Uplink multiservice capacity and interference statistics of WCDMA macrocells with antenna diversity reception in a multipath fading environment

We generalize the interference modeling method developed by Romero-Jerez et al. to include the effect of the number of Rake fingers, uplink orthogonality factor, number of receiving antennas and the cell radius on the cell uplink capacity. With this model, the capacity of the system for voice only users, data users only and mixed services is obtained. It is noticed that increasing the cell radius from 400 to 800 m reduces the uplink capacity for voice and data services. It is shown that the synchronous WCDMA will increase the uplink capacity by 16.9%. For the nonfading case, the uplink capacity is 12.5% higher than the uplink capacity with a fading channel.     

VEGI, a novel cytokine of the tumor necrosis factor family, is an angiogenesis inhibitor that suppresses the growth of colon carcinomas in vivo

A novel member of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) family has been identified from the human umbilical vein endothelial cell cDNA library, named vascular endothelial growth inhibitor (VEGI). The VEGI gene was mapped to human chromosome 9q32. The cDNA for VEGI encodes a protein of 174 amino acid residues with the characteristics of a type II transmembrane protein. Its amino acid sequence is 20-30% identical to other members of the TNF family. Unlike other members of the TNF family, VEGI is expressed predominantly in endothelial cells. Local production of a secreted form of VEGI via gene transfer caused complete suppression of the growth of MC-38 murine colon cancers in syngeneic C57BL/6 mice. Histological examination showed marked reduction of vascularization in MC-38 tumors that expressed soluble but not membrane-bound VEGI or were transfected with control vector. The conditioned media from soluble VEGI-expressing cells showed marked inhibitory effect on in vitro proliferation of adult bovine aortic endothelial cells. Our data suggest that VEGI is a novel angiogenesis inhibitor of the TNF family and functions in part by directly inhibiting endothelial cell proliferation. The results further suggest that VEGI maybe highly valuable toward angiogenesis-based cancer therapy.     

Mining Text with Pimiento

Information systems are using an increasing amount of unstructured information in the form of text. This situation has spawned a need to improve the text-mining technologies needed for information retrieval, filtering, and classification. This article compares some of the options available and how they can provide textual data-mining functionalities to software applications. In particular, the authors focus on Pimiento, a new object-oriented application framework for text mining. This framework allows developers to easily create distributed applications that use machine learning and statistical techniques to automatically process documents.     

Inductorless AGC amplifier for 10GBase-LX4 ethernet in 0.18 μm CMOS

A new differential automatic gain control post-amplifier for 10GBase-LX4 Ethernet realised in a 0.18 mum CMOS process is presented. Based on a very compact inductorless design, it comprises three cascaded digitally programmable gain stages followed by a bandwidth-enhancement buffer. Results show an overall -3 dB cutoff frequency above 3 GHz over a - 3 to 33 dB linear-in-dB controllable gain range in 6 dB steps with 55 mW power consumption from a 1.8 V single supply.     

Prevalence of low femoral bone density in older U.S. adults from NHANES III

Most estimates of osteoporosis in older U.S. adults have been based on its occurrence in white women, even though it is known to affect men and minority women. In the present study, we used dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry measurements of femoral bone mineral density (BMD) from the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III, 1988-1994) to estimate the overall scope of the disease in the older U.S. population. Specifically, we estimate prevalences of low femoral BMD in women 50 years and older and explore different approaches for defining low BMD in older men in that age range. Low BMD levels were defined in accordance with an approach proposed by an expert panel of the World Health Organization and used BMD data from 382 non-Hispanic white (NHW) men or 409 NHW women ages 20-29 years from the NHANES III dataset. For women, estimates indicate 13-18%, or 4-6 million, have osteoporosis (i.e., BMD > 2.5 standard deviations [SD] below the mean of young NHW women) and 37-50%, or 13-17 million, have osteopenia (BMD between 1 and 2.5 SD below the mean of young NHW women). For men, these numbers depend on the gender of the reference group used to define cutoff values. When based on male cutoffs, 3-6% (1-2-million) of men have osteoporosis and 28-47% (8-13 million) have osteopenia; when based on female cutoffs, 1-4% (280,000-1 million) have osteoporosis and 15-33% (4-9 million) have osteopenia. Most of the older U.S. adults with low femur BMD are women, but, regardless of which cutoffs are used, the number of men is substantial.     

