Radiation therapy of giant aggressive keratoacanthomas

BACKGROUND AND DESIGN: Giant aggressive keratoacanthoma is a rare destructive subset of keratoacanthoma that frequently involves the facial region, grows rapidly to a large size, and often recurs after surgical management. The effectiveness of ionizing radiation therapy was examined in a retrospective study involving 16 patients; 14 of the tumors had recurred after surgical therapy. RESULTS: All tumors resolved with satisfactory cosmetic results and without recurrence following a fractionated course of superficial radiation therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Radiation therapy is an effective therapeutic modality for giant aggressive keratoacanthomas.     

Induction of a Citrus gene highly homologous to plant and yeast thi genes involved in thiamine biosynthesis during natural and ethylene-induced fruit maturation

In response to a light pulse, hamsters normally generate phase advances that are positively correlated with the length of their circadian period (tau). To determine whether this is a general property of the phase-shifting oscillator, the present study looked for a correlation between tau and phase-advance size not only for photic but also for nonphotic shifts. Syrian hamsters, Mesocricetus auratus, were entrained to light-dark cycles with a periodicity of either 23.67 h (the short-T group) or 24.33 h (the long-T group); after release into constant darkness, the short-T and long-T groups exhibited short and long taus, respectively. These animals were then induced to run in a novel exercise wheel for 3 h, starting at circadian time (CT) 7, or were exposed to 20 min of light, starting at CT 19. The size of the ensuing phase advances did not differ between the short-T and long-T groups not only for the nonphotic stimulus but also for the photic one, an unexpected result for the photic stimulus. Within the short-T groups for photic and nonphotic stimuli, the shorter tau was, the larger the phase advances were, another unexpected relationship. Another experiment where phase delays were induced by light pulses at CT 15 also failed to yield significant differences between the short-T and long-T groups. Independently of their after-effects on tau, T cycles may influence the capacity of the pacemaker to phase shift in ways that are still unclear but at least similar for both photic and nonphotic shifts.     

Cavitation Damage of the single-crystal nickel-base superalloy SRR99 during creep at 850°C

Various heat treatments of the single-crystal nickel-base superalloy SRR99 have been carried out to produce a wide range of initial γ′ phase morphology. The cavitation damage has been studied after creep fracture at 850°C and stresses between 400MPa and 650 Mpa. The crep fracture surfaces and longitudinal sections of crept specimens have been examined by image analysing system in order to determine the size distribution and the area fraction of (001)-planes cracks on fracture surface characterise the creep crack damage level. The cracking morphology in fractured material as a function of stress and γ′-phase size has also been investigated. The results show, that crack propagation occurred anisotropically on (001) crystallographic planes perpendicular to the aplied stress along the γ/γ′ interfaces. It was found, that creep cracks dependent on the shape and size of γ′-phases developing at the temperature and stress level.     

Improvement of porous cellulose acetate reverse osmosis membranes by change of casting conditions

The effects of temperature of casting solution in the range ?10° to 15°C, that of casting atmosphere in the range 10° to 30°C, relative humidity of casting atmosphere in the range 35% to 75%, and solvent evaporation period in the range 0.5 to 3 min were studied on shrinkage temperatures, solute separations, and product rates of Loeb-Sourirajan-type cellulose acetate membranes in reverse osmosis experiments. The composition of casting solution used was as follows: cellulose acetate, 17; acetone, 69.2; magnesium perchlorate, 1.45; and water, 12.35 wt-%. Best performance was obtained with membranes cast under the following conditions: temperature of casting solution, 10°C; temperature of casting atmosphere, 30°C; relative humidity of casting atmosphere, 65%; and solvent evaporation period, 1 min. For a 90% level of solute separation, the productivities of the above type of membranes were 22.9, 61.4, and 64.5 gallons/day-ft² at 250, 600, and 1500 psig using 3500 ppm NaCl–H₂O, 5000 ppm NaCl–H₂O, and 28395 ppm NaCl–H₂O feed solutions, respectively. In all cases, the feed flow rates corresponded to a mass transfer coefficient of 45 × 10^?4 cm/sec on the high-pressure side of the membrane. The general specifications of the above type of membranes are given for the operating pressures of 250, 600, and 1500 psig. The effects of the above casting condition variables on the surface pore structure during film formation are discussed.     

