Sleep problems of junior high school students in Taipei

The objective of this work was to study the relationship between daily sleep time and characteristics of students, e.g. grade level, gender, and academic program. A sleep habit questionnaire was designed to survey students at two junior high schools, one from northern Taipei and the other from southern Taipei. The impact of shortened duration of sleep on daily function was also evaluated. A total of 965 students and their parents were selected randomly in December 1993 for the questionnaire study. The response rate was 96.4% (930) for students and 88.6% (855) for parents. The self-reported daily sleep time of students declined, and daytime sleepiness and moodiness increased in the higher grades. The girls slept fewer hours than the boys and did not show an increase in daytime sleepiness. Those students not taking the senior high school joint entrance examination slept more hours at night and maintained more alertness in the daytime than those who were taking the examination. The more academic pressures that adolescents faced, the fewer hours they slept. Students not participating in the joint entrance examination seemed to show a healthier sleep pattern. Little sleep at night made the students feel sleepy in the daytime and tired, drowsy, moody and difficult at arising in the morning. The reason why girls slept less than boys needs further investigation.     

Ligand binding and covalent structure of an oxygen-binding heme protein from Rhodobacter sphaeroides, a representative of a new structural family of c-type cytochromes

The amino acid sequence of an oxygen-binding heme protein (SHP) from Rhodobacter sphaeroides has been determined. The cysteines, which bind the single heme group in the 112-residue protein, are located at positions 43 and 46. SHP is similar in size to the large membrane-bound form of the class I cytochrome c5 of Azotobacter vinelandii (116 residues) and in the location of the heme binding site at positions 48 and 51. Two extra cysteines in SHP (residues 89 and 97) are located in positions similar to those of cytochrome c5 (residues 98 and 101) and form a disulfide bridge in both proteins. In total, four regions of alpha-helix are predicted, covering 46% of the protein, which is comparable to that in other small cytochromes. SHP is thus distantly related to small class I c-type cytochromes but is representative of a distinct family by virtue of its high-spin nature, the lack of a strong sixth ligand, and its capacity to bind oxygen. Potentially, the most important characteristic of SHP is its ability to transiently bind oxygen during autoxidation, which occurs with a half-life of 3 min with a 4-fold excess of O2. SHP also binds carbon monoxide, azide, and cyanide. The kinetics of reduction by free flavins indicate that SHP is less reactive than other class I cytochromes c and that the heme is less accessible to solvent. There is localized positive charge (+3) at the site of reduction of SHP, although the overall protein charge is -2. This may account in part for the ability of SHP to bind anions.     

Practical accuracy analysis of some existing effective channellength and series resistance extraction methods for MOSFET's

A method to analyze the accuracy of the extracted values for the channel length (L_eff) and series resistance (R_s) of MOSFET devices is presented. The analysis is based on a statistical argument being the variance σ of the extracted results. This variance is found to be a good measure for the accuracy of the particular extraction method used. It is shown that, in the case of deep submicron technologies, errors as large as 200 nm for ΔL can be made for these extraction methods depending on the process design and the process control. The use of a single transistor method is suggested as a possible solution to the low accuracy of the L-array methods     

Developing Mature Internet Strategies

Although the banking industry plays a central role in the world economy and has traditionally been an innovative user of information technology, banks are struggling to develop mature Internet strategies. A model used to analyze the type of Internet activities among a sample of banks as well as their level of sophistication and customization is useful not only for revealing unexploited opportunities in the banking sector but also for guiding the strategy-building process of organizations in other industries.     

Effects of preload, afterload and inotropy on dynamics of ischemic segmental wall motion

