Hereditary neuralgic amyotrophy and hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsies: two distinct clinical, electrophysiologic, and genetic entities

Fistulas secondary to Crohn's disease occur in about 33% of patients. A colobronchial fistula complicating Crohn's disease is very rare, having been reported only twice previously. We present an unusual fistula secondary to Crohn's colitis that originated from the splenic flexure and crossed the diaphragm to involve the bronchial tree.     

Strength of short concrete columns confined with CFRP sheets

The confinement of concrete columns provided by carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) sheets can be an efficient technique for their structural strengthening. The principal advantages of this technique are the high strength-to-weight ratio, good fatigue properties, non-corroding characteristics of the CFRP, and the facility of its application. An experimental research program, that included tests on 54 short column specimens, was carried out to investigate the gain in strength and ductility of concrete columns externally confined by CFRP wrapping. The variables studied were the column cross section shape (circular, square and rectangular) and the amount of confinement expressed in the number of CFRP sheet layers applied to the models (one or two layers). On the basis of the obtained results, equations were proposed to calculate the confined concrete strength and the ultimate confined concrete strain as a function of the confining lateral stress for each of the cross section geometry used, circular, square and rectangular. The estimations given by these equations and by those from formulas encountered in the literature were compared with the experimental ones and general conclusions were, finally, drawn.

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Résumé Le confinement de colonnes de béton assuré par des feuilles de plastique renforcé par des fibres de carbone (CFRP) peut être une technique efficace pour leur comportement structural. Les principaux avantages de cette technique sont la haute relation résistance-poids, des bonnes propriétés de fatigue, les caractéristiques non-corrosives du CFRP, et la facilité de leur application. Un programme expérimental comprenant des essais sur 54 colonnes courtes fut entrepris en vue de déterminer le gain de résistance et de ductilité de colonnes en béton confinées sur le plan externe en les recouvrant de feuilles de CFRP. Les variables étudiées étaient la forme de la section transversale (circulaire, carrée et rectangulaire), et la quantité de renforcement, mesurée par le nombre de feuilles de CFRP appliquées aux modèles (une ou deux couches). En prenant comme base les résultats obtenus, des équations ont été proposées pour calculer la résistance du béton confiné et sa déformation spécifique ultime en fonction de la contrainte latérale de confinement, pour chaque forme de section transversale utilisée, circulaire, carrée et rectangulaire. Les estimations données par ces équations et celles données par des formules trouvées dans la litérature ont été comparées avec les résultats expérimentaux et des conclusions générales ont finalement été établies.

     

The antioxidant activity of amino acids in two vegetable oils

Of 27 amino acids studied, most had some antioxidant activity when added in aqueous solution to either safflower oil or a mixture of sunflower and cottonseed oil (active oxygen and storage methods). Cysteine-HCl, glutamic acid-HCl (in the mixture), and glutamic acid-HCl (in safflower oil) behaved as prooxidants. When added as a solid, most amino acids were ineffective. The protection factors of these amino acids were less than 1.3 in safflower oil with methionine, proline, lysine and cysteine providing the highest activ-ity. In the oil mixture (which had a higher metal content) lysine, arginine, glutamic acid, methionine, and hydroxyproline were anti-oxidant with protection factors of up to 1.85. Chelation of metals by amino acids was presumably responsible for the antioxidant activity. The increase in cysteine concentration up to 1% has more than doubled the protection factor in Bint oil (compared with the 0.01% level), whereas with some other amino acids the increase was either small or slight.     

Alkali release characteristics of blended cements

This paper presents results of an experimental program conducted to investigate the capacity of hydration products of different cementing materials to retain “bound” alkalis when the alkalinity of the surrounding solution drops. The study covered paste samples containing high-alkali Portland cement and various levels of silica fume and/or fly ash. The results showed that the ability of the hydration products of cement-fly ash systems to bind alkalis is a function of the CaO content of the fly ash, the binding increasing as the calcium content decreases. High-alkali fly ashes (Na₂O_e > 5.0% and CaO in the range of 15% to 20%) showed considerable amounts of alkali contributed to the test solutions. Silica fume does not have a high capacity to retain alkalis in its hydration products; however, ternary blends containing silica fume and fly ash have excellent capacity to bind and retain alkalis.     

New phospholipid fatty acids from the marine spongeCinachyrella alloclada uliczka

The fatty acid composition of phospholipids from the Senegalese spongeCinachyrella alloclada was examined. Two new fatty acids not hitherto found in nature, namely 10,13-octadecadienoic acid and 16-tricosenoic acid, were identified. 8-Hexadecenoic, 13-nonadecenoic and 5,9,13-trimethyltretradecanoic fatty acids were also found for the first time in sponges. The latter compound (1.4% of the total fatty acid mixture), an isoprenoid fatty acid, accompanies the major fatty acid 4,8,12-trimethyltridecanoic acid (19.7%). The monomethyl branched fatty acids (22%) identified include 23-methylpentacosanoic acid (anteiso-26∶0), not previously observed in sponged. The major long-chain fatty acids encountered were the known 17-tetracosenoic 19-heptacosadienoic and 5,9,23-tricontatrienoic acid. Some sixty fatty acids were identified as methyl esters andN-acyl pyrrolidides by gas chromatography and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry.     

