A new actigraph for long-term registration of the duration andintensity of tremor and movement

Actigraphy, the long-term measurement of human movement with a small solid state recorder, is gaining acceptance as a useful method in many research fields. Currently available actigraphs assess or estimate the movement duration per time interval. However, the output gives no information on movement type or intensity, and cannot be used in subjects suffering from tremor. The present paper describes a new type of actigraph, that has been developed primarily for the long-term evaluation of motor symptoms in Parkinson patients. The device is the first to discriminate tremor from other movements and to assess both duration and intensity of the two types of movement. It is based on a Motorola 68HC805B6 microcontroller and contains: an accelerometer, programmable gain stages, programmable low- and highpass filters, a programmable level comparator, a peak detector, interface circuits, a real time clock, data storage, and control circuitry. The micro-controller performs a period amplitude sequence analysis (PASA) on the conditioned accelerometer signal, and stores four output variables (tremor duration, tremor amplitude, movement duration, and movement amplitude) at the end of programmable time intervals. The analysis of fluctuations in the motor symptoms of, e.g., Parkinson patients using this actigraph can be of great help in the pharmacological management of symptoms     

Positive identification of the specificity of polymerase chain reaction product

A method of positive identification of the specificity of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product using internal oligonucleotide probe is introduced. The hybridization was done on the agarose gel which was dried after electrophoresis. Detection of the expression of T cell receptor a chain variable (TCR V alpha) genes on mRNA level was used as the experimental model. Twenty nine TCR V alpha gene subfamilies could be distinguished clearly in healthy human peripheral blood lymphocytes by this method. Positive identification of PCR product on dried agarose gel by internal oligonucleotide probe is relatively simple and less time consuming.     

Increased Bone Resorption during Lactation in Pycnodysostosis

Pycnodysostosis, a rare autosomal recessive skeletal dysplasia, is caused by a deficiency of cathepsin K. Patients have impaired bone resorption in the presence of normal or increased numbers of multinucleated, but dysfunctional, osteoclasts. Cathepsin K degrades collagen type I and generates N-telopeptide (NTX) and the C-telopeptide (CTX) that can be quantified. Levels of these telopeptides are increased in lactating women and are associated with increased bone resorption. Nothing is known about the consequences of cathepsin K deficiency in lactating women. Here we present for the first time normalized blood and CTX measurements in a patient with pycnodysostosis, exclusively related to the lactation period. In vitro studies using osteoclasts derived from blood monocytes during lactation and after weaning further show consistent bone resorption before and after lactation. Increased expression of cathepsins L and S in osteoclasts derived from the lactating patient suggests that other proteinases could compensate for the lack of cathepsin K during the lactation period of pycnodysostosis patients.     

Can isotopic transient and formal steady-state kinetics lead to a converging surface chemistry analysis? Case study on the selective reduction of NO by CH4 over Co-ZSM-5 catalysts

The surface coverage analysis derived from two formal steady-state kinetic models is compared to values directly obtained from steady-state isotopic transient analysis (SSITKA) for the selective catalytic reduction (SCR) of NO by CH₄ over Co-ZSM-5 catalysts. It is shown that the most abundant reacting intermediates are NO _x adspecies, though no clear differentiation between the various adspecies identified by DRIFT spectroscopy was achieved. Less numerous carbon containing adspecies were identified and quantified in the reacting system, essentially as methoxy species. Nitromethane-like intermediates remained undetectable due to a very rapid transformation into N₂ and CO₂. On the basis of these converging kinetic analyses related to each elementary step of the SCR process, a microkinetic model can be derived, which allows describing transient operation, in view of a non steady-state application.     

