Dyspnea resulting from phrenic nerve paralysis after interscalene brachial plexus block in an obese male--a case report

While current psychiatric taxonomies recognise a classification of amphetamine dependence, derived from the notion of an alcohol dependence syndrome, little research has validated that such a condition exists for this drug. Current amphetamine users (N = 331), were interviewed using the World Health Organization operationalisation of DSM-III-R substance dependence criteria, and a measure of the psychological components of dependence. Structural analyses indicated that a unidimensional dependence syndrome as assessed by DSM-III-R and DSM-IV criteria exists for amphetamine, and that physiological, psychological and behavioural indicators were all important in accounting for the variance in responses. It was demonstrated that the concept of a dependence syndrome is applicable to amphetamine, and that the inclusion of the amphetamine dependence syndrome in DSM-III-R and DSM-IV is valid.     

Room temperature synthesis of crystalline metal oxides

Crystalline titanium dioxide powders have been synthesized as either rutile or anatase from aqueous solutions at low temperatures (T≤100°C) and atmospheric pressure. First, a sol is prepared by the hydrolysis of a titanium alkoxide in an acidic solution. The sol is subsequently heated at different rates to produce the different crystalline phases of titanium dioxide. Powder characterization was carried out using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and high resolution transmission electron microscopy. In general, the precipitate size was observed to be between 50 and 100 nm. Possible mechanisms involved in determining the crystal variants are discussed. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Advanced concepts in electric vehicle design

In 1994, the Eco-Vehicle Project was begun to develop an electric vehicle (EV) using a ground-up design approach that incorporates unique designs specific to an EV. The Eco-Vehicle will be a high-performance, but ultrasmall, battery-powered vehicle. New designs for the Eco-Vehicle include an in-wheel motor drive system, a hollow load floor which will house the batteries, and a new battery management system. The Eco-Vehicle may also utilize other advanced concepts suitable especially for EVs, including solar panels for battery charging and intelligent crash avoidance and guidance systems     

Ultrathin oxide-nitride dielectrics for rugged stacked DRAMcapacitors

Ultrathin dielectric materials that provide high capacitance values are needed for 64- and 256-Mb stacked DRAMs. It is shown that capacitance values as high as 12.3 fF/μm² can be obtained with ultrathin nitride-based layers deposited on rugged polysilicon storage electrodes. These films present the reliability and low leakage current levels required for 3.3-V applications. The nitride thickness, however, cannot be scaled much below 6 nm to avoid the oxidation-punchthrough mechanisms that appear when too-thin films are unable to withstand the reoxidation step     

Generalized impedance control of robot for assembly tasks requiringcompliant manipulation

To perform assembly tasks requiring compliant manipulation, the robot must follow a motion trajectory and exert an appropriate force profile while making compliant contact with a dynamic environment. For this purpose, a generalized impedance in the task space consisting of a second-order function relating the motion errors and interaction force errors is introduced such that the contact force can be commanded and controlled. With generalized impedance control, the robot can behave with a desired dynamic characteristic when it interacts with the environment. To ensure the success of the assembly, a strategy during task planning which takes into consideration the interrelation between motion and force trajectories as well as contact compliance is introduced. The generalized impedance control method is applied to the prismatic joint of a selective compliance assembly robot arm (SCARA) robot for inserting a printed circuit board (PCB) into an edge connector socket. Depending on the progress of the parts joining operation, various amount of interaction forces are generated which have to be accommodated. It is demonstrated that an assembly strategy which consists of a sequence of carefully planned target impedance can enable the task to be executed in a desirable manner. The effectiveness of this approach is illustrated through experiments by comparing the results with those obtained using a well-established position control scheme as well as the original impedance control method     

Neurotoxicity following the ingestion of a Chinese medicinal plant, Alocasia macrorrhiza

1. A case of poisoning due to the raw root tuber of a Chinese medicinal plant, Alocasia macrorrhiza is presented. 2. The patient developed neurological (severe pain and numbness in the perioral area and throat) and gastrointestinal (nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain) symptoms immediately after eating the root tuber. 3. A macrorrhiza has properties and morphology very similar to another medical plant. A. odora. The root tuber of the latter is known to contain a neurotoxin sapotoxin.     

