Distinction between enzymically and chemically catalyzed interesterification

The 1,3-specific lipase-catalyzed interesterified fats were distinguished from chemically catalyzed products by the fatty acids in the 2-position. The fatty acid contents in the 2-position of the 1,3-lipase-catalyzed and the original triglycerides were similar but different from that of chemically interesterified fat. Also, the saturated-to-unsaturated fatty acid ratio in the 2-monoglycerides was lower for the 1,3-specific lipase-catalyzed interesterified fats than for the corresponding chemical products.     

Large cell lymphoma complicating persistent polyclonal B cell lymphocytosis

Persistent polyclonal B cell lymphocytosis (PPBL) is a rare lymphoproliferative disorder of unclear natural history and its potential for B cell malignancy remains unknown. We describe the case of a 39-year-old female who presented with stage IV-B large cell lymphoma 19 years after an initial diagnosis of PPBL; her disease was rapidly fatal despite intensive chemotherapy and blood stem cell transplantation. Because we had recently identified multiple bcl-2/Ig gene rearrangements in blood mononuclear cells of patients with PPBL, we sought evidence of this oncogene in this particular patient: bcl-2/Ig gene rearrangements were found in blood mononuclear cells but not in lymphoma cells. Owing to the possible role of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) in the pathogenesis of PPBL, we also hypothesized our patient might have an EBV-related lymphoproliferative disorder. Despite serologies consistent with past exposure to this virus, it was not found in lymphoma cells using a sensitive polymerase chain reaction technique. We conclude that non-Hodgkin's lymphoma may occur during the course of PPBL. However, longer follow-up in more patients will be needed in order to better clarity the risk of hematologic malignancy in patients with PPBL.     

An atomic model of the outer layer of the bluetongue virus core derived from X-ray crystallography and electron cryomicroscopy

BACKGROUND: Bluetongue virus (BTV), which belongs to the Reoviridae family and orbivirus genus, is a non-enveloped, icosahedral, double-stranded RNA virus. Several protein layers enclose its genome; upon cell entry the outer layer is stripped away leaving a core, the surface of which is composed of VP7. The structure of the trimeric VP7 molecule has previously been determined using X-ray crystallography. The articulated VP7 subunit consists of two domains, one which is largely alpha-helical and the other, smaller domain, is a beta barrel with jelly-roll topology. The relative orientations of these two domains vary in different crystal forms. The structure of VP7 and the organizations of 780 subunits of this molecule in the core of virus is central to the assembly and function of BTV. RESULTS: A 23 A resolution map of the core, determined using electron cryomicroscopy (cryoEM) data, reveals that the 260 trimers of VP7 are organized on a rather precise T = 13 laevo icosahedral lattice, in accordance with the theory of quasi-equivalence. The VP7 layer occupies a shell that is between 260 A and 345 A from the centre of the core. Below this radius (230-260 A) lies the T = 1 layer of 120 molecules of VP3. By fitting the X-ray structure of an individual VP7 trimer onto the cryoEM BTV core structure, we have generated an atomic model of the VP7 layer of BTV. This demonstrates that one of the molecular structures seen in crystals of the isolated VP7 corresponds to the in vivo conformation of the molecule in the core. CONCLUSIONS: The beta-barrel domains of VP7 are external to the core and interact with protein in the outer layer of the mature virion. The lower, alpha-helical domains of VP7 interact with VP3 molecules which form the inner layer of the BTV core. Adjacent VP7 trimer-trimer interactions in the T = 13 layer are mediated principally through well-defined regions in the broader lower domains, to form a structure that conforms well with that expected from the theory of quasi-equivalence with no significant conformational changes within the individual trimers. The VP3 layer determines the particle size and forms a rather smooth surface upon which the two-dimensional lattice of VP7 trimers is laid down.     

Hierarchical Fuzzy Systems Integrated with Particle Swarm Optimization for Daily Reference Evapotranspiration Prediction: a Novel Approach

Water Resources Management - Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) is a crucial element for deriving irrigation scheduling of major crops. Thus, precise projection of ET0 is essential for better...     

