Sensitivity based continuation power flow

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2727225

Expression of angiogenic growth factors in laryngeal carcinoma

Head and Neck cancer is the sixth most common malignancy in the world and each year over 2,200 cases of carcinoma of the larynx are diagnosed in the UK. Patients have an overall five-year survival rate of 67%. Despite advances in treatment, patient prognosis is poor largely due to recurrence. The formation of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) is vital for the growth and metastasis of solid tumours, with the expression of key angiogenesis-related proteins having been shown to have prognostic significance. This study aims to identify key proteins within the tumour microenvironment, which may be involved in angiogenic processes occurring in laryngeal carcinoma, and associated metastatic nodes at different stages of disease, and to evaluate any potential therapeutic value.Both laryngeal tumour tissue and associated metastatic nodes were obtained from seven patients undergoing surgical resection; control uvula tissue was obtained from five healthy volunteers undergoing uvulopalatopharyngoplasty. Protein was extracted from the tissue using a commercial kit (Proteojet lysis reagent, Fermentas Life Sciences, York, UK, Calbiochem/Merck, Nottingham, UK) and the expression of 55 angiogenesis-related proteins was determined using a human angiogenesis array (R&D systems). Subsequently the level of six of the 55 angiogenesis-related proteins showing the greatest level of difference were determined in the tissue lysates using ELISA (R&D Systems) in a cohort of thirty six patients diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. The patient group comprised 30 men and 6 women with a mean age of 68 years (range 51-89). The relative expression of 32/55 angiogenic-related proteins increased in tumour tissue between stage T1 to T3-T4 and the same trend was seen for 29 of these proteins in nodal tissue; MMP9, platelet factor 4 and Serpin E1 did not show an increase until T4. Thirty-one of the 32 proteins were expressed at a higher level in T3/T4 tumour tissue compared with the corresponding node, and 29/32 proteins were expressed more highly in T1 tumour compared with T1 node. The level of expression of these 27 proteins was consistently higher in T4 tumour tissue compared with control.Specific analysis of the six most differentially expressed angiogenic-related proteins demonstrated increased levels of angiogenin in early stage tumours (p =0.034) compared with late stage of the tumour and increased IGF BP3 in tumours compared with the matched metastatic nodes (p = 0.016). No statistically significant results were observed for VEGF, FGF, TIMP1 or IL-8.Survival analyses revealed that none of the factors were associated with recurrence or patient’s survival.In summary this study suggests that a network of proteins present in the tumour microenvironment are likely to be involved in angiogenesis and therefore contribute to growth and metastasis of laryngeal tumours during the later stages of tumour development. Angiogenin and IGF BP3 may play a role in tumour progression of laryngeal malignancies, although they demonstrated no significant role in predicting the survival of the patients with laryngeal malignant tumours

Dynamic Time Slice Calculation for Round Robin Process Scheduling Using NOC

Process scheduling means allocating a certain amount of CPU time to each of the user processes.  One of the popular scheduling algorithms is the “Round Robin” algorithm, which allows each and every process to utilize the CPU for short time duration.  Processes which finish executing during the time slice are removed from the ready queue.  Processes which do not complete execution during the specified time slice are removed from the front of the queue, and placed at the rear end of the queue. This paper presents an improvisation to the traditional round robin scheduling algorithm, by proposing a new method. The new method represents the time slice as a function of the burst time of the waiting process in the ready queue. Fixing the time slice for a process is a crucial factor, because it subsequently influences many performance parameters like turnaround time, waiting time, response time and the frequency of context switches.  Though the time slot is fixed for each process, this paper explores the fine-tuning of the time slice for processes which do not complete in the stipulated time allotted to them

Constrictions Fabricated on YBCO Thin Film using the Femtosecond Laser: Limiting Factors.

Journal Article written by Patrice Umenne in the department of Electrical and Mining EngineeringIn this paper we report on the development of a new application of the femtosecond laser, namely, the fabrication of micron, sub-micron and nano sized constrictions on YBCO superconductive thin films. The fabricated micron, sub-micron and nano constrictions have widths of 1.09 um, 705 nm and 394.8 nm, respectively. The thickness of these constrictions ranged from about 160 nm to 190 nm, as defined by the depth profile on the 3D AFM images. The length of these constrictions ranged from 7.2 um to 7.5 um. The length of these constrictions depends on the size of the laser ablation spot used for cutting and on the separation distance between the laser ablation spots along the width of the sample.The University of South AfricaCollege of Engineering, Science and Technolog

Constrictions Fabricated on YBCO Thin Film using the Femtosecond Laser: Limiting Factors.

