Gastric polypoid lesions--illustrative cases and literature review

Currently, upper gastrointestinal endoscopies are frequently performed for patients with various gastrointestinal symptoms. From time to time, lumps and bumps in the stomach are encountered on endoscopy. Four cases of gastric polypoid lesions are presented. The classification, differentiation, and management approach to these lesions are discussed. Although there is consensus that all gastric adenomatous polyps should be removed, as should gastric hyperplastic polyps that are symptomatic and/or bear dysplastic foci on forceps biopsy, controversy still exists over the management of asymptomatic gastric hyperplastic polyps that do not bear any dysplastic focus on forceps biopsies. Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) has a promising role in the evaluation of gastric submucosal polypoid lesions.     

Pilot-Symbol-Aided 16PSK and 16QAM for Digital Land Mobile Radio Systems

The paper proposes a novel pilot-symbol-aided (PSA) technique for fading compensation of digital signals in the mobile environments. In a PSA system, the data sequence at the transmitter is divided into frames of data. A pilot symbol from a known pseudoradom-symbol sequence is inserted periodically into a frame of data symbol for transmission. In a conventional PSA-receiver, these pilot symbols are extracted from the received signal and used to estimate the effects of signal distortion introduced in the fading channel. The resultant estimates are then used to correct the distortion effects in the received data frames. In the paper, a novel estimation technique that uses the data symbols as well as the pilot symbols is proposed. The technique has the major advantages of simple implementation and short storage-delay time. Results are presented in a series of computer-simulation tests. These assess the effectiveness of the estimation technique on the BER performances of a 16-ary phase-shift keyed (16PSK) and a 16-ary quadrature-amplitude modulated (16QAM) signals in the frequency-selective and frequency-nonselective Rayleigh fading channels. The channels are corrupted by co-channel interference or additive white Gaussian noise. Results of differential-detected 16PSK and star-16QAM signals are also presented for comparison. It has been shown that, the use of PSA technique can significantly improve the bit-error-rate performances of the systems, relative to those using differential detection.     

RUP：开发过程控制利刃

信息技术市场流行的方法论有RUP、The Zachman Framework、XP等。在这些方法论中,最流行的要数RUP。RUP提供的是帮助人们更出色地工作的知识基础。     

A New Phase-Shifted Cascade High Voltage Inverter

This paper presents a unique novel design of the phase-shifted cascade high voltage inverter. The high voltage inverter utiJizes fewer power switches and supplies a balance load. The usage of phase shift transformer and phase shifting SPWM ensures that input and output harmonic wave content is low and output voltage change (du/dt) has a low rate, meeting all the requirements of the power authorities. The most outstanding feature is the energy saving with very fast cost recovery.     

Agent-based modeling of supply chains for distributed scheduling

This paper considers a supply chain that comprises multiple independent and autonomous enterprises (project managers) that seek and select various contractors to complete operations of their project. Both the project managers and contractors jointly determine the schedules of their operations while no single enterprise has complete information of other enterprises. The centralized scheduling approach that can usually obtain good global performance but must share nearly complete information that is difficult or even impractical due to the distributed nature of real-life supply chains. This paper proposes an agent-based supply chain model to support distributed scheduling. A modified contract-net protocol (MCNP) is proposed to enable more information sharing among the enterprises than conventional CNP. Experimental simulation studies are conducted to compare and contrast the performances of the centralized [centralized heuristic (CTR)], conventional CNP, and MNCP approaches. The results show that MCNP outperforms CNP and performs comparably with CTR when project complexity is high in terms of the total supply chain operating cost. Moreover, it is found that although CTR is better than MCNP in terms of global performance, MCNP yields good schedule stability when facing unexpected disturbances.     

