A Biologically-Parameterized Feather Model

Feathers, unlike other cutaneous appendages such as hair, fur, or scales have a definite structure. Variation in feather structure creates a wide range of resulting appearances. Collectively, feather structure determines the appearance of the feather coat, which can largely affect the resulting look of a feathered object (bird). In this paper we define the structure of individual feathers using a parameterization based on biological structure and substructures of actual feathers. We show that our parameterization can generate a large variety of feathers at multiple levels of detail and provide an initial step to semi‐automatically generating a wide range of feather coats. his is achieved by specifying an intuitive interpolation between different structures and ages of feathers.     

Cluster analysis in industrial market segmentation through artificial neural network

Market segmentation has commonly applied cluster analysis. This study intends to make the comparison of conventional two-stage method with proposed two-stage method through the simulated data. The proposed two-stage method is the combination of self-organizing feature maps and K-means method. The simulation results show that the proposed scheme is better than the conventional two-stage method based on the rate of misclassification.     

Transformed Estimates of Densities of Heavy-Tailed Distributions and Classification

Nonparametric estimation of the density of a heavy-tailed probability distribution is investigated. The initial data are transformed to a bounded interval and the distribution density is determined by an inverse transformation of the distribution density estimate of transformed data. An adaptive data transformation is studied, in which the order of decay of the tail of the true distribution density is preserved and stable estimation of the deviation in tail index estimates is guaranteed. In classification, the empirical risk of erroneous classification by the Bayes empirical classifier is used as a measure for the quality of distribution density estimates.     

Analysis of intensity interference caused by cross-phase modulationin dispersive optical fibers

Under a set of broadly justified simplifying assumptions, an analytical approach to the problem of cross phase modulation in optical fibers is presented. Simple analytical expressions describing intensity interference caused by cross-phase modulation (XPM) are derived. It turns out that within a physically realizable range of parameters the power penalties induced by XPM have a linear dependence on the power of the interfering signal. Examples of specific systems are presented and discussed     

Corrigendum for `Constraint-based automatic test data generation'by R.A. DeMillo and A.J. Offutt

In reference to the above-titled paper by R.A. DeMillo and A.J. Offutt (see ibid., vol.17, no.9, p.900-10, Sept. 1991), the commenter rates that he and M.R. Woodward (1985) implemented a system for FORTRAN-77 programs that integrates weak mutation and data flow analysis. He reports here that experiments have been carried out by them (1986), using the system to compare the error exposing ability of weak mutation, data flow, and control flow testing strategies     

Cathepsin D in diagnosis of neoplastic diseases

The paper presents a review of results concerning the aspartic proteinase cathepsin D and its role in tumor invasion and metastasis. Special attention was paid to the clinical prognostic value of cathepsin D determination in the breast cancer cytosol.     

The problem of the selection of an a posteriori error indicator based on smoothening techniques

This paper addresses the problem of assessing the quality of an a posteriori error estimate of a finite element solution. An error estimate based on local L2-projections is analysed in the case of translation-invariant meshes. It is shown that for general meshes this technique does not lead to an asymptotically exact estimator. The problem is analysed in detail in the one-dimensional setting. It is shown that an asymptotically exact estimator is not the optimal one when the solution is not sufficiently smooth. An optimal estimator for adaptively constructed meshes is given. Finally, a general mathematical framework for the quality assessment of estimators is introduced.     

Acquired hemophilia and rheumatoid arthritis. Value of intravenous immunoglobulins

The authors report an exceedingly rare complication of rheumatoid arthritis, i.e. acquired hemophilia due to anti-factor VIII autoantibody production. Treatment with intravenous immune globulin ensured control of hemorrhagic manifestations by inducing a transient rise in factor VIII level.     

Influence of To?pa Peat Preparation on the phagocytic activity and bactericidal properties of granulocytes in healthy volunteers

It was found, that To?pa Peat Preparation (TPP) administered to healthy volunteers in doses of 100-300 mg/day during 14 days evoked the stimulation of the phagocytic and bactericidal activity of the granulocytes. The dose of 600 mg/day causes only a transient and insignificant increase of phagocytic and bactericidal properties of the granulocytes.