Neonatal Morbidity and Mortality Following Combined Vaginal and Cesarean Deliveries in a Triplet Pregnancy at 31 Gestational Weeks

SummaryObjectiveTo present details of neonatal morbidity and mortality following combined vaginal and cesarean deliveries in a triplet pregnancy at 31 gestational weeks.Case ReportA 33-year-old woman, gravida 3, para 1, was referred to our hospital for delivery after tocolytic failure in a triplet pregnancy at 31 gestational weeks. Vaginal delivery was allowed following verification of the vertex position of all three fetuses by transabdominal ultrasonography. The first two babies were delivered vaginally with an interval of 4 minutes. The third baby was delivered by cesarean section due to fetal distress and cervical contraction 38 minutes after the delivery of the second baby, and had Apgar scores of 1 and 7 at 1 and 5 minutes, respectively. All babies developed respiratory distress syndrome. The third baby suffered additionally from necrotizing enterocolitis, necrosis and perforation of the bowel, periventricular leukomalacia, and impairment of the liver and kidneys and died 2 weeks after delivery. The first two babies were discharged uneventfully about 1 month after delivery.ConclusionThis case shows that, in multiple pregnancies, an interdelivery interval longer than 30 minutes may be associated with an unfavorable outcome even after cesarean delivery. We suggest that prompt delivery should be considered when a high interdelivery interval occurs, and neonatal morbidity and mortality should be included in the parents' counseling in the management of vaginal delivery of triplet pregnancies

Combining Coauthorship Network and Content for Literature Recommendation

This paper studies literature recommendation approaches using both content features and coauthorship relations of articles in literature databases. Most literature databases allow data access (via site subscription) without having to identify users, and thus task-focused recommendation is more appropriate in this context. Previous work mostly utilizes content and usage log for making task-focused recommendation. More recent works start to incorporate coauthorship network for recommendation and found it beneficial when the specified articles preferred by authors are similar in their content. However, it was also found that recommendation based on content features achieves better performance under other circumstances. Therefore, in this work we propose to incorporate both content and coauthorship network in making task-focused recommendation. Three hybrid methods, namely switching, proportional, and fusion are developed and compared. Our experimental results show that in general the proposed hybrid approach achieves better performance than approaches that utilize only one source of knowledge. In particular, the fusion method tends to have higher recommendation accuracy for articles of higher ranks. Besides, the content-based approach is more likely to recommend articles of low fidelity, whereas the coauthorship network-based approach has the least chance

Novel Codon-optimization Genes Encoded in Chlorella for Triacylglycerol Accumulation

AbstractMicroalgae have been recognized as one of the potential resources for biodiesel production based on its fast growth or its high total lipid content depending on species. Expression of Kennedy pathway genes, which encodes GPAT, LPAAT, PAP, and DGAT for increasing the metabolic flux towards the TAG storage in Chlorella sp. from 20 to 46 wt% and total lipid accumulation from 35 to 60wt.% corresponding to each specific gene combination under autotrophy, compare to the wild type (vector only). The highest TAG content was found in cells expressing a quadruple-gene construct (GPAT-LPAAT-PAP-DGAT) in the Kennedy pathway, corresponding to 46wt.% of TAG and 60wt.% of total lipid content. This work provides the optimization of TAG production in Chlorella sp. can be achieved by manipulating the selected genes, in turns making commercially producing biodiesel practical

Clinicopathologic Evaluation of Prognostic Factors for Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Buccal Mucosa

BackgroundThe purpose of this research was to evaluate the prognostic significance of clinicopathologic variables on the survival rate for squamous cell carcinoma of the buccal mucosa (BMSCC). We analyzed the outcomes of surgical therapy for this aggressive cancer and compared these results with those in the literature.MethodsWe reviewed the medical charts of 172 patients treated in our institution between 1990 and 2005. There were 22 patients excluded from our studies: 20 patients with advanced tumors who received no treatment or palliative treatment, and 2 patients who had received preoperative radiotherapy (RT). The remaining 150 patients were treated with surgeries and among them, 56 patients had undergone postoperative RT. The influence of clinicopathologic factors on the survival rate was analyzed with the Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test. Multivariate analysis was assessed with Cox's regression model.ResultsThere were 148 males and 2 females, with a mean age of 53.5 years. The prevalence rate of habitual betel quid chewing documented in charts among 113 patients was 75%. The 5-year overall survival rate and disease-specific survival rate for all patients were 64% and 69%, respectively. For patients with stages I, II, III, and IV disease, the 5-year disease-specific survival rates were 90%, 77%, 52%, and 47%, respectively (p< 0.001). According to the multivariate analysis, the pathologic staging and histologic grading of the tumor were independently the important prognostic factors affecting survival rate. There were 80 patients who developed locoregional recurrence in lymph nodes in the follow-up diagnoses. Distant metastases occurred in 14 patients, with 11 of them also having locoregional recurrence. The distant metastases were found in the lungs (8/14), T-spine (3/14), liver (2/14) and brain (1/14).ConclusionPathologic stage and histologic grade are the most important prognostic factors

PVP2008-61105 REPETITIVE CONTROL BASED DISTURBANCE CANCELLATION USING ITERATIVE BASIS FUNCTION FEEDBACK WITH WAVELET FILTERING

ABSTRACT This paper presents repetitive control laws in real time using matched basis functions. These laws adjust the command given a feedback control system in order to eliminate tracking errors, resulting from in general a periodic disturbance and a non-periodic disturbance. The periodic error can be reduced by linear basis functions while the non-periodic error by the projection algorithm along with the wavelet filtering. The control laws do not use a system model, but instead the control action is chosen to be a linear combination of chosen input basis functions, and the corresponding output basis functions are obtained, nominally by experiment. The repetitive control laws use the projection algorithm to compute the output components on the output basis functions, and then the corresponding input components are adjusted accordingly. The output signals are reconstructed via the wavelet filtering before they are feedback to the controller. Numerical experiments show that the repetitive controllers are quite effective. In particular, the output tracking errors are further reduced because of the introduction of the wavelet filtering when compared to the previous work. In general, the repetitive control laws developed here can be used for the purpose of precision machinery control