Simplified method for the measurement of segmental colonic transit time

Segmental colonic transit has been measured in 101 patients. Two MBq of 111Indium absorbed on resin pellets and encapsulated in an enteric coated capsule was given at 7 00 am. Hourly images during the first day, and three images during each subsequent day were acquired for up to three days. Using all scan and patient data the scans were categorised in one of the five patterns of colonic transit: normal, rapid, right delay, left delay, or generalised delay. The geometric centres and per cent activity at each time point was compared between the five groups of colonic transit patients to find the best time for imaging and so to distinguish the five groups. During the first day, early images did not help in diagnosis of patterns of transit, however, in the later images (six hours onwards after the ingestion of the activity) the rapid transit groups could be identified. Images at 27 and 51 hours were both required to distinguish all five groups of patients from each other. Only in the 'normal' transit patients was there some excretion of the activity during the course of the second day, otherwise there was no difference in the images taken in the course of a day (second or third day). A simplified protocol requires a minimum of three images to distinguish all five patterns of colonic transit. The activity should be ingested in the morning (7 00 am) and the first image taken at the end of the working day (8-10 hours after ingestion), the second image on the morning of the second day, and the third image during the course of the third day. This simple protocol would provide all the clinically relevant information necessary for correct classification of the colonic transit.     

Are politics for you?

This article, developed both from comments made by the author at the Practice Directorate's 1995 State Leadership Conference and from a submitted article, discusses the pros and cons of a psychologist serving in a state legislature and how the training of a psychologist helps and hinders legislative performance. The author challenges psychologists to run for political office, suggesting that in a time of such rapid social and political change as the United States is currently experiencing, psychologists have the skills and caring to make significant, positive, and needed legislative changes for the present and future of one's state, one's profession, and oneself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lifetime Measurements on a High-Reliability RF-MEMS Contact Switch

Radio frequency microelectromechanical systems (RF MEMS) cantilever contact switches have been tested for lifetime. The mean cycles-to-failure measured on an ensemble of switches was 430 billion switch cycles. The longest lifetime exhibited without degradation of the switch was 914 billion switch cycles. The devices were switched at 20 kHz with an incident RF frequency of 10 GHz and an incident RF power of 20 dBm. Testing was performed continuously over a period of approximately 18 months. The switches were operated in a cold-switched mode.     

A mutation spectra database for bacterial and mammalian genes: 1998

This database consists of over 24 000 mutations in 18 viral, bacterial, yeast or mammalian genes. The data are grouped as sets of DNA base sequence changes or spectra caused by a particular mutagen under defined conditions. The spectra are available on the World Wide Web at http://info.med.yale.edu/mutbase/ in two formats; in text format that can be browsed on-line or downloaded for use with a text editor and in dBASEIII format for use, after downloading, by relational database programs or by spreadsheets. Researchers are encouraged to submit DNA sequence changes to a suitable mutation database such as ours. A data entry program, MUTSIN, can be retrieved from this site. MUTSIN diagrams each mutation on the computer screen and alerts the user to any discrepancies.     

The effects of thermal history on the density and mechanical properties of poly(methyl methacrylate)

The purpose of this work was to show that physical aging effects in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) could be correlated with the nonequilibrium state of the glassy polymer, as measured by dilatometry. Specimens were annealed at a series of temperatures within the glass transition region (90, 95 and 100°C) and quenched or slowly cooled to the test temperature (40 or 60°C). Volume recovery was monitored throughout the experiment by accurate dilatometry, and low strain tensile creep compliance measurements were made simultaneously on specimens subjected to identical thermal treatments. At both test temperatures, creep behavior and volume recovery showed a similar dependence on annealing temperature and time. However, the specific volume alone was not sufficient to characterize the aging behavior of glassy PMMA: it was also necessary to define the path by which the state of the glass was reached. This memory effect, which has a direct parallel in volume recovery, is attributed to the presence of a distribution of retardation times, and accounts for, the seemingly paradoxical observation that the creep compliance can initially increase on aging at a temperature below T_g if the specimen has previously been stored for a long period at a lower temperature.     

分手真的会痛苦

在众多以爱情为题材的文学与影视作品中,分手而带来的痛苦往往是作者重点渲染的对象。无论紫式部、勃朗特姐妹、还是李清照、张爱玲、琼瑶,都靠对爱情中的痛苦经历进行复杂的心理描写而成就自己的地位。     

Maintaining strong mutual visibility of an evader moving over the reduced visibility graph

In this paper, we address the problem of determining whether a mobile robot, called the pursuer, is able to maintain strong mutual visibility (a visibility notion between regions over a convex partition of the environment) of an antagonist agent, called the evader. We frame the problem as a non cooperative game. We consider the case in which the pursuer and the evader move at bounded speed, traveling in a known polygonal environment with or without holes, and in which there are no restrictions as to the distance that might separate the agents. Unlike our previous efforts (Murrieta-Cid et al. in Int J Robot Res 26:233–253, 2007), we give special attention to the combinatorial problem that arises when searching for a solution through visiting several locations in an environment with obstacles. In this paper we take a step further, namely, we assume an antagonistic evader who moves continuously and unpredictably, but with a constraint over its set of admissible motion policies, as the evader moves in the shortest-path roadmap, also called the reduced visibility graph (RVG). The pursuer does not know which among the possible paths over the RVG the evader will choose, but the pursuer is free to move within all the environment. We provide a constructive method to solve the decision problem of determining whether or not the pursuer is able to maintain strong mutual visibility of the evader. This method is based on an algorithm that computes the safe areas (areas that keep evader surveillance) at all times. We prove decidability of this problem, and provide a complexity measure to this evader surveillance game; both contributions hold for any general polygonal environment that might or not contain holes. All our algorithms have been implemented and we show simulation results.     

Intra-accident correlations of driver injury and their application to the effect of mass ratio on injury severity

Data on the severities of the injuries to the drivers involved in two-vehicle crashes are presented and related to the relative masses of the vehicles. At any given mass ratio, there is found to be a positive correlation between the severities of injury to the two drivers. This arises because the relative velocity before impact is the same for both drivers in the one accident, but varies considerably between different accidents. The correlation may be modelled approximately by assuming relative velocity has a two-point distribution.     

设计与制造之间的界面优化

分辨率增强技术（RET）设计流程中聚集了各式各样的点工具和方法。当前对深亚波长可制造性（DFM）设计的要求迫使设计与制造行业必须建立十分密切的合作关系。同时也促使EDA行业提供一种平台，以促进这些行业间的密切交流。合理利用这一平台将会对产能和品质产生直接的影响。     

Systematic Review: Targeted Molecular Imaging of Angiogenesis and Its Mediators in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Extensive angiogenesis is a characteristic feature in the synovial tissue of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) from a very early stage of the disease onward and constitutes a crucial event for the development of the proliferative synovium. This process is markedly intensified in patients with prolonged disease duration, high disease activity, disease severity, and significant inflammatory cell infiltration. Angiogenesis is therefore an interesting target for the development of new therapeutic approaches as well as disease monitoring strategies in RA. To this end, nuclear imaging modalities represent valuable non-invasive tools that can selectively target molecular markers of angiogenesis and accurately and quantitatively track molecular changes in multiple joints simultaneously. This systematic review summarizes the imaging markers used for single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) and/or positron emission tomography (PET) approaches, targeting pathways and mediators involved in synovial neo-angiogenesis in RA.