The small-cell variant of mycosis fungoides. A clinicopathological and quantitative electron microscopic study on 14 patients

Small-cell variants of Sézary syndrome and mycosis fungoides (MF) have been described. However, in these studies the nuclear area of the small-cell variant of MF (SC-MF) as compared to histological classical MF (CL-MF) was not characterized objectively by quantitative electron microscopy. In a 14-year follow-up period, of a total of 76 patch/plaque stage MF patients seen in the Department of Dermatology of the University Hospital Utrecht, 14 (18%) had an infiltrate composed of atypical lymphocytes characterized by a distinctly smaller cell diameter and smaller, hyperchromatic, deeply indented nuclei as compared to the usual cell type of MF. The aim of the investigation was to confirm this observation objectively using quantitative electron microscopy (morphometry) and to define SC-MF as compared to CL-MF. The study was performed on the 14 patients with SC-MF, and 10 patients with clinical and histological CL-MF and 4 patients with chronic eczema. Electron micrographs of sections obtained from each biopsy were analysed by computer to produce the following data: a nuclear contour index (NCI), the mean nuclear area (MNA), the mean nuclear area of the cells above the 75th percentile (P75NA) and the percentage of cells larger than 30 microm2. The values of MNA differed significantly between patients with SC-MF and those with CL-MF (17.6 vs 23.2 microm2; P = 0.02), as did the values of P75NA (20.7 vs 27.9 microm2; P = 0.01). The NCI of the SC-MF and CL-MF patients were similar. These results are consistent with our observations that SC-MF does indeed exist.     

Optimisation of solar photovoltaic (PV) parameters using meta-heuristics

Microsystem Technologies - This paper presents a critical analysis of the meta-heuristic techniques used in various researches on the optimisation of photovoltaic (PV) parameters, which involves...     

Analysis of spring softening effect on the collapse voltage of capacitive MEMS ultrasonic transducers

Microsystem Technologies - This paper explained the dependency of collapse voltage on semiconductor device structural features (membrane diameter, membrane thickness and the vertical distance...     

Continuous process control using neural networks

We present some adaptive control strategies based on neural networks that can be used for designing controllers for continuous process control problems. Specifically, a learning algorithm has been formulated based on reinforcement learning, a weakly supervised learning technique, to solve set-point control and control scheduling for continuous processes where the process cannot be modeled easily. It is shown how reinforcement learning can be used to learn the control strategy adaptively based on exploration of the control space without making assumptions about the process model. A new learning scheme, handicapped learning, was developed to learn a control schedule that specifies a schedule of set points. Applications studied include the control of a nonisothermal continuously stirred tank reactor at its unstable state and the learning of the daily time-temperature schedule for an environment controller. Experimental results demonstrate good learning performance, indicating that the learning algorithm can be used for solving transient startup and boundary value control problems.     

Cognitive distortions and adolescent affective disorder. Validity of the CNCEQ in an inpatient sample. Children's Negative Cognitive Error Questionnaire

Despite a proliferation of recent research examining childhood and adolescent depression, the area still lags behind the adult depression field, particularly in the investigation of cognitive correlates of affective psychopathology. To advance cognitive research with youth, the Children's Negative Cognitive Error Questionnaire (CNCEQ) was developed to provide a measure of cognitive distortions or errors in children and adolescents. Yet, few studies have employed the CNCEQ and no evidence exists supporting the validity of its four component cognitive error scales. The purpose of the present study was to examine the construct validity of the CNCEQ and its constituent scales through the use of factor analysis and criterion-group comparisons. Groups of adolescent psychiatric inpatients, diagnosed as affective or disruptive disordered, completed the CNCEQ following admission. Results failed to support the implicit four-factor structure of the CNCEQ, instead suggesting the appropriateness of a single-factor solution labeled "negative thinking." Despite no diagnostic group differences on the CNCEQ total or other scale scores, affective disordered patients evinced more cognitive errors on the Overgeneralizing scale. Findings suggest that the CNCEQ in its current stage of development holds promise, yet requires refinement to produce a valid measure of cognitive functioning in youth.     

Psychosocial correlates of childhood anxiety disorders

OBJECTIVE: This study explored psychosocial and "environmental" correlates of childhood anxiety disorders. The study examined relationships among parental psychiatric symptomatology, perceived family environment, temperament, and self-competence in children with a DSM-III-R anxiety disorder. METHOD: A community sample of third through sixth graders was screened initially for symptoms of test anxiety. Those with high and low scores were administered the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children. Three groups (childhood anxiety disorder, test-anxious only, and normal controls) were identified and compared on the psychosocial variables. RESULTS: Children with an anxiety disorder had greater impairment on the indices of perceived self-competence and temperamental flexibility than controls, with the test-anxious children showing intermediate, yet significant, levels of disturbance. There was a trend for children with an anxiety disorder to describe their families as less promoting of independence than the other groups. Finally, measures of parental psychiatric symptomatology revealed more obsessive-compulsive symptoms for the fathers of both the anxiety disorder and test-anxious children compared with controls. CONCLUSIONS: Results are consistent with previous findings suggesting the familial transmission of anxiety disorders and recent speculations regarding a relationship between behavioral inhibition, environmental control, and anxiety. Further research may isolate psychosocial and family environmental factors as instrumental treatment targets in the management of childhood anxiety disorders.     

