Body thiamine level in acute alcohol psychoses

PURPOSE: To compare admission data and academic performances of medical students younger and older than 25, and to qualify older students' experiences and perceptions in medical school. METHOD: The authors reviewed 1988-1991 data for applications to the McGill University Faculty of Medicine. Data included GPAs and MCAT scores, as well as ratings for reference letters, autobiographical statements, and interviews. For those same years, the authors measured students' academic performances in the preclinical and clinical years. The authors compared the data by students' age: "younger" students, aged 17 to 24; and "older" students, aged 25 and above. All enrolled students took the Derogatis Stress Profile, and the older students participated in focus groups. RESULTS: The older applicants had lower GPAs and MCAT scores, but higher interview and reference letter ratings. For older accepted students, basic science course scores were lower than those of younger students, but clinical scores did not differ significantly between the groups. The two groups had similar stress levels, although older students tested lower in driven behavior, relaxation potential, attitude posture, and hostility. In focus groups, the older students spoke of learning style differences, loss of social support, and loss of professional identity. CONCLUSION: Different scores in admission criteria suggest that McGill uses different standards to select older medical students. Older students admitted under different criteria, however, do just as well as do younger students by their clinical years. A broad-based study of admission criteria and outcomes for the older student population is warranted.     

Analysis of an efficient rule-based motion planning system for simulating human crowds

This paper proposes a rule-based motion planning system for agent-based crowd simulation, consisting of sets of rules for both collision avoidance and collision response. In order to avoid an oncoming collision, a set of rules for velocity sampling and evaluation is proposed, which aims to choose a velocity with an expected time to collision larger than a predefined threshold. In order to improve the efficiency over existing methods, the sampling procedure terminates upon finding an appropriate velocity. Moreover, the proposed motion planning system does not guarantee a collision-free movement. In case of collision, another set of rules is also defined to direct the agent to make a corresponding response. The experiment results show that the proposed approach can be applied in different scenarios, while making the simulation execution efficient.     

Visual tracking for the recovery of multiple interacting plant root systems from X-ray $$\upmu $$CT images

We propose a visual object tracking framework for the extraction of multiple interacting plant root systems from three-dimensional X-ray micro computed tomography images of plants grown in soil. Our method is based on a level set framework guided by a greyscale intensity distribution model to identify object boundaries in image cross-sections. Root objects are followed through the data volume, while updating the tracker’s appearance models to adapt to changing intensity values. In the presence of multiple root systems, multiple trackers can be used, but need to distinguish target objects from one another in order to correctly associate roots with their originating plants. Since root objects are expected to exhibit similar greyscale intensity distributions, shape information is used to constrain the evolving level set interfaces in order to lock trackers to their correct targets. The proposed method is tested on root systems of wheat plants grown in soil.     

Action of levorin on glucose transport in the rat small intestine

The technique of accumulating preparation of the mucosa and "turned out sac" was used to show that levorin, a polyenic antibiotic in a concentration of 10(-6) M, lowered the transport rate and accumulation of glucose by the epithelial cells of the rat thin intestine under conditions of oxygenation. Suppression of the glucose transport in the first stages resulted in partial inhibition of the transmembrane transfer. It is suggested that levorin suppression of the glucose transport through the erythrocyte apical membrane in the thin intestine is associated with a decrease in the electrochemical gradient of Na+.     

Variants of fractionation of irradiation in intracavitary gamma-therapy

Under study was the efficacy of three schedules of dose fractionation in intracavitary gamma-therapy in cervical cancer patients treated on the machine "AGAT-B". Single doses were 1000, 700 and 500 rad, while total dosage at point A depending on the stage of the disease was within the range of 4000-5000 rad. The survival during the first, second and third years following termination of the radiotherapy was found to be identical for patients of all the groups under examination. No differences were noted in them also in the character of early radiation reactions on the part of the adjacent organs. The frequency and severity of late radiation injuries of the urinary bladder, rectum and vagina were related to the dose fractionation regimen.     