Evaluation of high- temperature behavior of CMSX4 + yttrium single- crystal nickel- base superalloy

CMSX4 + Y, a highly strengthened rhenium-containing second-generation single-crystal nickel-base su-peralloy, has been studied by creep, low-cycle, and thermomechanical fatigue in the temperature range 500 to 1100 °C. The alloy exhibits good high-temperature mechanical properties that are superior or com-parable to other single-crystal superalloys. Thermomechanical fatigue resistance is equivalent to low-cy-cle fatigue and is cycle-shape dependent. High-temperature mechanical properties have been studied using life prediction relationships that are frequently used for creep and low-cycle fatigue data evalu-ation. Examination of fracture surfaces revealed that fracture induced by creep damage is internal and starts from pore-initiated cracks; however, fatigue damage starts on the external surface and propagates inward in stage II mode.     

Maintenance of Response Readiness in Patients With Parkinson's Disease: Evidence From a Simple Reaction Time Task.

The authors explored the effect of Parkinson's disease (PD) on the generation and maintenance of response readiness in a simple reaction time task. They compared performance of idiopathic PD patients without dementia, age-matched controls, and younger controls over short (1-, 3-, and 6-s) and long (12- and 18-s) foreperiod intervals. After each trial, the authors probed memory for visual information that also had to be maintained during the trial interval. Patients and controls did not differ overall in their ability to maintain readiness over long delays. However, within the PD group only, errors in maintaining visual information were correlated with difficulty in maintaining readiness, suggesting that systems impaired in PD may facilitate the maintenance of processing in both motor and cognitive domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Using internal domain-specific languages to inherit tool support and modularity for model transformations

Software and Systems Modeling - Model-driven engineering (MDE) has proved to be a useful approach to cope with today’s ever-growing complexity in the development of software systems;...     

Contrasting initial events of localized corrosion on surfaces of 2219-T42 and 6061-T6 aluminum alloys exposed in Caribbean seawater

Aluminum alloy samples, 6061-T6 and 2219-T42, were exposed to Caribbean seawater for 90 d. The fluctuations of open circuit potential, considered as electrochemical noise (EN), were used to characterize and compare initial pitting events, which appeared on their surfaces. EN analysis was carried out using the power spectral density (PSD) vs frequency. The decrease of the β exponent in PSD graphs indicated a release of spontaneous energy with the progress of pit formation in seawater. The fluctuations were associated with the breakdown and formation of new corrosion layers. The values of β exponent in PSD graphs suggest that corrosion process of AA2219-T42 alloy occurs as a persistent non-stationary process, the dynamics of which is controlled by fractional Brownian motion (fBm), while on AA6061-T6 alloy the corrosion process was dominated by stationary and weakly persistent features, with the contribution of fractional Gaussian noise (fGn). After the exposure in seawater, SEM-EDX analysis revealed insoluble intermetallic particles on the alloys, rich in Cu or Fe and irregularly distributed. The preferential dissolution of Mg and Al occurs from the S-phase (Al₂CuMg) of AA2219-T42 alloy.     

Extraction and Characterization of Montmorency Sour Cherry (Prunus cerasus L.) Pit Oil

Montmorency sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L.) pit oil (CPO) was extracted and characterized by various methods including: GC, LC–MS, NMR, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X‐ray powder diffraction (XRD). The oil gave an acid value of 1.45 mg KOH/g, saponification value of 193 mg KOH/g and unsaponifiable matter content of 0.72 %. The oil contained oleic (O) and linoleic (l ) acids as the major components with small concentrations of α‐eleostearic acid (El, 9Z,11E,13E‐octadecatrienoic acid) and saturated fatty acid palmitic (P) acid. The CPO contained six major triacyglycerols (TAG), OOO (16.83 %), OLO (16.64 %), LLO (13.20 %), OLP (7.25 %), OOP (6.49 %) and LElL (6.16 %) plus a number of other minor TAG. The TAG containing at least one saturated fatty acid constitute 33 % of the total. The polymorphic behavior of CPO as studied by DSC and XRD confirmed the presence of α, β′ and β crystal forms. The oxidative induction time of CPO was 30.3 min at 130 °C and the thermal decomposition temperature was 352 °C.