Design,simulation and analysis of RF MEMS capacitive shunt switches with high isolation and low pull-in-voltage

Microsystem Technologies - This paper presents the design a capacitive shunt type RF-MEMS switch with high isolation, high switching speed and low actuation voltage for Ka-band applications. The...     

Isolation and characterization of a monoclonal anti-quadruplex DNA antibody from autoimmune "viable motheaten" mice

A cell line that produces an autoantibody specific for DNA quadruplex structures has been isolated and cloned from a hybridoma library derived from 3-month-old nonimmunized autoimmune, immunodeficient "viable motheaten" mice. This antibody has been tested extensively in vitro and found to bind specifically to DNA quadruplex structures formed by two biologically relevant sequence motifs. Scatchard and nonlinear regression analyses using both one- and two-site models were used to derive association constants for the antibody-DNA binding reactions. In both cases, quadruplexes had higher association constants than triplex and duplex molecules. The anti-quadruplex antibody binds to the quadruplex formed by the promoter-region-derived oligonucleotide d(CGCG4GCG) (Ka = 3.3 x 10(6) M-1), and has enhanced affinity for telomere-derived quadruplexes formed by the oligonucleotides d(TG4) and d(T2G4T2G4T2G4T2G4) (Ka = 5.38 x 10(6) and 1.66 x 10(7) M-1, respectively). The antibody binds both types of quadruplexes but has preferential affinity for the parallel four-stranded structure. In vitro radioimmunofilter binding experiments demonstrated that purified anti-DNA quadruplex antibodies from anti-quadruplex antibody-producing tissue culture supernatants have at least 10-fold higher affinity for quadruplexes than for triplex and duplex DNA structures of similar base composition and length. The antibody binds intramolecular DNA triplexes formed by d(G4T3G4T3C4) and d(C4T3G4T3G4), and the duplex d(CGCGCGCGCG)2 with an affinities of 6. 76 x 10(5), 5.59 x 10(5), and 8.26 x 10(5) M-1, respectively. Competition experiments showed that melted quadruplexes are not effective competitors for antibody binding when compared to native structures, confirming that the quadruplex is bound structure-specifically. To our knowledge, this is the first immunological reagent known to specifically recognize quadruplex structures. Subsequent sequence analysis demonstrates homologies between the antibody complementarity determining regions and sequences from Myb family telomere binding proteins, which are hypothesized to control cell aging via telomeric DNA interactions. The presence of this antibody in the autoimmune repertoire suggests a possible linkage between autoimmunity, telomeric DNA binding proteins, and aging.     

Antitumor, immunomodulatory and anti-HIV effect of mangiferin, a naturally occurring glucosylxanthone

We proposed previously a cyclic code made of 22 triplets, which we now call the AB code. It is made up of the following chain: AUGGUGCCAUUCAAGACUAUGA. The letters A, U, C, G represent the classical symbols of the (purine and pyrimidine) bases of the genetic code. This chain presents the following features: (1) when it is in cyclic form, it begins with the initiation codon AUG, ends with the termination codon UGA, and it can be read triplet after triplet by choosing 1 and only 1 representative of each synonymy class in the classical degenerate genetic code made of 64 triplets. The chain, therefore, possesses 1 and only 1 codon for each amino-acid; (2) except for the doublet CG, triplets of the chain begin with the 15 other possible doublets of bases (satisfying the "wobble" hypothesis presented by Crick); (3) it corresponds (except for 1 base) to the "loop" part of the CEnothera mitochondrial Gly-tRNA; (4) it can be modified, without loss of the properties (1) and (2), in such a way as to have 15 bases in common with the loop part of other mitochondrial tRNA's considered as primitive, like Ala-, Pro- and Arg-tRNA; (5) it contains the most frequent triplets, but not the most rare ones, appearing in the genome of numerous species; (6) it exhibits a coherent internal structure with respect to the molecular weight of its triplets. This structure, also found in the loop part of mitochondrial tRNA's, contains an excess of AU bases with respect to GC bases. This fact has no explanation in the classical probabilistic model of the tRNA's. Therefore, we propose the cyclic AB code as a primitive genetic structure with the essential coding properties of the present genetic code.     

Sensitivity improvement using optimized heater design for dual axis thermal accelerometers

This paper investigates the sensitivity improvement of an air filled cavity based thermal accelerometer. The accelerometer does not contain any solid proof mass and it is realizable in CMOS technology. The sensitivity has been improved by a new square ring shaped heater structure. The sensitivity of accelerometer performance is compared with other different heater shapes. It is found that, heater design having higher heat dissipation in the suspended beam gives higher sensitivity. The simulation is carried out using commercial FEM simulator COMSOL Multiphysics. For the peak heater temperature of 609 K, the proposed square ring shaped heater provides a sensitivity of 0.335 K/g. Under same conditions, sensitivity of an accelerometer with a meander shaped heater structure is only 0.098 K/g and diamond shaped structure is 0.229 K/g.