AMT catalepsy and hypokinesia: interaction with morphine and cocaine

The first successful analysis of iodine compounds in serum and urine by mass fragmentography using GC-MS combined system was performed. The equipment used was Shimadzu LKB 9000 GC-MS (MID-PM). The TMSi derivatives of the compounds were analyzed by GC-MS system equipped with a 3 ft X 3 mm column packed with 1% OV-1 and the temperature was programmed from 200 degrees to 320 degrees C at 10 degrees C/min. The mass specturm showed molecular ions at m/e 523, 649, 741, 867 and 993 which correspond to the TMSi derivatives of MIT, DIT, T2, T3 and T4 respectively. The base peak at m/e 218 was applied to establish the precise quantitative evaluation of T4 and related compounds by mass fragmentography. The following results were obtained: 1) The minimum detectable limits of the compounds injected into the column were ca. 10 pg for MIT, DIT, 20pg for T2, 50pg for T3, and 500 pg for T4 respectively. 2) The sensitivity was of the order of ng or pg which enables quantitation with 1 ml of human serum and urine sample. 3) West's method was very convenient for extracting the compounds from biological fluids, and procedure can be carried out easily in a short time. The recovery rates were ca. 16.0% for MIT, 26.6% for DIT, 61.5% for T2, 71.6% for T3, and 85.1% for T4 respectively. 4) The ability to simultaneously analyze various iodoaminoacids is sure to be effectively utilized in studies to elucidate the relative importance of these hormones and their metabolic changes in various physioloigcal and pathological states of human beings.     

A logistic regression model including DNA status and morphology of spermatozoa for prediction of fertilization in vitro

To determine predictive values of routine semen analysis, sperm morphology evaluation using strict criteria and DNA status for in-vitro fertilization (IVF), 66 consecutive couples undergoing IVF in a university hospital IVF programme were prospectively investigated. Semen samples from 66 men were evaluated by routine semen analysis, morphology evaluation using strict criteria and acridine orange staining for determination of DNA status. A new technique is described for acridine orange scoring which consisted of evaluation of two smears per case, with and without heat treatment. Resistance to heat-provoked denaturation was determined by the difference between two evaluations. A logistic regression model was built and receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed to determine the threshold values and to compare diagnostic properties. Morphology evaluation using strict criteria and concentration of progressively motile spermatozoa were found to be the principal parameters determining the sperm fertilizing capacity in vitro. The logistic regression model composed of morphology evaluation using strict criteria and acridine orange score had a powerful diagnostic capability for prediction of fertilization in vitro.     

Oily Products from Mosses and Algae via Pyrolysis

In this study, the fuel properties of mosses and algae, and the effect of pyrolysis temperature on the yield of bio-oil from moss and alga samples, were investigated. The yield of bio-oil from pyrolysis of the samples increased with temperature. The yields were increased up to 750 K in order to reach the plateau values at 775 K. The maximum yields were 39.1, 34.3, 33.6, 37.0, 35.4, 48.2 and 55.3% of the sample for Polytrichum commune, Dicranum scoparium, Thuidium tamarascinum, Sphagnum palustre, Drepanocladus revolvens, Cladophora fracta and Chlorella protothecoides, respectively. The bio-oil yield for Chlorella protothecoides (a microalga sample) rose from 5.7 to 55.3% as the temperature rose from 525 to 775 K, and then gradually decreased to 51.8% and was obtained at 875 K with a heating rate of 10 K/s. Formulas can be developed to calculate higher heating value (HHV) of different moss and alga samples. The calculated HHV using these new correlations showed mean differences ranging from ?2.3% to +0.06%. The equation developed in this study showed good agreement with experimental results on moss and algae samples. The HHVs for bio-oils from mosses 21.5–24.8 MJ/kg and the HHVs for bio-oils from algae and microalga 32.5 and 39.7 MJ/kg, respectively, were obtained at temperature ranging from 775 to 825 K. In general, algae bio-oils are of higher quality than bio-oils from mosses. In general, microalgae bio-oils are higher quality than bio-oil from wood.     

A high-quality high-fidelity visualization of the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center

In this application paper, we describe the efforts of a multidisciplinary team towards producing a visualization of the September 11 Attack on the North Tower of New York's World Trade Center. The visualization was designed to meet two requirements. First, the visualization had to depict the impact with high fidelity, by closely following the laws of physics. Second, the visualization had to be eloquent to a nonexpert user. This was achieved by first designing and computing a finite-element analysis (FEA) simulation of the impact between the aircraft and the top 20 stories of the building, and then by visualizing the FEA results with a state-of-the-art commercial animation system. The visualization was enabled by an automatic translator that converts the simulation data into an animation system 3D scene. We built upon a previously developed translator. The translator was substantially extended to enable and control visualization of fire and of disintegrating elements, to better scale with the number of nodes and number of states, to handle beam elements with complex profiles, and to handle smoothed particle hydrodynamics liquid representation. The resulting translator is a powerful automatic and scalable tool for high-quality visualization of FEA results.     

