Percutaneous transjejunal biliary intervention: 10-year experience with access via Roux-en-Y loops

Ancylostoma duodenale is still the dominant hookworm species in the Mediterranean area, India, China and Japan. In the present study, biopsied materials were taken from the small intestine of 30 patients infected only with A. duodenale and 12 cross matched controls. The results showed some pathological changes in severely infected cases. However, normal or insignificant changes were seen in the enzymatic activity of the intestinal mucosa.     

Model selection for covariance structures analysis in nursing research

Covariance structures analysis is often used in nursing research to appraise statistical models reflecting complex human health processes. The model selection approach in covariance structures analysis is designed to select the "best" model from a specified set of theoretically defensible, competing alternatives, all of which are viewed as approximations. Model selection criteria explicitly incorporate both model misfit in the population and sampling error to evaluate the set of models. The result is that interpretability of model parameters and goodness-of-fit are enhanced simultaneously. Relative merits of the model selection approach are identified in light of technical concerns, parsimony, and use of scientific theory in nursing.     

Cloning of human cDNA encoding a novel heptahelix receptor expressed in Burkitt's lymphoma and widely distributed in brain and peripheral tissues

Using PCR with degenerate primers and screening of a human B-cell lymphoblast cDNA library, a full-length cDNA encoding a 375-amino-acid protein was isolated. It contains seven regions of hydrophobic amino acids probably representing membrane-spanning domains of a novel heptahelix receptor, tentatively named CMKRL2. It shows nearly 30% overall identity with the high-affinity IL8 receptor and similar degree of homology with other chemoattractant receptors, including the "fusin" coreceptors for HIV1. Measurements of various transduction pathways following application of a panel of chemokines to transfected cells failed to evoke any reproducible response. Although the natural ligand for CMKRL2 could, thus, not be identified, receptor expression in spleen and lymph nodes as well as in Burkitt's lymphoma (irrespective of EBV status) supports a functional role in activated B-cells. Receptor message was ubiquitously distributed in normal peripheral tissues and CNS, suggesting that CMKRL2 is expressed in widespread cell populations, such as macrophages and neuroglia.     

A distortion measure for blocking artifacts in images based onhuman visual sensitivity

A visual model that gives a distortion measure for blocking artifacts in images is presented. Given the original and reproduced image as inputs, the model output is a numerical value that quantifies the visibility of blocking error in the reproduced image. The model is derived based on the human visual sensitivity to horizontal and vertical edge artifacts that result from blocking. Psychovisual experiments have been carried out to measure the visual sensitivity to these artifacts. In the experiments, typical edge artifacts are shown to subjects and the sensitivity to them is measured with the variation of background luminance, background activity, edge length, and edge amplitude. Synthetic test patterns are used as background images in the experiments. The sensitivity measures thus obtained are used to estimate the model parameters. The final model is tested on real images, and the results show that the error visibility predicted by the model correlates well with the subjective ranking.     

The EREC: an error-resilient technique for coding variable-lengthblocks of data

Many source and data compression schemes work by splitting the input signal into blocks and producing variable-length coded data for each block. If these variable-length blocks are transmitted consecutively, then the resulting coder is highly sensitive to channel errors. Synchronization code words are often used to provide occasional resynchronization at the expense of some added redundant information. This paper introduces the error-resilient entropy code (EREC) as a method for adapting existing schemes to give increased resilience to random and burst errors while maintaining high compression. The EREC has been designed to exhibit graceful degradation with worsening channel conditions. The EREC is applicable to many problems and is particularly effective when the more important information is transmitted near the start of each variable-length block and is not dependent on following data. The EREC has been applied to both still image and video compression schemes, using the discrete cosine transform (DCT) and variable-length coding. The results have been compared to schemes using synchronization code words, and a large improvement in performance for noisy channels has been observed.     

The ERPC: an efficient error-resilient technique for encodingpositional information or sparse data

In many source and data compression schemes, information relating to positions of high-energy samples or areas of importance often needs to be relayed to the decoder. The error resilient positional code (ERPC) is an efficient fixed-rate coding scheme for encoding such positional information, or, equivalently, sparse binary data patterns. It has also been designed with good channel error robustness properties, such that the decoded data quality degrades gracefully with worsening channel conditions, without the possibility of catastrophic breakdown or loss of sync. In this work, the coding efficiency of the ERPC is compared to a few other standard schemes. It is found to be efficient and its error extension in terms of the expected number of samples corrupted per bit error is reported and shown to be low and noncatastrophic. The ERPC is applied to an image coding example based on subband coding and vector quantization. It results in an efficient adaptive codec capable of operating in harsh channel conditions, without the aid of error correction or detection techniques