Sterols,methyl sterols,triterpene alcohols and fatty acids of the kernel fat of different malagasy mango(Mangifera indica) varieties

The kernel fat content of 16 different mango varieties collected from the Northwestern part of Madagascar island were examined. The fat content (22–54%) was determined by chloroform/methanol extraction. Investigation by gas liquid chromatography (GLC) revealed 15 fatty acids, mainly palmitic (7–12%), stearic (22–40%), oleic (41–48%) and linoleic (7–17%). Significant correlations were observed among the main fatty acids. Testing for the sterol fraction in 15 mango varieties allowed us to separate and quantitatively analyze 7 sterols by GLC. The main sterols wereβ-sitosterol (47–76%), stigmasterol (12–23%) and campesterol (7–12%). The stigmasterol/campesterol ratio (1.2:2.3) was lower in mango kernel fat than in cocoa butter. Among the 4-methyl sterol fractions, gramisterol, lophenol, obtusifoliol and citrostadienol were tentatively identified by GLC. Lupeol, cycloartenol,α- andβ-amyrins and friedelinol were tentatively identified by GLC in the triterpene alcohols fractions.     

Plasma and lipoprotein fatty acid composition in glycogen storage disease type I

Nocturnal intragastric feeding has been shown to be an effective means to improve clinical and biochemical features in glycogen storage disease type I (GSD-I). In this study, we investigated the fatty acid patterns in a whole plasma and in circulating lipoproteins in patients on this therapy. The results demonstrated massive concentration of total fatty acids coupled with higher levels of triglycerides, free cholesterol, cholesterol ester and phospholipids. This hyperlipidemia involved all fatty acids without distinction of carbon or bond numbers. However, the increase was more pronounced for saturated than polyunsaturated fatty acids, as was demonstrated by the ratios of both oleic acid to linoleic acid (1.91±0.40 vs 0.80±0.09 in controls) and of ω3+ω6 to ω9 fatty acid families (0.92±0.11 vs 1.66±0.08 in controls). The fatty acid patterns in very low (VLDL), low (LDL) and high (HDL) density lipoprotein showed substantial differences in composition, reflecting an association between an abnormal lipoprotein pattern and essential fatty acid deficiency. Furthermore, GSD-I patients exhibited a significant increase in VLDL (17±2 vs 47±7 mg/dl) and LDL cholesterol (124±7 vs 206±24 mg/dl), coupled with a decrease in HDL cholesterol (49±4 vs 28±3 mg/dl). These data documenting high LDL cholesterol and low HDL cholesterol associated with an increased concentration and proportion of saturated fatty acids suggest that GSD-I patients on nocturnal intragastric feeding are at high risk for atherosclerosis and its complications.     

Recognizing arabic handwritten characters using deep learning and genetic algorithms

Automated techniques for Arabic content recognition are at a beginning period contrasted with their partners for the Latin and Chinese contents recognition. There is a bulk of handwritten Arabic archives available in libraries, data centers, historical centers, and workplaces. Digitization of these documents facilitates (1) to preserve and transfer the country’s history electronically, (2) to save the physical storage space, (3) to proper handling of the documents, and (4) to enhance the retrieval of information through the Internet and other mediums. Arabic handwritten character recognition (AHCR) systems face several challenges including the unlimited variations in human handwriting and the leakage of large and public databases. In the current study, the segmentation and recognition phases are addressed. The text segmentation challenges and a set of solutions for each challenge are presented. The convolutional neural network (CNN), deep learning approach, is used in the recognition phase. The usage of CNN leads to significant improvements across different machine learning classification algorithms. It facilitates the automatic feature extraction of images. 14 different native CNN architectures are proposed after a set of try-and-error trials. They are trained and tested on the HMBD database that contains 54,115 of the handwritten Arabic characters. Experiments are performed on the native CNN architectures and the best-reported testing accuracy is 91.96%. A transfer learning (TF) and genetic algorithm (GA) approach named “HMB-AHCR-DLGA” is suggested to optimize the training parameters and hyperparameters in the recognition phase. The pre-trained CNN models (VGG16, VGG19, and MobileNetV2) are used in the later approach. Five optimization experiments are performed and the best combinations are reported. The highest reported testing accuracy is 92.88%.

     

Copper planar microcoils applied to magnetic actuation

Recent advances in microtechnology allow realization of planar microcoils. These components are integrated in MEMS as magnetic sensor or actuator. In the latter case, it is necessary to maximize the effective magnetic field which is proportional to the current passing through the copper track and depends on the distance to the generation microcoil. The aim of this work was to determine the optimal microcoil design configuration for magnetic field generation. The results were applied to magnetic actuation, taking into account technological constraints. In particular, we have considered different realistic configurations that involve a magnetically actuated device coupled to a microcoil. Calculations by a semi-analytical method using Matlab software were validated by experimental measurements. The copper planar microcoils are fabricated by UV micromoulding on different substrates: flexible polymer (Kapton^®) and silicate on silicon. They are constituted by a spiral-like continuous track. Their total surface is about 1 mm².