Platelet-activating factor and the vascular effects of zymosan in rats

Platelet-activating factor (PAF; 2.5 micrograms/kg) injected in the tail vein of anaesthetized rats increased the vascular permeability of the duodenum, paws, skin and muscles, as measured by the extravasation of 125I-labelled albumin. It did not affect the permeability of the lungs or the presence of labelled albumin in the liver and spleen. The effects of PAF were dose dependently inhibited by WEB 2086 (ID50: 1.39 to 2.09 mg/kg) and SM-12502 (ID50: 7.17 to 8.36 mg/kg). Zymosan, an activator of the alternative complement pathway (10 or 16 mg/kg), induced protein extravasation in the lungs, duodenum, paws and skin, and the accumulation of labelled albumin in the liver. The effects of zymosan on the duodenum and liver were dose dependently inhibited by WEB-2086 and SM-12502. Both PAF antagonists increased the effects of zymosan in the paws but they did not affect protein extravasation in the lungs. The hypotensive effect of PAF (0.5 micrograms/kg) was inhibited by WEB 2086 (ID50: 1.21 mg/kg) and SM-12502 (ID50: 13.4 mg/kg). Both PAF antagonists reduced the hypotensive effects of zymosan (4 or 16 mg/kg) with a similar relative inhibitory potency. PAF is the major mediator involved in the hypotensive effect of zymosan but plays only a minor role in the permeability-enhancing effect of zymosan, mostly in the splanchnic area.     

An experimental study on the applicability of evolutionary algorithms to craniofacial superimposition in forensic identification

Photographic supra-projection is a forensic process that aims to identify a missing person from a photograph and a skull found. One of the crucial tasks throughout all this process is the craniofacial superimposition which tries to find a good fit between a 3D model of the skull and the 2D photo of the face. This photographic supra-projection stage is usually carried out manually by forensic anthropologists. It is thus very time consuming and presents several difficulties. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that real-coded evolutionary algorithms are suitable approaches to tackle craniofacial superimposition. To do so, we first formulate this complex task in forensic identification as a numerical optimization problem. Then, we adapt three different evolutionary algorithms to solve it: two variants of a real-coded genetic algorithm and the state of the art evolution strategy CMA-ES. We also consider an existing binary-coded genetic algorithm as a baseline. Results on several superimposition problems of real-world identification cases solved by the Physical Anthropology lab at the University of Granada (Spain) are considered to test our proposals.     

XML模式的扩展研究

XML是目前已被广泛采用的WWW上信息交换和表示的技术之一，被称为Internet时代的通用数据格式。首先针对现有的XML语法进行了抽象及封闭性分析，得到了扩展XML语法，然后开发了一个分析器，对由此扩展语法生成的对象进行分析，实验表明，扩展后的XML语法具有较W3C规范的XML语法有更一般的表现力。     

A scatter search-based technique for pair-wise 3D range image registration in forensic anthropology

Different tasks in forensic anthropology require the use of three-dimensional models of forensic objects (skulls, bones, corpses, etc) captured by 3D range scanners. Since a whole object cannot be completely scanned with a single image, multiple scans from different views are needed to supply the information to construct the 3D model. Range image registration methods study the accurate integration of the different views acquired by range scanners, with pair-wise approaches progressively processing every adjacent pair of scanned views until reconstructing the whole 3D model of the object. Our proposal is based on the adaptation of our previous work (Cordon et al, IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computation, pp 2738–2744, 2005 in Pattern Recognit Lett 27(11); 1191-1200, 2006) in order to apply the scatter search evolutionary algorithm to pair-wise image registration in forensic anthropology applications. To measure the performance of this adaptation, we design an experimental setup considering some of the most recent and accurate evolutionary techniques for the problem, as well as one skull from our Physical Anthropology Lab. Two additional volumes, commonly used in other pair-wise range IR contributions, have also been considered to complement the comparison of results among the proposals. This work was supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología of Spain under project TIC2003-00877 (including FEDER fundings).     

