Slipped capital femoral epiphysis associated with radiation therapy

We reviewed 32 children with 41 radiation-therapy associated slipped capital femoral epiphyses (RTASCFE). Ten were from the authors' institutions and 22 from the literature. Gender distribution was equal. The age at diagnosis of the malignancy was 4.3 +/- 3.1 years; the amount of radiation was 4,240 +/- 1,445 rads. Children with RTASCFE presented younger (10.4 +/- 3.2 years) than a routine SCFE. The average symptom duration was 5 +/- 6 months. Children with RTASCFE are usually thin (median weight, 10th percentile) in contrast to children with typical SCFE, who are usually obese (<95th percentile). The majority (82%) of the slips were mild, compared to routine SCFEs (approximately 50%); 28% were bilateral. There was a positive linear relationship between the age at presentation of the SCFE and the age at diagnosis of the malignancy; there was a negative linear relationship between the age at presentation of the SCFE and the amount of radiation therapy.     

A new classification approach for prediction of flyrock throw in surface mines

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - A novel classification approach was proposed for prediction of flyrock throw distance based on the site measurements performed in a sandstone...     

Geometric correction accuracy of IRS-1D PAN imagery using topographic map versus GPS control points

Geometric correction accuracy of IRS-1D panchromatic imagery was investigated using GPS- and 1?:?25?000 scale topographic map-derived control points. The differentially corrected GPS-derived coordinates provided markedly more accurate results than did uncorrected handheld GPS- and map-derived GCPs. The rms error value of differentially corrected GPS-derived control points based on second-degree polynomial was in the order of ±3?m. Geometric corrections made with second-degree polynomials, using both the map- and uncorrected handheld GPS-derived control points, yielded rms error values in the order of ±5?m. The results revealed that the uncorrected handheld GPS-derived control points can be a valuable alternative to planimetric control for geometric correction of IRS-1C/D panchromatic imagery with one-pixel size accuracy.     

Effects of mixing techniques and dentin moisture conditions on push-out bond strength of ProRoot MTA and Biodentine

Objective: To evaluate the influence of manual and mechanical mixing techniques as well as the effects of moisture on the push-out bond strength of ProRoot MTA (Dentsply Tulsa Dental, Tulsa, OK, USA) and Biodentine (Septodont, Saint Maur des Fosses, France) to radicular dentin.

Material and methods: Two hundred and forty dentin discs were assigned into three groups with respect to the moisture condition tested: (1) dry, (2) paper points, (3) wet. The discs were further divided into four subgroups according to the calcium silicate cements (CSCs) and mixing techniques used: (1) ProRoot MTA mixed manually, (2) ProRoot MTA mixed mechanically, (3) Biodentine mixed manually, and (4) Biodentine mixed mechanically. Bond strengths of the cements to root canal dentin were measured using a push-out test setup. The data were statistically analyzed using three-way ANOVA and Bonferroni post hoc test p = 0.05.

Results: The data indicated that the push-out bond strength values were significantly affected by CSCs, mixing techniques, and moisture conditions (p < 0.001). Dry conditions caused a significant decrease in bond strength values for both CSCs (p < 0.001). The mean bond strength of Biodentine was significantly higher than that of ProRoot MTA, regardless of the mixing techniques and moisture conditions (p < 0.001). Mechanical mixing favored bond strength values statistically compared to manual mixing (p < .001).

Conclusion: The mixing techniques and moisture conditions have an effect on the push-out bond strengths of ProRoot MTA and Biodentine. Dry samples and manual mixing of cements deteriorate the push-out bond strengths values.     

Towards a verifiable real-time, autonomic, fault mitigation framework for large scale real-time systems

Designing autonomic fault responses is difficult, particularly in large-scale systems, as there is no single ‘perfect’ fault mitigation response to a given failure. The design of appropriate mitigation actions depend upon the goals and state of the application and environment. Strict time deadlines in real-time systems further exacerbate this problem. Any autonomic behavior in such systems must not only be functionally correct but should also conform to properties of liveness, safety and bounded time responsiveness. This paper details a real-time fault-tolerant framework, which uses a reflex and healing architecture to provide fault mitigation capabilities for large-scale real-time systems. At the heart of this architecture is a real-time reflex engine, which has a state-based failure management logic that can respond to both event- and time-based triggers. We also present a semantic domain for verifying properties of systems, which use this framework of real-time reflex engines. Lastly, a case study, which examines the details of such an approach, is presented.     

