Recovery of gut-associated lymphoid tissue and upper respiratory tract immunity after parenteral nutrition

OBJECTIVE: The authors characterize the recovery of parenteral nutrition-induced changes in gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) and upper respiratory tract immunity with enteral nutrition and provide further information defining the effects of enteral feeding on mucosal immunity. SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA: The small intestine plays a prominent role in development and maintenance of mucosal immunity, both intestinal and extraintestinal, primarily through immunoglobulin A (IgA)-mediated mechanisms. Prior research has shown that mice fed total parenteral nutrition (TPN) have reduced GALT T and B cells, the cells responsible for IgA production, as well as impaired upper respiratory tract immunity to viral challenge of previously immunized animals. The recovery of TPN-induced changes in GALT and upper respiratory tract immunity after enteral refeeding is studied. METHODS: Male institute of Cancer Research mice received 5 days of TPN followed by 0 to 4 days of chow. Small intestinal GALT was characterized by flow cytometry. In a second experiment, animals were immunized intranasally with moused-adapted influenza virus. Three weeks later, one group received a 5-day course of TPN followed by enteral refeeding for 5 days. A second group received TPN alone. Both groups were challenged with intranasal virus and killed 40 hours postchallenge to determine viral shedding from the upper respiratory tract. RESULTS: Animals fed TPN only had significantly fewer GALT lymphocytes compared with those chow-fed control subjects. Peyer's patch counts increased after a single day of refeeding, returning to normal levels by 48 hours. Lamina propria counts remained significantly depressed after 24 hours of refeeding, but also returned to normal after 48 hours of refeeding. The T-cell and B-cell populations mimicked total cell patterns. Lamina propria CD4+/CD8+ ratio returned to normal only after 72 hours of refeeding. None of the 9 animals refed enterally for 5 days were positive for viral shedding, compared with 8 of 12 matched TPN-fed animals. CONCLUSIONS: Enteral refeeding after TPN is associated with rapid repletion of GALT cellularity, initially within Peyer's patches and subsequently within the lamina propria. Refeeding corrects the impairment of IgA-mediated upper respiratory tract antiviral immunity occurring with TPN administration. This work further enhances the authors' knowledge of the underlying immunologic differences influenced by routes of nutrition.     

An efficient assumed strain element model with six DOF per node for geometrically non-linear shells

The present paper describes an assumed strain finite element model with six degrees of freedom per node designed for geometrically non-linear shell analysis. An important feature of the present paper is the discussion on the spurious kinematic modes and the assumed strain field in the geometrically non-linear setting. The kinematics of deformation is described by using vector components in contrast to the conventional formulation which requires the use of trigonometric functions of rotational angles. Accordingly, converged solutions can be obtained for load or displacement increments that are much larger than possible with the conventional formulation with rotational angles. In addition, a detailed study of the spurious kinematic modes and the choice of assumed strain field reveals that the same assumed strain field can be used for both geometrically linear and non-linear cases to alleviate element locking while maintaining kinematic stability. It is strongly recommended that the element models, described in the present paper, be used instead of the conventional shell element models that employ rotational angles.     

The design of robots and intelligent manipulators using modern composite materials

The operating speed and endpoint positional accuracy of existing industrial manipulators are limited by the inertial and stiffness characteristics of the articulating members of the robot's mechanical linkage. This limitation may be overcome by developing members having high structural stiffness and strength with low mass, and this has been recognized for some time. These characteristics can be obtained by fabricating the moving members of manipulators in fiber reinforced composite materials. In order to establish a basis for the dynamic analysis of robots fabricated in viscoelastic composites, a variational theorem is developed herein. A preliminary comparative study is then undertaken for manipulators manufactured in a graphite-epoxy composite material and also steel in order to demonstrate some of the advantages to be accrued from this proposed new design philosophy.     

