Gastroesophageal Reflux and Body Movement in Infants: Investigations with Combined Impedance-pH and Synchronized Video Recording

The aim of this paper was to investigate the temporal association of gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and body movement in infants. GER were registered by combined impedance-pH, documentation of body movement was done by video. Videorecording time (Vt) was divided into “resting time” and “movement time” and analyzed for occurrence of GER. Association was defined as movement 1 minute before/after the beginning of a GER. Statistical evaluation was by Fisher's exact test. In 15 infants, 341 GER were documented during Vt (86 hours). 336 GER (99%) were associated with movement, only 5 episodes (1%) occured during resting time. Movement was significantly associated with the occurrence of GER (P < .0001). There is a strong temporal association between GER and body movement in infants. However, a clear distinction between cause and effect could not be made with the chosen study design. Combined impedance-pH has proven to be the ideal technique for this approach

Development of a Software Library for Performant and Consistent CPACS Data Processing

The Common Parametric Aircraft Configuration Schema (CPACS) is increasingly used as a standard for data exchange in collaborative aircraft design projects involving many heterogeneous disciplines and expert knowledge. CPACS provides a hierarchical parametrization of fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft spanning from a detailed component level up to the interaction of the vehicle and its peripheral aviation system such as airline operations. Following the CPACS paradigm - data must be unique and explicit - all parameters are uniquely specified using an XML Schema Definition (XSD) which allows for a robust syntactic interpretation of the data. The transformation of this data (e.g., unit transformations of physical quantities) or the inference of additional information (e.g., interpolation of aerodynamic coefficients) usually requires rules and assumptions which are specified in a human interpretable format within the CPACS documentation. However, practical experience shows that even whilst having comprehensive documentation available, there is a potential source for inconsistency if such rules and assumptions are not available as standardized software implementations. While the TiGL geometry library serves as common software library for geometry data, other disciplines are lacking standardized approaches on how to infer knowledge from CPACS data. The present paper therefore introduces a software library called cpacsLibrary aiming to ensure consistent data handling in large collaborative aircraft design projects, and to enable an easier entrance into connecting models to CPACS as well as re-using implementations across disciplines. As it is tightly coupled to the development of CPACS itself and closely aligned with TiGL, \cpacsLibrary intends to complete the CPACS eco-system by providing standardized methods for non-geometric data handling. A detailed description of the software architecture comprises the implementation of low- and high-level methodologies in C++, test-driven development, version control, bindings to Python as well as data visualization strategies. The practical application of the library is demonstrated by the interpolation of irregular, multidimensional performance maps (aerodynamic and engine) stemming from disciplinary analysis tools in automated aircraft design processes applying Radial Basis Functions (RBF). The paper concludes by describing the future development roadmap, including opportunities for collaboration

Разработка приложения для покадровой обработки видео с помощью библиотеки классов AForge.NET

The following article describes libraries and classes for frame extraction from videofile and creating an RGB-histogram for those extracted frames.. As a result, it will help to develop a dynamic RGB-histogram creator

Фторидная технология получения титановых порошков

Обоснована необходимость разработки новой технологии переработки титансодержащих концентратов. Выполнено исследование процесса фторирования рутилового концентрата элементным фтором. Описаны процессы, протекающие при электролитическом получении титановых порошков во фторидных расплавах TiF4. Для отмывки от примесей катодного осадка предложено две технологии – в смеси неорганических кислот и безводным HF; показаны преимущества отмывки HF; содержание примесей в порошке титана, полученном отмывкой в безводном HF несколько ниже, чем при "кислотной" отмывке. При промышленном осуществлении процесса HF рециркулирует в схеме, обеспечивая экологическую безопасность и низкую себестоимость Ti.The brief review of industrial technologies of processing the titanium containing concentrates has been carried out. The research of the fluorination process of rutile concentrates with element fluorine was carried out. The processes occurring during the electrolysis of titanic powders from fluoride fusions, from TiF4, are described. In order to wash off impurities of cathode deposit, two techniques were proposed - in a mixture of inorganic acids and anhydrous HF; advantages of washing off with HF are shown; the impurity content in the titanium powder obtained by washing off in anhydrous HF is slightly lower than at "acid" washing off. In the industrial process implementation HF recycles tin a circuit that ensures environmental safety of production and low production cost of obtained Ti