Zero-quantised discrete cosine transform prediction technique for video encoding

A new analytical model to eliminate redundant discrete cosine transform (DCT) and quantisation (Q) computations in block-based video encoders is proposed. The dynamic ranges of the quantised DCT coefficients are analysed, then a threshold scheme is derived to determine whether the DCT and Q computations can be skipped without video quality degradation. In addition, fast DCT/inverse DCT (IDCT) algorithms are presented to implement the proposed analytical model. The proposed analytical model is compared with other comparable analytical models reported in the literature. Both the theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed analytical model can greatly reduce the computational complexity of video encoding without any performance degradation and outperforms other analytical models     

Total variation blind deconvolution

We present a blind deconvolution algorithm based on the total variational (TV) minimization method proposed by Acar and Vogel (1994). The motivation for regularizing with the TV norm is that it is extremely effective for recovering edges of images as well as some blurring functions, e.g., motion blur and out-of-focus blur. An alternating minimization (AM) implicit iterative scheme is devised to recover the image and simultaneously identify the point spread function (PSF). Numerical results indicate that the iterative scheme is quite robust, converges very fast (especially for discontinuous blur), and both the image and the PSF can be recovered under the presence of high noise level. Finally, we remark that PSFs without sharp edges, e.g., Gaussian blur, can also be identified through the TV approach.     

A real-time planning algorithm for obstacle avoidance of redundant robots

A computationally efficient, obstacle avoidance algorithm for redundant robots is presented in this paper. This algorithm incorporates the neural networks and pseudodistance function D _p in the framework of resolved motion rate control. Thus, it is well suited for real-time implementation. Robot arm kinematic control is carried out by the Hopfield network. The connection weights of the network can be determined from the current value of Jacobian matrix at each sampling time, and joint velocity commands can be generated from the outputs of the network. The obstacle avoidance task is achieved by formulating the performance criterion as D _p>d _min (d _min represents the minimal distance between the redundant robot and obstacles). Its calculation is only related to some vertices which are used to model the robot and obstacles, and the computational times are nearly linear in the total number of vertices. Several simulation cases for a four-link planar manipulator are given to prove that the proposed collision-free trajectory planning scheme is efficient and practical.     

The effect of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection on clinical parameters in steady-state bronchiectasis

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection on clinical parameters in Chinese patients with noncystic fibrosis and steady-state bronchiectasis. DESIGN: Prospective, cross-sectional clinicomicrobiological study with informed consent. SETTING: Consecutive outpatient recruitment from a specialist bronchiectasis respiratory clinic. PATIENTS: Outpatients (n = 100; 62 women; 55.1+/-16.7 years old; FEV1/FVC 1.4+/-0.7/2.1+/-0.9 L), who had stable respiratory symptoms for more than 3 weeks. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Respiratory pathogens isolated from the sputum were: Pseudomonas aeruginosa (33), Haemophilus influenzae (10), Moraxella catarrhalis (2), other Gram-negative bacilli (5), Streptococcus pneumoniae (6), Staphylococcus aureus (5), mycobacteria (3), and yeast (1). Clinical parameters in patients with positive isolation of P aeruginosa were compared with those without the organism in the sputum culture (non-P aeruginosa). In the P aeruginosa group, the FEV1/FVC ratio and sputum volume were lower (p < 0.005) and higher (p < 0.0001), respectively, than those of the non-P aeruginosa group. The FEV1/FVC ratio (< 60%) and sputum volume (grading > 5) were independently associated with a positive sputum isolation of P aeruginosa with odds ratios of 3.1 (confidence interval [CI] 1.2 to 8.4; p < 0.01) and 4.7 (CI 1.6 to 13.3; p < 0.001), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: P aeruginosa is the predominant respiratory pathogen isolated in the sputum of Chinese patients with steady-state bronchiectasis, and its isolation is associated with high sputum output (> or = 75th quartile) and moderately severe airflow obstruction (FEV1/FVC < 60%).