Familial pyoderma gangrenosum presenting in infancy

Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is a rare, poorly understood skin disease that occurs in all age groups. Less than 0.4% of patients are infants and represent a diagnostic challenge as early lesions may resemble other skin disorders. Here we report for the first time three siblings affected with PG all presenting during infancy. Unlike the older age group, the ulcers spared the legs but involved the buttocks, thighs and perianal area in all the infants. Conclusion: This is the first reported family with PG affecting three siblings suggesting autosomal recessive inheritance. The diagnosis may be more difficult in infants due to absence of underlying associated disorders and the tendency of the lesions to appear in areas where infants frequently have other dermatoses. PG characteristically involves the buttocks, thighs and perianal area and spares the legs.     

Universal broadband mobility target for post-TINA infrastructure:toward the fourth generation

Future universal broadband mobile services present a challenge for telecommunications architectures, control, and management. The focus of the future mobile (fourth) generation vision is turned from capacity to services, from radio to network-wide issues. New types of applications will evolve that should be supported by an adequate programmable intelligent telecommunications infrastructure. A convergence between telecom and datacom networks will happen based on the communications middleware concept, which will provide universal secure connectivity between mobile users and their applications. Actual specifications of TINA-C do not address all such necessary issues. There is a need for technology evolution, enhancement, and integration to meet these new requirements at different levels. The author the concept of the universal broadband mobile telecommunications systems (UBMTS, or simply UBM) described as fourth-generation mobile systems. The UBMTS objective is both to extend mobile user access to the range of broadband services that will exist for broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN) users, and to extend the customization of new services related to personal communications systems (PCS) users     

Adaptive noise reduction using numerically stable fast recursive least squares algorithm

This paper is concerned with adaptive noise reduction based on the fast recursive least squares (FRLS) algorithm. It is well known that the fast recursive least squares (FRLS) algorithm suffers from numerical instability when operating under the effects of finite precision arithmetic. Several numerical solutions of stabilization were proposed in the case of stationary signals. In this work a new version of a numerically stable FRLS algorithm (NS‐FRLS) is proposed. The stability characteristics of this new stabilized algorithm are analysed. The analysis is based on a linear model for the errors in the states of the adaptive filter. Experimental results confirm the merits of adaptive filtering with the NS‐FRLS algorithm over optimum filtering using the solution provided by Wiener–Hopf equations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE EFFECT OF CONCRETE BOND ON THE STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS FOR AN EDGE CRACK IN A REINFORCING BAR

Abstract— The stress intensity factors at the tip of an edge crack in a round bar embedded in the tension zone of a concrete beam are found for several conditions of bond failure between the steel reinforcing bar and the concrete. A two-dimensional finite element technique is modified to represent the third dimension, the steel-concrete interface and debonding. The integrated form of the Paris crack growth law is used with the calculated stress intensity factors to compute the propagating fatigue lives for embedded bar and bar in air. The results indicate that embedded bars appear to have shorter fatigue propagation lives than bars in air if the crack initiators are less than 0.05 of the bar diameter, while for deeper crack initiators, the opposite is true. It has also been shown that the propagating fatigue life of the bar increases with the degree of bond.     

State-dependent packet scheduling for QoS routing in a dynamically changing environment

The packet scheduling in router plays an important role in the sense to achieve QoS differentiation and to optimize the queuing delay, in particular when this optimization is accomplished on all routers of a path between source and destination. In a dynamically changing environment a good scheduling discipline should be also adaptive to the new traffic conditions. We model this problem as a multi-agent system in which each agent learns through continual interaction with the environment in order to optimize its own behaviour. So, we adopt the framework of Markov decision processes applied to multi-agent system and present a pheromone-Q learning approach which combines the Q-multi-learning technique with a synthetic pheromone that acts as a communication medium speeding up the learning process of cooperating agents.     

Effects of electromagnetic near-field stress on SiGe HBT’s reliability

In this paper, a reliability damage mechanism was presented in SiGe Heterojunction Bipolar Transistor (HBT). This new stress methodology differs from conventional SiGe, HBT device reliability associated with other stresses, since it was obtained by applying electromagnetic near-field aggression. The near-field set-up is used to disturb with electromagnetic field the Device Under test (DUT) on a localized area. Degradations in the base current and the current gain are identified. They are induced by a large base current leakage due to hot carrier which introduces generation/recombination trap centers at the silicon–oxide interface of the emitter–base spacer. By using the S-parameters measurements, we find that both forward transmission scattering parameter (S₂₁) and the input scattering parameter (S₁₁) are affected by this stress. In addition the power characteristics of DUT are also affected by stress. A Direct Power Injection (DPI) method is used to understand the near-field stress behaviour.     

Conventional- vs microwave-hydrothermal synthesis of tin oxide, SnO2 nanoparticles

Tin oxide nanophases or nanoparticles were synthesized under conventional- and microwave-hydrothermal conditions and characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, BET surface area determination as well as transmission electron microscopy. The use of microwave-hydrothermal (M-H) process led to higher yields in shorter time compared to the conventional-hydrothermal (C-H) process because of increased reaction rates in the former.     

Synthesis and Antiviral Evaluation of 3′-Fluoro-4′-modified-5′-norcarbocyclic Nucleoside Phosphonates

The synthesis and anti-HIV evaluation of hitherto unknown 3′-fluoro-5′-norcarbocyclic nucleoside phosphonates bearing adenine with modifications at the 4′ position (ethynyl, vinyl, ethyl, hydroxymethyl) is described. One of the synthesized compounds was found to be an inhibitor of HIV-1 replication, but with moderate efficiency relative to (R)-9-(2-phosphonylmethoxypropyl)adenine ((R)-PMPA, tenofovir), with no concomitant cytotoxicity.     

Extraction of Vanadium(V) from Mixed Chloride/Thiocyanate Solutions with Two Commercial Solvating Extractants

Studies on the extraction and separation of vanadium(V) from mixed hydrochloric acid/ammonium thiocyanate solution with CYANEX 921 and CYANEX 925 in kerosene were carried out. The effects of various factors affecting the extraction process as well as temperature were investigated. Addition of thiocyanate to the chloride solution was found to enhance markedly the extraction of vanadium. HCl solution efficiently stripped V(V). The number of stages required for extraction and stripping of vanadium ions was determined from the McCabe–Thiele diagram. Based on the obtained results, the separation of V(V) from spent catalyst leach indicates the efficiency of the proposed process.