Image Based and Hybrid Visual Servo Control of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for military, scientific, and civilian sectors are increasing drastically in recent years. This study presents algorithms for the visual-servo control of an UAV, in which a quadrotor helicopter has been stabilized with visual information through the control loop. Unlike previous study that use pose estimation approach which is time consuming and subject to various errors, the visual-servo control is more reliable and fast. The method requires a camera on-board the vehicle, which is already available on various UAV systems. The UAV with a camera behaves like an eye-in-hand visual servoing system. In this study the controller was designed by using two different approaches; image based visual servo control method and hybrid visual servo control method. Various simulations are developed on Matlab, in which the quadrotor aerial vehicle has been visual-servo controlled. In order to show the effectiveness of the algorithms, experiments were performed on a model quadrotor UAV, which suggest successful performance.     

Tuning pH sensitivities of zinc phthalocyanines in ionic liquid modified matrices

Phthalocyanine dyes are clinically important bright fluorophores with many desirable properties. Their absorption and emission maxima in near infrared region make them proper tool for optical probing of biologically relevant materials and optical-chemical-sensing purposes. In this work we have shown that pH sensitivities of the phthalocyanines can be manipulated as desired. This property makes the Pcs very proper photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy applications. In this work pH sensitivities of alpha (α) and beta (β) tetra-substituted zinc phthalocyanines (ZnPcs) were studied spectroscopically in ethyl cellulose and PVC matrices. In experiments designed to manipulate pH, lipophilic room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) were added into the test environment. The RTIL-modified thin films provided higher relative fluorescence intensity changes upon exposure to proton with respect to the RTIL-free ones. By this way, acidity constants of the ZnPcs could be tuned to the desired region of interest. The ZnPcs, exhibited good reproducibility and reversibility upon protonation. The RTILs also enhanced short and long term stabilities of the Pc-dyes. There was no significant drift in their proton sensitivities even after 10 assays and after being stored in a buffer condition for over six months.     

Dimension reduction by a novel unified scheme using divergence analysis and genetic search

In this study, a unified scheme using divergence analysis and genetic search is proposed to determine significant components of feature vectors in high-dimensional spaces, without having to deal with singular matrix problems.In the literature it is observed that three main problems exist in the feature selection process performed in a high-dimensional space. These problems are high computational load, local minima, and singular matrices. In this study, feature selection is realized by increasing the dimension one by one, rather than reducing the dimension. In this sense, the recursive covariance matrices are formulated to decrease the computational load. The use of genetic algorithms is proposed to avoid local optima and singular matrix problems in high-dimensional feature spaces. Candidate strings in the genetic pool represent the new features formed by increasing the dimension. The genetic algorithms investigate the combination of features which give the highest divergence value.In this study, two methods are proposed for the selection of features. In the first method, features in a high-dimensional space are determined by using divergence analysis and genetic search (DAGS) together. If the dimension is not high, the second method is offered which uses only recursive divergence analysis (RDA) without any genetic search. In Section 3 two experiments are presented: Feature determination in a two-dimensional phantom feature space, and feature determination for ECG beat classification in a real data space.     

Effects of Pb Intercalation on the Structural and Electronic Properties of Epitaxial Graphene on SiC

The effects of Pb intercalation on the structural and electronic properties of epitaxial single‐layer graphene grown on SiC(0001) substrate are investigated using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), noncontact atomic force microscopy, Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM), X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and angle‐resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) methods. The STM results show the formation of an ordered moiré superstructure pattern induced by Pb atom intercalation underneath the graphene layer. ARPES measurements reveal the presence of two additional linearly dispersing π‐bands, providing evidence for the decoupling of the buffer layer from the underlying SiC substrate. Upon Pb intercalation, the Si 2p core level spectra show a signature for the existence of Pb? Si chemical bonds at the interface region, as manifested in a shift of 1.2 eV of the bulk SiC component toward lower binding energies. The Pb intercalation gives rise to hole‐doping of graphene and results in a shift of the Dirac point energy by about 0.1 eV above the Fermi level, as revealed by the ARPES measurements. The KPFM experiments have shown that decoupling of the graphene layer by Pb intercalation is accompanied by a work function increase. The observed increase in the work function is attributed to the suppression of the electron transfer from the SiC substrate to the graphene layer. The Pb intercalated structure is found to be stable in ambient conditions and at high temperatures up to 1250 °C. These results demonstrate that the construction of a graphene‐capped Pb/SiC system offers a possibility of tuning the graphene electronic properties and exploring intriguing physical properties such as superconductivity and spintronics.