Varicella-zoster virus infection in children with underlying human immunodeficiency virus infection

This article describes a prospective longitudinal study of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infections in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected children, designed to determine their natural history of VZV infection and possible effects of VZV on the progression of HIV infection. Varicella was usually not a serious acute problem, and it did not seem to precede clinical deterioration. The rate of zoster was high: 70% in children with low levels of CD4+ lymphocytes at the time of development of varicella. It is predicted that immunization with live attenuated varicella vaccine is unlikely to be deleterious to HIV-infected children. Moreover, if they are immunized when they still have relatively normal levels of CD4+ lymphocytes, they may have a lower rate of reactivation of VZV than if they were allowed to develop natural varicella when their CD4+ cell counts have fallen to low levels as a result of progressive HIV infection.     

Solar cooling and air conditioning

The possibility of providing cooling and air conditioning by means of energy from the sun has attracted Man's attention since the early development of solar technology. This article attempts to describe the present state of the art in solar cooling technology. A survey is given of the vast amount of research, development and engineering work done to date in this field. The various approaches to solar cooling and the different operating systems are considered, including heat engine driven vapor compression, absorption, ejector and desiccant cooling. A comparison between the different methods and processes is given and the appropriate applications are discussed.     

Geometric covering

In this work, we present a single unified framework that can solve many geometric covering queries such as inspection and mold design. The suggested framework reduces a geometric covering query to the classic computer science set-covering problem. The solution is of exponential complexity due to the inherent complexity of the classic set-covering problem. However, in practice, we are able to efficiently offer almost optimal solutions for small-scale problems of several covering entities. Finally, using the portrayed framework, we demonstrate some results on the mold-design problem in manufacturing.     

Novel Atmospheric Growth Technique to Improve Both Light Absorption and Charge Collection in ZnO/Cu2O Thin Film Solar Cells

In low temperature grown ZnO/Cu₂O solar cells, there is a discrepancy between collection length and depletion width in the Cu₂O which makes the simultaneous achievement of efficient charge collection and high open‐circuit voltage problematic. This is addressed in this study by fabricating ZnO/Cu₂O/Cu₂O⁺ back surface field devices using an atmospheric atomic layer deposition (AALD) printing method to grow a sub‐200‐nm Cu₂O⁺ film on top of electrodeposited ZnO and Cu₂O layers. The AALD Cu₂O⁺ has a carrier concentration around 2 orders of magnitude higher than the electrodeposited Cu₂O, allowing the electrodeposited Cu₂O layer thickness in a back surface field cell to be reduced from 3 μm to the approximate charge collection length, 1 μm, while still allowing a high potential to be built into the cell. The dense conformal nature of the AALD layer also blocks shunt pathways allowing the voltage enhancement to be maintained. The thinner cell design reduces recombination losses and increases charge collection from both incident light and light reflected off the back electrode. Using this design, a short circuit current density of 6.32 mA cm^?2 is achieved–the highest reported J_SC for an atmospherically deposited ZnO/Cu₂O device to date.     

Reaction time as a diagnostic measure in senility

Both simple and disjunctive reaction times (RT) are known to slow with aging but there is a paucity of information on RT changes in senility. Since disjunctive RT involves cognition in addition to the sensory-motor speed and attentional components of simple RT, it was hypothesized that disjunctive RT would be a reliable index of age-related mental decline. To test this prediction, simple and disjunctive RT were measured in matched groups of 20 normal and 20 cognitively impaired elderly. Simple RT was slower in the senile patients than in the normal subjects, but this difference was accounted for by differences in disjunctive RT. The senile patients showed a much larger performance decrement with respect to disjunctive RT than did the normal subjects--a difference which was not accounted for by differences in simple RT. In a discriminant function analysis, disjunctive RT alone correctly identified the senile patients and the normal subjects with 86% accuracy. Thus, this measure proved to be a reliable index of age-related mental decline. Preliminary data indicate that disjunctive RT slowing is correlated with non-memory mental decline, and that poor performance is related to the need for care and supervision.     

Octree creation via C.S.G. definition

The common method for generating the octrees of complex objects, is based upon generating the octrees of several pre-defined primitives and applying Boolean operations on them. Regardless how the octrees representing the primitives are generated (top-down or bottom-up) the octree of a desired object is obtained by performing Boolean operations among the primitives comprising the object according to the object's CSG (constructive solid Geometry) representation. When carrying out this procedure, most of the computing and memory resources are used for generating and storing the octants comprising the primitives. However, the majority of those octants are not required for the representation of the final object. In this paper the extention of the top-down approach to the CSG level (i.e., generating the octree of an object directly from its CSG representation) is proposed. With this method there is no need to generate the octrees of the primitives comprising the object nor to perform Boolean operations on them. Moreover, only these octants which belong to the final object are generated.     

Rendering traditional mosaics

This paper discusses the principles of traditional mosaics and describes a technique for implementing a digital mosaicing system. The goal of this work is to transform digital images into traditional mosaic-like renderings. We achieve this effect by recovering free-form feature curves from the image and laying rows of tiles along these curves. Composition rules are applied to merge these tiles into an intricate jigsaw that conforms to classical mosaic styles. Mosaic rendering offers the user flexibility over every aspect of this craft, including tile arrangement, shapes, and colors. The result is a system that makes this wonderful craft more flexible and widely accessible than previously possible. Published online: 28 January 2003     

Research issues in perception and user interfaces

Current visualization tools are capable but still require too much visualization knowledge on the user's part. This requirement restricts the user in what is possible. Nor do the tools take account of what is known regarding cognition and perception. The authors focus at on three things: presentation of information to best match human cognitive and perceptual capabilities, interactive tools and systems to facilitate creation and navigation of visualizations, and software system features to improve visualization tools     

The varicella vaccine. Clinical trials in immunocompromised individuals

A review of the use of live attenuated varicella vaccine in immunocompromised children, particularly those with underlying leukemia in remission, is presented. Data concerning safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy of this vaccine in high-risk children are reviewed. The unique contributions toward our understanding of varicella vaccine, including spread of vaccine-type virus, incidence of zoster, and immune correlates provided by studies of immunocompromised patients are discussed. The importance of protecting high-risk children against severe varicella by the use of varicella vaccine is apparent.