Selection of optimized features for fusion of palm print and finger knuckle‐based person authentication

The impact of digital technology in biometrics is much more efficient at interpreting data than humans, which results in completely replacement of manual identification procedures in forensic science. Because the single modality‐based biometric frameworks limit performance in terms of accuracy and anti‐spoofing capabilities due to the presence of low quality data, therefore, information fusion of more than one biometric characteristic in pursuit of high recognition results can be beneficial. In this article, we present a multimodal biometric system based on information fusion of palm print and finger knuckle traits, which are least associated to any criminal investigation as evidence yet. The proposed multimodal biometric system might be useful to identify the suspects in case of physical beating or kidnapping and establish supportive scientific evidences, when no fingerprint or face information is present in photographs. The first step in our work is data preprocessing, in which region of interest of palm and finger knuckle images have been extracted. To minimize nonuniform illumination effects, we first normalize the detected circular palm or finger knuckle and then apply line ordinal pattern (LOP)‐based encoding scheme for texture enrichment. The nondecimated quaternion wavelet provides denser feature representation at multiple scales and orientations when extracted over proposed LOP encoding and increases the discrimination power of line and ridge features. To best of our knowledge, this first attempt is a combination of backtracking search algorithm and 2D²LDA has been employed to select the dominant palm and knuckle features for classification. The classifiers output for two modalities are combined at unsupervised rank level fusion rule through Borda count method, which shows an increase in performance in terms of recognition and verification, that is, 100% (correct recognition rate), 0.26% (equal error rate), 3.52 (discriminative index), and 1,262 m (speed).     

Favorable influence of ssDNA-functionalized SWCNT on the navigation pattern of C. elegans

Microsystem Technologies - Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNTs) are widely used as potential carriers in drug delivery systems. The objective of this work was to observe the effects of pristine,...     

Retraction of “Developing an integrated display of health data for aging in place”

The following article from Human Factors and Ergonomics in Manufacturing & Service Industries, “Developing an Integrated Display of Health Data for Aging in Place,” by Yang Gong and Arpita Chandra, published online on October 20, 2011 in Wiley Online Library ( www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com ), has been retracted by agreement between the authors, the journal Editors‐in‐Chief, Waldemar Karwowski and Gavriel Salvendy, and Publisher Wiley Periodicals, Inc. The retraction has been agreed as these articles were mistakenly published after being rejected.     

OS-Guard: on-site signature based framework for multimedia surveillance data management

This paper presents OS-Guard(On-Site Guard), a novel on-site signature based framework for multimedia surveillance data management. One of the major concerns in widespread deployment of multimedia surveillance systems is the enormous amount of data collected from multiple media streams that need to be communicated, observed and stored for crime alerts and forensic analysis. This necessitates investigating efficient data management techniques to solve this problem. This work aims to tackle this problem, motivated by the following observation, more data does not mean more information. OS-Guard is a novel framework that attempts to collect informative data and filter out non-informative data on-site, thus taking a step towards solving the data management problem. In the framework, both audio and video cues are utilized by extracting features from the incoming data stream and the resultant real valued feature data is binarized for efficient storage and processing. A feature selection process based on association rule mining selects discriminant features. A short representative sample of the whole database is generated using a novel reservoir sampling algorithm that is stored onsite and used with an support vector machine to classify an important event. Initial experiments for a Bank ATM monitoring scenario demonstrates promising results.     

I-convergence in probabilistic n-normed space

In this article we introduce the notion of I-Cauchy sequence and I-convergent sequence in probabilistic n-normed space. The concept of I*-Cauchy sequence and I*-convergence in probabilistic n-normed space are also introduced and some of their properties related to these notions have been established.     

Synthesis of telechelic monodispersed diols

Summary The synthesis of telechelic monodispersed diols produced from the radical telomerization of an excess of undecylenol with commercialy available , -dithiols HSC₂H₄XC₂H₄SH (X=0, S or CH₂) initiated by peroxides is presented. In each case, the diols were obtained selectively and quantitatively and they were characterized by both ¹H and ¹³C NMR. Their physical characteristics (Tg, T_m and decomposition temperatures) were determined. Such compounds are thermally more stable than polydispersed telechelic commercially available diols.