Retrospective biological dosimetry of absorbed radiation

Frequencies of chromosomal translocations in human peripheral blood lymphocytes irradiated in vitro by 200 kV X rays have been estimated by the fluorescence in situ hybridisation (FISH) technique. Probes specific for whole chromosomes 1, 3 and 4 were labelled with, biotin 16 dUTP + digoxigenin 11 dUTP; biotin 16 dUTP and digoxigenin 11 dUTP respectively, to achieve three colour FISH to distinguish exchanges involving individual chromosomes. The translocation frequencies for individual chromosomes suggested a relationship between the response and the genomic content of the chromosomes studied. Dose-response curves derived from translocations involving all the three painted chromosomes (22.3% of the genome) showed a linear-quadratic response with alpha and beta coefficients of 0.027 +/- 0.009 Gy-1 and 0.033 +/- 0.004 Gy-2, corresponding coefficients for the response curves extrapolated to the entire genome are 0.072 +/- 0.026 Gy-1 and 0.075 +/- 0.011 Gy-2 respectively. Dose-response curves for the induction of dicentrics involving painted chromosomes also showed a similar response, but the dicentric frequencies were consistently lower than the translocation frequencies for all the doses studied. Dose fractionation resulted in a small but significant reduction in the yield of exchanges, thus suggesting repair of some radiation damage during the period between the two fractions. Retrospective biological dosimetry was attempted with FISH assay of five radiation workers with chronically accumulated doses of approximately 500 mSv received over a period of 2-3 decades. Among the 2421 metaphases scored in these subjects 28 translocations involving the painted chromosomes were detected. The dose estimates based on FISH assay ranged from 0.215 +/- 0.116 Gy to 0.635 +/- 0.292 mGy, thus suggesting the usefulness of this assay in retrospective biological dosimetry.     

Exploiting symmetries for scaling loopy belief propagation and relational training

Judging by the increasing impact of machine learning on large-scale data analysis in the last decade, one can anticipate a substantial growth in diversity of the machine learning applications for “big data” over the next decade. This exciting new opportunity, however, also raises many challenges. One of them is scaling inference within and training of graphical models. Typical ways to address this scaling issue are inference by approximate message passing, stochastic gradients, and MapReduce, among others. Often, we encounter inference and training problems with symmetries and redundancies in the graph structure. A prominent example are relational models that capture complexity. Exploiting these symmetries, however, has not been considered for scaling yet. In this paper, we show that inference and training can indeed benefit from exploiting symmetries. Specifically, we show that (loopy) belief propagation (BP) can be lifted. That is, a model is compressed by grouping nodes together that send and receive identical messages so that a modified BP running on the lifted graph yields the same marginals as BP on the original one, but often in a fraction of time. By establishing a link between lifting and radix sort, we show that lifting is MapReduce-able. Still, in many if not most situations training relational models will not benefit from this (scalable) lifting: symmetries within models easily break since variables become correlated by virtue of depending asymmetrically on evidence. An appealing idea for such situations is to train and recombine local models. This breaks long-range dependencies and allows to exploit lifting within and across the local training tasks. Moreover, it naturally paves the way for the first scalable lifted training approaches based on stochastic gradients, both in an online and a MapReduced fashion. On several datasets, the online training, for instance, converges to the same quality solution over an order of magnitude faster, simply because it starts optimizing long before having seen the entire mega-example even once.     

PREDICTION OF JAPANESE ENCEPHALITIS VECTORS IN KURNOOL DISTRICT OF ANDHRA PRADESH,INDIA BY USING BAYESIAN NETWORK

Japanese encephalitis (JE), a complex viral disease transmitted by mosquitoes. Determination of vector (mosquito) density is a prerequisite for devising effective control measures against this disease. Bayesian network is a widely used tool that has recently found application in the epidemiological surveillance studies. This article describes the application of Bayesian network tool to predict the Japanese encephalitis vector density using the longitudinal data collected from the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, India, from 2001 to 2006. The entomological parameter from the study area indicates that various contributing factors are responsible for the prevalence of these vectors, making it difficult to estimate the importance of any particular parameter contributing to the increase of vector density. The application of this approach resulted in 73.12% to 95.12% accuracy compared to the test data with the corrected data.     

Case Study on Speed Failure Causes in a Microprocessor

In this article, we identify the underlying speed paths and perform a detailed analysis on the effects of multiple input switching, cross-coupling noise, and localized voltage drop on microprocessor. We employ cycle-wise clock shrinks on a tester combined with a CAD methodology to unintrusively identify and analyze these speed paths. Understanding the causes of speed failures can help designers make better power and performance tradeoffs.     

