Seizures in cerebral malaria

The authors proposed a new application of helical CT, namely, CT-ventriculography that can obtain 2D and 3D images of different cardiac phases. CT-ventriculography could assess wall motion, systolic thickening and chamber volume. From a single breath hold helical CT 50-rotation), about 500 transaxial slices were obtained by applying overlapping reconstruction (0.1 pitch, 0.08 sec = 0.2 mm interval). All transaxial slices were recordered to separate different cardiac phases. Then, long and short axial 2D tomograms and 3D images in different cardiac phases were reformatted. CT-ventriculography is a promising new application for the assessment of heart function.     

Investment analysis of introducing standby or redundancy into a production system

A systematic method is developed for investment decision on an additional equipment to form a standby or redundant system with a crucial equipment in a production system, considering the cost of repairs, switchover, operation, maintenance and production loss. A method is also proposed to compare these standby and redundant systems.     

A glimpse into the clinical proteome of human malaria parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax

Malaria causes a worldwide annual mortality of about a million people. Rapidly evolving drug-resistant species of the parasite have created a pressing need for the identification of new drug targets and vaccine candidates. By developing fractionation protocols to enrich parasites from low-parasitemia patient samples, we have carried out the first ever proteomics analysis of clinical isolates of early stages of Plasmodium falciparum (Pf) and P. vivax. Patient-derived malarial parasites were directly processed and analyzed using shotgun proteomics approach using high-sensitivity MS for protein identification. Our study revealed about 100 parasite-coded gene products that included many known drug targets such as Pf hypoxanthine guanine phosphoribosyl transferase, Pf L-lactate dehydrogenase, and Plasmepsins. In addition, our study reports the expression of several parasite proteins in clinical ring stages that have never been reported in the ring stages of the laboratory-cultivated parasite strain. This proof-of-principle study represents a noteworthy step forward in our understanding of pathways elaborated by the parasite within the malaria patient and will pave the way towards identification of new drug and vaccine targets that can aid malaria therapy.     

Brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) and somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) in enteric encephalopathy (EE)

BAEPs and SEPs were studied in 25 patients of enteric encephalopathy in acute phase and the results were compared with 25 healthy control persons. In the study the important observations of BAEPs were delayed peak latency of wave III, wave V and delayed ILP I-V, and of SEPs was prolonged peak latency of N20. The electrophysiological evidence suggests metabolic cause for the coma and the SEP changes were similar to those observed in cerebral malaria reported earlier in this laboratory.     

Reliability analysis and investment decision in electric motors for irrigation

In this paper, the importance of expensive efficient and more reliable motors is analysed with respect to their use in irrigation. A systematic method is proposed to make investment decisions on the selection of motors by taking into account electricity consumption, the crop loss due to down-time and the cost of repair.     

提升行动装置屏幕的观赏效果

行动上网装置(MID)与上网本(Netbook)一项成功关键是使用者的使用体验——尤其是屏幕显示效果。消费者对这些装置的电池续航力,必须远优于传统的可携式计算机,持续一整天的电力似乎是最低限度的要求。行动上网装置与上网本亦必须比膝上型或笔记型计算机更为轻巧,并搭载理想的屏幕分辨率。4到7英寸的屏幕搭配Wide SVGA(WSVGA)的分辨率,是行动上网装置的最佳规格;上网本方面的最佳规格则是WSVGA或WXGA分辨率的11英寸屏幕。     

