The role of the sympathoadrenal and opioid systems in the pathogenesis of "silent" myocardial ischemia in ischemic heart disease

In a study of 114 patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD) a relatedness has been found out of frequency and duration of "silent" ischemia of the myocardium to the degree of severity of atherosclerotic affection of the vascular bed and aggravation of IHD clinical symptomatology, with the activity of the opioid system tending to decline, catecholamines concentration being on the increase. It is beta-endorphin and leucine-enkephalin that have an important part to play in the regulation of algesthesia in IHD patients, the plasma content of which substances gets appreciably higher in exercise-induced painless ischemia. A change in the opioid-adrenosympathetic equilibrium is considered to be related to features of IHD clinical course. It is suggested that maintenance of the above two systems dynamic equilibrium might be of adaptive, antistressor character.     

Implementing Daubechies wavelet transform with weighted finite automata

We show that the compactly supported wavelet functions discovered by Daubechies [6] can be computed by weighted finite automata (WFA) introduced by Culik and Karhum?ki [2]. Furthermore, for 1-D case, a fixed WFA with states can implement any linear combination of dilations and translations of a basic wavelet at resolution . The coefficients of the wavelet transform specify the initial weights in the corresponding states of the WFA. An algorithm to simplify this WFA is presented and can be employed to compress data. It works especially well for smooth and fractal-like data. Received: 15 February 1995 / 11 April 1996     

A virtual classroom approach to teaching circuit analysis

We have implemented several innovative uses of computers and computer networks to develop a new pedagogy for the delivery of university engineering courses. These uses of computers and networks are creating efficiencies in the learning process, and students have found this interactive learning environment to be a significant improvement upon a traditional engineering course. Student performance and retention, as well as faculty productivity, are increased in this innovative teaching and learning environment     

Glycidyl methacrylate as a new host material for laser dyes

This article reports on the laser action of pyrromethene 597 and pyrromethene 567 doped in the novel solid polymeric matrix glycidyl methacrylate. Mirrorless lasing was observed when samples with diameters of 10 mm and lengths of 20 mm, with different dyes concentrations, were transversely pumped at 532 nm. The influence of the dye concentration on the laser measurements included the peak wavelengths, output energies, conversion efficiencies, and laser gains. Relatively high lasing efficiencies (up to ～ 60%) were obtained from these new polymeric materials with very good photostability, where a decrease of only 65% in the initial laser output energy was observed after pumping by 60,000 shots of 15 mJ at 10 Hz. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 59–63, 2007     

Co-metathesis reaction of crude palm oil and ethene

The co-metathesis reaction of crude palm oil with ethene in the presence of WCL₆/Me₄Sn, followed by termination of this reaction with methanol, gives terminal alkenes. The major metathesis products are 1-decene and methyl 9-decenoate.     

Relational spirituality and the development of the Similarity of the Offender’s Spirituality Scale.

We present a model of relational spirituality and forgiveness that considers how a victim’s spirituality affects his or her experience of and response to a transgression. In 2 studies, we investigate the psychometric properties of the Similarity of the Offender’s Spirituality Scale (SOS), which assesses the extent to which the victim sees the offender as spiritually similar. Results suggest the SOS has 2 factors that assess the offender’s spiritual and human similarity. The SOS showed initial evidence of construct validity, being related to other measures of spirituality and to measures of the victim’s response to a transgression. The overall model was found to offer incremental validity beyond known predictors of forgiveness. We suggest directions for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interferon gamma up-regulates a novel protein in vascular smooth muscle cells

PURPOSE: By means of the technique of messenger RNA (mRNA) differential display, we previously isolated a partial DNA clone found to be down-regulated at the polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) hyperplastic arterial anastomosis compared with the normal artery. The partial DNA gene sequence was found to be homologous with interferon gamma up-regulated protein (IGUP) first found in human psoriatic keratinocytes. We cloned the entire IGUP gene from human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to determine its regulation by gamma interferon (gamma-IFN) and other cytokines in cultured human VSMCs. METHODS: By means of polymerase chain reaction, the IGUP gene was amplified from a QUICK-Clone complementary DNA human aorta kit using 5' and 3' oligonucleotide primers to the known IGUP sequence. Immunohistocytochemistry studies compared normal artery and distal anastomotic IH. Human VSMCs were stimulated with 1000 U/mL of gamma-IFN, 5 ng/mL of platelet-derived growth factor BB (PDGF-BB), 3. 2 ng/mL basic fibroblast growth factor, 3.3 ng/mL transforming growth factor beta(TGF-beta), 10 ng/mL of vascular endothelial growth factor, and 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS) for zero, 24, 48 and 72 hours. Western blot analysis of lysates of the stimulated VSMCs was performed to determine up-regulation of IGUP. RESULTS: DNA sequencing confirmed the cloning of the entire coding region of the IGUP gene with 100% homology to the known IGUP DNA sequence. There was strong expression of IGUP in quiescent VSMCs and marked reduction of expression of IGUP in proliferating smooth muscle cells. gamma-IFN was the only cytokine, of the cytokines evaluated, to up-regulate production of IGUP in VSMCs. CONCLUSION: IGUP is a novel protein in VSMCs found to be down-regulated in areas of anastomotic IH, as compared with a normal artery. We have now shown IGUP to be up-regulated only by gamma-IFN in human VSMCs. IGUP may, therefore, be the intermediary for the known gamma-IFN inhibition of human VSMC proliferation.     

Isomorphism of degree four Cayley graph and wrapped butterfly andtheir optimal permutation routing algorithm

In this paper, we first show that the degree four Cayley graph proposed in a paper appearing in the January 1996 issue of IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems is indeed isomorphic to the wrapped butterfly. The isomorphism was first reported by Muga and Wei in the proceedings of PDPTA '96. The isomorphism is shown by using an edge-preserving bijective mapping. Due to the isomorphism, algorithms for the degree four Cayley graph can be easily developed in terms of wrapped butterfly and topological properties of one network can be easily derived in terms of the other. Next, we present the first optimal oblivious one-to-one permutation routing scheme for these networks in terms of the wrapped butterfly. Our algorithm runs in time O(√N), where N is the network size     

A quick check of network performance

Have you ever tried to measure the response time across a network? Do you sometimes wonder what throughput rate you're getting over a particular link? Are you concerned about the impact of adding streaming multimedia traffic to a network? Would you like to know the exact route your data is taking? Individual tools are available to measure the throughput and response time of your applications, trace a network route, or test a network's capacity for handling multimedia traffic. But a software tool called Qcheck can perform all of these tasks and more, while providing a quick check of network performance. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.