Peculiarities of primary and secondary structure of phage FI-1 DNA

The composition of nitrous bases of phage FI-1 DNA was studied. As is evidenced from the values of buoyant density in CsCl (p=1,7093 g/cm(3)), melting temperature (T degrees m=86,05 degrees), spectral parameters and direct chromatographic determination, the DNA analysed contains 41,5 mole% pairs of guanine-cystosine. 5-hydroxymethylcytosine and other anomalous bases were not found. Chemical identification and jaxtposition of data of buoyant density in CsCl and Cs2SO4 (p=1,4466 g/cm(3)) and T degrees m. showed the presence of the extra-sugar component in DNA, most likely in the form of hentibiose. Spectral character of thermal denaturation of DNA in different solvents is indicative of the double helixity of its structure. DNA is characterized by enthalpies of conformational transitions "helix coil" (deltaH=12,3 kcal/g) and (deltaH=10 kcal/g) for the solvents, 1 x SSC, and 0,1 x SSC, correspondingly. The presence of extra-sugar in DNA with standard set of nitrous bases is discussed.     

一种有约束矩形排样问题的求解算法

对属于NP完全问题的有约束矩形排样问题，国内外多采用计算复杂度较小、时间较快、便于控制问题约束条件的启发式方法.分析了启发式排料算法影响优化程度的原因，提出利用回溯寻求优化零件组合的混合启发式策略，并利用排样过程中产生的小剩余区域划分与合并的方法和现有的矩形排样启发式算法相比，说明该方法可以更大地提高板材的利用率.     

Synthesis of MCM-41 frameworks incorporating oxygen-sulphur derivates of molybdenum and tungsten

The first examples of mesostructured materials containing Mo- and W-oxo-sulphur species incorporated into a poorly ordered MCM-41 framework have been prepared under hydrothermal condition and alkaline medium. The incorporation of oxygen-sulphur derivates of molybdenum and tungsten not only increases significantly the pore diameter, but also improves the thermal stability of the MCM-41-related mesoporous material.     

Large-scale mapping of boreal forest in SIBERIA using ERS tandem coherence and JERS backscatter data

Siberia's boreal forests represent an economically and ecologically precious resource, a significant part of which is not monitored on a regular basis. Synthetic aperture radars (SARs), with their sensitivity to forest biomass, offer mapping capabilities that could provide valuable up-to-date information, for example about fire damage or logging activity. The European Commission SIBERIA project had the aim of mapping an area of approximately 1 million km² in Siberia using SAR data from two satellite sources: the tandem mission of the European Remote Sensing Satellites ERS-1/2 and the Japanese Earth Resource Satellite JERS-1. Mosaics of ERS tandem interferometric coherence and JERS backscattering coefficient show the wealth of information contained in these data but they also show large differences in radar response between neighbouring images. To create one homogeneous forest map, adaptive methods which are able to account for brightness changes due to environmental effects were required. In this paper an adaptive empirical model to determine growing stock volume classes using the ERS tandem coherence and the JERS backscatter data is described. For growing stock volume classes up to 80 m³/ha, accuracies of over 80% are achieved for over a hundred ERS frames at a spatial resolution of 50 m.     

Designing robustly stabilising controllers for LTI spatially distributed systems using coprime factor synthesis

This paper considers the design of feedback controllers for linear, time-invariant, spatially distributed systems in an approach which generalises the H^∞-framework and in particular the H^∞ loop-shaping method. To this end, we introduce a class of spatially distributed system models called finite dimensional, distributed, linear, time-invariant systems. Sensors and actuators are considered to be part of the controller, rather than part of the plant, and thus the controller we wish to design is itself a spatially distributed system. Optimising over placements and shapes of the sensor and actuator spatial distribution functions is an integrated part of the controller design procedure. As an illustrative design example, we present the feedback stabilisation of an electrostatically destabilised, electrically conducting membrane.