Annular slot-coupled dielectric resonator antenna

An annular slot-coupled dielectric resonator antenna is investigated experimentally. As compared with the previous rectangular-slot version, the new configuration offers a much wider bandwidth of 18%. The return loss, radiation patterns, and antenna gain of the configuration have been measured and are discussed     

Nephropathy of type II diabetes: evidence for hereditary factors?

Family studies point to an important genetic element in the genesis of diabetic nephropathy, but it is not known whether renal abnormalities are present prior to the onset of diabetes. To address this issue we examined all consecutive patients suffering from type II diabetes with a duration of more than 10 years who attended a diabetes outpatient clinic. Ninety-four patients had nephropathy, 307 did not. All offspring who were phenotypically normal (no hypertension, normal oral glucose tolerance, non-smoking) and agreed to participate were examined, 26 from nephropathic and 30 from non-nephropathic diabetic parents. They were compared with 30 offspring matched for age, gender and BMI from non-diabetic parents as controls. We measured urinary albumin excretion under baseline conditions and at several time points after ingestion of 300 g cooked beef and submaximal treadmill exercise, respectively. In addition, casual blood pressure, ambulatory blood pressure, urinary albumin and urinary alpha-1-microglobulin were measured. Primary renal disease was excluded by clinical examination. Under baseline conditions, median urinary albumin excretion rate (AER; microgram/min) was significantly (P < 0.005) higher in offspring of nephropathic type II diabetic patients (7.8; range 1.04 to 19.5) than in the offspring of non-nephropathic type II diabetic patients (4.8; 0.36 to 17.5) and controls (4.4; 0.16 to 18.4). Submaximal treadmill exercise caused a greater proportional increase of AER in offspring of nephropathic type II diabetics (median 16-fold) than in offspring of non-nephropathic diabetic patients (6.3-fold) or controls (4.8-fold). In offspring of nephropathic diabetic patients casual and particularly ambulatory systolic blood pressures were significantly higher, but AER was not correlated with blood pressure. In summary, higher values, albeit within the normal range, for baseline and postexercise albuminuria were noted in phenotypically normal offspring of parents with type II diabetes and nephropathy. The observation suggests that changes in transglomerular albumin traffic are demonstrable prior to the onset of diabetes and diabetic nephropathy in subjects with a potential genetic predisposition to these conditions.     

Developmental pattern of fetal growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor I, growth hormone binding protein and insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3

AIMS: To evaluate the developmental pattern of fetal growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I), GH binding protein (GHBP) and IGF binding protein-3 (IGF-3); to determine the implications for fetal growth. METHODS: Serum GH, IGF-I, GHBP and IGFBP-3 were measured in 53 fetuses, 41 aged 20-26 weeks (group A) and 12 aged 31-38 weeks (group B). Fetal blood samples were obtained by direct puncture of the umbilical vein in utero. Fetal blood samples were taken to rule out beta thalassaemia, chromosome alterations, mother to fetus transmissible infections, and for maternal rhesus factor. GHBP was determined by gel filtration chromatography of serum incubated overnight with 125I-GH. GH, IGF-I and IGFBP-3 were determined by radioimmunoassay. RESULTS: Fetal serum GH concentrations in group A (median 29 micrograms/l, range 11-92) were significantly higher (P < 0.01) than those of group B (median 16.7 micrograms/l, range 4.5-29). IGF-I in group A (median 20 micrograms/l, range 4.1-53.3) was significantly lower (P < 0.01) than in group B (median 75.2 micrograms/l, range 27.8-122.3). Similarly, IGFBP-3 concentrations in group A (median 950 micrograms/l, range 580-1260) were significantly lower than those of group B (median 1920 micrograms/l, range 1070-1770). There was no significant difference between GHBP values in group A (median 8.6%, range 6.6-12.6) and group B (median 8.3%, range 6-14.3). Gestational age correlated positively with IGF-I concentrations (P < 0.0001) and IGFBP-3 (P < 0.0001) and negatively with GH (P < 0.0001). GHBP values did not correlate with gestational age. Multiple regression analysis showed a negative correlation between GH:IGF-I ratio and fetal growth indices CONCLUSIONS: The simultaneous evaluation of fetal GH, IGF-I, IGFBP-3 and GHBP suggests that the GH-IGF-I axis might already be functional in utero. The progressive improvement in the efficiency of this axis in the last part of gestation does not seem to be due to an increase in GH receptors.     

The “burning ship” and its quasi-Julia sets

By manipulating the imaginary part of the complex-analytic quadratic equation, we obtain, by iteration, a set that we call the “burning ship” because of its appearance. It is an analogue to the Mandelbrot set (M-set). Its nonanalytic “quasi”-Julia sets yield surprizing graphical shapes.     

Retinoic acid conjugates as potential antitumor agents: synthesis and biological activity of conjugates with Ara-A, Ara-C, 3(2H)-furanone, and aniline mustard moieties

In a dual targeting approach, to explore the ability of tretinoin (all-trans-retinoic acid) to behave as a covalent carrier for cytotoxic entities, conjugates of retinoic acid with a few representative molecules, being important examples of antitumor pharmacophores (i.e., nucleoside analogues and alkylating agents), have been synthesized and tested for their cytostatic and differentiating activity. All compounds were stable to in vitro hydrolysis in human plasma and more lipophilic than the parent compounds, thus consenting enhanced uptake into the cells. Among the nucleoside analogues the Ara-C derivatives 3 and 6 and the Ara-A derivative 7 proved the most cytostatic (IC50 < 0.32 microgram/mL) resulting from 25- to > 144-fold more active (Ara-A derivatives) or at least as equally active (Ara-C derivatives) as compared to the parent nucleosides. Compound 3, endowed with a highly lipophilic silyl moiety at the 3' and 5' positions, showed the highest differentiating activity (54% and 44% differentiated HL-60 cells at 0.2 and 0.05 microgram/mL respectively). With regard to the retinoic acid conjugates of alkylating agents, compound 10 was the most cytostatic agent (IC50 < 0.32 microgram/mL) and the most potent differentiating agent (33-34% at 0.32 and 0.08 microgram/mL). These structures may also be regarded as analogs of either retinoic acid or the cytotoxic compound.     

Space-domain method of moments solution for a strip on a dielectricslab

This paper presents a space-domain method of moments (MoM) solution to the problem of a strip dipole on a dielectric slab. The solution involves the use of a special junction basis function which models the nearly singular polarization currents in the vicinity of the strip/dielectric junction     

Primary lymphoma of the breast. Three cases of non-Hodgkin lymphoma

Primary and sole breast lymphoma is a very rare disease. With the review of our series of 616 cases operated on for breast cancer, only 3 cases (0.48%) of primary breast non-Hodgkin lymphoma (LNH) have been observed. The authors outline the problems concerning diagnosis and therapy of this rare disease: pathological and immunohistochemical aspects are discussed. They stress the importance of staging in order to plan a correct multidisciplinary approach.     

Nonlinear Kerr interactions between modulated waves propagating ina single-mode fiber

The interactions induced by the nonlinear refractive index in a single-mode optical fiber (Kerr effect) between a modulated wave and a carrier wave have been investigated for amplitude shift keying (ASK), frequency shift keying (FSK), and phase shift keying (PSK). The theoretical analysis, based on a time-domain solution, exploits the well-known formalism of self-phase modulation to describe the propagation of the input electric field in the fiber. The theoretical results were validated experimentally for amplitude- and phase-modulated waves with heterodyne detection techniques. These experiments mimic a coherent transmission system and allow the measurement of the spectrum of each of the waves that participate in the nonlinear interaction