Transcranial assessment of maternal cerebral blood flow velocity in patients with pre-eclampsia

BACKGROUND: To clarify the cerebral hemodynamics in pre-eclamptic pregnant women, we investigated the blood flow velocity of the cerebral arteries. METHODS: The mean blood flow velocity and pulsatility index (PI) of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) and internal carotid artery (ICA) in normal pregnant women (n = 35) and pre-eclamptic patients (n = 18) were examined transcranially using pulsed-wave Doppler technique with a 2 MHz probe. In two pre-eclamptic women with post-partum visual disturbance, we examined the mean blood flow velocity and PI of the MCA and ICA every day. RESULTS: The mean blood flow velocity of the MCA in the pre-eclamptic patients (89.7 +/- 20.5 cm/s) was significantly higher than that in the normal pregnant women (53.6 +/- 16.9 cm/s) (p < 0.05). PI of the MCA in the former group (0.67 +/- 0.13) was significantly lower than that in the latter (0.78 +/- 0.02) (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference between these two groups in these variables of the ICA. In the two patients with visual disturbance, the mean blood flow velocity of the MCA was increased before the onset of visual disturbance and decreased gradually following the disappearance of this symptom. In these patients, spasm of the MCA was confirmed by magnetic resonance angiography. CONCLUSIONS: In pre-eclamptic patients, we found increased MCA mean velocity before the onset of visual disturbance. Transcranial Doppler may be useful for the evaluation of cerebral hemodynamics and the prediction of eclampsia.     

Self-Irradiation Damage of a Curium-Doped Titanate Ceramic Containing Sodium-Rich High-Level Nuclear Waste

The polyphase titanate ceramic containing sodium-rich simulated high-level nuclear waste was doped with 0.69 wt% of ²⁴⁴Cm to accelerate long-term self-irradiation due to α decays. α autoradiography showed that α emissions were almost uniformaly distributed throughout the curium-doped samples on a >20-μm scale although micropore surfaces and titanium oxide agglomerates were free of α-emitting nuclides. The phase assemblage of the curium-doped titanate ceramic included freudenbergite and loveringite in addition to the more abundant oxide phases: hollandite, perovskite, and zirconolite. Accumulation of α decays was accompanied by a gradual decrease in density. The increment of density was – 1% after an equivalent age of 5000 yr. Leach tests showed a slight trend toward higher total release of curium with equivalent age. The release of soluble nonradioactive elements (e.g., Na, Cs, Sr, and Ca) in the oldest specimens (equivalent age, 2000 yr) varied from specimen to specimen but, on average, were higher than specimens that had suffered a lower radiation dose.     

Consideration on common channel signaling evolution for globalintelligent networking

With the evolution of digital networks and intelligent network (IN) capabilities, the role of common channel signaling has become more and more important. In respect to IN, common channel signaling would play a significant role not only inside one network but also over multiple networks. International credit card validation and internetworking for digital mobile services represented by GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) are examples which utilize internetwork signaling capabilities in the framework of the initial-phase IN. Enhanced service providers (ESPs) may access the public network through the common channel signaling interface to make use of the IN capabilities, as is being discussed in terms of ONA (open network architecture) or ONP (open network provision). This paper first identifies various scenarios where internetwork signaling interactions would take place in the framework of IN in the forthcoming era. It then identifies various requirements to cope with these scenarios. It finally discusses the directions for evolution of common channel signaling toward global intelligent networking     

Fabrication of Bi2Sr2CaCu2Ox films on metal substrates by the chemical process using metal alkoxides

The formation behaviour of Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_x from compounds prepared by hydrolysis of metal alkoxides was studied and Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_x films on metal substrates were fabricated using a metal alkoxide solution. Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_x was formed through intermediate phases such as Bi₂Sr₂Cu₁O_x, Bi₂CuO₄, SrCO₃, CaCO₃ and CuO. Bi₂CuO₄ was initially formed with SrCO₃, CaCO₃ and CuO, and then reacted with SrCO₃ to form Bi₂Sr₂Cu₁O_x. Bi₂Sr₂Cu₁O_x reacted with CaCO₃ and CuO to give Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_x. Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_x films were successfully fabricated on nickel substrates using the metal alkoxide solution at the nominal composition of BiSrCaCu=2223. Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_x was precipitated on Ni substrates at firing temperature of 770 °C or above, and a sharp T _c was obtained at the firing temperature of 800 °C.     

On-line cursive Kanji character recognition using stroke-basedaffine transformation

We present a distortion-tolerant online cursive Kanji character recognition method that absorbs the stroke-based handwriting distortion expressible by uniform affine transformation. Experiments are made using two kinds of test data in the square style and in the cursive style for 2,980 Kanji character categories; recognition rates of 98.4 percent and 96.0 percent are obtained     

13.3‐inch 8k4k 664‐ppi foldable OLED display using crystalline oxide semiconductor FETs

A prototype 13.3‐inch 8k4k 664‐ppi high‐resolution foldable organic light emitting diode display is constructed. C‐axis aligned a‐b‐plane‐anchored crystal In–Ga–Zn oxide field effect transistors designed using a 1.5‐µm rule process are used in the backplane. Each pixel circuit has three transistors and one capacitor, and an external circuit is used to correct pixel current.     

Viewer,converter and preprocessor for smart machining process using an industrial robot

In this paper, viewer and converter softwares are presented for smart machining process using an industrial robot. The viewers for NC, CLS, DXF and STL files illustrate their surface representation with normal direction vectors. For example, the DXF is a data format developed by Autodesk to realize data interoperability among different makers’ CAD systems. The STL means Stereolithography which is a file format proposed by 3D Systems and recently is supported by many design tools and CAD/CAM softwares. In addition, the converters for DXF and STL files generate the corresponding CLS files with normal direction vectors for machining. Further, the proposed preprocessor allows the developed machining robot to work based on information included in STL files. The convenience and user-friendliness of the proposed integrated system are confirmed through experiments of viewing, converting and machining.     

Experimental study on mechanism of autogenous shrinkage of concrete

It was proved that autogenous shrinkage of high-strength concrete could be almost the same as drying shrinkage. For cement paste with low water-cement ratio, shrinkage was observed even in water. Existing composite low evaluated well the restraining effect of aggregate on autogenous shrinkage. Moisture movement caused by capillary condensation was thought to be the cause of flexural strength reduction for sealed specimens.     

Resource Name-Based Routing in the Network Layer

New network architectures and routing technologies are being proposed to reflect the changes in the current trend of Internet communication that are becoming more and more resource-centric; the demand for the hierarchically structured resource in the network is emphasized, not the location of the resource. Therefore, routing by the resource rather than routing by the conventional Internet protocol address is more suitable for the future Internet with some attractive advantages such as reducing the burden of resolving identifier to location and achieving higher scalability by using a provider-independent addressing structure. In this paper, we propose resource name-based routing within the routers in the network layer since te ardware architecture should also be able to support the paradigm shift from host-centric to resource-centric communication. Through evaluating the required network architecture and memory size in routers, we show the feasibility of resource name-based routing by using fully qualified domain names (FQDN) as an example of describing structured information. Using approximately 700 million existing FQDNs, the evaluation result shows that resource name-based routing is feasible even when considering the limitations of ternary content addressable memory size in routers.