Ontogenetic studies of seizure patterns and seizure activities induced by cortical focus

Medical audit and continuing medical education (CME) are now the mainstays of quality assurance in hospitals. Audits should address problems that have serious consequences for patients if proper treatment is not given. The single most important step is the selection of essential or scientific criteria that relate process to outcomes. CME does less than commonly believed to improve care. Today, quality assurance increasingly means a near-guarantee to every patient of appropriate treatment and fewest possible complications. Maintenance of the public trust rests on a firm commitment of the medical staff and board to this principle, implemented through an organized program of quality assurance. Under these conditions, medical audit and CME can effectively improve care by improving physician performance.     

Lateral post-buckling analysis of thin-walled open section beams

Thin-walled beams with open sections are studied using a nonlinear model. This model is developed in the context of large displacements and small deformations, by accounting for bending-bending and bending-torsion couplings. The warping and shortening effects are considered in the torsion equilibrium equation. The governing coupled equilibrium equations obtained from Galerkin’s method are solved by a Newton–Raphson iterative process. It is established that the buckling loads are highly dependent on the pre-buckling deformations of the beam. The bifurcated branches are unstable and strongly influenced by shortening effects. Some comparisons are presented with the solutions commonly used in linear stability, like in the standard European steel code (Eurocode 3). The regular solutions appear to be very conservative, especially for I sections with large flanges.     

Rapid turnover of T lymphocytes in SIV-infected rhesus macaques

Studies of lymphocyte turnover in animal models have implications for understanding the mechanism of cell killing and the extent of lymphocyte regeneration in human immunodeficiency virus infection. Quantitative analyses of the sequential changes in bromodeoxyuridine labeling of CD4 and CD8 T lymphocytes not only revealed the normal proliferation and death rates of these cell populations in uninfected macaques, but also showed a substantial increase in these rates associated with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) infection. Faster labeling and delabeling in memory and na?ve T lymphocyte subpopulations as well as in NK (natural killer) and B cells were also observed in infected macaques, suggesting a state of generalized activation induced by SIV.     

Generalization bounds for non-stationary mixing processes

This paper presents the first generalization bounds for time series prediction with a non-stationary mixing stochastic process. We prove Rademacher complexity learning bounds for both average-path generalization with non-stationary \(\beta \)-mixing processes and path-dependent generalization with non-stationary \(\phi \)-mixing processes. Our guarantees are expressed in terms of \(\beta \)- or \(\phi \)-mixing coefficients and a natural measure of discrepancy between training and target distributions. They admit as special cases previous Rademacher complexity bounds for non-i.i.d. stationary distributions, for independent but not identically distributed random variables, or for the i.i.d. case. We show that, using a new sub-sample selection technique we introduce, our bounds can be tightened under the natural assumption of asymptotically stationary stochastic processes. We also prove that fast learning rates can be achieved by extending existing local Rademacher complexity analyses to the non-i.i.d. setting. We conclude the paper by providing generalization bounds for learning with unbounded losses and non-i.i.d. data.     

Suppression of mutagens-induced SOS response by phytoncide solution using Salmonella typhimurium TA1535/pSK1002 umu test

Four types of phytoncide solution (A-Type, AB-Type, D-Type and G-Type) were evaluated as antimutagenic agents with suppressive effects on the SOS-inducing activity of the mutagen 2-(2-furyl)-3-(5-nitro-2-furyl) acrylamide (furylfuramide) using Salmonella typhimurium TA1535/pSK1002 umu test. The A-Type, AB-Type, D-Type and G-Type of phytoncide solution suppressed the SOS-inducing activity on furylfuramide at a concentration of 100 microg/mL by 86.1%, 74.7%, 69.5% and 55.4%, respectively, and the ID(50) (50% inhibitory dose) values were 9.0 microg/mL, 22.5 microg/mL, 36.0 microg/mL and 72.8 microg/mL. They also showed the suppression of SOS-inducing activity against other chemical mutagens, such as 4-nitroquinolin 1-oxide (4NQO) and N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG), which do not require liver metabolizing enzymes, and against 2-aminoanthracene (2AA) and 3-amino-1,4-dimethyl-5H-pyrido[4,3-b]indole (Trp-P-1), which require these enzymes, and against UV irradiation, which is a well known physical mutagen. In the search for the component-activity relationship, the A-Type of phutoncide solution suppressed the SOS-inducing activity greater than the other types of phutoncide solution for furylfuramide, 4NQO and MNNG. However, in case of 2AA and Trp-P-1, the D-Type of phytoncide solution was most effective in suppressing the SOS-inducing activity in the umu test. From these results, the four types of phytoncide solutions showed the suppressive effect of SOS-inducing activity against chemical and physical mutagens.     

Surface study of Type 6063 aluminium alloys for vacuum chamber materials

The surface characterization of Type 6063 aluminum alloy was performed with the use of various surface analysis techniques, such as Auger electron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, optical microscopy, surface roughness factor and thermal desorption spectroscopy. The samples prepared by two different surface treatments were chosen for utilization as a uhv chamber material; namely, the surfaces prepared by extrusion (Sample A) and finished with diamond lathe (Sample B). The surface roughness factor of Sample A measured by xenon adsorption was 12.6 which was 2.6 times larger than that of Sample B. Carbon was the main impurity on the surface of Sample A, and oxygen on Sample B. Magnesium was found to segregate almost entirely on the surface of Sample B, while it segregated partially on Sample A after heating at 300°C. H₂O and CO were the main outgassing components below the practical baking temperature (150°C) for the aluminum alloys. The amount of gas released from Sample A was much larger than Sample B. This could be interpreted by the differences in the surface roughness factor and the thickness of the oxide layer.     

Asymmetric polymerization of diphenyl-2-pyridylmethyl methacrylate leading to optically active polymer with high one-handed helicity

Summary Diphenyl-2-pyridylmethyl methacrylate (D2PyMA) was polymerized with organolithium complexes of four novel chiral ligands (1–4) which were prepared from (+)-tartaric acid. The complexes of 3 and 4 gave the optically active poly (D2PyMA) with a highly one-handed helical structure. The fractionation of the polymer afforded the poly (D2PyMA) with almost pure one-handed helicity ([] ₃₆₅ ²⁵ -1400^°) in good yield.These chiral lithium complexes were not effective for the asymmetric polymerization of triphenylmethyl methacrylate.