Enhancing both network and user performance for networks supporting best effort traffic

With a view on improving user-perceived performance on networks supporting best effort flows, e.g., multimedia/data file transfers, we propose a family of bandwidth allocation criteria that depends on the residual work of on-going transfers. Analysis and simulations show that allocating bandwidth in this fashion can significantly improve the user-perceived delay, bit transmission delay, and throughput over traditional approaches, e.g., by 58% on an 80% loaded linear network. A simple implementation based on TCP Reno, exemplifies how one might approach practically realizing such gains. We discuss several other advantages of incorporating such differentiation at the transport level. In particular we make the case that favoring small transfers combined with user impatience or peak rate constraints, both of which are natural mechanisms for users to express the utility of completing transfers, offers a lightweight approach to achieving good overall network goodput and/or utility for best effort networks.     

USERS' TWO-DIMENSIONAL INTEREST AND ITS STORAGE METHOD

The users' interest can be mined from the web cache and can be used widely. The interest can be specialized by the two-tuple (term, weight) in the simple interest model, in which the association relations are not mined, and then the interest cannot be associated in expressing the users' interest. Based on analyzing the WWW cache model, this letter brings forward a two-dimensional interest model and gives the interrelated methods on how to store the two-dimensional interest model effectively.     

利用信息融合方法的三维特征提取

本文提出了一种基于信息融合的物体三维特征的提取方法，该方法利用两幅互相配准的三维测距图像和灰度图像，来提取多面体的三维特征。首先，通过分析灰度图像中的灰度变化及测距图像中的测距值变化，分别求取各自图像中物体的特征点及特征边；然后，利用两配准图像之间的对应关系，求得所有特征点、面与多边形在三维测距图像中的三维表示；接着，通过分析三维测距图像中所测得的各候选平面上特定点与边处的曲率及法向，验证候选平面     

Nonlinear protein binding and enzyme heterogeneity: effects on hepatic drug removal

The kinetics of substrate removal by the liver and the resulting nonlinear changes in unbound fraction along the flow path at varying input drug concentrations were examined by a model simulation study. Specifically, we varied the binding association constant, KA, and the Michaelis-Menten constants (Km and Vmax) to examine the steady state drug removal (expressed as hepatic extraction ratio E) and changes in drug binding for (i) unienzyme systems and (ii) simple, parallel metabolic pathways; zonal metabolic heterogeneity was also added as a variable. At low KA, E declined with increasing input drug concentration, due primarily to saturation of enzymes; only small differences in binding were present across the liver. At high KA, a parabolic profile for E with concentration was observed; changes in unbound fraction between the inlet and the outlet of the liver followed in parallel fashion. Protein binding was the rate-determining step at low input drug concentrations, whereas enzyme saturation was the rate-controlling factor at high input drug concentration. Heterogeneous enzymic distribution modulated changes in unbound fraction within the liver and at the outlet. Despite marked changes in unbound fraction occurring within the liver for different enzymic distributions, the overall transhepatic differences were relatively small. We then investigated the logarithmic average unbound concentration and the length averaged concentration as estimates of substrate concentration in liver in the presence of nonlinear drug binding. Fitting of simulated data, with and without assigned random error (10%), to the Michaelis-Menten equation was performed; fitting was repeated for simulated data obtained with presence of a specific inhibitor of the high-affinity, anteriorly distributed pathway. Results were similar for both concentration terms: accurate estimates were obtained for anterior, high affinity pathways; an overestimation of parameters was observed for the lower affinity posteriorly distributed pathways. Improved estimations were found for posteriorly distributed pathways upon inhibition with specific inhibitors; with added random error, however, the improvement was much decreased. We applied the method for fitting of several sets of metabolic data obtained from rat liver perfusion studies performed with salicylamide (SAM) (i) without and (ii) with the presence of 2,6-dichloro-4-nitrophenol (DCNP), a SAM sulfation inhibitor. The fitted results showed that SAM sulfation was a high-affinity high-capacity pathway; SAM glucuronidation was of lower affinity but comparable capacity as the sulfation pathway, whereas SAM hydroxylation was of lower affinity and lower capacity.     

