H] Tryptamine and 3H-water as diffusible internal standards for measuring brain extraction of radio-labeled substances following carotid injection

Urinary amino acid excretion was determined in 31 leukemic patients and 29 normal individuals by rapid gas chromatographic analysis of 16 amino acids as their N-acetyl-n-propyl esters. The leukemic patients were concurrently undergoing, or had recently completed, chemotherapy. It was found that aspartic acid, threonine, and serine were of significance in distinguishing between patients "on" therapy and those "off" therapy. Patients with advanced disease have the greatest aminoaciduria, although both the normal and leukemic populations have wide individual ranges. Within both populations, men excrete a greater variety and quantity of amino acids than women. It is concluded that analysis of urinary amino acids represents a history of complex metabolic events, which is potentially useful for evaluating patient response to chemotherapy in leukemia.     

Family centered maternity care: its relationship to perinatal regionalization and neonatal intensive care

For several months prior to birth a major portion of a family's attention, conversation, thought, and often worry, is directed toward the idea of a new child. This prolonged attention and anticipation contribute to making childbirth an emotionally charged experience. In psychological terms, it is therefore a critical period of peak motivation for learning, and a time to peak susceptibility to reinforcement. Theory, reason, and scientific evidence indicate thng with childbirth and early postpartum experiences, can significantly affect subsequent parental behaviors, the child's central environment influence. Evidence strongly suggests that these parental attitudes and behaviors so crucial to the child's ultimate well-being are learned rather than derived instinctually, and therefore they are malleable and can be taught, directed, and corrected. Through education and reinforcement it is possible to encourage parental behaviors and child interactions which are products of feelings of control, competence, accomplishment, understanding, and caring. Similarly we can recognize and work toward replacing attitudes, feelings, and behaviors that express fear, worry, and insecurity about the child. Over the past 50 years major changes have occurred in the practice of obstetrics and newborn pediatrics. Other major changes will necessarily occur as we move toward perinatal regionalization. Changes instigated solely on physiologic data can have unrecognized collateral effects on the psychological component of the childbirth experience. All concerned health care personnel, especially obstetricians and pediatricians, can insist that the importance of desirable mother-father-child interactions be recognized and that practices fostering them be afforded a high priority. I would like to endorse a comment from a recent article by Richmond concerning the advent of behavioral pediatrics by adding that behavioral obstetrics is also "an idea whose time has arrived".     

A DSP-based mixed-signal waveform generator

As it currently stands, waveform generators are being employed in many diverse areas, such as radar applications, communication systems, simulation, and testing. There is considerable interest in exploring the beacon of opportunity posed by using digital signal processor (DSP)-based systems to replace costly and inadequate conventional waveform generators. The availability of high performance DSPs allows for the design of highly flexible equipment capable of real-time processing. The arbitrary waveform generator introduced in this paper consists of a DSP, a FIFO memory, a video palette, and a PC interface. A program running on the PC creates a digital representation of a waveform according to user parameters and sends it to the DSP's RAM. The DSP algorithmically converts the digital representation to a point-by-point representation of the desired analog signal. The data points are sent to the FIFO buffer, which latches the data to a video palette that serves a three-channel digital-to-analog converter. The system employs a high-speed serial port interface to communicate with a PC, to allow for readily programmed signals. In addition to the production of traditional signals, such as sinusoids and squarewaves, a mathematical tool known as splines is employed to aid in the development of customized arbitrary waveforms. Finally, a picture of our new device is presented in the paper.     

An adaptive production control system utilizing agent technology

Agents are intelligent software objects capable of reasoning about, and interacting with, their environment. This paper presents conceptual and prototypical models of an adaptive production control system based on agent technology. In the system presented both workpieces and resources are represented by agents. Supervisory agents are introduced as the production load on the resources increases and removed as the load decreases. These supervisory agents serve to balance the production load across resources and maximize overall throughput. Simulation studies are presented demonstrating improvements in throughput, resource utilization, and work-in-process inventories over systems invariant to production load.     

Texting While Driving: An Empirical Investigation of Students’ Attitudes and Behaviors

The distracting effects of texting while driving activity of young adults are receiving increasing attention. The findings indicate that individuals involved in texting while driving also engage in other risky behaviors. Furthermore, frequency of texting while driving appears to be related to several factors, including self-control, attitudes toward texting and responsible driving, and opinions of peers, but interestingly not with social responsibility. In conclusion, the frequency of texting while driving of young adults appears to be related to several factors, suggesting possible ways the frequency of texting while driving may be affected.     

Forensically Robust Detection of the Presence of Morpholine in Apples—Proof of Principle

Morpholine is a precursor of carcinogenic nitrosamines and although the possibility of their formation in the human stomach after ingestion of morpholine-treated apples is reported as highly unlikely morpholine has not been authorised as a food additive in the EU. Methods for its detection are required since it is permitted in other jurisdictions and may be present on food through direct treatment of fruit with waxes containing the compound, through steam treatment during processing or from packaging. Methods using derivatising agents with the inclusion of UV chromophores such as dansyl chloride yield good separation and high sensitivity but with mass spectrometric fragment ions predominantly originated from the derivatising group rather than the morpholine moiety. An amine acetylation derivatisation method is proposed from which fragment ions originating from the morpholine group are detected using widely available GC–MS. With full validation, a forensically robust confirmation of the presence of morpholine via its N-acetyl derivative is possible in support of regulatory analysis.     

28—CAM-TO-NEEDLE IMPACT FORCES IN WEFT-KNITTING PART V: GUARD-CAM IMPACT

The significance of guard-cam impact with respect to needle damage is briefly discussed, and a simplified theoretical analysis of guard-cam impact is derived.     

Polystyrene-poly(2-ethylhexylmethacrylate) block copolymers: Synthesis,bulk phase behavior,and thin film structure

Anionic polymerization was employed to synthesize well-defined diblock copolymers of polystyrene and poly(2-ethylhexylmethacrylate), PS-PEHMA. Diblock morphologies in bulk and in substrate-supported thin films were characterized by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), respectively. PS-PEHMA diblocks exhibited thermotropic order-disorder transitions; one diblock showed a thermoreversible transition between lamellae and a higher-temperature morphology assigned as perforated lamellae. Unlike PS-poly(alkylmethacrylate) diblocks where the alkyl group is n-butyl or n-pentyl, PS-PEHMA diblocks showed a typical decreasing Flory interaction parameter with increasing temperature. Thin films of PS-cylinder-forming PS-PEHMA diblocks showed a strong preference for the cylinders to lie in the plane of the film; films of incommensurate thickness readily formed terraces. Films of commensurate thickness were easily aligned over macroscopic areas through the application of mechanical shear.