Analytical quantification of airflows from soil through building substructures

Soil gas pollutants (VOCs, radon, …) have long been known to intrude into buildings through various openings, e.g., cracks and gaps in the foundations. As yet no model has been developed which can quantify this rate of flow whilst taking into account various substructure configurations. This is due to the complex phenomena that need to be consider and particularly to the difficulty in estimating pollutant flows at soil-building interfaces. In this paper analytical models have been developed to quantify these flows. The models have been developed for some typical substructure configurations: slab-on-grade, basement and crawlspace. The inputs of these models include particularly the foundation wall depth and the slab permeability. The analytical models have been compared to existing analytical models for one of the configurations. Moreover a 2-D finite element model has been used for numerical comparison. The models are presented as pressure-flow relationships and can be integrated into risk assessment tools in order to study the impact of soil gas pollutants on indoor air quality.     

Intestinal parasites in the vendors and consumers of street food. A study conducted in the Dakar area

To determine the origin and nature of mucinlike material in fine-needle aspiration (FNA) smears of the breast in noncancerous breast lesions, we studied breast FNA smears from four patients. All smears contained epithelial cells floating in a mucinlike background, which raised suspicion for mucinous (colloid) carcinoma. Mucicarmine stain was performed on one smear from each case. Subsequent tissue biopsy specimens were studied using mucicarmine, periodic acid-Schiff with and without diastase, and alcian blue stains at pH 2.7 and 0.9 on selected tissue sections. Correlation of the cytologic and histologic findings of each lesion was performed. The mucinlike background in all four FNA smears stained strongly with mucicarmine. Corresponding biopsy specimens revealed pseudoangiomatous hyperplasia in the first case, fibroadenoma and atypical ductal hyperplasia in the second, benign phyllodes tumor in the third, and fibroadenoma in the fourth. Each lesion in cases 1 to 3 was associated closely with fibrocystic changes. In case 4, cystic changes were located within the fibroadenoma. On tissue sections of all four cases, the cyst contents and 10% to 50% of normal lobule and duct contents stained with mucicarmine, indicating that the cyst contents were the most probable source of mucin in the FNA smears. The presence of pools of mucicarmine-positive material in FNA smears of the breast is not an exclusive feature of mucinous carcinoma; mucicarmine-positive mucin can arise from benign cystic changes as well as from normal lobules and ducts.     

Plasmodium falciparum- and merozoite surface protein 1-specific antibody isotype balance in immune Senegalese adults

This study shows markedly different isotype distributions of antibodies to asexual blood stages of Plasmodium falciparum and to merozoite surface protein 1 in clinically immune Senegalese adults depending on the study site. The relationships between immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG and between IgG3 and IgG1 antibodies differed in settings where transmission is perennial compared to settings where it is seasonal. This suggests a role for antibody class and/or subclass production and utilization in the regulation of protective immunity to such antigens.     

Khaya gum – a natural and eco-friendly biopolymer dielectric for low-cost organic field-effect transistors (OFETs)

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - Nature provides a wide range of dielectric biopolymers that can be used in electronic devices. In this work, organic field-effect...     

Electric Motor Drive Selection Issues for HEV Propulsion Systems: A Comparative Study

This paper describes a comparative study allowing the selection of the most appropriate electric-propulsion system for a parallel hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). This paper is based on an exhaustive review of the state of the art and on an effective comparison of the performances of the four main electric-propulsion systems, namely the dc motor, the induction motor (IM), the permanent magnet synchronous motor, and the switched reluctance motor. The main conclusion drawn by the proposed comparative study is that it is the cage IM that better fulfills the major requirements of the HEV electric propulsion     

Adaptive clustering for time series: Application for identifying cell cycle expressed genes

The biological problem of identifying the active genes during the cell division process is addressed. The cell division ensures the proliferation of cells, which is drastically aberrant in cancer cells. The studied genes are described by their expression profiles during the cell division cycle. Commonly, the identification process is a supervised approach based on an a priori set of reference genes, assumed as well-characterizing the cell cycle phases. Each studied gene is then classified by its peak similarity to one pre-specified reference gene. This classical approach suffers from two limitations. On the one hand, there is no consensus between biologists about the set of reference genes to consider for the identification process. On the other hand, the proximity measures used for genes expression profiles are unjustified and mainly based on the expression values regardless of the genes expression behavior. To identify genes expression profiles, a new adaptive clustering approach is proposed which consists of two main points. First, it allows in an unsupervised way the selection of a well-justified set of reference genes, to be compared with the pre-specified ones. Secondly, it enables the users to learn the appropriate proximity measure to use for genes expression data, a measure which will cover both proximity on values and on behavior. The adaptive clustering method is compared to a correlation-based approach through public and simulated genes expression data.     

Pseudotumoral hyperplasia of Brunner's glands

Hyperplasia of Brünner's glands is a dysembryoplastic or hyperplasic lesion with an elective location of the proximal duodenum. Symptoms are often non-specific but severe manifestations can occur (haemorrhage, duodenal obstruction). Two cases of hyperplasia of Brünner's glands were reported due to their particularly large size and a misguiding clinical appearance. Difficulties in diagnosis due to this rare benign entity were discussed.     

First evidence of natural vertical transmission of yellow fever virus in Aedes aegypti, its epidemic vector

Entomological investigations were conducted in 1995 in Senegal, following a yellow fever (YF) outbreak. A total of 1125 mosquitoes collected in the field, including males, females and 12-48 h old newly emerged adults reared from wild-caught larvae, were tested for YF virus. Among the 22 species captured, Aedes aegypti was the most common. 'Wild' vectors of YF were also captured, including A. furcifer, A. metallicus and A. luteocephalus. In all, 28 YF virus isolations were made: 19 from A. aegypti females, including 2 from newly emerged specimens; 5 were obtained from A. aegypti males, including one from a pool of newly emerged specimens, 2 from A. furcifer females, and one each from a female A. metallicus and a female A. luteocephalus. The true infection rates (TIRs) were much higher in adult A. aegypti than in specimens reared from larvae--8.2% and 31.4% for female and male A. aegypti captured on human volunteers, respectively (P < 0.0001). The TIRs for A. aegypti reared from larvae were 1.4% and 0.5% for females and males, respectively (P > 0.05). This outbreak was an intermediate YF epidemic, involving 4 vector species. Our data provide the first evidence of vertical transmission of YF virus in nature by A. aegypti, its main vector to humans, and strongly suggest that vertical transmission played a major role in the spread of the epidemic.     

Modeling, Analysis, and Neural Network Control of an EV Electrical Differential

This paper presents system modeling, analysis, and simulation of an electric vehicle (EV) with two independent rear wheel drives. The traction control system is designed to guarantee the EV dynamics and stability when there are no differential gears. Using two in-wheel electric motors makes it possible to have torque and speed control in each wheel. This control level improves EV stability and safety. The proposed traction control system uses the vehicle speed, which is different from wheel speed characterized by a slip in the driving mode, as an input. In this case, a generalized neural network algorithm is proposed to estimate the vehicle speed. The analysis and simulations lead to the conclusion that the proposed system is feasible. Simulation results on a test vehicle propelled by two 37-kW induction motors showed that the proposed control approach operates satisfactorily.