Cyr61, product of a growth factor-inducible immediate-early gene, regulates chondrogenesis in mouse limb bud mesenchymal cells

Chondrogenesis during embryonic skeletal development involves the condensation of mesenchymal cells followed by their differentiation into chondrocytes. We describe herein a previously unrecognized regulator of mammalian chondrogenesis encoded by a murine growth factor-inducible immediate-early gene, cyr61. The Cyr61 protein is a secreted, heparin-binding protein (379 amino acids with 38 conserved cysteines) that promotes cell adhesion, migration, and proliferation. The expression pattern of the cyr61 gene during embryogenesis is tissue specific and temporally regulated. Most notably, cyr61 is transiently expressed in mesenchymal cells of both mesodermal and neuroectodermal origins undergoing chondrogenesis, suggesting that Cyr61 may play a role in the development of the embryonic skeleton. In this communication, we demonstrate that the Cyr61 protein promotes chondrogenesis in micromass cultures of limb bud mesenchymal cells in vitro and is likely to play a similar role in vivo based on the following observations: (1) Cyr61 is present in the embryonic limb mesenchyme during chondrogenesis in vivo and in vitro; (2) purified recombinant Cyr61 protein added exogenously to micromass cultures promotes chondrogenesis as judged by precocious expression of type II collagen, increased [35S]sulfate incorporation, and larger Alcian blue-staining cartilage nodules; (3) Cyr61 enhances cell-cell aggregation, an initial step in chondrogenesis, and promotes chondrogenic differentiation in cultures plated at subthreshold cell densities that are otherwise unable to support differentiation; and (4) neutralization of the endogenous Cyr61 with specific antibodies inhibits chondrogenesis. Taken together, these results identify Cyr61 as a novel player in chondrogenesis that contributes to the development of the mammalian embryonic skeleton.     

Evaluation of preoperative hepatic function in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma undergoing hepatectomy

BACKGROUND: Postoperative hepatic failure is the leading cause of hospital mortality following hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This prospective study was performed to identify the best test for assessment of the adequacy of hepatic functional reserve in patients with HCC before hepatectomy. METHODS: Between April 1989 and June 1993, 127 patients with HCC underwent hepatectomy. Each patient was evaluated before operation with the indocyanine green (ICG) clearance test, the aminopyrine breath test and the amino acid clearance test. RESULTS: Fourteen patients (11 per cent) died after hepatectomy. ICG retention at 15 min showed significant differences between patients who survived or died. By discriminant analysis, the safety limit of ICG retention at 15 min for major hepatectomy was 14 per cent and the relative risk of hospital mortality was 3. CONCLUSION: The ICG clearance test, expressed as the percentage of ICG retained at 15 min, is the best discriminating preoperative test for evaluating hepatic functional reserve in patients with HCC before hepatectomy.     

High-Temperature Operation of AlGaN/GaN HEMTs Direct-Coupled FET Logic (DCFL) Integrated Circuits

This letter presents the high-temperature performance of AlGaN/GaN HEMT direct-coupled FET logic (DCFL) integrated circuits. At 375 degC, enhancement-mode (E-mode) AlGaN/GaN HEMTs which are used as drivers in DCFL circuits exhibit proper E-mode operation with a threshold voltage (V_TH) of 0.24 V and a peak current density of 56 mA/mm. The monolithically integrated E/D-mode AlGaN/GaN HEMTs DCFL circuits deliver stable operations at 375 degC: An E/D-HEMT inverter with a drive/load ratio of 10 exhibits 0.1 V for logic-low noise margin (NM_L) and 0.3 V for logic-high-noise margin (NM_H) at a supply voltage (V_DD) of 3.0 V; a 17-stage ring oscillator exhibits a maximum oscillation frequency of 66 MHz, corresponding to a minimum propagation delay ( tau_pd) of 446 ps/stage at V_DD of 3.0 V     

A Low-Dropout Regulator for SoC With Q-Reduction

A low-dropout regulator for SoC, with an advanced Q-reduction circuit to minimize both the on-chip capacitance and the minimum output-current requirement down to 100 muA, is introduced in this paper. The idea has been implemented in a standard 0.35-mum CMOS technology (V_THN ap 0.55 V and |V_THP| ap 0.75 V). The required on-chip capacitance is reduced to 6 pF, comparing to 25 pF for the case without Q-reduction circuit. From the experimental results, the proposed regulator-circuit implementation enables voltage regulation down to a 1.2-V supply voltage, and a dropout voltage of 200 mV at 100-mA maximum output current