Fire safe,sustainable loose furnishing

The aim of this exploratory study has been to investigate the fire properties and environmental aspects of different upholstery material combinations, mainly for domestic applications. An analysis of the sustainability and circularity of selected textiles, along with lifecycle assessment, is used to qualitatively evaluate materials from an environmental perspective. The cone calorimeter was the primary tool used to screen 20 different material combinations from a fire performance perspective. It was found that textile covers of conventional fibres such as wool, cotton and polyester, can be improved by blending them with fire resistant speciality fibres. A new three‐dimensional web structure has been examined as an alternative padding material, showing preliminary promising fire properties with regard to ignition time, heat release rates and smoke production.     

Autolysis and the endogenous proteinases characterised in beardless barb (Anematichthys apogon) muscle

Beardless barb is a common fish species used in fermentation of fish paste Ka-pi-plaa. Autolytic profile of beardless barb muscle showed the maximum autolysis was at 50 °C, at both acidic and alkaline pH values. With augmentation concentration of NaCl, autolytic activity slightly decreased. Endogenous proteinases isolated from fish muscle in crude extract forms were also characterised. The acidic proteinases had optimum activity at pH 3.0 and 50°C, and they showed higher proteolytic activity than the alkaline proteinases which were optimally active at pH 9.0 and 50 °C. Proteinases in peak at pH 3.0 were inhibited by pepstatin A, but those in peak at pH 9.0 were highly inhibited by PMSF, TLCK and soybean trypsin inhibitor, suggesting that both aspartic and serine proteinases were existed in beardless barb muscle. The proteinases were stable in pH range of 2.0-5.0 but unstable at the temperatures higher than 40 °C. NaCl suppressed the proteolytic activity, ATP activated the proteinase activity, while CaCl₂, MgCl₂ and CoCl₂ exhibited no influence on the activity. The results implied that cathepsin D is the predominant proteinase responsible for autolysis in beardless barb. The findings were useful to improve the processing and qualities of Ka-pi-plaa product using beardless barb as raw material.     

The apolipoprotein E allele epsilon 4 is overrepresented in patients with the Lewy body variant of Alzheimer's disease

We determined apolipoprotein E (ApoE) genotypes in 122 autopsied demented patients. The frequency of the ApoE epsilon 4 allele was 39.6% in Alzheimer's disease (AD), 29.0% in the Lewy body variant of AD (LBV), and 6.25% in diffuse Lewy body disease. For AD and LBV patients, the epsilon 4 frequency was significantly higher than that reported in nondemented controls (10 to 15%). Therefore, LBV and AD share ApoE epsilon 4 as a genetic risk factor, providing further evidence that these conditions overlap.     

Parallel path consistency

Filtering algorithms are well accepted as a means of speeding up the solution of the consistent labeling problem (CLP). Despite the fact that path consistency does a better job of filtering than arc consistency, AC is still the preferred technique because it has a much lower time complexity. We are implementing parallel path consistency algorithms on multiprocessors and comparing their performance to the best sequential and parallel arc consistency algorithms.^(1,2) (See also work by Kerethoet al. ⁽³⁾ and Kasif⁽⁴⁾) Preliminary work has shown linear performance increases for parallelized path consistency and also shown that in many cases performance is significantly better than the theoretical worst case. These two results lead us to believe that parallel path consistency may be a superior filtering technique. Finally, we have implemented path consistency as an outer product computation and have obtained good results (e.g., linear speedup on a 64K-node Connection Machine 2).     

重馏分油加氢脱氮反应动力学模型的研究

简要地介绍了一些典型的模型氮化物的ＨＤＮ反应规律。根据胜利ＶＧＯ在３７２２Ｂ催化剂上的大量ＨＤＮ实验数据，提出了如下的ＨＤＮ基本反应动力学方程：ｄＣＮｄｔ＝－ｋ１＋Ｋ＊ＣＮＣＮＰＨ２为了扩大上式的应用范围，详细分析了各种因素（如原料油种类和馏程及Ｈ２Ｓ等）对ＨＤＮ的影响，并开发了相应的经验关联式，从而得到了一个较完整的馏分油ＨＤＮ反应动力学模型。验证实验表明，该模型是成功的。     

A new boundary-layer wind tunnel at the Danish Maritime Institute

The paper describes a new boundary-layer wind tunnel at the Danish Maritime Institute in Lyngby. The wind tunnel is of the open-circuit type and is integrated into a building raised for the purpose. The design was constrained by the need to provide a simulation of the atmospheric boundary layer (without thermal stratification) and alternatively a uniform flow without excessive turbulence.The wind tunnel has a working section of principal dimensions: length 20.8 m, width 2.6 m and height 1.8 m (adjustable from 1.8 to 2.3 m). The maximum wind speed in the working section when empty is about 26 m s^?1.Data acquisition, analysis and instrumentation in relation to the new wind tunnel are discussed and, finally, an example of a simulated natural wind is presented.     

Psychological impact of colorectal cancer screening.

This article examines the psychological impact of participating in sigmoidoscopy screening for colorectal cancer prevention. The 1st study examined psychological well-being at 3 months, in relation to screening outcome, in 4,153 individuals. The 2nd study used longitudinal data to examine changes in psychological functioning from before to after screening in relation both to screening outcome and baseline indicators of vulnerability. There were few psychological differences between those who had received negative results or had polyps detected. These findings were confirmed in the longitudinal study, which also found no evidence for vulnerability to adverse effects among those who were initially most anxious or who perceived their risk of cancer to be higher. The longitudinal data suggested that screening might produce transient positive effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)