Inhalation toxicity of 1,6-hexanediamine dihydrochloride in F344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice

1,6-Hexanediamine (HDA) is a high production volume chemical which is used as an intermediate in the synthesis of paints, resins, inks, and textiles and as a corrosion inhibitor in lubricants. Two- and 13-week studies of the toxicity of the dihydrochloride salt of HDA (HDDC) were conducted in male and female Fischer 344/N rats and B6C3F1 mice using whole-body inhalation exposure. Both species were evaluated for histopathologic and reproductive effects, and rats were examined for clinical chemistry and hematologic changes. In the 2-week inhalation studies, animals were exposed to 10-800 mg HDDC/m3, 6 hr per day. All rats, all female mice, and two of five male mice in the high-exposure group died before the end of the study. Surviving mice in this group had a dose-dependent depression in body weight gain. Clinical signs were primarily related to upper respiratory tract irritation and included dyspnea and nasal discharge in both species. Treatment-related histopathologic lesions included inflammation and necrosis of the laryngeal epithelium of both species and the tracheal epithelium of mice, as well as focal inflammation and ulceration of the respiratory and olfactory nasal mucosa. In the 13-week inhalation studies, animals were exposed to HDDC at concentrations of 1.6-160 mg/m3 for 6 hr per day, 5 days per week. In addition to the base study groups, a supplemental group of rats at each exposure level was included to assess the effect of HDDC on reproduction. No treatment-related changes in organ weights or organ-to-body-weight ratios occurred in rats, and no treatment-related clinical signs or gross lesions were seen in either species. Chemical-related microscopic lesions were limited to the upper respiratory tract (larynx and nasal passages) in the two highest exposure groups and were similar in both species. These lesions included minimal to mild focal erosion, ulceration, inflammation, and hyperplasia of the laryngeal epithelium, in addition to degeneration of the olfactory and respiratory nasal epithelium. HDDC caused no significant changes in sperm morphology or vaginal cytology and no significant adverse effects on reproduction in rats or mice. Hematologic and clinical chemistry changes in rats were minor and sporadic and were not accompanied by related histologic findings. HDDC did not increase the frequency of micronucleated erythrocytes in mice.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

An LP-based heuristic procedure for the generalized assignment problem with special ordered sets

The generalized assignment problem with special ordered sets (GAPS2), is the problem of allocating n tasks to m time-periods, where each task must be assigned to a time-period, or shared between two consecutive time-periods. For reasonably large values of m and n the NP-hard combinatorial problem GAPS2 becomes intractable for standard mathematical programming software, hence there is a need for heuristic algorithms to solve such problems. It will be shown how an LP-based heuristic developed previously for the well-established generalized assignment problem can be modified and extended to solve GAPS2. Encouraging results, in terms of speed and accuracy, in particular when compared to an existing heuristic for GAPS2, are described.     

Sub-100 fs Kerr lens modelocked Cr4+:YAG laser

Sub-100 fs pulse generation from a Kerr lens modelocked Cr⁴⁺ :YAG laser has been demonstrated for the first time, yielding femtosecond pulses tunable from 1.49 to 1.56 μm with pulses as short as 90 fs obtained at 1.53 μm     

Analysis of an antijam FH acquisition scheme

An easily implemented matched filter scheme for acquiring hopping code synchronization of incoming frequency-hopping (FH) signals is analyzed, and its performance is evaluated for two types of jamming: partial-band noise jamming and partial-band multitone jamming. The system is designed to reduce jammer-induced false alarms. The system's matched filter output is compared to an adaptive threshold that is derived from a measurement of the number of acquisition channels being jammed. Example performance calculations are given for the frequency coverage of the jamming either fixed over the entire acquisition period or hopped, that is, changed for each acquisition pulse. It is shown that the jammer's optimum strategy (the worst case) is to maximize the false alarm probability without regard for the effect on detection probability, for both partial-band noise and multitone jamming. It is also shown that a significantly lower probability of false acquisition results from using an adaptive matched filter threshold, demonstrating that the strategy studied here is superior to conventional nonadaptive threshold schemes     

The effect of the scale of horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands on flow and transport parameters.

Horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands have proven their efficiency in treating wastewater and removing the pollutants of concern. Treatment efficiency depends on the wastewater residence time, which is a function of the hydraulic loading and the physical conditions of the constructed filter system, which can be described with effective parameters such as: hydraulic conductivity, porosity, dispersivity etc. Because spatial variability is often scale dependent, these effective parameters may be affected by the scale of the system being studied. In this paper the results of tracer experiments in constructed filters using saturated horizontal flow at three scales (small and medium lab scales and full-scale system) using the same filter media is reported. Light-weight aggregate (filter media termed Filtralite-P) was used at all scales. Increasing the scale was associated with increasing dispersivity, meanwhile hydraulic conductivity experienced dramatic reduction and variation by increasing the examined scale. Observed changes in the hydraulic parameters indicate that heterogeneity at different scales should be taken into account when the performance of LWA filters are evaluated from small-scale experiments.     

