Rigorous modeling of the kinetics of calcium carbonate deposit formation

The complexity of CaCO₃ deposit formation on a flow surface arises from the need to take into account the multicomponent transport of all ionic species involved in the carbonic system. Several semitheoretical and empirical models are available. This article presents a rigorous kinetic model that takes into account the diffusional transport of all species involved in CaCO₃ wall deposition under turbulent flow as well as the kinetics of the CaCO₃ crystallization reaction. Conditions under which high‐ and low‐pH simplified expressions may be used are evaluated. It is shown that the simplified precipitation rate equations provide results within 10% of the rigorous solution when the high‐pH expression is applied for solutions at pH levels above 9.5, and the low‐pH expression is applied for solutions at pH levels below 7.6. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2012     

Quantitative changes in platelet counts following major urological pelvic surgery

From 1986 to 1990, a multicentric phase II study was conducted with pirarubicin, a new semi-synthetic anthracyclin[4'-O-tetrahydropyranyl-adriamycin (THP)]. 87 patients with advanced gynaecological cancers were treated: epidermoid cervical carcinoma (n = 31), adenocarcinoma of the endometrium (n = 28) and ovarian adenocarcinoma (n = 28). THP was administered by short intravenous infusion, for 3 consecutive days, every 3 weeks. The initial dose of THP was 25 mg/m2 day (25% of patients) which was then reduced to 20 mg/m2 day. The average number of courses was 3.7 (range 1-10). The cumulative THP dose was 180 mg/m2 (range 56-594) in cervix and endometrial tumours and 121 mg/m2 (range 58-425) in ovarian tumours. Myelosuppression was the major observed toxicity with grade 3-4 leukopenia and thrombocytopenia in 62 and 19% of the patients, respectively. Severe general complications occurred in 6% of the patients with three fatalities due to infections. Gastro-intestinal side-effects were frequent and usually mild (7% of grade 3 vomiting). 48% of the patients showed alopecia, which was complete in 9 cases (10%). 3 patients experienced cardiac events. No significant antitumoral activity was observed in patients who had failed to respond to previous chemotherapy. Promising antitumoral activity was noticed in untreated cervico-uterine carcinomas with 19% partial responses and 12% complete responses (CR). THP activity was lower in endometrial carcinomas (9.5% CR). Results were found to be negligible in ovarian cancer patients, most of them being refractory to previous chemotherapy containing an anthracyclin compound. On the basis of these results, the definite role of THP in gynaecological cancers deserves to be studied in more favourable programmes (e.g. in combined protocols as first-line chemotherapy).     

Coffee polyphenols protect human plasma from postprandial carbonyl modifications

The antioxidant capability of coffee polyphenols to inhibit red‐meat lipid peroxidation in stomach medium and absorption into blood of malondialdehyde (MDA) in humans was studied. Roasted‐ground coffee polyphenols that were found to inhibit lipid peroxidation in stomach medium are 2‐ to 5‐fold more efficient antioxidant than those found in instant coffee. Human plasma from ten volunteers analyzed after a meal of red‐meat cutlets (250 g) revealed a rapid accumulation of MDA. The accumulation of MDA in human plasma modified low‐density lipoprotein is known to trigger atherogenesis. Consumption of 200 mL roasted coffee by ten volunteers during a meal of red‐meat cutlets, resulted after 2 and 4 h in the inhibition by 80 and 50%, respectively, of postprandial plasma MDA absorption. The results obtained in vitro simulated stomach model on MDA accumulation were predictive for the amount of MDA absorbed into circulating human plasma, in vivo. Timing the consumption of coffee during the meals may make it a very active functional food.     

Why don't they like us? Psychologists' public image in Israel during the Persian Gulf War.

The public image of psychologists has been a major concern to the field. This article describes and analyzes the phenomenon of negative reaction toward the involvement of psychologists in the public media in Israel during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The war period was characterized by a massive presence of psychologists in the media, which gave rise to both lay and professional criticism of psychologists and their messages. An examination of the content of psychological material published during the war does not reveal blatant professional mistakes. Therefore, it is suggested that overdosage, rather than the content, of psychological messages was responsible for the extremely negative reaction against psychology, compounded by the extreme circumstances of the war. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of altruistic behavior: Empirical evidence.