Disaster-readiness of medical facilities in Aichi Prefecture

One month following the Great Hanshin Earthquake of January 17, 1995, we conducted a survey of 173 hospitals in Aichi Prefecture to pinpoint problems related to their actual disaster-readiness and the medical backup systems in place to deal with such disasters. This study revealed that staff at 50% of the surveyed hospitals could reach the hospital within an hour, but that communication is almost entirely dependent on phone lines, suggesting that cordless/portable/mobile phones, radio systems, Internet, communications satellites and the like should be studied in the days to come for possible use as effective communication alternatives in times of disaster. Whereas 92% of the surveyed hospitals had manuals dealing with fire outbreaks, other areas were less well represented. For example, only 36.9% of surveyed hospitals had manuals for earthquakes, 31.7% had manuals for power outages and 14.2% had manuals to deal with flooding and water disasters. New manuals must be developed incorporating the key points garnered from experience (especially Hanshin) and be ready for use immediately. It is the time for each hospital to seriously rethink the measures it should take to deal with disasters.     

Enterococcal bacteremia in a medical center

BACKGROUND: The enterococci have become important nosocomial pathogens. They can cause multiple site infections and enterococcal bacteremia becomes more frequently associated with a high mortality rate. Previous studies of enterococcal bacteremia showed a variety of results. To establish the significance and importance of enterococci as nosocomial pathogens in this hospital, to characterize their clinical pictures and to search for the risk factors for mortality, this retrospective study was performed. METHODS: There were 208 cases of enterococcal bacteremia which occurred from 1988 to 1992. Twenty-seven cases had no medical charts, dismissing possibility of evaluation. Finally, 181 cases of enterococcal bacteremia were analysed. RESULTS: One hundred and eighteen episodes were nosocomial infections. Polymicrobial bacteremia occurred in 68.5% of the patients and the most common co-isolate was Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Those patients (78.5%) with underlying diseases and malignancies were the most common underlying problems. The portal of entry could be found in 69.6 percent of patients, with the gastrointestinal tract the most common sources. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing showed high gentamicin resistance rate (89.5%), and ampicillin still had about 80 percent sensitivity rate. The group who received specific antibiotic therapy for enterococcus showed lower mortality (36.4% versus 47.6%). Only one case had infective endocarditis. Forty-nine patients suffered from septic shock, the cause of 30 deaths. Totally 75 patients died during hospitalization. Besides sepsis, another major cause of death was their underlying diseases itself. CONCLUSIONS: Enterococci have no doubt become important nosocomial pathogens and enterococcal bacteremia were associated with high mortality, especially in elderly patients with underlying diseases such as malignancy or diabetes. When clinically dealing with sepsis from the gastrointestinal or biliary tract, especially when previous cephalosporins therapy showed no response, the possibility of enterococcal bacteremia should always be considered.     

声光效应拉曼-内斯方程矩阵级数解法及声光调制器优化设计

提出一种求解正常声光相互作用拉曼 内斯 (Raman Nath)方程的矩阵级数解法 ,该解法直观方便且具有普遍性。计算结果表明 ,对Q =4 1π ,Bragg衍射的效率只有 97 5 % ;对非对称入射 ,以往的Raman Nath近似解误差较大 ;指出提高Bragg衍射效率的有效途径在于提高声光频率比并给出计算声光器件最优长度的计算公式。     

应用于生物医学的光声光谱技术的改进和实验研究

改进的光声光谱归一化技术，避免了普通的分光法归一化光声光谱技术中分束镜以及锁相放大器动态范围的影响和限制，实现宽光谱范围内准确的光谱测量。氙灯光源功率起伏用修正项修正，误差在5％以内，实现各次实验数据的可比性。