The extremities and spine

A variety of pearls, pitfalls, and updates related to the extremities and spine are discussed. Tricks of the trade regarding shoulder dislocations, easily missed fractures, radial head subluxation, and the approach to deep lacerations are discussed. In the pitfall section, potential difficulties in the evaluation of suspected nonaccidental trauma, compartment syndromes, partial cord syndromes, and hip pain in children are discussed. Finally, new information regarding cost-effective evaluation of knee and ankle injuries, as well as advances in ultrasound evaluation of shoulder and extremity injuries, is presented in the clinical updates section.     

The potential effect of global warming on the geographic and seasonal distribution of Phlebotomus papatasi in southwest Asia

The distribution of Phlebotomus papatasi in Southwest Asia is thought to be highly dependent on temperature and relative humidity. A discriminant analysis model based on weather data and reported vector surveys was developed to predict the seasonal and geographic distribution of P. papatasi in this region. To simulate global warming, temperature values for 115 weather stations were increased by 1 degree C, 3 degrees C, and 5 degrees C, and the outcome variable coded as unknown in the model. Probability of occurrence values were then predicted for each location with a weather station. Stations with positive probability of occurrence values for May, June, July, and August were considered locations where two or more life cycles of P. papatasi could occur and which could support endemic transmission of leishmaniasis and sandfly fever. Among 115 weather stations, 71 (62%) would be considered endemic with current temperature conditions; 14 (12%) additional stations could become endemic with an increase of 1 degree C; 17 (15%) more with a 3 degrees C increase; and 12 (10%) more (all but one station) with a 5 degrees C increase. In addition to increased geographic distribution, seasonality of disease transmission could be extended throughout 12 months of the year in 7 (6%) locations with at least a 3 degrees C rise in temperature and in 29 (25%) locations with a 5 degrees C rise.     

A survey of PCB congeners in U.K. cows' milk

Samples of unpasteurised bulked milk, taken directly from ten herds of dairy cattle on rural and urban farms in the north west of England on five separate sampling occasions, were analysed for a range of PCB congeners. Sigma PCB concentrations (sum of 37 congeners) ranged from 3.4-16.4 ng/g milk fat with a mean sigma PCB concentration of 8.4 ng/g milk fat. The dominating congeners were 118, 153, 138 and 180, which contributed 15%, 20%, 17% and 9% of the sigma PCB load respectively. The chlorine pattern of the congeners which made moderate or major contributions to the sigma PCB concentration were typically substituted at both para positions (4,4'), while the PCB congeners not detected in the milk had at least one ring that was not 4-substituted. These results indicate the 4,4' substitution pattern as being the key to PCB persistence in cows. It is estimated that consumption of typical daily intakes of milk with the PCB concentrations measured in this study would contribute 11% of the average daily sigma PCB intake for individuals in the UK. This contribution would increase to 30% when exposure through the consumption of dairy products prepared from such milk (e.g. cheese, butter) is taken into account. It is estimated that the inclusion of the TEF assigned PCBs would typically increase the TEQ rating of cows' milk by approximately 40% over that attributed to PCDD/Fs alone.     

Increased risk for cancer in patients with the Peutz-Jeghers syndrome

BACKGROUND: Some reports describe an increased risk for cancer in patients with the Peutz-Jeghers syndrome. OBJECTIVE: To characterize occurrences of cancer in a large cohort of patients with the Peutz-Jeghers syndrome. DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study. SETTING: Tertiary care center. PATIENTS: 34 patients with the Peutz-Jeghers syndrome identified from Mayo Clinic records from 1945 to 1996. MEASUREMENTS: Cases of cancer documented by chart review and telephone follow-up. RESULTS: 26 cases of noncutaneous cancer developed in 18 of the 34 patients: 10 cases of gastrointestinal cancer and 16 cases of extraintestinal cancer. With the use of SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) data for comparison, the relative risk for cancer was 18.5 (95% CI, 8.5 to 35.2) in women with the Peutz-Jeghers syndrome and 6.2 (CI, 2.5 to 12.8) in men with the syndrome (P = 0.001). In women, the relative risk for breast and gynecologic cancer was 20.3 (CI, 7.4 to 44.2). CONCLUSIONS: The Peutz-Jeghers syndrome is associated with an increased risk for cancer. The relative risk for breast and gynecologic cancers is particularly high.