an external cavity with a polarizer. In a second experiment, polarization self modulation is demonstrated up to a frequency of 2.6 GHz, using a quarter wave plate instead. Numerical calculations, based on a four levels model for the active medium, show a good agreement with the experiments.     

The MiniWiD-Coater. III. Effect of Application Temperature on the Dissolution Profile of Sustained-Release Theophylline Pellets Coated with Eudragit Rs 30 D

Theophylline pellets were coated with Eudragit RS 30 D in a miniature fluid-bed pan coater called MiniWiD developed recently. The dispersions were plasticized with varying amounts of triethyl citrate (TEC), dibutyl phthalate (DBP), and polyethylene glycol 6000 (PEG) and applied at different temperatures ranging from 25 to 45 °C. Theophylline release was tested by dissolution using the USP Apparatus 2 (paddle) in 0.1 N hydrochloric acid under sink conditions over 6 hours.

At a coating level of 4 % (0.7 mg/cm²) sustained-release profiles were obtained from dispersions plasticized with TEC or DBP. By reducing the amount of plasticizer from 20 to 10%, films with higher permeabilities were obtained. This effect was compensated by tempering the pellets at 50 deg;C for 24 hours. The coating temperature had little effect on the dissolution profiles of TEC-plasticized films and no effect on films with DBP.

Coatings plasticized with 20% PEG were applied at temperatures ranging from 25 to 45 °C. These films required a coating level of about 18 % (3.3 mg/cm²) to provide comparable sustained-release properties. In contrast to DBP and TEC, a strong influence of the coating temperature on the release rates was observed in which higher temperatures led to slower release rates. This behavior can be explained by the minimum film-forming temperature (MFT). Since PEG does not lower the MFT of Eudragit RS 30 D, the application of these films below the MFT of 45 °C is associated with a lower degree of film formation.     

Refinements in validity generalization methods: Implications for the situational specificity hypothesis.

Using a large database, this study examined 3 refinements of validity generalization procedures: (1) a more accurate procedure for correcting the residual standard deviation (SD) for range restriction to estimate SDp, (2) use of r? instead of study-observed rs in the formula for sampling error variance, and (3) removal of non-Pearson rs. The 1st procedure does not affect the amount of variance accounted for by artifacts. The addition of the 2nd and 3rd procedures increased the mean percentage of validity variance accounted for by artifacts from 70 to 82%, a 17% increase. The cumulative addition of all 3 procedures decreased the mean SDp estimate from .150 to .106, a 29% decrease. Six additional variance-producing artifacts were identified that could not be corrected for. In light of these it was concluded that the obtained estimates of mean SDp and mean validity variance accounted for were consistent with the hypothesis that the true mean SDp value is close to zero. These findings provide further evidence against the situational specificity hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Solidification Behavior of Undercooled Liquid Aluminum Oxide

Solidification of aluminum oxide from undercooled melts was investigated in containerless experiments. Specimens were levitated in a gas jet, stabilized with an acoustic positioning device, and melted with cw CO₂ laser beams. Cooling curves were obtained by optical pyrometry when the laser intensity was reduced. The materials examined were high-purity Verneuil sapphire, 99.5% polycrystalline alumina, and oxide materials recovered from the effluent of an aluminum-fueled rocket motor. The degree of undercooling, the apparent temperature behavior during the thermal arrest on solidification, and the structure of the materials formed were different in argon and oxygen atmospheres. Undercooling of the sapphire and alumina materials was 360 ± 10 K in an oxygen atmosphere and approximately 450 K in argon. Melting and solidification of high-purity sapphire resulted in a dendritic and porous polycrystalline material in oxygen. Dense, larger crystals were obtained in argon. Products formed from 99.5% alumina were discolored and the cores were white, indicating impurity segregation effects. More reproducible behavior was observed for the sapphire and 99.5% alumina than for the tungstencontaminated rocket motor effluent materials.     

线卡通信系统的基本构件

如今高性能通信系统有多种形式，在企业网络中，它也许是路由器，或是将以太局域网(LAN)的数据转发至OC-48 SONET光网络的多业务转换装置；在蜂窝网络中，它可能是第三代宽带无线网络控制器(RNC)，将基站(BTS)的移动蜂窝电话呼叫发送至公共交换电话网(PSTN)；在存储网络中，它可以是将服务器的数据备份至廉价磁盘冗余阵列(RAID)的光纤通道存储转换器。无论何种特殊类型的网络，这些系统的共同用途是接收来自信息源的数据，决定它需要发至何处，并有效地将它传送至目的地。为了支持这些关键功能，需要有一套通用通信元件或“基本构…     

A Low-Power Wide-Dynamic-Range Analog VLSI Cochlea

Low-power wide-dynamic-range systems are extremely hard to build. The biological cochlea is one of the most awesome examples of such a system: It can sense sounds over 12 orders of magnitude in intensity, with an estimated power dissipation of only a few tens of microwatts. In this paper, we describe an analog electronic cochlea that processes sounds over 6 orders of magnitude in intensity, and that dissipates 0.5 mW. This 117-stage, 100 Hz to 10 KHz cochlea has the widest dynamic range of any artificial cochlea built to date. The wide dynamic range is attained through the use of a wide-linear-range transconductance amplifier, of a low-noise filter topology, of dynamic gain control (AGC) at each cochlear stage, and of an architecture that we refer to as overlapping cochlear cascades. The operation of the cochlea is made robust through the use of automatic offset-compensation circuitry. A BiCMOS circuit approach helps us to attain nearly scale-invariant behavior and good matching at all frequencies. The synthesis and analysis of our artificial cochlea yields insight into why the human cochlea uses an active traveling-wave mechanism to sense sounds, instead of using bandpass filters. The low power, wide dynamic range, and biological realism make our cochlea well suited as a front end for cochlear implants.