Effects of thymectomy and glucocorticoid therapy on peripheral lymphocytes in myasthenia gravis

Clinical manifestations and peripheral blood lymphocyte subset changes were studied in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG) to elucidate the mechanism of clinical improvement following treatment, with thymectomy (Tx) or glucocorticoid (GC) therapy. The changes found were: 1. There was a significant increase in percentages of CD3+, CD29+ CD4+ cells and CD4/CD8 ratio and a significant decrease in percentages of CD8+ and CD16,56+ cells in patients who had never been treated with any immune therapy. 2. After Tx or GC therapy, CD3+ and CD4+, CD29+ cells were decreased, but the number CD19+ and CD16, CD56 cells did not change. 3. Tx had a special effect on CD8+ cells. In most of the patients who showed clinical improvement after Tx, CD8+ cells were increased and CD4/CD8 ratio wad decreased. 4. Anti-acetylcholine receptor (AChRAb) titers were markedly decreased after GC therapy. These results indicate that there were obvious abnormalities in cell-mediated immunity in addition to those in humoral immunity in myasthenia gravis. These abnormalities tended to be normalized after Tx or GC therapy.     

A numerical investigation on the geometry dependence of the crack growth resistance in CT specimens

The influence of the specimen thickness B and the ligament length b on the J _R -curves is numerically investigated for CT specimens. The thickness effect is taken into account with 2-D analyses by dividing a plain sided specimen into a plane stress part and a plane strain part. The fracture process is controlled by experimentally determined critical values of the crack tip opening displacement for crack growth initiation (CTOD_i) and the crack tip opening angle for stable crack growth (CTOA_C). It is shown that for the global behaviour of a plain sided specimen, the B/b ratio is essential. The difference between the geometry dependence of the initiation value of the J-integral and the geometry dependence of the slope of the J _R -curves is also shown.     

Least mean p-power error criterion for adaptive FIR filter

An adaptive FIR filter based on the least mean p-power error (MPE) criterion is investigated. First, some useful properties of MPE function are studied. Three main results are as follows: 1) MPE function is a convex function of filter coefficients; so it has no local minima. 2) When input process and desired process are both Gaussian processes, then MPE function has the same optimum solution as the conventional Wiener solution for any p. 3) When input process and desired process are non-Gaussian processes, then MPE function may have better optimum solution than Wiener solution. Next, a least mean p-power (LMP) error adaptive algorithm is derived and some application examples are presented. Consequently, when the signal is corrupted by an impulsive noise, the adaptive algorithm with p=1 is preferred. Furthermore, when the signal is corrupted by noise or interference, the adaptive algorithm with proper choice of p may be preferred     

Single g-pulses and segregation in virtual µg Bridgman growth environments. A complementary two-dimensional approach

The binomial single g-pulses — dopant segregation in a generic virtual µg Bridgman growth arrangement is discussed here with the help of a time dependent two-dimensional scheme. To attain this objective, the so-called solid composition drop distribution has been previously defined enabling a global two-dimensional information of the segregation impact in each virtually grown crystal. Based on this parameter it has been concluded that, at equal g-dose, solid segregation is independent on the shape of the single external pulse and that, for single g-pulses of equal g-dose, compositional variations are practically independent on the activity time but depend on the crystal growth rate. Finally, taking into account all these set of results, the pertinence of the g-dose as the only self-consistent parameter to describe the segregation impact has been discussed.     

High spatial order finite element method to solve Maxwell's equations in time domain

This paper presents a finite element method with high spatial order for solving the Maxwell equations in the time domain. In the first part, we provide the mathematical background of the method. Then, we discuss the advantages of the new scheme compared to a classical finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Several examples show the advantages of using the new method for different kinds of problems. Comparisons in terms of accuracy and CPU time between this method, the FDTD and the finite-volume time-domain methods are given as well.