The problem(atics) of post-colonisation: the subject in settler post-colonial discourse

This thesis concerns aspects of settler post-colonial discourse, examined through fictional and non-fictional prose writing from Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Major works discussed have been published between the 1970s and 1990s. These include fiction by Kate Grenville, Elizabeth Jolley, and Sally Morgan, from Australia; Alice Munro, Audrey Thomas, Aritha Van Herk and Rudy Wiebe, from Canada; and Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera and Ian Wedde, from New Zealand. Section One of the thesis begins with an Introduction which contextualises the following discussion in relation to background issues of definition of the term 'post-colonialism', and then describes the scope, method and selection of texts in the thesis. The argument is briefly stated and expanded upon in discussion of the theoretical perspectives. Chapter One suggests a reading of Empire as (M)Other in relation to Britain's settler colonies, and the status of the latter, within the terms of the familial metaphor, as extensions of Empire. The ambivalence of that status – as extension and as autonomous being -- is explored in consideration of affective relations between colonies and Empire. Also considered are the consequences of this 'familial'-colonial background for the attainment of 'autonomous' Nationhood, imaged as 'self-hood' according to a masculine model of the self. Analysis of discourses of (national) identity reveals 'subjective sovereignty' to be a discursive illusion, disturbed by two sources of 'disunity': 'neo-imperialism' is suggested as an 'external' threat to sovereignty, while post colonialism constitutes the difference within', akin to the functioning of the unconscious in relation to the subject. The chapter concludes with an analysis of subjective processes in three fictional texts. Section Two introduces a focus on how subjectivity is articulated through post-colonial discourses. Chapter Two explores the post-colonial textual mediation of relationships to the land, including the representation of land and landscape in writing, and the resultant facilitation of settler appropriation of the land -- of belonging. It concludes with a reading of post-colonial fictional critiques of colonisation and textuality as the basis of an authentic relationship to the land. Chapter Three considers discourses from indigenous and 'other' subject-positions which, rather than subsuming the land under their own identity, seek to gain and express their identity in relation to the land, attempts at elision of the alienating intervention of textuality. It concludes with discussion of texts which problematise the authority of textuality. Chapters Four and Five more fully examine the subject-positions of 'self' and 'other' in the context of the settler post-colonial ambivalence of authority and authenticity. Chapter Four considers strategies of privileging and appropriating the discursive place of the 'post-colonised' in order to authenticate the authority of the 'post-colonisers'. Chapter Five addresses the 'authorising' of the 'other' into a 'self', or a subject in discourse, and entry into the discursive market as the ambivalent attempt both to accede to subjectivity and to articulate it with the integrity of authenticity. The problems with this invoke the subjective problematic of hybridity which is introduced at the end of Chapter Five. The third section develops the preceding exploration of discourses into a consideration of subjective and discursive problematics, informed by an understanding of post-colonialism as a condition of instability resulting from the re-introduction of what the dominant (National) discourse constitutively excludes. In its phallocentric subjective moment, the exclusion is shown to be that of the maternal body and thus any possibility of a feminine sex; in its imperially-informed cultural moment, it is difference and heterogeneity which are submitted to and subsumed under the colonising gaze: they are disavowed, and the disavowed objects repressed to the 'national' unconscious. Chapter Six posits an analogy between the productions of sexual and colonial difference. Similarly in that chapter the return to, and reconsideration of, motifs and analyses in the thesis enact the thematic-analytic focus on the return of the body and its contaminations of unity, purity and linearity. In Chapter Seven, the theory of the abjection of the subject is employed to suggest a reading of the non-autonomy and non-integrity of settler post-colonial subjectivities and cultures: the settler post-colonial subject is abjected by the internal difference of its own heterogeneity -- the body-difference for which the metaphor of the land (as mother) is used -- and by the perceived radical cultural otherness or externality of post-modernism. However, it is argued that these others are constitutive of the post-colonial self, and that cultural and political agency must therefore relinquish its privileging of purity and sameness, principles which themselves re-play the dynamics of imperialism. Chapter Seven concludes with an argument against the imperialism of identity and against the identity of a text. Chapter Eight concludes the third Section, and the thesis as a whole, with the exploration of a textual-cultural 'case-study' in the discourses and problematics which have constituted the preceding discussions

Microprocessor based system for the development of control and protection of HVDC convertors.