Enrichment of slightly concentrated tritiated water by electrolysis using a palladium cathode coated on ionic solid polymer membrane—Design and results

In nuclear installations, tritiated water is generally produced in the process of detritiation of air circulating in the glove boxes. The goal of this work concerns enrichment of this tritiated water at low concentration by electrolysis. The choice of this electrolyzer was dictated by the passivity of selected materials to the radiolysis in low-level tritiated water and the selectivity of the method avoiding further elimination of tritiated water and moisture before release in environment. According to the results, it is feasible to treat non-negligible volume of low-level tritiated water using a cathodic palladium membrane coated on an ionic solid polymer membrane. Presence of a palladium black deposit on the palladium membrane improves effectiveness. Enrichment in tritiated water depends on the isotopic separation factor, thereby the current and the permeability values.     

Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae strains causing nosocomial outbreaks of infection in the United Kingdom

Representative isolates from 10 distinct extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing strains of Klebsiella pneumoniae that caused hospital outbreaks in the United Kingdom from 1991 to 1994 were examined for relationships between their enzymes and plasmids. The beta-lactamases were identified by a combination of isoelectric focusing and gene sequencing. SHV-2 beta-lactamase was produced by isolates from four outbreaks, SHV-5 was involved in three, and SHV-4, TEM-15, and TEM-26 were involved in one outbreak each. All of the extended-spectrum beta-lactamases were encoded by self-transmissible plasmids, with sizes ranging from about 70 to 160 kb. No similarities between the restriction digest patterns of the extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-encoding plasmids were detected, except to some extent between those that produced TEM-15 and TEM-26. Thus, outbreaks of hospital infection with these organisms in the United Kingdom from 1991 to 1994 involved distinct organisms and resistance plasmids and appeared to be unrelated.     

Active symbols and internal models: Towards a cognitive connectionism

In the first section of the article, we examine some recent criticisms of the connectionist enterprise: first, that connectionist models are fundamentally behaviorist in nature (and, therefore, non-cognitive), and second that connectionist models are fundamentally associationist in nature (and, therefore, cognitively weak). We argue that, for a limited class of connectionist models (feed-forward, pattern-associator models), the first criticism is unavoidable. With respect to the second criticism, we propose that connectionist modelsare fundamentally associationist but that this is appropriate for building models of human cognition. However, we do accept the point that there are cognitive capacities for which any purely associative model cannot provide a satisfactory account. The implication that we draw from is this is not that associationist models and mechanisms should be scrapped, but rather that they should be enhanced.In the next section of the article, we identify a set of connectionist approaches which are characterized by active symbols — recurrent circuits which are the basis of knowledge representation. We claim that such approaches avoid criticisms of behaviorism and are, in principle, capable of supporting full cognition. In the final section of the article, we speculate at some length about what we believe would be the characteristics of a fully realized active symbol system. This includes both potential problems and possible solutions (for example, mechanisms needed to control activity in a complex recurrent network) as well as the promise of such systems (in particular, the emergence of knowledge structures which would constitute genuine internal models).     

Determination of glass content and estimation of glass composition in fly ash using quantitative X-ray diffractometry

The proportion of amorphous or glassy material in a series of fly ashes has been evaluated by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) using the Rietveld-based SIROQUANT software package. Several different sample preparation and processing methods were investigated, including XRD analysis of samples spiked with known masses of synthetic corundum and zinc oxide as well as techniques based on analysing the raw or unspiked fly ash directly using the SIROQUANT process. In the latter case, two different poorly crystallised silicate mineral patterns, metakaolin and tridymite, were used in the SIROQUANT processing of the raw ash XRD data to represent the amorphous constituents. The results of the different methods based on XRD of spiked samples were found to be mutually consistent, and also consistent with other published data for an international reference fly ash sample. SIROQUANT analysis of the unspiked fly ashes gave similar results, although different poorly crystallised silicate reference patterns seem to be more suited for ashes from Australian and North American sources.The mineralogy of the ashes, including the proportions of quartz, iron oxide and glassy constituents, appears to be related to the nature of the mineral matter in the relevant feed coals. Calculations based on subtracting the inferred chemistry of the crystalline minerals in the fly ashes from the total fly ash chemistry were also used to estimate the overall chemical composition of the glass fraction in each ash. The results indicate that ashes derived from lower-rank coals in the samples studied have different glass compositions to those derived from higher-rank (bituminous) materials. These different glass compositions appear to be related to several other ash properties, including particle density and particle surface area. Evaluation of glass content and composition may be significant in different aspects of ash utilisation, and also in evaluating interactions with water at ash disposal sites.