Gastric acid secretion and enteric infection in Bangladesh

We present three lung transplant recipients who had sigmoid colonic diverticular perforation within 4 weeks of transplantation, giving an overall incidence of 8.6% (3 of 35) in our population. Our cases are unusual because they all occurred in the early posttransplantation period and because the incidence of perforation is substantially higher than that reported in other transplant populations. The reason for the apparent increased incidence of perforation in our lung transplant recipients is unclear, but it is likely related to the short follow-up period, intense posttransplantation immunosuppression, perioperative hypoperfusion, and increased intraluminal pressure from the use of narcotics and bowel stimulants. We discuss these potential causes and comment on preventive measures being undertaken at our program.     

Prevalence, genetics and clinical presentation of chronic granulomatous disease in Sweden

To estimate the prevalence of chronic granulomatous disease (CGD) in Sweden, an inquiry asking for known and possible CGD cases was mailed to paediatric, internal medicine and infectious disease departments all over Sweden. The detected patients were characterized as to genetics and the clinical presentation. Twenty-one patients (belonging to 16 different families) were found, corresponding to a prevalence of approximately 1/450,000 individuals. The patients with X-linked disease, lacking a functional gp91phox protein (n = 12), comprised 57% and 43% of the patients had an autosomal recessive (AR) disease lacking p47phox (n = 7) or p67phox (n = 1), respectively. All unrelated patients with X-linked disease displayed different gene abnormalities such as point mutations predicting nonsense (n = 3), missense (n = 1) or splice site mutations (n = 2), but also a total deletion and a unique 40 base pair duplicature insertion. The patients with p47phox-deficiency showed a GT deletion at a GTGT tandem repeat, and the p67phox-deficient patient displayed a heterozygous in-frame deletion of AAG combined with a large deletion in the other allele. Three patients died during the study period, two from pseudomonas cepacia infections. Patients with X-linked disease had more frequent infections (mean of 1.7 per year), than the patients with AR inheritance (0.5 infections per year). The most common infections were dermal abscesses (n = 111), followed by lymphadenitis (n = 82) and pneumonias (n = 73). Inflammatory bowel disease-like symptoms, mimicking Crohn's disease of the colon, was seen in three CGD patients.     

The role of magnesium therapy in acute myocardial infarction

Magnesium possesses numerous salutary effects for the treatment of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). It is a coronary vasodilator, calcium antagonist, afterload reducer, antiarrhythmic, and antiplatelet drug that modulates autonomic function and limits reperfusion injury when administered early in infarction. Various clinical trials of magnesium therapy for AMI have proffered conflicting results as to the efficacy of magnesium therapy because of significant differences in the timing of magnesium administration. Additional clinical trials that focus on early administration of magnesium are warranted to delineate the role of magnesium therapy for AMI.     

Sweepline algorithm for unstructured-grid generation on two-dimensional non-convex domains

The sweepline algorithm has been modified to triangulate a set of nodes on a non-convex domain. The new method is based on a fragile sweepline which is split and rejoined in a manner which ensures that boundaries are preserved. Both the original and the modified algorithms are introduced using simple examples. It is shown that a set of N nodes is triangulated in O(N log N) time. The validity of the new method has been confirmed through testing on a variety of problems, and two test cases are presented in this paper.     

Pseudo random sequences based on elliptic curve subgroups and mathematical model for its application to digital image security

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The security strength of the elliptic curve cryptosystems (ECC) is due to its core operations-based group law. This aspect of the elliptic curve provides key...     

MOPT: list-based heuristic for scheduling workflows in cloud environment

Cloud computing is a popular and widely adopted computing platform for the execution of scientific workflows as it provides flexible infrastructure and offers access to collection of autonomous heterogeneous resources. Effective scheduling of computationally complex workflows which contain many interconnected tasks is a complex problem and becomes more challenging in cloud environment. Optimal solutions can be obtained by considering not only the heterogeneity of computation costs involved, but also by taking into account the communication costs among the tasks in a way that schedule length of the application is reduced. In this paper, we propose a list scheduling heuristic, namely minimal optimistic processing time (MOPT), with optimized duplication approach. The additional feature is introduced for the entry task and is applied only in scenarios in which duplication is more practical and effective. The prioritization phase of the proposed work is based on an optimistic processing time matrix that is used for ranking of the tasks. The algorithm has same time complexity as state-of-the-art existing algorithms, but notable improvements are acquired in terms of makespan and other performance evaluation parameters. Extensive experimental analysis of the proposed algorithm is carried out using synthesized graphs and graphs from the real-world applications. The results prove that MOPT achieves quality schedules with reduced makespans. As communication cost among the tasks grows higher, performance of the proposed algorithm becomes more effective, thus providing the evidence that the MOPT algorithm is well-suited for communication-intensive applications.

     

An Efficient Rule-Based Distributed Reasoning Framework for Resource-bounded Systems

Mobile Networks and Applications - Over the last few years, context-aware computing has received a growing amount of attention among the researchers in the IoT and ubiquitous computing community....     

Circularly polarized 4 × 8 stacked patch antenna phased array with enhanced bandwidth for commercial drones

This paper demonstrates the design procedure of a 4 × 8 phased array antenna. Initially, a unit element in multilayer topology with orthogonal slots in the ground plane to couple electromagnetic energy is designed. Then, a stacked patch with truncated edges is placed on the top thick substrate layer to enhance the bandwidth to 600 MHz. This multilayered stacked patch unit element is then used to design a 1 × 4 and 4 × 8 slot coupled stacked patch array. On the bottom side, a novel feedline structure is designed to provide a 90 ^o phase difference at the antenna feed for the circular polarization. The phase difference is achieved in the feedline structure using a quarter wavelength ( λ_g/4 ) difference in the lengths. After the numerical validation, both 1 × 4 and 4 × 8 stacked patch antenna arrays are fabricated to validate the simulations. The final 4 × 8 array achieved the target specification of an active reflection of less than ?10 dB over 2.4 to 3.0 GHz, axial ratio of less than 3 dB, and stable radiation pattern over the complete band. In addition, beam scanning characteristics of the proposed stacked patch antenna arrays are also verified. The prototype resulted a peak gain of 19.5 dB at 2.7 GHz, 3‐dB beamwidth around 12 ^o in the xz‐plane, and scanning range of 90 ^o . Overall, good agreement between measured and simulated results showed that the proposed designed array capable of providing 600 MHz is an excellent candidate for the radar communication, small commercial drones, and synthetic aperture radar applications.     

LPV Modeling and Tracking Control of Dissimilar Redundant Actuation System for Civil Aircraft

International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems - Dissimilar redundant actuation systems (DRAS) are in practice in advanced aircraft in order to increase reliability and to resolve the...