Evaluation of sequential thallium and gallium scans of the chest in AIDS patients

With decreasing incidence of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) in AIDS as a result of prophylactic regimens, there is a higher incidence of tuberculosis (TB), mycobacterium avii complex (MAC), kaposi sarcoma and malignant lymphoma. There is a need for differentiating these various pathological entities. The purpose of this study was for a retrospective evaluation of sequential thallium and gallium scans in AIDS patients for differentiating intrathoracic kaposi sarcoma from malignant lymphoma and opportunistic infections. METHODS: A total of 181 patients had both studies completed between March 1992 and May 1994. The final diagnosis was verified only in 83 patients. Results were correlated with the CD4 counts, bronchoscopic and chest radiograph findings. RESULTS: In patients with pulmonary kaposi sarcoma and no opportunistic infections (19 patients), a thallium-positive, gallium-negative pattern was detected in 17 patients with a sensitivity of 89%. In the presence of kaposi sarcoma plus opportunistic infections, this pattern was only detected in 7 of 19 patients (sensitivity dropped to 37%). In 45 patients with opportunistic infections and no kaposi sarcoma, only two false-positive findings were found in patients with cytomegalic virus pneumonia for a specificity of 96%. For the whole group of 83 patients, sensitivity was 63%; specificity 95%; positive predictive value 92%; accuracy 81%; and negative predictive value 75%. CONCLUSION: A thallium-positive, gallium-negative pattern in AIDS patients has a high specificity for the diagnosis of kaposi sarcoma, however, the sensitivity dropped from 89% to 37% in the presence of opportunistic infections.     

An approach for determining surface temperature distributions of solid objects subjected to heating applications

This study presents a simple technique of determining surface temperature values and/or distributions of solid objects of various geometrical shapes (e.g. infinite slab, infinite cylinder, and sphere) during heating in a medium under natural or forced convection conditions. In the model, the boundary condition of the third kind (i.e., 0.1 < Bi < 100) in transient heat transfer, which is commonly encountered, is used. In many practical applications ranging from metallurgy to food engineering processes, the measurement of surface temperatures of such solid objects is a remarkable problem; however, centre temperature measurements are quite easy. For this reason, simple and accurate models are required for use in practice. The proposed model depends on the centre temperature and determines the surface temperatures using the centre temperature measurements. In order to test the present analytical model, an actual example for a slab object was given and the centre and surface temperature profiles were drawn. In addition, the centre and surface temperature distributions for infinite slab, infinite cylinder, and sphere were computed for the values of 0.1, 1, 10, and 100 of the Biot number and were exhibited as reference graphics. As a result, the present model is capable of determing surface temperatures of various geometrical objects heated in any medium using their centre temperature measurements in a simple and accurate manner.     

Plasma-modified multiwalled carbon nanotubes with polyaniline for glucose biosensor applications

Multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) was modified through plasma polymerization of aniline by applying different radio frequency (radio frequency (RF): 13.56?MHz) powers. The modified MWCNTs were investigated in terms of morphology, chemical structure, and thermal behaviors, indicating the formation of composites based on the surface modification of MWCNT with polyaniline (PANI). These composites were then used in amperometric glucose biosensor, which was constructed by immobilizing glucose oxidase on premodified Pt electrode with PANI/MWCNT composites. The biosensor based on the composite obtained under RF power of 60?W exhibited the high sensitivity of 54.91?µA mM^?1 cm^?2 to glucose.     

Atrial fibrillation classification with artificial neural networks

The acquired 72 normal sinus rhythm ECGs and 80 ECGs with atrial fibrillation (AF) are decomposed with ‘db10’ Daebauchies wavelets at level 6 and power spectral density was calculated for each decomposed signal with Welch method. Average power spectral density was calculated for six subbands and normalized to be used as input to the neural network. Levenberg-Marquart backpropagation feed forward neural network was built from logarithmic sigmoid transfer functions in three-layer form. The trained network was tested on 24 normal and 28 AF state ECGs. The classification performance was accomplished as 100% accurate.     

Determination of optimum welding parameters in connecting high alloyed X53CrMnNiN219 and X45CrSi93 steels by friction welding

In this study, different welding parameters were applied to two different steels with high alloys and mechanical and metallographical investigations are performed. Thus, the optimum welding parameters were determined for these materials and working conditions. 12·30 diameter steel bars made up of 1·4871 (X53CrMnNiN219) and 1·4718 (X45CrSi93) steel were used as experimental material. The material loss increased with increase in friction and rotating pressure. No fracture at the welding region was observed and the highest fracture energy was identified in B5 group. Based on micro hardness investigation; the hardness profile reached its minimum value at the welding region.     