Journal Article written by Patrice Umenne in the department of Electrical and Mining EngineeringIn this paper we report on the development of a new application of the femtosecond laser, namely, the fabrication of micron, sub-micron and nano sized constrictions on YBCO superconductive thin films. The fabricated micron, sub-micron and nano constrictions have widths of 1.09 um, 705 nm and 394.8 nm, respectively. The thickness of these constrictions ranged from about 160 nm to 190 nm, as defined by the depth profile on the 3D AFM images. The length of these constrictions ranged from 7.2 um to 7.5 um. The length of these constrictions depends on the size of the laser ablation spot used for cutting and on the separation distance between the laser ablation spots along the width of the sample.The University of South AfricaCollege of Engineering, Science and Technolog

Microwave Power dependence of the I-V Characteristics of Submicron and Micron YBCO Constrictions.

Conference paper published by Patrice Umenne Electrical Engineering DepartmentIn this paper, the femtosecond laser technique was used to fabricate micron and submicron sized Josephson Junctions. The influence of an RF signal of frequency 19.5 GHz on the critical current of the micron sized Josephson junction of width 2.1 μm and the sub-micron sized Josephson junction of width 816 nm was analyzed. Both junctions showed the presence of Shapiro-like steps and critical current suppression due an increase in the RF Power. Critical current suppression occurs due to the varying magnetic field produced by the RF signal power.The University of South AfricaCollege of Engineering, Science and Technolog

GBIR crosstalk reduction of fully polarimetric data from Blue Springs Dam

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on November 2, 2012).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Justin LegarskyIncludes bibliographical references.M.S. University of Missouri-Columbia 2012."July 2012"An investigation into reducing crosstalk from Blue Springs Dam GBIR fully polarimetric data was conducted. Advanced polarimetric processing and techniques often rely on precise phase measurement. One benefit of crosstalk reduction is improvement in phase measurement. A well-known model of crosstalk behavior was explored in relation to the MU GBIR. To achieve a successful estimation of the method parameters, data culling was performed to weed out low cross-polarization and high-correlation values from the processing flow. After data culling, average covariance matrices were formed for use in crosstalk parameter estimation. Analysis of crosstalk parameters demonstrated the values had small fluctuation over the unmasked locations. Using global estimates, calibration correction matrices were formed and applied to the data. The resulting crosstalk calibrated imagery showed a reduction in crosstalk of about 9 dB. Thus, the Blue Springs Dam polarimetric data were successful crosstalk calibrated

Effect of β/α Strength Ratio on the Stress-Strain Curve of Beta Titanium Alloy by Finite Element Modelling

A systematic study was undertaken to determine the effect of the β/α strength ratio on the stress-strain behavior of near beta titanium alloy by the finite element method where the volume percent of the second phase was constant at 16 vol.%. The β/α strength ratio of the harder β phase to the softer α phase was varied from approximately 4 to 5 where the a phase strength (0.2% YS) was kept constant at 296 MPa. It was found that the flow stress did not vary linearly with the strength ratio. Stress gradients were found in both α and β phases and the nature of the stress gradient was found to depend on α particle shape. In some locations higher stresses were found in near the interface. In β, the stresses were generally higher near the interfaces

An Efficient Map Reduce-Based System to find Userlikeness on Social Networks

Day to day Social network information growth pursues an exponential pattern and Present DB management systems cannot manage efficiently such a huge volume of data It is essential to employ a big data solution for Social network problems One of the most important problems in Social network is finding User likeness ULi Current methods for finding ULi are not flexible and do not sustain all data sources nor can them accomplish user necessities for a query tool In this paper we propose a reliable and data available method to solve ULi problems over MapReduce design RiDaULi supports storage and retrieval of all kinds of data sources in an appropriate manner The dynamic nature of the proposed method helps users to define conditions on all entered fields Our assessment shows that we can use this method as high confidence in less execution tim