Impedance cardiography used to assess patterns of cardiovascular response to behavioral stressors

This paper presents two examples of how impedance cardiography may be used to interpret the hemodynamic influences on blood pressures measured during behavioral stress. In Study 1, blood pressure changes which were similar during two tasks were shown to have important differences in their cardiac output and vascular resistance components. During work on a reaction time task having aversive incentives compared with a neutral task, the blood pressure changes were seen to be associated with lowered vascular resistance and raised cardiac activity, a "fight-flight" pattern. In Study 2, blood pressure response differences between two subject groups working on an identical task were found to have blood pressure changes differing in their underlying cardiac and vascular components as measured by impedance. Such uses impedance cardiography have widespread potential application in psychophysiological research with humans.     

Nonlinear restoration of noisy images

The restoration of images degraded by an additive white noise is performed by nonlinearly filtering a noisy image. The standard Wiener approach to this problem is modified to take into account the edge information of the image. Various filters of increasing complexity are derived. Experimental results are shown and compared to the standard Wiener filter results and other earlier attempts involving nonstationary filters.     

Accessory artificial circulation in complex treatment of experimental acute toxic pulmonary edema

In experiments on 50 dogs with toxic acute edema of the lung, induced with intravenous injection of 0.1% silver nitrate, the authors have studied the efficacy of accessory artificial circulation and "conservative" therapy. During the perfusion a discharge of the right portions, adequate extracorporeal gas metabolism, normalization of blood gas and acid-base balance were noted; an intensity of pulmonary edema is descreased. An intensive therapy for pulmonary edema was found to be more effective in association of "conservative" treatment with venoarterial perfusion and blood oxygenation.     

A Comparison of Voucher-Delivery Schedules for the Initiation of Cocaine Abstinence.

Studies on the use of shaping procedures to increase rates of cocaine abstinence have produced promising results. This study used a Brief Abstinence Test to examine the impact of reinforcement for initial reductions in cocaine use on a subsequent abstinence reinforcement test. Methadone maintenance patients showing evidence of cocaine use were exposed to two 1-week reinforcement conditions. During the shaping condition, participants could earn $50 vouchers on Wednesday and Friday for meeting quantitative urinalysis criteria and a $100 voucher on the following Monday for meeting the more stringent qualitative criteria. During the terminal condition, only the $100 earning opportunity for meeting the qualitative criteria was provided. Participants were more likely to meet the qualitative reinforcement criteria on Wednesday and Friday in the shaping condition than in the terminal condition. However, contrary to the initial hypothesis, the shaping reinforcement condition did not increase rates of abstinence on the final abstinence test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Dark Side of Relational Pursuit: From Attraction to Obsession and Stalking,.

Review declaring pleasant surprise with this relatively short book on stalking. It contains 164 pages of text, and provides a thorough context for understanding and treating stalking behavior, including a focus on both victim and perpetrator. The book is divided into five chapters. The first of these defines the nature of stalking behavior. Stalking is defined as harmful conduct, which involves unwanted communication and repeated unwanted intrusion by one individual upon another. The review notes that stalking behavior has three defining characteristics--(a) relentless and persistent contact, which is (b) unwanted and (c) adverse to the recipient. It is further observed that there is no single motive for stalking, nor any specific psychological profile for the personality of stalkers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of cytotoxic chemotherapy in the management of aggressive and malignant pituitary tumors

Pituitary tumors are mostly benign lesions, although 5-35% are locally invasive. A small number exhibit a more aggressive course, infiltrating dura, bone and sinuses, and are designated highly aggressive. However, the presence of metastases separate from the pituitary in the central nervous system or at a distance is necessary to designate pituitary tumors as carcinomas, i.e. truly malignant. When conventional therapeutic modalities fail, systemic chemotherapy remains the last option. We report seven such patients, three with highly aggressive and four with malignant pituitary tumors (n=4) four women; median age, 32 yr; range, 23-48 yr), who received one or more courses of chemotherapy with lomustine and 5-fluorouracil (median, two courses; range, one to six courses). Three patients with systemic metastatic disease had a shorter survival (median, 5 months; range, 1-14 months) than the one patient with central nervous system metastases alone (10 yr). A patient with an aggressive nonmetastatic prolactinoma who initially responded to chemotherapy died from another nondisease-associated cause. Two patients, one with an aggressive and one with a metastatic tumor, achieved symptomatic improvement with a median duration of 6 months. A hormonal reduction greater than 50% was observed in two of seven patients; only one patient who had an aggressive tumor obtained an objective tumor response. The median survival from the time of initiation of chemotherapy in patients with malignant tumors ranged from 3-65 months. Two patients with malignant tumors developed disease progression while receiving chemotherapy; no patient with extracranial metastases showed a response. Treatment was well tolerated, with minimal individual side-effects. Three patients with no response to initial treatment received different chemotherapeutic regimens with no additional response. All patients with metastatic malignant tumors eventually died. Treatment with cytotoxic chemotherapy is noncurative, and current experience is limited. Until another more specific form of treatment is available, chemotherapy may still be of some value in patients with highly aggressive and malignant pituitary tumors, at least in achieving a temporary remission or delay in progression. The combination of lomustine/5-fluorouracil proved easy to administer with minimal toxicity, although the response rate was only 14%. Until a more specific treatment is found, an optimal chemotherapeutic regimen needs to be established.     

