Field Verification of Two-Dimensional Surface Irrigation Model

A two-dimensional (2D) model of unsteady shallow-water flow in surface irrigation was developed to evaluate the influence of field-grading precision on surface irrigation performance. This paper presents field data for verification of this 2D model. No attempt was made here to evaluate irrigation performance. Verification of such models relies on independent estimates of parameters for infiltration and roughness. To accomplish this, water surface elevations were measured at 26 points within a 3 ha level basin. A double-bubbler system was used to obtain relative water depths. Field surveys were used to convert these to water surface elevations and field water depths, from which surface water volumes over time were computed. The infiltration function was determined by matching inflow minus surface volume over time with computed subsurface volume. A value of Manning n (0.05) was found for which advance and water depth hydrographs were both well predicted with the 2D model. Differences in advance for a plane versus undulating field surface were minor, except near the end of advance.     

The costs and benefits of tonal centers for chord processing.

Harmonic priming studies have shown that a musical context, with its established tonal center, influences target chord processing. This study investigated costs and benefits of priming tonal centers for target processing by adding a baseline condition (sequences without a specific tonal center). Results confirmed harmonic priming, with faster processing for related than for unrelated and less related targets (tonic chord, out-of-key chord, subdominant chord). Comparing targets in baseline contexts with targets in sequences with well-established tonal centers revealed a benefit of processing for related targets but a cost of processing for unrelated and less related targets. Findings are discussed in terms of tonal knowledge activation and suggest that an activated tonal center gives rise to strong expectations for the tonic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lipid peroxidation and antioxidant system changes in acute L-arginine pancreatitis in rats

The World Wide Web-based form is a promising method for the construction of an on-line data collection system for clinical and epidemiological research. It is, however, laborious to prepare a common gateway interface (CGI) program for each project, which the World Wide Web server needs to handle the submitted data. In medicine, it is even more laborious because the CGI program must check deficits, type, ranges, and logical errors (bad combination of data) of entered data for quality assurance as well as data length and meta-characters of the entered data to enhance the security of the server. We have extended the specification of the hypertext markup language (HTML) form to accommodate information necessary for such data checking and we have developed software named AUTOFORM for this purpose. The software automatically analyzes the extended HTML form and generates the corresponding ordinary HTML form, 'Makefile', and C source of CGI programs. The resultant CGI program checks the entered data through the HTML form, records them in a computer, and returns them to the end-user. AUTOFORM drastically reduces the burden of development of the World Wide Web-based data entry system and allows the CGI programs to be more securely and reliably prepared than had they been written from scratch.     

Pharmacokinetic study of nerisopam and its n-acetyl metabolite in rats

Three doses were administered to the rats during the pharmacokinetic study of nerisopam and the plasma concentrations of nerisopam and its N-acetyl metabolite were determined parallelly by means of validated SPE-HPLC method developed by the authors. The pharmacokinetics of nerisopam could be described by a two-compartment open model in rats, it was absorbed rapidly and could be measured in plasma for about 8 hours. The peak plasma concentration of the N-acetyl metabolite was reached rapidly a little bit later than that of the parent compound, similarly to the human plasma, and it could be measured for about 12 hours. The pharmacokinetics of N-acetyl metabolite could be described by an one-compartment open model. The fast appearance of the metabolite and the Cmax and AUC 0-infinity values higher than those of nerisopam refer to an intensive "first-pass" metabolism. The AUC-dose curves indicate that supposingly the mechanism transforming the N-acetyl metabolites are not as fast as the acetylation.     

Steinert''s congenital myotonic dystrophy. Genetic aspects

The study of the air contamination was carried out in six fruit farms located in the region of Grójec and Warka. The measurements were carried out during the application of "Fastac 10EC" insecticide (alphamethrin) in fruit growing at work sites of tractor drivers operating the sprayers. The mean concentrations of alphamethrin at individual work sites were low and ranged between 0.001 and 0.0039 mg/m3 of the air. Due to the lack of maximum allowable concentration (MAC), the inhalation toxicity of alphamethrin of 320 mg/m3 (4-h), toxicity class of alphamethrin (III) and MAC of natural pyrethrum were considered. In this context the determined concentrations seem to be safe.     

Responses in growth, food intake and food conversion efficiency to different dietary protein concentrations in meat-type lines of Japanese quail

1. A total of 360 Japanese quail of 4 commercial meat-type lines and two diet treatments (260 and 216 g/kg or 238 and 195 g/kg of crude protein (CP) in the starter and grower diet, respectively) were used. 2. The positive effect of a high CP diet on body weight was significant only for the first 4 weeks after hatching. 3. The mean age at inflection point of the growth curve (t+) across lines and sexes was 1.4 d (0.6 to 2.8 d within line/sex groups) earlier for quail fed on a high CP diet than in quail receiving a low CP diet. The inflection (y+) and asymptotic (A) weights were similar under both dietary protein concentrations. Nevertheless, the shape of the growth curve, characterised by the ratio y+/A and parameter of the maturing rate k, was significantly influenced by diet. 4. A higher food intake and less efficient food conversion were found for quail fed on a high CP diet in the period from 15 to 28 d of age. 5. The fattening traits such as body weight, cumulative food intake and food conversion, were not affected by dietary CP content at the age of 5 weeks. 6. The effects of line on body weight, food intake and food conversion are discussed.     