Measurement of capacitances and their loss factors

A method is described for measuring the capacitance values and the loss factors of a pair of capacitors simultaneously. The method uses the principle of oscillators. No standard capacitor is required. The possible errors introduced in the measurements are discussed. Both theoretical and experimental results are provided. The method can be used with any other oscillator circuit that contains only two capacitors     

Silver nanorods induced oxidative stress and chromosomal aberrations in the Allium cepa model

The production of different size and shape silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) has increased considerably in recent years due to several commercial and biological applications. Here, rod‐shaped AgNPs (SNRs) were prepared using the microwave‐assisted method and characterised by ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy analysis. The present study aims to investigate the cyto–genotoxic effect of various concentrations (5, 10, and 15 µM) of SNRs using Allium cepa model. As a result, concentration‐dependent cyto–genotoxic effect of SNRs was observed through a decrease in the mitotic index, and an increase in the chromosomal aberrations such as chromosome break, disturbed metaphase, and anaphase bridge. To check the impact of Ag⁺ ions, 15 µM silver nitrate (AgNO₃) was prepared and tested in all the assays. Furthermore, cell viability and different reactive oxygen species assays were performed to test the cytotoxicity evaluation of SNRs. The authors found that in all the tested assays, SNRs at high concentrations (15 µM) and AgNO₃ (15 µM) were observed to cause maximal damage to the roots. Therefore, the current study implies that the cytotoxicity and genotoxicity of SNRs were dependent on the concentration of SNRs.Inspec keywords: ultraviolet spectra, biomedical materials, silver, cellular biophysics, nanorods, toxicology, visible spectra, nanoparticles, nanofabrication, transmission electron microscopy, nanomedicine, aberrations, microwave materials processingOther keywords: biological applications, rod‐shaped AgNPs, microwave‐assisted method, ultraviolet‐visible spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, chromosomal aberrations, chromosome break, silver nitrate, reactive oxygen species assays, cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, silver nanorods, oxidative stress, shape silver nanoparticles, concentration‐dependent cyto‐genotoxic effect, Allium cepa model, mitotic index, disturbed metaphase, anaphase bridge, cell viability, cytotoxicity evaluation, Ag     

化解数字视频的技术障碍

针对安全监控系统而言,主要任务就是需要一种低成本方式,实现在几小时、几天、几周乃至几个月的时间里实现视频影像的传输、存储以及搜索.就此,随着关键技术的不断发展,安全监控行业正经历着重大技术提升.     

Holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystals (HPDLCs) containing triallyl isocyanurate monomer

The morphology and corresponding performance of holographic polymer dispersed liquid crystals (HPDLCs) based on thiol-ene polymer are dependent on a number of factors including the gel point conversion of the polymer, polymerization kinetics, and extent of liquid crystal (LC) phase separation. Previous research of HPDLC reflection gratings made from thiol-allyl ether polymer indicates that increasing polymerization rate in systems with moderate gel point conversion can improve diffraction efficiency (DE). This work examines HPDLC reflection gratings that contain the ene monomer triallyl isocyanurate (TATATO). In HPDLCs, thiol-TATATO polymerization is two times faster than the thiol-ene polymerization of triallyl ether. By substituting TATATO for triallyl ether, the LC droplet size within HPDLC reflection gratings decreases from 100 nm to 25 nm. The dramatic reduction in LC droplet size for thiol-TATATO HPDLCs increases baseline transmission from 55% in thiol-triallyl ether HPDLCs to 90% at 450 nm. Unfortunately, the DE of thiol-TATATO HPDLCs is only approximately 10% due to poorly defined lamellae in the grating morphology. As determined with real-time IR (RTIR) spectroscopy, thiol-TATATO HPDLCs have significantly faster LC demixing kinetics in comparison to thiol-allyl ether HPDLCs. During holographic photopolymerization, the increased rate of LC demixing causes formation of LC droplets throughout the grating. The low DE of thiol-TATATO HPDLCs can be improved by mixing TATATO and allyl ether monomer. The morphology of ternary thiol-ene HPDLC formulations containing TATATO and allyl ether has a well-defined grating structure due to increased LC solubility in the system, an average LC droplet size of 50 nm, and baseline transmission of nearly 85% at 450 nm.     

Tandem Chemoselective 1,2‐/1,4‐Migration of the Thio Group in Keto Thioesters: An Efficient Approach to Substituted Butenolides

We report herein an efficient and mechanistically unique tandem chemoselective 1,2‐/1,4‐migration of the thio group in keto thioesters that provides substituted butenolides in moderate to excellent yields. Thus, α‐keto thioesters in the presence of stabilized phosphonate carbanions undergo tandem 1,2‐sulfur migration; whereas 1,4‐migration of the thio group has been achieved with the same thioesters after the treatment with Wittig reagents followed by BF₃⋅OEt₂‐catalyzed tandem reaction. The crossover experiments and the isolation of intermediates reveal a stepwise mechanism for both of these transformations.

     

A new open-framework zinc arsenate [C4N3H16]2[Zn5(AsO4)4(HAsO4)2]

A three-dimensional zinc arsenate with an interrupted zeolitic framework (?IIO), [C₄N₃H₁₆]₂[Zn₅(AsO₄)₄(HAsO₄)₂], I has been synthesized solvothermally. The structure is built up from ZnO₄, AsO₄ and HAsO₄ tetrahedral units connected alternatively through their vertices forming the 3-D structure possessing one-dimensional channels bound by 10 T-atoms (T = Zn, As). The framework density of the structure is 10.4 T-atoms which indicates considerable openness in its structure.