Application of differential quadrature to static analysis of structural components

The numerical technique of differential quadrature for the solution of linear and non-linear partial differential equations, first introduced by Bellman and his associates, is applied to the equations governing the deflection and buckling behaviour of one- and two-dimensional structural components. Separate transformations are used for higher-order derivatives, as suggested by Mingle, thus extending the method to treat fourth-order equations and to include multiple, boundary conditions in the respective co-ordinate directions. Results are obtained for various boundary and loading conditions and are compared with existing exact and numerical solutions by other methods. The application of differential quadrature to this class of problems is seen to lead to accurate results with relatively small computational effort.     

Effect of bulk flow pulsations on film cooling with compound angle holes

Experiments are conducted to investigate the effects of bulk flow pulsations on film cooling with compound angle holes. A row of five film cooling holes is considered with orientation angles of 0°, 30°, 60°, and 90° at a fixed inclination angle of 35°. Static pressure pulsations are produced by an array of six rotating shutter blades, which extend across the span of the exit of the wind tunnel test section. The pulsation frequency is fixed at 36 Hz, but changes in the time-averaged blowing ratios of 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 produce three different coolant Strouhal numbers, 3.6, 1.8 and 0.9, respectively. Detailed film cooled boundary layer temperature distributions are measured by a cold wire and the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness by thermochromic liquid crystal (TLC). The boundary layer temperature surveys show that pulsations induce large disruptions to the boundary layer temperature distribution and the film coverage. As the orientation angle increases, the injectant concentration spreads further into the spanwise direction because of pulsations than the steady case. With pulsations the adiabatic film cooling effectiveness value decreases regardless of the orientation angle. The amount of reduction, however, depends on the orientation angle in such a way that the larger the orientation angle is, the smaller the reduction is.     

Ubiquitous Information Services with JAIN Platform

To provide responsive information services in a ubiquitous computing environment, service software and system development are indispensable. A component-based ubiquitous information system with a JAIN (Java APIs for Integrated Networks) platform to achieve seamless transmissions and reach-everywhere communications was designed in our research. In this development, numerous ubiquitous service modules were identified: location management, roaming, mobile IP and WAP networking. These component-based network modules were constructed using a component composition language with component specification and interface definition, running on top of a distributed service architecture using a JAIN platform to distribute the ubiquitous information services to mobile users. Two applications, Wireless-Application-Protocol (WAP) Mail and Video-on-Demand (VoD) services, show that the JAIN-like platform with the developed networking components effectively fills the gap for application developers between mobile appliances and various kinds of ubiquitous information services.     

Improved method for the preparation of TiN-coated WC-Co-based samples for cross-sectional AEM investigation.

An improved method for the preparation of cross-sectional thin foils of coated WC-Co samples for studies by analytical electron microscopy is described. A braze alloy is used to join the sections of the sample together and the resulting sample is stable during subsequent grinding, dimpling, and milling operations. Cross-sectional micrographs provide examples of the efficacy of this method. No microstructural alteration associated with the brazing operation was observed.     

Influence of nitrate, ascorbic acid, and nitrate reductase microorganisms on N-nitrosamine formation during Korean-style soysauce fermentation.

Traditional Korean soysauce samples were collected from households in Chinju, Gyeongnam, Korea and analysed for volatile N-nitrosamines. Five of 24 samples contained NDMA (range = 1.6-10.4 micrograms/l) which was the only volatile N-nitroso compound found. Soysauce made from well water contained NDMA more often (4 of 6 samples) than soysauce made from tap water (1 of 18). This suggests that the water source is a determinate in the NDMA content of soysauce, probably due to a higher nitrate content of well water. The source of salt used did not clearly influence NDMA content. Soysauce was prepared in the laboratory using traditional methods but with 0 to 400 mg/l nitrate and in some cases made 6.5 to 65 mM in ascorbic acid and fermented for 120 days. The NDMA content of the samples was positively correlated with increasing nitrate concentration. Nitrate at 400 mg/l resulted in an NDMA content of 203 micrograms/l. Ascorbic acid substantially inhibited NDMA formation. All samples contained large numbers of nitrate reductase-containing organisms (greater than 1 x 10(7) CFU/ml).