Methodology for inventorying greenhouse gas emissions from global cities

This paper describes the methodology and data used to determine greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions attributable to ten cities or city-regions: Los Angeles County, Denver City and County, Greater Toronto, New York City, Greater London, Geneva Canton, Greater Prague, Barcelona, Cape Town and Bangkok. Equations for determining emissions are developed for contributions from: electricity; heating and industrial fuels; ground transportation fuels; air and marine fuels; industrial processes; and waste. Gasoline consumption is estimated using three approaches: from local fuel sales; by scaling from regional fuel sales; and from counts of vehicle kilometres travelled. A simplified version of an intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) method for estimating the GHG emissions from landfill waste is applied. Three measures of overall emissions are suggested: (i) actual emissions within the boundary of the city; (ii) single process emissions (from a life-cycle perspective) associated with the city's metabolism; and (iii) life-cycle emissions associated with the city's metabolism. The results and analysis of the study will be published in a second paper.     

Diagnostic value of a miracidium in urinary sediment

The Medical School of the Ljubljana University has a long lasting tradition in teaching the history of medicine. Since 1934, all students of medicine and dentistry in Slovenia have attended the courses in history of medicine which were and still are mandatory. The first years of lectures on the history of medicine at the Ljubljana University Medical School coincided with the struggle for the establishment and recognition of a full medical curriculum in Slovenia. Dr Ivan Pintar (1888-1963), the first lecturer of the history of medicine (1934-1963), was a man of great ethical and national values and an ardent advocate for the promotion of Slovene contribution to medical culture in Slovenia, former Yugoslavia, and Europe. Pintar's concept of history of medicine included general historical, sociological, ethical, cultural, psychological, biotechnical, and other aspects. During 30 years of his endeavors, he did a pioneer work in the research on the history of medicine in Slovenia. For many years he was the editor of the Medical Chamber Bulletin, chairman of the Slovene Medical Society, and the founder of the Section for the History of Medicine in 1951. He wrote the first Slovene textbook on the history of medicine and published many articles on prominent physicians from Slovenia. He paved the way for the new generation of medical historians in Slovenia. Owing to him, contemporary Slovene physicians and dentists are aware of the importance of professional tradition. They know how to use the past experiences for new achievements.     

Detection of Plagiarism in Programming Assignments

Laboratory work assignments are very important for computer science learning. Over the last 12 years many students have been involved in solving such assignments in the authors' department, having reached a figure of more than 400 students doing the same assignment in the same year. This number of students has required teachers to pay special attention to conceivable plagiarism cases. A plagiarism detection tool has been developed as part of a full toolset for helping in the management of the laboratory work assignments. This tool defines and uses four similarity criteria to measure how similar two assignment implementations are. The paper describes the plagiarism detection tool and the experience of using it over the last 12 years in four different programming assignments, from microprogramming a CPU to system programming in C.     

Cytosolic and mitochondrial proteins as possible targets of cycloheximide effect on adrenal steroidogenesis

We investigated the in vitro and in vivo interaction between amiodarone and lidocaine. The interaction on a molecular level was first studied in microsomes from 11 human livers. Close correlations between amiodarone N-monodesethylase activities and (a) the amounts of cytochrome P-4503A4 (CYP3A4), and (b) the rates of lidocaine N-monodesethylation were observed. Lidocaine inhibited amiodarone N-monodesethylation (Ki = 120 microM) competitively; inversely, amiodarone suppressed lidocaine N-monodesethylase activity in the same manner (Ki = 47 microM). Moreover, the metabolite N-monodesethylamiodarone (DEA) was stable and inhibited lidocaine metabolism in a concentration-dependent manner. The in vivo interaction was investigated in 6 cardiac patients. Each of them received a dose of 1 mg/kg lidocaine hydrochloride intravenously (i.v.) on three different occasions: before amiodarone treatment (control), and after cumulative doses of 3 g (phase I) and 13 g (phase II), respectively, amiodarone hydrochloride. The analysis of lidocaine pharmacokinetics showed an increase in lidocaine area under the curve (AUC) when amiodarone was administered, whereas that of N-monodesethylated lidocaine decreased. Moreover, the systemic clearance of lidocaine decreased, while the elimination half-life (t1/2) and the distribution volume at steady state of lidocaine remained unchanged. The pharmacokinetic parameters during phase II were the same as those during phase 1, indicating that the interaction had already occurred early in the loading phase of amiodarone administration. The interaction between amiodarone and lidocaine may be explained by the inhibition of CYP3A4 by amiodarone and/or by its main metabolite DEA.     

