Integrity tests: Facts and unresolved issues.

Describes 2 independent reports, recently completed by the American Psychological Association (APA) and the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment, that examined many scientific and measurement issues concerning integrity testing (e.g., validity, criterion relevance). Background data are offered on a variety of tests collected by a survey of test publishers, providing a view of the industry's scope (e.g., test audience, user screening, score reporting) not available elsewhere. In the light of APA's Ethical Principles for Psychologists and Code of Conduct (APA, 1992), unresolved concerns are addressed that have a wide range of implications for the profession of psychology, the testing industry, and public policy (e.g., cutting scores, user screening and training, and test marketing practices). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using anatomical knowledge expressed as fuzzy constraints to segment the heart in CT images

Segmenting the heart in medical images is a challenging and important task for many applications. In particular, segmenting the heart in CT images is very useful for cardiology and oncological applications such as radiotherapy. Although the majority of methods in the literature are designed for ventricle segmentation, there is a real interest in segmenting the heart as a whole in this modality. In this paper, we address this problem and propose an automatic and robust method, based on anatomical knowledge about the heart, in particular its position with respect to the lungs. This knowledge is represented in a fuzzy formalism and it is used both to define a region of interest and to drive the evolution of a deformable model in order to segment the heart inside this region. The proposed method has been applied on non-contrast CT images and the obtained results have been compared to manual segmentations of the heart, showing the good accuracy and high robustness of our approach.     

A method to select a successful interoperability solution through a simulation approach

Enterprise applications and software systems need to be interoperable in order to achieve seamless business across organizational boundaries and thus realize virtual networked organizations. Our proposition can be considered as an interoperability project selection approach and is based on three steps: (1) Modelling both collaborative business processes and potential related interoperability projects; (2) Evaluating the accessibility of each project regarding the current state of the organization; (3) Simulating each project and assessing the associated performance. These results are finally projected on a comparison matrix used as a decision support to select the most appropriate interoperability solution. An application case extracted from the French aerospace sector demonstrates the applicability and the benefits of the proposition.     

Anthocyanin profile of red fruits and black carrot juices,purees and concentrates by HPLC‐DAD‐ESI/MS‐QTOF

A fast and reliable method for anthocyanin extraction and identification by HPLC‐DAD‐ESI/MS‐QTOF was used to analyse the anthocyanin composition of commercial red fruit juices (blackberry, redcurrant and pomegranate), purees (strawberry, cherry and raspberry) and concentrates (elderberry, blueberry and red grape). The anthocyanin profile of black carrot juice is also reported. The extraction and analysis method allowed us to detect and quantify a wide range of individual anthocyanins in a simple and rapid way. Pelargonidin‐3‐glucoside was detected in redcurrant for the first time and petunidin‐3‐galactoside quantified for the first time in blueberries. Considering the health benefits that have been associated with anthocyanin consumption, all these fruit and vegetables processed products could appear as a good source of this group of phytochemical compounds for their direct consumption or their use as ingredients for the design of new food product or food supplements.     

Gene clustering for time-series microarray with production outputs

The identification of coexpressed genes from microarray data is a challenging problem in bioinformatics and computational biology. The objective of this study is to obtain knowledge about the most important genes and clusters related to production outputs of real-world time-series microarray data in the industrial microbiology area. Each sample in the microarray data experiment is complemented with the measurement of the corresponding production and growth values. A novel aspect of this research refers to considering the relation of coexpression patterns with the measured outputs to guide the biological interpretation of results. Shape-based clustering models are developed using the pattern of gene expression values over time and further incorporating knowledge about the correlation between the change in the gene expression level and the output value. Experiments are performed for time-series microarray of bacteria, and an analysis from a biological perspective is carried out. The obtained results confirm the existence of relationships between output variables and gene expressions. Moreover, the shape-based clustering methods show promising results, being able to guide metabolic engineering actions with the identification of potential targets.     

高浓度颗粒气固两相流动的二阶矩模型的数值模拟

采用动理学方法,用各向异性的M axwell颗粒速度分布函数,建立颗粒相Boltzm ann方程,分别取零次矩、一次矩和二次矩得到颗粒相连续方程、动量方程和二阶矩方程.模拟计算得到上升管内颗粒流场分布和脉动速度分布,与实验结果比较表明:各向异性颗粒动理学能够反映颗粒流动特性,从而能够更全面地认识高颗粒浓度气固两相流动过程.     

Anticoagulant, Antioxidant and Antitumor Activities of Heterofucans from the Seaweed Dictyopteris delicatula

In the present study, six families of sulfated polysaccharides were obtained from seaweed Dictyopteris delicatula by proteolytic digestion, followed by acetone fractionation and molecular sieving on Sephadex G-100. Chemical analyses demonstrated that all polysaccharides contain heterofucans composed mainly of fucose, xylose, glucose, galactose, uronic acid, and sulfate. The fucans F0.5v and F0.7v at 1.0 mg/mL showed high ferric chelating activity (～45%), whereas fucans F1.3v (0.5 mg/mL) showed considerable reducing power, about 53.2% of the activity of vitamin C. The fucan F1.5v presented the most prominent anticoagulant activity. The best antiproliferative activity was found with fucans F1.3v and F0.7v. However, F1.3v activity was much higher than F0.7v inhibiting almost 100% of HeLa cell proliferation. These fucans have been selected for further studies on structural characterization as well as in vivo experiments, which are already in progress.