New aqueous base developable photoresist for lithographic printing plates applications

Negative photoresists are materials that become insoluble in developing solution when exposed to optical radiation. This work describes the production of simple negative‐working resists, demonstrating aqueous development, for potential printing plate applications. The copolymers comprised glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) and acrylic acid (AA) via free‐radical solution polymerization in methyl ethyl ketone as a solvent using azobisisobutyronitrile as initiator at 60°C. Characterization of the copolymers prepared was carried out via IR, ¹H‐NMR, and thermal analysis techniques. The copolymers of GMA/AA were successfully prepared over a wide range of composition. It was found that the copolymer containing 15 mol % of AA unit in the feed was developed with NaOH on copper plate rather than zinc plate and crosslinked in the presence of photogenerated acid (PAG) caused by acid‐initiated ring‐opening polymerization of pendant epoxide groups. Exposure of the resist films to UV radiation at λ_max = 365 nm results in the generation of acid, and the subsequent baking process at 80°C for 1 min promotes the diffusion of the PAG, which initiates the cationic crosslinking of the epoxide rings. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010     

Three-dimensional optoelectronic stacked processor by use of free-space optical interconnection and three-dimensional VLSI chip stacks

We present a demonstration system under the three-dimensional (3D) optoelectronic stacked processor consortium. The processor combines the advantages of optics in global, high-density, high-speed parallel interconnections with the density and computational power of 3D chip stacks. In particular, a compact and scalable optoelectronic switching system with a high bandwidth is designed. The system consists of three silicon chip stacks, each integrated with a single vertical-cavity-surface-emitting-laser-metal-semiconductor-metal detector array and an optical interconnection module. Any input signal at one end stack can be switched through the central crossbar stack to any output channel on the opposite end stack. The crossbar bandwidth is designed to be 256 Gb/s. For the free-space optical interconnection, a novel folded hybrid micro-macro optical system with a concave reflection mirror has been designed. The optics module can provide a high resolution, a large field of view, a high link efficiency, and low optical cross talk. It is also symmetric and modular. Off-the-shelf macro-optical components are used. The concave reflection mirror can significantly improve the image quality and tolerate a large misalignment of the optical components, and it can also compensate for the lateral shift of the chip stacks. Scaling of the macrolens can be used to adjust the interconnection length between the chip stacks or make the system more compact. The components are easy to align, and only passive alignment is required. Optics and electronics are separated until the final assembly step, and the optomechanic module can be removed and replaced. By use of 3D chip stacks, commercially available optical components, and simple passive packaging techniques, it is possible to achieve a high-performance optoelectronic switching system.     

Differential impedance spectroscopy for monitoring protein immobilization and antibody-antigen reactions

This work describes the theoretical and experimental approaches for monitoring the interfacial biomolecular reaction between immobilized antibody and the antigen binding partner using novel differential impedance spectroscopy. The prerequisite of any biosensor is the immobilization of macromolecules onto the surface of a transducer. It is clear that the function of most macromolecules changes from what is observed in solution once immobilization has occurred. In the worst case, molecules entirely lose their binding activity almost immediately after immobilization. Certain conditions (e.g., denaturation, interfacial effects based on ionic strength, surface charge, dielectric constants, etc.) at interfaces are responsible for alterations of binding activity; it is not clear whether a combination of such processes is understood. However, these processes in combination must be reliably modeled in order to predict the outcome for most macromolecules. This work presents the theoretical and practical means for elucidating the surface reactivity of biomolecular reagents using ion displacement model with antibody-antigen (Ab-Ag) reaction as the test case. The Ab-Ag reaction was directly monitored using a dual-channeled, impedance analyzer capable of 1 measurement/s using covalent immobilization chemistry and polymer-modified electrodes in the absence of a redox probe. The evidence of Ab-Ag binding was revealed through the evolution of differential admittance. The surface loading obtained using the covalent immobilization chemistry was 9.0 x 10(16)/cm2, whereas with polymer-modified electrodes, the surface loading was 9.0 x 10(15)/cm2, representing a 10 times increase in surface reactivity. The proposed approach may be applicable to monitoring other surface interfacial reactions such as DNA-DNA interactions, DNA-protein interactions, and DNA-small molecule interactions.