This project investigates aspects of microprocessor based control and protection schemes for high voltage direct current convertors. To enable this investigation to be carried out, a multiple microprocessor HVDC development system has been assembled. This provides the necessary hardware resources, as well as providing the software development facilities necessary for the implementation of real time control and protection tasks. In order to assess and optimise the performance of the various control and protection systems, considerable interactive monitoring facilities are provided as part of the HVDC development system's software. The development system is used to implement real time control of a small scale convertor model. It is also used to implement a new form of convertor fault detection, which is in turn used as the basis for an implementation of convertor fault development control techniques for the first time on an operating convertor. The operation of the fault development control scheme is examined in some detail, and results are presented showing its operation over a wide variety of fault types and system conditions

Molecular systematics of Campylobacter isolated from the human clinical environment.

Campylobacter jejuni is the major cause of campylobacteriosis in humans. This thesis recorded the distribution of C. jejuni and C. coli isolates in a hospital environment during 1997/98. 105 clinical isolates of Campylobacter were examined using flaA and gmhA PCR-RFLP analysis. Isolates were collected from 84 patients who presented at Christchurch Public Hospital or from the South Canterbury region. Males accounted for 63.1 % of the sample. The largest number of cases was reported in the age group 20-29 years. flaA specific primers were applied to all samples with 83.8 % generating a 1.7 kb amplicon. RFLP analysis using DdeI provided 17 different flaA profiles, with flaA 6 being the most common type identified in this study. 82.9 % of the sample generated a distinguishable profile. This technique provided a D value of 92 % (D = Simpson's index of diversity). gmhA primers were also applied to this sample, with 71.4 % generating either a 900 bp, 1.6 kb or multiple band profile. 62.9 % of the sample provided a distinguishable RFLP profile. gmhA 1 was the most commonly observed profile. This technique provided a D value of 74 %. When combining these two genetic markers, discrimination was increased. 59 % (n=62) of the isolates had provided both flaA and gmhA profiles. These isolates were distributed into 22 different classifications. MLEE analysis was applied to the largest flaA group in an attempt to further assess relationships. This analysis allowed flaA 6 to be subdivided into a further five groups, therefore increasing strain discrimination. PCR-RFLP procedures were highly reproducible, robust, discriminative and rapid to perform. However 17.1 % and 37.1 % were untypeable by flaA and gmhA respectively. 20 environmental (sheep) isolates from Massey University were also examined using flaA and gmhA PCR-RFLP analysis. Four flaA types and two gmhA types were observed amongst these isolates. The flaA and gmhA types had been previously observed in the clinical isolates, therefore suggesting that no strain was specific to a particular environment. However not all isolates were typeable with these two methods

Estudio cariológico en el pacul chileno Krameria cistoidea Hook. & Arn. (Krameriaceae)

The karyotype of the plant species Krameria cistoidea Hook. & Arn. was studied by assessing chromosome characters such as morphology, size, and C-banding pattern. The karyotype of K. cistoidea was composed only by metacentric chromosomes in the two populations studied. The haploid set length was 51.9±2.3 µm and the mean chromosome size was 8.68±0.78 µm. Some similarities in chromosome morphology and size can be observed among K. cistoidea and K. triandra, in addition to the chromosome number 2n=12 which is conserved within the genus. K. cistoidea exhibited a symmetric banding pattern with large C-bands in the telomeres of the short and long arms of all chromosomes, except the short arm of pair 1. The relative length of the C-bands was 23.5% of the total haploid set length. These cytological results on K. cistoidea are the first data on quantitative karyotype morphology and C-banding patterns in the genus Krameri

Внедрение организационных инноваций в обустройстве инфраструктуры нефтегазовой отрасли

Инфраструктура занимает одну из важнейших должностей в организации, при грамотной инфраструктуре: организация несёт значительно меньше производственных потерь. Мы рассмотрим возможность внедрения инноваций в организационную деятельность в обустройстве инфраструктуры нефтегазовой отрасли.Infrastructure occupies one of the most important positions in the organization, with a competent infrastructure: the organization suffers significantly less production losses. We will consider the possibility of introducing innovations in organizational activities in arranging the infrastructure of the oil and gas industry