Stress and hypertension

Stress can cause hypertension through repeated blood pressure elevations as well as by stimulation of the nervous system to produce large amounts of vasoconstricting hormones that increase blood pressure. Factors affecting blood pressure through stress include white coat hypertension, job strain, race, social environment, and emotional distress. Furthermore, when one risk factor is coupled with other stress producing factors, the effect on blood pressure is multiplied. Overall, studies show that stress does not directly cause hypertension, but can have an effect on its development. A variety of non-pharmacologic treatments to manage stress have been found effective in reducing blood pressure and development of hypertension, examples of which are meditation, acupressure, biofeedback and music therapy. Recent results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicate that 50 million American adults have hypertension (defined to be a systolic blood pressure of greater than 139 mm Hg or a diastolic blood pressure of greater than 89 mm Hg). In 95% of these cases, the cause of hypertension is unknown and they are categorized as "essential" hypertension. Although a single cause may not be identified, the general consensus is that various factors contribute to blood pressure elevation in essential hypertension. In these days of 70 hour work weeks, pagers, fax machines, and endless committee meetings, stress has become a prevalent part of people's lives; therefore the effect of stress on blood pressure is of increasing relevance and importance. Although stress may not directly cause hypertension, it can lead to repeated blood pressure elevations, which eventually may lead to hypertension. In this article we explore how stress can cause hypertension and what can be done about it.     

Experiments and modeling of propane combustion with vitiation

The chemical species composition of a vitiated oxidizer stream can significantly affect the combustion processes that occur in many propulsion and power generation systems. Experiments were performed to investigate the chemical kinetic effects of vitiation on ignition and flame propagation of hydrocarbon fuels using propane. Atmospheric-pressure flow reactor experiments were performed to investigate the effect of NO_x on propane ignition delay time at varying O₂ levels (14–21 mol%) and varying equivalence ratios (0.5–1.5) with reactor temperatures of 875 K and 917 K. Laminar flame speed measurements were obtained using a Bunsen burner facility to investigate the effect of CO₂ dilution on flame propagation at an inlet temperature of 650 K. Experimental and modeling results show that small amounts of NO can significantly reduce the ignition delay time of propane in the low- and intermediate-temperature regimes. For example, 755 ppmv NOx in the vitiated stream reduced the ignition delay time of a stoichiometric propane/air mixture by 75% at 875 K. Chemical kinetic modeling shows that H-atom abstraction reaction of the fuel molecule by NO₂ plays a critical role in promoting ignition in conjunction with reactions between NO and less reactive radicals such as HO₂ and CH₃O₂ at low and intermediate temperatures. Experimental results show that the presence of 10 mol% CO₂ in the vitiated air reduces the peak laminar flame speed by up to a factor of two. Chemical kinetic effects of CO₂ contribute to the reduction in flame speed by suppressing the formation of OH radicals in addition to the lower flame temperature caused by dilution. Overall, the detailed chemical kinetic mechanism developed in the current work predicts the chemical kinetic effects of vitiated species, namely NO_x and CO₂, on propane combustion reasonably well. Moreover, the reaction kinetic scheme also predicts the negative temperature coefficient (NTC) behavior of propane during low-temperature oxidation.     

Proposed Low-Power High-Speed Microring Resonator-Based Switching Technique for Dynamically Reconfigurable Optical Interconnects

The dynamic bandwidth re-allocation (DBR) technique balances traffic by re-allocating bandwidth from under-utilized links to over-utilized links in a network. In this letter, we propose a nonblocking, fast, low-power, and integratable optical switch that enables DBR. The basic building blocks of the proposed switch are silicon-on-insulator-based microring resonators. Analytical and numerical studies show that the active switch design gives similar performance in throughput and latency, while reducing cost (number of lasers) and area significantly when compared to implementation of DBR with only passive components. There is a slight increase in power (~0.4% for worst-case traffic pattern) using the active switch implementation.     

FPGA设计保护

对于系统设计人员来说,设计保密性成为一个越来越重要的问题,特别是因为越来越多的设计人员都开始充分利用现场可编程门阵列(FPGA)所提供的巨大优点。利用FPGA可缩短开发时间。许多研究都表明产品是否在恰当的时间进入市场对于销售能否获得成功非常关键。然而,FPGA的易用性也有其缺点,就是其设计容易受到反向工程的攻击,设计保密性不佳。过去,军用产品以及高营收产品(如赌博和游戏设备)比较重视设计保密性,但随着更多的设计采用FPGA器件,而且在许多市场领域(如无线网络)中加密和数据保密性也非常关键,因此设计保密性变得越来越重要。…