Design of efficient, broadband single-element (20-80 MHz) ultrasonic transducers for medical imaging applications

This paper discusses the design, fabrication, and testing of sensitive broadband lithium niobate (LiNbO/sub 3/) single-element ultrasonic transducers in the 20-80 MHz frequency range. Transducers of varying dimensions were built for an f# range of 2.0-3.1. The desired focal depths were achieved by either casting an acoustic lens on the transducer face or press-focusing the piezoelectric into a spherical curvature. For designs that required electrical impedance matching, a low impedance transmission line coaxial cable was used. All transducers were tested in a pulse-echo arrangement, whereby the center frequency, bandwidth, insertion loss, and focal depth were measured. Several transducers were fabricated with center frequencies in the 20-80 MHz range with the measured -6 dB bandwidths and two-way insertion loss values ranging from 57 to 74% and 9.6 to 21.3 dB, respectively. Both transducer focusing techniques proved successful in producing highly sensitive, high-frequency, single-element, ultrasonic-imaging transducers. In vivo and in vitro ultrasonic backscatter microscope (UBM) images of human eyes were obtained with the 50 MHz transducers. The high sensitivity of these devices could possibly allow for an increase in depth of penetration, higher image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and improved image contrast at high frequencies when compared to previously reported results.     

基于光纤微弯的缠绕式管道形变传感器

利用多模光纤的微弯特性 ,提出并实现了一种新颖的光纤缠绕式管道形变传感器 ;也给出了它的基本实验原理 .研究表明多模光纤的微弯损耗对导管的变形响应灵敏 ,其灵敏度可达 3.5 d B/ με.并且实验与理论符合的很好     

Thermo-mechanical behaviour of a single slice test device for the FRIB high power target

One of the major challenges of the FRIB project (Facility for Rare Isotope Beams) at Michigan State University is the design and integration of the production target to produce rare isotope beams via fragmentation reaction. In the most extreme case, a 400 kW uranium beam of 200 MeV/u will be focused in a 1 mm diameter spot, leading to a power density of 60 MW/cm³ for a C target. Up to 200 kW may be dissipated in the target.A rotating solid carbon disk concept has been selected as the target design approach for all primary beams up to uranium to provide high-power operation. A high rotational speed is necessary to compensate for the high power density. A multi-slice approach allows the evacuation of the large amount of heat deposited by the increase of the radiating area. In the present design study, the multi-slice target device has a diameter of about 30 cm and rotates at about 5000 RPM (revolutions per minute). The first step of the R&D strategy consists in the development and test of a 20 kW single-slice target prototype. This single disk device is designed to accept the same fraction of power as each disk of the final multi-slice target. Critical information on thermal-mechanical properties can be obtained thus at a lower power level than the one of the full device. Different carbon materials were tested. An electron beam of ∼20 keV was used for the thermal tests. Simulations were performed using the ANSYS code for the thermo-mechanical behaviour of the target, the resulting deformation and the stress profiles of heated graphite disks. Results of the simulations were compared with experimental data.     

H∞混合灵敏度控制在主汽压系统中的应用

主蒸汽压力是电厂热工过程控制中的重要参数,由于锅炉燃烧工况变化较大,主汽压对象模型具有不确定性,常规控制方法很难得到预期的控制效果。为提高系统控制品质,提出了主汽压系统的H∞混合灵敏度设计方法,给出了选择加权函数的具体方法,采用MATLAB软件进行仿真计算,得到H∞最优控制器。仿真结果表明,在对象模型参数发生较大变化时,与常规PID调节方法相比,H∞最优控制器能使主汽压控制系统具有良好的鲁棒稳定性和动态性能。