THE QSM ALGORITHM AND ITS APPLICATION TO SOFTWARE BEHAVIOR MODEL INDUCTION

This article presents a novel application of grammatical inference techniques to the synthesis of behavior models of software systems. This synthesis is used for the elicitation of software requirements. This problem is formulated as a deterministic finite-state automaton induction problem from positive and negative scenarios provided by an end user of the software-to-be. A query-driven state merging (QSM) algorithm is proposed. It extends the Regular Positive and Negative Inference (RPNI) and blue-fringe algorithms by allowing membership queries to be submitted to the end user. State merging operations can be further constrained by some prior domain knowledge formulated as fluents, goals, domain properties, and models of external software components. The incorporation of domain knowledge both reduces the number of queries and guarantees that the induced model is consistent with such knowledge. The proposed techniques are implemented in the ISIS tool and practical evaluations on standard requirements engineering test cases and synthetic data illustrate the interest of this approach.     

Daily living activity recognition based on statistical feature quality group selection

The benefits arising from proactive conduct and subject-specialized healthcare have driven e-health and e-monitoring into the forefront of research, in which the recognition of motion, postures and physical exercise is one of the main subjects. We propose here a multidisciplinary method for the recognition of physical activity with the emphasis on feature extraction and selection processes, which are considered to be the most critical stages in identifying the main unknown activity discriminant elements. Efficient feature selection processes are particularly necessary when dealing with huge training datasets in a multidimensional space, where conventional feature selection procedures based on wrapper methods or ‘branch and bound’ are highly expensive in computational terms. We propose an alternative filter method using a feature quality group ranking via a couple of two statistical criteria. Satisfactory results are achieved in both laboratory and semi-naturalistic activity living datasets for real problems using several classification models, thus proving that any body sensor location can be suitable to define a simple one-feature-based recognition system, with particularly remarkable accuracy and applicability in the case of the wrist.     

Online global learning in direct fuzzy controllers

A novel approach to achieve real-time global learning in fuzzy controllers is proposed. Both the rule consequents and the membership functions defined in the premises of the fuzzy rules are tuned using a one-step algorithm, which is capable of controlling nonlinear plants with no prior offline training. Direct control is achieved by means of two auxiliary systems: The first one is responsible for adapting the consequents of the main controller's rules to minimize the error arising at the plant output, while the second auxiliary system compiles real input-output data obtained from the plant. The system then learns in real time from these data taking into account, not the current state of the plant but rather the global identification performed. Simulation results show that this approach leads to an enhanced control policy thanks to the global learning performed, avoiding overfitting.     

N-alkyl-3-vinylpyridinium salts: homopolymerization of the hexadecyl derivative and behaviour study of the polymer in aqueous media

Summary We report on the preparation and the characterization of R-alkylated quaternary salts (with RCCH₃, C₁₂H₂₅, C₁₆H₃₃, X=Br^-) derived from 3-vinylpyridine (3-VP). Our first attempts on free radical polymerization of 1-hexadecyl-3-vinylpyridinium bromide in benzene solution were described. The viscosimetric behaviour and binding of dye (Methyl Orange) to this homopolymer in aqueous media were interpreted as the formation of compact coils resulting in the presence of hydrophobic microdomains.     

Sepsis and serum cytokine concentrations

Hematological and plasma chemistry parameters were measured in 129 juvenile white storks (Ciconia ciconia), either wild or captive bred, April to June 1994. Wild storks were members of a colony in the Lozoya River Valley, Madrid, Spain. Red blood cells count, packed cell volume and hemoglobin increased significantly with age. White blood cells count, lymphocytes count and platelets decreased with age. Total solids, total proteins, fibrinogen, albumin, alpha, beta, gamma-globulins and urea increased with age. Differences between captive and wild birds were not notable.