Placed 124 kindergartners, 2nd, and 4th graders in situations in which they had an opportunity to share. Five situations were constructed and ordered according to the sequence of stages of helping behavior development suggested by D. Bar-Tal et al (1977); each situation differed according to the conditions in which the sharing could be performed. Ss who did not share in an advanced experimental situation were provided with an opportunity to share in progressively lower level experimental situations. After sharing, Ss were queried regarding their motives for sharing. Results show that the older the Ss, the more who shared in the advanced experimental situation and the more advanced the level of motivation for helping behavior expressed; the more advanced the experimental situation in which they shared, the more advanced the level of motivation for helping behavior expressed by Ss. Results are explained in the framework of a theory suggesting that the quality of helping behavior, as expressed in the motivation to perform it, develops with age. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactive direct rendering of trivariate B-spline scalarfunctions

This paper presents a direct rendering paradigm of trivariate B-spline functions that is able to incrementally update complex volumetric data sets in the order of millions of coefficients at interactive rates of several frames per second on modern workstations. This incremental rendering scheme can hence be employed in modeling sessions of volumetric trivariate functions, offering interactive volumetric sculpting capabilities. The rendering is conducted from a fixed viewpoint and in two phases. The first, preprocessing stage accumulates the effect that the coefficients of the trivariate function have on the pixels in the image. This preprocessing stage is conducted offline and only once per trivariate and viewing direction. The second stage conducts the actual rendering of the trivariate functions. As an example, during a volumetric sculpting operation, the artist can sculpt the volume and get a displayed feedback, in interactive rates     

Electrochemical reduction of dilute nitric acid

The conditions for electrolytic reduction of dilute nitric acid without the formation of ammonia, and without the addition of foreign substances, have been investigated. Dilute nitric acid is reduced at a graphite electrode at controlled potentials, nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide being the main products. A mechanism for this reduction is suggested.     

The perception of social-environmental characteristics in kibbutz families with family-based and communal sleeping arrangements.

Compared the perception of social-environmental characteristics in 38 families from kibbutzim with family-based sleeping arrangements (FBA) with those of 47 families from kibbutzim with communal sleeping arrangements (CA), using the Family Environment Scale—Form R. In the FBA families, the mean age of fathers was 42.2 yrs and of mothers, 37.9 yrs. The 38 children of these families were primarily in Grades 5 and 6. In the CA families, the mean age of fathers was 42.1 yrs and of mothers 38.6 yrs. Their 47 children were also primarily in Grades 5 and 6. Significant differences were obtained between the family profiles of the 2 groups. FBA families were higher in cohesion and expressiveness than were CA families. FBA families were also lower in active-recreational orientation and organization. In both groups of families, there were no differences in the perception of family climate between the husbands and wives, whereas children's perceptions differed significantly from those of their parents. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dictionary Learning for Bioacoustics Monitoring with Applications to Species Classification

This paper deals with the application of the convolutive version of dictionary learning to analyze in-situ audio recordings for bio-acoustics monitoring. We propose an efficient approach for learning and using a sparse convolutive model to represent a collection of spectrograms. In this approach, we identify repeated bioacoustics patterns, e.g., bird syllables, as words and represent new spectrograms using these words. Moreover, we propose a supervised dictionary learning approach in the multiple-label setting to support multi-label classification of unlabeled spectrograms. Our approach relies on a random projection for reduced computational complexity. As a consequence, the non-negativity requirement on the dictionary words is relaxed. Furthermore, the proposed approach is well-suited for a collection of discontinuous spectrograms. We evaluate our approach on synthetic examples and on two real datasets consisting of multiple birds audio recordings. Bird syllable dictionary learning from a real-world dataset is demonstrated. Additionally, we successfully apply the approach to spectrogram denoising and species classification.