METIS-II: low resource machine translation

METIS-II was an EU-FET MT project running from October 2004 to September 2007, which aimed at translating free text input without resorting to parallel corpora. The idea was to use “basic” linguistic tools and representations and to link them with patterns and statistics from the monolingual target-language corpus. The METIS-II project has four partners, translating from their “home” languages Greek, Dutch, German, and Spanish into English. The paper outlines the basic ideas of the project, their implementation, the resources used, and the results obtained. It also gives examples of how METIS-II has continued beyond its lifetime and the original scope of the project. On the basis of the results and experiences obtained, we believe that the approach is promising and offers the potential for development in various directions.     

alt.metadata.health: Ontological Context for Data Use and Integration

Increasingly powerful computers and increased emphasis on evidence based decision making are creating a demand for merging and integrating data from different sources into a single data set. The demand for data is outstripping our ability to ensure data integrity, and sometimes analysis is performed on data that are not appropriate for the purposes they are used for. Here we describe problems that arise when data from different sources are merged, and we suggest that one way to add context to data so that users can make informed decisions about their ontological context is through ontology-based metadata. Examples of the problem are taken from health data with emphasis on difficulties in standardizing Emergency Room wait times. We describe eight fields that can be used to capture contextual metadata. These fields are captured using ethnographic methods from users and database stewards who frequently understand precisely how context and institutional usage have shaped interpretation of semantic fields. We argue that attaching a portable archive of ontological context to travel with data—based on information from users and developers—is a means of ensuring that data are integrated and compared in multiple contexts with greater integrity and more robust results.

A Novel Technology for Natural Gas Conversion by Means of Integrated Oxidative Coupling and Dry Reforming of Methane

A novel process concept for the oxidative coupling of methane followed by the oligomerization to liquids has been developed within the frame of the EU integrated project OCMOL. This technology is based on process intensification principles via cutting‐edge structured microreactor technology. It is also a fully integrated industrial process through the re‐use and the recycling of by‐products, in particular CO₂, at every process stage. The focus of this contribution is on the reaction engineering aspects of the core steps, i.e., catalysts, kinetics and reactor design for the methane coupling and reforming.     

Analysis of volume‐to‐surface ratio effects on methane oxidative coupling using microkinetic modeling

The effect of the volume‐to‐surface (V/S) ratio on the catalytic performance of a La–Sr/CaO catalyst in a fixed bed reactor under oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) conditions is investigated by adjusting the amount of diluent in the catalyst bed. It was observed experimentally that the catalyst activity, C₂ selectivity, and C₂H₄/C₂H₆ ratio are all favored at high V/S ratios. The total void volume, available in the intraparticle and the interstitial phase, was considered. A comprehensive OCM microkinetic model, explicitly distinguishing between these two phases, allowed accounting for the observed dependence of catalytic performance on V/S ratio. The major experimentally implemented variation in interstitial volume available for reaction, provoked also changes in radical concentration profiles in intraparticle phase. Given the high reaction rates occurring at this location, the experimentally observed effects with varying the V/S ratio, are attributed to concentration and, hence, reaction rate changes occurring mainly in the intraparticle phase. © 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 64: 2603–2611, 2018     

Cultural differences in complex addition: Efficient Chinese versus adaptive Belgians and Canadians.

In the present study, the authors tested the effects of working-memory load on math problem solving in 3 different cultures: Flemish-speaking Belgians, English-speaking Canadians, and Chinese-speaking Chinese currently living in Canada. Participants solved complex addition problems (e.g., 58 + 76) in no-load and working-memory load conditions, in which either the central executive or the phonological loop was loaded. The authors used the choice/no-choice method to obtain unbiased measures of strategy selection and strategy efficiency. The Chinese participants were faster than the Belgians, who were faster and more accurate than the Canadians. The Chinese also required fewer working-memory resources than did the Belgians and Canadians. However, the Chinese chose less adaptively from the available strategies than did the Belgians and Canadians. These cultural differences in math problem solving are likely the result of different instructional approaches during elementary school (practice and training in Asian countries vs. exploration and flexibility in non-Asian countries), differences in the number language, and informal cultural norms and standards. The relevance of being adaptive is discussed as well as the implications of the results in regards to the strategy choice and discovery simulation model of strategy selection (J. Shrager & R. S. Siegler, 1998). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)