Periodic limb movement disorder in neuroleptic-induced akathisia

We recorded all-night polysomnograms of four schizophrenic patients with neuroleptic-induced akathisia (NIA) before and during treatment with clonazepam. Also, four non-akathitic schizophrenic patients were recorded all-night polysomnograms as control subjects. Daily treatment with 1.5 to 3 mg clonazepam improved subjective complaints of all the 4 patients with NIA. Three of 4 patients with NIA exhibited periodic limb movements (PLM) on bilateral legs, but none of 4 control subjects showed PLM. Total number of PLM and PLM per hour decreased during clonazepam treatment. Moreover, mean inter-movement intervals of PLM of 3 patients were prolonged on bilateral legs. NIA might change its feature as PLM during night sleep.     

A novel dynamic survivable routing in WDM optical networks with/without sparse wavelength conversion

In this paper, we study the dynamic survivable routing problem, both in optical networks without wavelength conversion and in optical networks with sparse wavelength conversion, and propose a novel hybrid algorithm for it based on the combination of mobile agents technique and genetic algorithms (GA). By keeping a suitable number of mobile agents in the network to cooperatively explore the network states and continuously report cycles (that are formed by two disjoint-link routes) into the routing tables, our new hybrid algorithm can promptly determine the first population of cycles for a new request based on the routing table of its source node, without the time consuming process associated with current GA-based lightpath protection schemes. We further improve the performance of our algorithm by introducing a more advanced fitness function that is suitable for both the above networks. Extensive simulation studies on the ns-2 network simulator show that our hybrid algorithm achieves a significantly lower blocking probability than the conventional survivable routing algorithms for all the cases we studied.     

Halo congenital nevus undergoing spontaneous regression. Involvement of T-cell immunity in involution and presence of circulating anti-nevus cell IgM antibodies

BACKGROUND: Halo congenital nevus is a condition in which halo formation is associated with congenital nevocellular nevi. Although several theories have been proposed, the immunologic mechanisms of halo formation and concomitant nevus regression still remain unclear. We presented immunologic findings in a case of halo congenital nevus with unique histologic location of inflammatory cells. OBSERVATIONS: Histologically, the present case of halo congenital nevus undergoing spontaneous regression showed a marked inflammatory infiltrate with remnants of original nevus cell nests. In the infiltrating T cells, CD8+ cells outnumbered CD4+ cells and the infiltrate of natural killer cells was not substantial. Direct and indirect immunofluorescence studies demonstrated the presence of IgM antibodies against nevus cells as well as melanoma cells and cultured melanocytes in the patient's serum. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that both T-cell-mediated immunity and IgM antibodies may be involved in the regression of halo congenital nevus. However, it is important to point out that our results may simply be epiphenomena and not directly responsible for the destruction of nevus cells.     

A novel on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection withcommon discharge line for high-speed CMOS LSIs

A novel on-chip electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection for high-speed CMOS LSI's that operate at higher than 500 MHz has been developed. Introduction of a newly developed common discharge line (CDL) can completely eliminate the protection device influence on the inner circuit operation. This enables minimization of the I/O capacitance by shrinking the dimension of the output transistor, which also serves as a protection device in conventional devices. This new protection (CDL protection) was applied to a high-speed DRAM of which I/O pin capacitance specification is 2 pF. As a result, the ESD tolerance of 4 kV for the charged device model test, 4 kV for the human body model test, and 700 V for the machine model test were obtained. In addition, the DRAM data rate higher than 660 MHz at room temperature was achieved. The results show significant improvement for both ESD and the I/O capacitance, compared with the conventional structure     

Development of a distributed sensing technique using Brillouinscattering

This paper reviews the developments of a distributed strain and temperature sensing technique that uses Brillouin scattering in single-mode optical fibers. This technique is based on strain- and temperature-induced changes in the Brillouin frequency shift. Several approaches for measuring the weak Brillouin line are compared     

Loss distribution measurement of silica-based waveguides by using ajaggedness-free optical low coherence reflectometer

The loss distributions in silica-based waveguides are successfully measured using a jaggedness-free optical reflectometer (OLCR). The OLCR reduces jagged fluctuations which appear in Rayleigh backscattering measurements undertaken with conventional OLCRs to within ±1 dB by averaging the wavelength-dependent Rayleigh backscatter signals. Constant loss distributions and a step-like loss increase in the waveguides were clearly observed     

Mean molal activity coefficients of aqueous scandium chloride, nitrate, bromide and perchlorate solutions at 25.0°

The mean molal activity coefficients of aqueous scandium chloride, nitrate, bromide and perchlorate solutions were determined at 25.0° for dilute to saturated concentrations, together with the activities of water. In the dilute solutions of scandium halides, the activity coefficients were obtained from electromotive force measurements on galvanic cells, and the osmotic coefficients of all four solutions above 0.1 mol kg⁻¹ were determined from the isopiestic measurements. Least-squares equations were fitted to these coefficients, which were then used to calculate the mean molal activity coefficients and water activities. The relationships between these results and the corresponding activity data for other rare earth salts, and to the cation hydration and ionic interactions, are discussed. The results on scandium perchlorate solutions suggested that the inner-sphere hydration number of tervalent scandium ion may be seven.     

A novel technique for a DC brushless motor without position sensors

A dc brushless motor is a kind of synchronous motor driven by an inverter and requires sensors to detect the rotor position. As one of the methods, the induced voltages of a brushless motor have been utilized in practice. However, there are some problems in this method, e.g., the motor can obtain insufficient torque due to the low induced voltages in a low-speed range. This paper proposes a new method which controls the inverter angular frequency ω₁ by using inherent characteristics wherein the torque current i_r is almost proportional to the internal phase angle φ where the primary flux of a synchronous motor is controlled to be constant. If the parameters of a motor are given exactly, the speed regulation is quite small and the transient characteristics with high response and high starting torque are obtained. Furthermore, it is possible to operate a synchronous motor in the field-weakening range. Here, the principle of the control method and the performance characteristics of a dc brushless motor having no position sensors are discussed. The simulation and the experimental results of the tested machine show that the proposed method is very useful for practical applications.     

Direct dispersion measurement of highly-erbium-doped optical amplifiers using a low coherence reflectometer coupled with dispersive fourier spectroscopy

The group delay and dispersion, including the erbium ion contributions, of the highly erbium-doped silica planar waveguide amplifier and multicomponent glass fibre amplifiers are directly measured at different pump powers using a low coherence reflectometer and dispersive Fourier spectroscopy. This method derives the refractive index spectra of these amplifiers directly from the produced reflectograms without any physical or mathematical assumptions. The dispersion of the planar waveguide amplifier at 500 mW pumping changes between +300 and -200 ps/km/nm with a 0.4 wt.% erbium concentration.<>     

Path tracking control of Lagrange systems with obstacle avoidance

This paper addresses a path tracking problem with obstacle avoidance for Lagrange systems. The proposed method is based on field potential methods in combination with navigation functions for obstacle avoidance. First, it is shown that a simple combination of the navigation function with the conventional path tracking controller does not work. Therefore, in order to cope with this problem, a new feedback law is proposed for a path parameter which characterizes the reference path. It is proved that the proposed controller achieves both path following and collision avoidance. Moreover, since the method adopts bounded navigation functions, the proposed controllers generate bounded input signals even when target systems approach obstacles. Finally, an experimental evaluation is performed with a two-link manipulator to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.