Similar–other support for men undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery.

This field experiment examined effects of a support intervention on the physical and mental health of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery patients. Control participants (N?=?90) received usual hospital care; experimental participants (N?=?100) also received visits from a "similar other" while in the hospital. Similar others were Veterans Administration veterans who had CABG surgery previously and were trained in simple supportive techniques. Outcomes were assessed prior to surgery and at 1, 6, and 12 months afterwards. Unexpectedly, the intervention generally had no effects on participants' well-being. Further analysis showed that participants who talked often with fellow cardiac patients in the hospital ("de facto similar others") experienced improvements in their physical and emotional well-being over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Back-end manager: an interface between a knowledge-based front end and its application subsystems

Front Ends for Open and Closed User Systems (FOCUS) is an ESPRIT/2 (no. 2620) project aimed at designing tools and techniques for the construction of knowledge-based front ends (KBFEs) for open-user systems (reusable software components, libraries, etc) and closed-user systems (free-standing software, packages, etc). An important part of the project involves the establishment of an architecture for KBFEs and the specification of the KBFE/back-end interface. This paper describes the properties and related issues of such an interface, known as the back-end manager (BEM), and its relationship to the proposed KBFE architecture.     

Extraction of Lipids from Aqueous Protein‐Rich Streams using Near‐Critical Dimethylether

An extraction process for obtaining lipids from aqueous protein/lipid mixtures has been developed using near‐critical dimethylether (DME) as the solvent. The process has been demonstrated on fresh and reconstituted egg yolks, and on selected dairy by‐product streams. The lipid yield is dependent on the processing temperature, solids content and feed ratio of solvent to liquid. The extent of protein denaturation is also dependent on these parameters. The phase equilibria of DME‐water‐phospholipid mixtures are presented with modeling of the DME‐water system using the Peng‐Robinson equation of state.     

Ventilation of small factory units

Ventilation rates have been measured using tracer gas techniques in a number of modern factory units with no mechanical ventilation. Wind direction remained fairly constant throughout the tests on individual units, enabling the variation of ventilation rate with wind speed to be determined. In the second phase of the work, measurements were made on a single building under a wide range of weather conditions. Although no correlation with wind direction was apparent, it was shown that the ventilation rate varied not only with wind speed, but also with the difference between the internal and external temperatures, i.e. the “stack effect”.     

A flexible graphical user interface for embedding heterogeneousneural network simulators

A graphical user interface (GUI) for heterogeneous neural network simulators proposed in this article is intended to be of use both for the novice and for the experienced neural network user. For the novice, it provides an easy-to-use neural network simulation package that insulates the user from the requirements of knowing the simulator implementation details or the configuration file syntax. For the experienced neural network professional it provides an interface that is easily extensible to include any additional neural network simulator in its binary form. To satisfy both academic and personal computer environments, the GUI has been developed by using the free TCL/TK software package, available on workstations running Unix and on PCs running the free Linux operating system. Although the GUI and the embedded simulators have been successfully tested both in neural network research and training programs, a more extensive testing in undergraduate and graduate level classes is in progress     

Measurement of thermal neutron and resonance integral cross sections of the reaction V(n,γ)V using a 20 Ci Am–Be isotopic neutron source

The thermal neutron capture cross section (σ_o) and the resonance integral (I_o) of the ⁵¹V(n,γ)⁵²V reaction were measured with an activation method to provide fundamental data for reactor calculation, activation analysis, and other theoretical and experimental uses concerning the interaction of neutron with matter. The vanadium and manganese samples were irradiated within and without a Cd shield case using a 20 Ci Am–Be neutron source. The activities of the samples were measured using gamma-ray spectroscopy. The thermal neutron capture cross section and the resonance integral were determined relative to the reference reaction ⁵⁵Mn(n,γ)⁵⁶Mn and the values obtained are 5.16 ± 0.19 barns and 2.53 ± 0.1 barns respectively. The previous measurements of the σ_o and I_o of the reaction ⁵¹V(n,γ)⁵²V were reviewed and the difference between the present values and the previous results were discussed.     

Fluorescent pigments from uterus of vitamin E-deficient rats

Spectrophotofluorometric analyses of the extracts of uterus from sterile rats maintained on a vitamin E-deficient diet for a prolonged period of time indicated that the brown ceroid-like pigments present were highly fluorescent, having characteristics typical of products formed during lipid peroxidation in vivo. The aqueous-methanol layer of the uteral extract from vitamin E-deficient animals had higher fluorescence than the corresponding chloroform layer, indicating the presence of more polar water-soluble pigments than those found in most other tissues so far examined.