OBJECTIVES: This study sought to explore the separate and combined effects of changes in preload, afterload and contractility on the dynamics of systolic bulging. BACKGROUND: The extent of ischemic systolic bulging has been shown to be mechanically disadvantageous to left ventricular pump performance. The factors that determine ischemic segmental wall motion have not been systematically studied. METHODS: Fourteen beagles were instrumented with sonomicrometers, micromanometer pressure gauges and a balloon in the inferior vena cava. Regional function was evaluated before and after 90 s of proximal left circumflex coronary artery occlusion. Occlusions were repeated after increasing systolic pressure by 5 to 10 (afterload I) and 15 to 20 mm Hg (afterload II) with graded aortic occlusion during inotropic stimulation with dobutamine (2.5 and 5 micrograms/kg body weight per min intravenously), with simultaneous 5 micrograms/kg per min dobutamine infusion and afterload II and during 2.5% halothane (negative inotrope) concentration. A 20-min recovery period was allowed between each stage of the experiment so that regional function returned to its preocclusion level. Ischemic wall motion was characterized by percent systolic bulging and its peak positive systolic lengthening rate (+dL/dt). RESULTS: Because bulging is markedly influenced by regional preload, systolic bulging was characterized over a wide range of end-diastolic lengths of the ischemic segment during caval balloon occlusion. During each intervention, a decrease in regional preload increased the extent of percent systolic bulging. This preload dependency was more pronounced with dobutamine infusions. An increase in afterload was not associated with increased percent systolic bulging at any given preload. At a predetermined preload, bulging was not appreciably altered when an increase in left ventricular systolic pressure was not associated with a change in peak positive first derivative of left ventricular pressure (+dP/dt) but was significantly worse when peak +dP/dt increased. Dobutamine caused a dose-dependent increase in percent systolic bulging and peak +dL/dt that was positively correlated with peak +dP/dt. CONCLUSIONS: By using different loading and inotropic interventions and analyzing the regional wall motion behavior over a range of regional preloads, we can conclude that preload and rate of pressure (tension) development are the principal determinants of systolic bulging. Increases in left ventricular pressure alone had a minimal effect on systolic bulging.     

Comparative study on adaptive rational macromodels of highly resonant structures

Two macromodeling techniques using rational bases are investigated to accurately predict the natural frequencies of highly resonant microwave structures. Three methods are proposed and compared to calculate pole‐free solutions to the Thiele continued fraction and vector fitting pole‐residue models of the characteristic equation det[Z(s)]. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2007.     

Vorticity field structure associated with the 3D Tollmien-Schlichting waves

Details of the vorticity field structure associated with the 3D Tollmien-Schlichting waves have been examined based upon the recent numerical studies of the subject. First, a single obliquet-s wave has been found to have the velocity component parallel to the wave front playing an overall dominant role, in particular, to create the longitudinal vorticity. The so-called Benney-Lin longitudinal vortices are then demonstrated to be, in fact, a minor consequence compared with the localized longitudinal vorticity field and its periodic pumping. Finally, the formation of the longitudinal vorticity field in the fundamental- and subharmonic-mode interactions is explained. The research reported in this paper has been supported in part by Bundesministerium für Forschung und Technologie and by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. The major part of the paper has been presented at the Third Asian Congress of Fluid Mechanics, 1–5 September 1986, in Tokyo, as a General Lecture by the senior author, FRH.     

Effect of an enhanced natural radioactivity on mammal fertility

Male and female mice of the BALB/c strain were placed on the floor of a hut built at a site of the Permian Basin of Lodève (Southwest France) where the dose rate of γ radiation amounts to about 10 mrad/h. In previous experiments such high natural radioactivity was shown to induce point mutations in plant material as well as chromosome aberrations in somatic cells of experimental mammals. Controls were kept near the radioactive site under comparable conditions. After the exposure period, the animals were mated in our laboratory, with control mice of the same strain.Due to the high radiosensitivity of mouse oocytes, the fertility of the exposed females was drastically reduced in spite of the fact that the dose received did not exceed 13.8 rad. The fertility of the males exposed to 13 rad, 15 rad or to 45 rad was increased above the control values but was reduced for the animals receiving 63 rad. Analysis of the results show that the differences in fertility are mainly due to a decrease in the number of sterile pairs when males have been exposed to doses upto 45 rad and to an inverse effect when animals received 63 rad. Since histology and weight of the testes suggest that the germ cell population was normal, one has to conclude that the variations in fertility result from physiological effects.     

Presence of X-prolyl-dipeptidyl-peptidase in lactic acid bacteria

Prolyl-dipeptidyl-peptidase activity was detected in cell extracts of 21 lactic acid bacteria tested. Using disc electrophoresis and various substrates it was possible to distinguish it from proline iminopeptidase and proline endopeptidase. Generally the activity was high and was greater than that of proline iminopeptidase of proline endopeptidase at neutral pH and at 25 degrees C.