Field-based crop classification using SPOT4, SPOT5, IKONOS and QuickBird imagery for agricultural areas: a comparison study

A comparison of agricultural crop maps from independent field-based classifications of the Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre (SPOT) 4 multispectral (XS), SPOT5 XS, IKONOS XS, QuickBird XS and QuickBird pan-sharpened (PS) images is presented. An agricultural area within the north-west section of Turkey was analysed for field-based crop identification. The SPOT4 XS, SPOT5 XS, IKONOS XS and QuickBird images were collected in similar climatic conditions during July and August 2004. The classification of each image was carried out separately on a per-field basis on all bands and the coincident bands that are green, red and near-infrared (NIR). To examine the effect of filtering on field-based classification, the images were each filtered using the 3?×?3, 5?×?5, 7?×?7 and 9?×?9 mean filter and the filtered bands were also classified on per-field basis. For the unfiltered images, IKONOS XS provided the highest overall accuracies of 88.9% and 88.1% for the all-bands and the coincident bands classifications, respectively. On average, IKONOS XS performed slightly better than QuickBird XS and QuickBird PS, while it outperformed SPOT4 XS and SPOT5 XS. The use of filtered images in field-based classification reduced the accuracies for SPOT4 XS, SPOT5 XS, IKONOS XS and QuickBird XS. The results of this study indicate that smoothing images prior to classification does not improve the accuracies for the field-based classification. On the contrary, the accuracies for the filtered QuickBird PS images indicated a slight improvement. On the whole, both IKONOS and QuickBird images produced quite promising results for field-based crop mapping, yielding overall accuracies above 83%.     

Detection of collapsed buildings caused by the 1999 Izmit,Turkey earthquake through digital analysis of post-event aerial photographs

In this study, the post-earthquake aerial photographs were digitally processed and analysed to detect collapsed buildings caused by the Izmit, Turkey earthquake of 17 August 1999. The selected area of study encloses part of the city of Golcuk, which is one of the urban areas most strongly hit by the earthquake. The analysis relies on the idea that if a building is collapsed, then it will not have corresponding shadows. The boundaries of the buildings were available and stored in a Geographical Information System (GIS) as vector polygons. The vector building polygons were used to match the shadow casting edges of the buildings with their corresponding shadows and to perform analyses in a building-specific manner. The shadow edges of the buildings were detected through a Prewitt edge detection algorithm. For each building, the agreement was then measured between the shadow producing edges of the building polygons and the thresholded edge image based on the percentage of shadow edge pixels. If the computed percentage value was below a preset threshold then the building being assessed was declared as collapsed. Of the 80 collapsed buildings, 74 were detected correctly, providing 92.50% producer's accuracy. The overall accuracy was computed as 96.15%. The results show that the detection of the collapsed buildings through digital analysis of post-earthquake aerial photographs based on shadow information is quite encouraging. It is also demonstrated that determining the optimum threshold value for separating the collapsed from uncollapsed buildings is important.     

A role for certain mouse Aprt sequences in resistance to toxic adenine analogs

The in vitro metabolic activity of the esterase responsible for the hydrolysis of diltiazem (DTZ) to its deacetylated metabolite (M1) was determined in an age-dependent fashion using the rabbit as an animal model. The presence of the enzyme in several tissues (liver, lung, small intestine, and brain) and in whole blood from pre-term and full-term fetuses, full-term newborns, yound and adult rabbits was examined. To this end, DTZ was spiked to 10,000-g tissue homogenates and whole blood to yield a final concentration of 1 microgram/ml. Serial samples were withdrawn from the incubation medium up to 240 min and assayed for DTZ and M1 concentration. In all tissues examined there was a net production of M1. Chemical breakdown and stability studies confirmed the metabolic origin of the M1 formed throughout the incubation. In pre-term fetuses (25 days of gestation) the brain was found to be the most active tissue in eliminating DTZ (brain > liver > lung > small intestine). This trend changed in young and adult rabbits (lung = brain > liver > small intestine). Although an important age-dependent DTZ deacetylase activity was observed in blood, it was not included in the comparison between organs because of the unequal composition of the incubation medium. In conclusion, results showed that fetuses and newborn rabbits have a similar, and in some instances higher, DTZ deacetylase activity to that in adults (p < 0.05). In vitro findings were further confirmed by in vivo experiments.     

Second-Law Analysis for an Inclined Channel Containing Porous-Clear Fluid Layers by Using the Differential Transform Method

In this study, convection in a porous medium for a laminar, incompressible, non-Darcy model flow in an inclined channel has been investigated. The flow field considered is composed of porous and clear viscous layers. The solutions are carried out for both clear fluid and porous regions by using the differential transform method (DTM). For the solutions of governing equations, constant values for some parameters such as angle of inclination (φ), porous parameter (σ), and the ratio of the heights of two layers (h) are assigned. In order to verify the applied solution technique, the results obtained are compared to the already existing ones evaluated by perturbation method. It is noticed that the results by two methods are in agreement for small values of Brinkman number (Br). However, for higher values of Br, the solutions carried out by perturbation method lose accuracy but the results of the DTM are still valid. The entropy generation number (N _s ) is derived and plotted by using dimensionless velocity and temperature profiles. One of the advantages of this study to similar studies is to give an open form series solution, which gives a tractable and easily applicable recurative form of nonlinear field equations. In similar studies, it is said that the equations are solved; however, neither solution technique nor accuracy or applicability of given technique are clear. In this work, these are well documented.