Pleural effusion in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus

In order to analyze the etiology, cytological and biochemical characteristics, and outcome of pleural disease in patients infected with HIV, the medical records of 86 HIV-positive patients with pleural effusion were reviewed. Controls were 106 HIV-negative patients with parapneumonic or tuberculous effusion. Most HIV-positive patients were intravenous drug abusers (95.3%). Pleural effusions in HIV-positive patients were caused by infections in 76 (89.4%) cases. Parapneumonic effusion was diagnosed in 59 patients and tuberculous pleuritis in 15 patients. Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently isolated bacteria. Parameters for differentiating complicated cases of parapneumonic exudate from uncomplicated cases, such as pleural fluid pH < 7.20 (sensitivity 80% vs. 84.3%), pleural fluid glucose < 35 mg/dl (sensitivity 45% vs. 56.25%) pleural fluid LDH > 1600 UI/l (sensitivity 85% vs. 62.50%), showed similar sensitivity in HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients. Monocytes in pleural fluid were significantly decreased in tuberculous pleuritis in HIV-positive patients (506 +/- 425 vs. 1014 +/- 1196 monocytes/ml, p < 0.05). No significant differences were detected in the outcome of HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients with pleural disease. It can be concluded that the pleural effusion was of predominantly infectious etiology in HIV-positive patients from populations with a high prevalence of intravenous drug abuse. Neither the biochemical parameters in pleural fluid nor the outcome differed significantly between HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients.     

Disseminated bacillus Calmette-Guerin infection in an HIV-infected child: a case with cutaneous lesions

The present paper addresses mortality from urinary diseases (ICD9 codes 580-599) in the Italian pediatric population aged 0-19 years, in the period 1979-91. Mortality data were obtained from the Italian National Statistical Institute (ISTAT). A total number of 522 deaths were recorded among people aged 0-19 years, amounting to 0.33% of all casualties. Half of these deaths were due to renal failure (ICD9 codes: 584-586). While mortality from all causes decreased by 35% among the Italian pediatric population, mortality from urinary diseases remained stable during the same period, and even increased in the age range 0-4 years (from 3.47 per million person-years in 1979 to 9.83 per million person-years in 1990; p < 0.001). This outbreak in mortality was entirely due to an increase in casualties from acute renal failure (ICD9 code: 584). In conclusion, since the increase in mortality from urinary diseases among Italian children aged 0-4 years takes place in the presence of a substantial drop in mortality from all causes, attention should be paid to this problem and surveillance systems should be reinforced.     

Interaction of biotin with streptavidin. Thermostability and conformational changes upon binding

The effect of biotin binding on streptavidin (STV) structure and stability was studied using differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and fluorescence spectroscopy. Biotin increases the midpoint temperature Tm, of thermally induced denaturation of STV from 75 degrees C in unliganded protein to 112 degrees C at full ligand saturation. The cooperativity of thermally induced unfolding of STV changes substantially in presence of biotin. Unliganded STV monomer has at least one domain that unfolds independently. The dimer bound to biotin undergoes a single coupled denaturation process. Simulations of thermograms of STV denaturation that take into account only the thermodynamic effects of the ligand with a Ka approximately 10(15) reproduce the behavior observed, but the estimated values of Tm are 15-20 degrees C lower than those experimentally determined. This increased stability is attributed to an enhanced cooperativity of the thermal unfolding of STV. The increment in the cooperativity is as consequence of a stronger intersubunit association and an increased structural order upon binding. FT-IR and fluorescence spectroscopy data reveal that unordered structure found in unliganded STV disappears under fully saturating conditions. The data provide a rationale for previous suggestions that biotin binding induces an increase in protein tightness (structural cooperativity) leading, in turn, to a higher thermostability.     

Recursive Design of Pressurized Branched Irrigation Networks

This paper presents a new method to design pressurized branched irrigation networks. This method is called recursive design and is based on application of the problem-solving technique known as backtracking to the problem of the optimum design of pressurized branched irrigation networks with a known delivery piezometric head (pipe-sizing). Recursive design is a heuristic optimizer, like genetic algorithms, and has been implemented in a fast, versatile computer application. After presenting and precisely defining the design problem, the writers review the theoretical foundations of some of the main existing design methods: maximum velocity, recommended velocity, Mougnie velocity, constant hydraulic slope, Lagrange multipliers, linear programming, Labye’s method, and genetic algorithms. Next, the writers explain what recursive design consists of and apply its methodology in detail to a simple network. In the results section, the solutions obtained by recursive design are compared with those obtained by the other design methods, giving satisfactory results. For example, in an analyzed standard network, genetic algorithms take more than 20?minutes to offer a solution, whereas recursive design offers a cheaper solution with less than 3?seconds of computation time.