The effect of N-acetylcysteine on total serum anti-oxidant potential and urinary albumin excretion in critically ill patients

PURPOSE: Calcium channel blockers have been reported to increase the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding. We tested this hypothesis, and also assessed whether beta blockers decrease this risk. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A nested case-control design within a population-based cohort of all 34,074 new users of beta blockers, angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors, or calcium channel blockers in Saskatchewan, from 1990 to 1993 and followed up to March 1995, was used. We identified all 311 subjects hospitalized because of gastrointestinal bleeding during this period, each of whom was matched to 10 randomly selected controls. RESULTS: The rate of hospitalization for gastrointestinal bleeding was 3.0 per 1,000 per year. The adjusted rate ratio of gastrointestinal bleeding for current use of calcium channel blockers was 1.1 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.8 to 1.4) and 0.66 (95% CI 0.44 to 0.98) for beta blockers compared with no current use of anti-hypertensive drugs. The adjusted rate ratio for ACE inhibitor use was 1.0 (95% CI 0.7 to 1.3) while that for diuretic use was 1.4 (95% CI 1.0 to 2.0). CONCLUSIONS: The use of calcium channel blockers does not appear to increase the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding in the first five years of treatment, while beta blockers may prevent this adverse event. The unexpected elevated risk associated with the use of diuretics needs to be investigated further.     

Map-based direct position control system for wireless ad-hoc networks

The mobility modelling is one of the most important issues in wireless ad-hoc networks, therefore our research activities are focused on this area. This paper presents a new solution for map-based mobility modelling system which enables direct position control for mobile stations. This system, based on the cooperation model between OPNET Modeler simulation environment and MATLAB tool, provides fully automated process of direct position control with respect to the initial requirement and attributes. Firstly, the input information are collected in OPNET Modeler and forwarded to MATLAB environment. After that, MATLAB process a map source stored as a bitmap image and runs the function which generates a set of coordinates. These coordinates are transferred back to OPNET Modeler and used for the direct movement control of mobile stations. Our system developed was evaluated by the set of simulation runs and the results are placed on the end of this paper.     

Plasma etch-induced conduction changes in gallium nitride

The effect of plasma-etching damage on carrier transport properties in GaN has been studied under various plasma conditions by monitoring the changes in sheet resistivity (ρ _s) and mobility (μ _s) or the resistivity (R). All the etching experiments were performed in an electron cyclotron resonance microwave plasma reactive ion etching (ECR-RIE) system. Consistent changes in the transport properties have been observed with increasing dc bias (ion energy) in all plasmas except in those containing chlorine. With noble gas plasmas, the largest change in conductance was created when Ar, the heaviest ion, was accelerated to its highest voltage. In these Ar sputtering cases, substantial surface micro-roughening has been observed. These surfaces also display considerable nitrogen deficiency as measured by Auger electron spectroscopy. These observations suggest that preferential sputtering of nitrogen from the surface of GaN is one form of ion damage. The other is displacement damage. Both of these forms of ion damage are considered to be the direct cause of the observed changes in the electrical properties.     

Interference cancellation with an array processing MLSE receiver

the capacity and transmission quality in cellular systems can be improved by using receivers that mitigate cochannel interference and multipath propagation. In this paper, a class of multichannel maximum likelihood sequence estimation (MLSE) receivers is developed for this purpose. Interference mitigation is accomplished via adaptive antenna arrays, while multipath propagation is combated via MLSE. Practical considerations are included, such as fixed front-end filtering, sampling, and estimation of parameters from received samples. Maximal ratio combining, conventional array processing and metric combining (MC) are shown to be special cases of the proposed receivers. Performance is evaluated for π/4-shift DQPSK, using the parameters and transmission format of the time-division multiple-access (TDMA)-based IS-136 (D-AMPS) digital cellular standard. Semi-analytical performance predictions are developed which confirm simulation trends. The results show that these receivers can operate at significantly lower carrier-to-interferer (C/I) levels than conventional MC receivers     

A Detailed Experimental Study of the LEO Satellite to Indoor Channel Characteristics

General investigations and results from ratherextensive measurement campaigns are presented tocharacterize the propagation channel of SatellitePersonal Communication Systems; in the measurements the satellite was simulated by a helicopter andmeasurements at S band and L band were made. A newconceptual partitioning of the full link is introduced;the measrement equipment and the environment aredescribed. The major part of the paper deals withpresentation of the measurement results and theiranalyses. Measured and analyzed are average lossincluding satellite elevation and azimuth positiondependence, first-order statistics, Doppler characteristics, andwide-band characteristics. Finally, some rather generalconclusions are drawn.     

The Jakes fading model for antenna arrays incorporating azimuth spread

A new method for simulating the multiplicative fading of the narrow-band, flat wireless channel for antenna array receivers is presented. The new approach produces a set of fading waveforms, one waveform associated with each receiver element, in which the waveforms are appropriately correlated to take into account the spread, or dispersion, in the azimuth (arrival angle) of the received signal. The new method is an extension of the Jakes (1974) method of simulating fading in which the appropriate correlation of the set of waveforms is accomplished by directly considering the azimuth of scatterers in a particular distribution about the mobile transmitter. The models used for this cluster of scatterers are a ring and a disk of scatterers. Further modifications of the disk model permit the generation of fading waveforms which are correlated in a manner which reflect actual field measurements of azimuth dispersion. Analytical correlation of these models is reviewed for purposes of verification with the waveforms generated by the method.     

CHARACTERIZATION OF HEAVY AND MEDIUM OILS FROM SASKATCHEWAN RESERVOIRS

Physical and chemical properties of oils are not available for most of Saskatchewan reservoirs. Hence, standard and specialized oil and water analyses were performed on fluids obtained from nineteen medium and heavy oil reservoirs. Seven of these reservoirs are producing under steam and fireflood processes.

The results of the oil analysis suggest that thermal history of the oil can be monitored by GC-MS techniques and viscosity measurements. 011 samples from different wells within a reservoir demonstrated significant differences 1n density, viscosity and other properties.

The water analysis data show that the variation in resistivity, total dissolved solids, pH and the concentration of the Ions present 1n the wellhead water samples as a function of time could be a useful Indicator for the flow pattern and flushing efficiency of steam or the advancement of the firefront and the extent of oil oxidation during thermal recovery processes.     

Low-Power 2.4-GHz Transceiver With Passive RX Front-End and 400-mV Supply

An ultra low power 2.4-GHz transceiver targeting wireless sensor network applications is presented. The receiver front-end is fully passive, utilizing an integrated resonant matching network to achieve voltage gain and interface directly to a passive mixer. The receiver achieves a 7-dB noise figure and -7.5-dBm IIP3 while consuming 330 muW from a 400-mV supply. The binary FSK transmitter delivers 300 muW to a balanced 50-Omega load with 30% overall efficiency and 45% power amplifier (PA) efficiency. Performance of the receiver topology is analyzed and simple expressions for the gain and noise figure of both the passive mixer and matching network are derived. An analysis of passive mixer input impedance reveals the potential to reject interferers at the mixer input with characteristics similar to an extremely high-Q parallel LC filter centered at the switching frequency     

Monolithic Schottky-collector resonant tunnel diode oscillatorarrays to 650 GHz

We report monolithic array oscillators incorporating Schottky-collector resonant tunnel diodes (SRTD's). In the SRTD, a 0.1-μm width Schottky collector contact provides a greatly reduced device series resistance, resulting in an estimated 2.2 THz maximum frequency of oscillation. A 64-element oscillator array oscillated at 650 GHz while a 16-element array produced 28 μW at 290 GHz