High-performance optical CDMA system based on 2-D optical orthogonal codes

Optical code-division multiple access (OCDMA) is an interesting subject of research because of its potential to support asynchronous, bursty communications. OCDMA has been investigated for local area networks, access networks, and, more recently, as a packet label for emerging networks. Two-dimensional (2-D) OCDMA codes are preferred in current research because of the flexibility of designing the codes and their higher cardinality and spectral efficiency (SE) compared with direct sequence codes based on on-off keying and intensity modulation/direct detection, and because they lend themselves to being implemented with devices developed for wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) transmission (the 2-D codes typically combine wavelength and time as the two dimensions of the codes). This paper shows rigorously that 2-D wavelength/time codes have better SE than one-dimensional (1-D) CDMA/WDM combinations (of the same cardinality). Then, the paper describes a specific set of wavelength/time (W/T) codes and their implementation. These 2-D codes are high performance because they simultaneously have high cardinality (/spl Gt/10), per-user high bandwidth (>1 Gb/s), and high SE (>0.10 b/s/Hz). The physical implementation of these W/T codes is described and their performance evaluated by system simulations and measurements on an OCDMA technology demonstrator. This research shows that OCDMA implementation complexity (e.g., incorporating double hard-limiting and interference estimation) can be avoided by using a guard time in the codes and an optical hard limiter in the receiver.     

FK 506 and mycophenolate mofetil in renal transplant recipients: six-month results of a multicenter, randomized dose ranging trial. FK 506 MMF Dose-Ranging Kidney Transplant Study Group

The effective dose of MMF with FK 506 has not been previously studied in a prospective, randomized, controlled setting. In the present study, we evaluated two different daily doses of MMF (1 and 2 g) and compared it to the historically conventional therapy of AZA. At 6 months post-transplant, we found no significant difference in the incidence of acute rejection between the AZA group and the MMF 1 g group. However, patients who started on MMF 2 g/d had significantly delayed and lower incidence of acute rejection as compared to the other two groups. We found that patients who were initiated on MMF 2 g frequently had their dose lowered, primarily for gastrointestinal or hematologic symptoms; by 6 months after-transplant, patients in the MMF 2 g group had a mean dose of 1.5 g. It is unclear from this study if initiating patients on MMF 1.5 g in combination with FK 506 would be as effective as initiating a patient on MMF 2 g. Further studies of the combination of FK 506 and MMF in kidney transplant recipients to further define the optimal dosing regimen are warranted. In summary, the combination of FK 506 and MMF is well-tolerated, safe, and effective in cadaveric kidney transplant recipients.     

Production,characterization and application of protein isolates from shark Part 1. Influence of pH,ionic strength,solid/liquid relationship and extraction time on to the extractability and precipitability of shark flesh proteins

In oppossiton to the extraction time, the pH, the sodium chloride content and the solid/liquid relationship show a clear influence onto the extractability of shark flesh proteins; that is also valied for the protein precipitability as a function of the pH. The relative low extractability of the shark flesh proteins by pH 5 or pH 4 with 0.25% NaCl offers interesting possibilities for a production of protein isolates from shark flesh through a flesh cleaning-extraction process.     

Process and recyclability analyses of innovative bio‐composite for tray

The originality of the present study is to give complete and pragmatic information associated with the preparation of a totally bio‐based composite. It covers the most relevant investigations from analyses of the fibres used as reinforcing elements to the final product acquisition and its recyclability analyses. This study is destined for packaging areas. It demonstrates the three‐dimensional formation processes with these new kinds of bio‐composites, as well as the recyclable features related to the prepared materials. Thus, several processing parameters were studied and a final tray was prepared. The addition of the fibres gives rise to an increase of the tray stiffness, when a flexible biopolymer is used as a matrix. The prepared bio‐composites were recycled several times (10 recycling cycles) and found that they maintain their most relevant characteristics. Thus, such bio‐composites can be reused several times. All these data, including a prototype sample prepared as a demonstrator, support the innovative and sustainable character of the packaging materials described. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.