Generation of unique mono-hydroxy-eicosatetraenoic acids from arachidonic acid by human neutrophils.

Incubation of [3H]arachidonic acid with the 17,000-g supernatant from homogenates of human neutrophils in the presence of indomethacin generated the unique metabolites 9-OH-5,7,11,14-eicosatetraenoic acid (9-HETE) and 8-HETE, in addition to 12-HETE, 11-HETE and 5-HETE. The human neutrophil chemotactic activity of the HETE products exhibited a rank-order of potency with 5-HETE greater than 8-HETE = 9-HETE greater than 11-HETE = 12-HETE. The expression of chemokinetic activity as well as chemotactic activity suggested that the endogenous production of these principles may influence the mobility of human neutrophils

Financing long-term generation capacity in a reference price oriented capacity market

Many power markets around the world have been facing inadequacy with generation capacity investment to meet the growing demand. Among various frameworks directed towards this problem, capacity markets have emerged in major eastern US power markets. In this paper, a prototype capacity market is discussed which is consistent with the trend of convergence of market design. Based on this, the critical role of the reference capacity price is brought up, followed by a detailed explanation of its economic rationale and concerns. Noted with the necessity of a systematic pricing scheme to determine the value of the reference capacity price, a pricing model based on the general Black-Scholes contingent claim framework is proposed. In this model, the capacity value is treated as a path-dependent derivative with electricity prices and natural gas prices as underlyings. Numerical study is conducted to prove model validity with a lattice approach adopted. © 2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 43rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2010), Honolulu, HI., 5-8 January 2010. In Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2010, p. 1-

Power portfolio optimization with traded contract products

Power sector restructuring has prompted the application of modern portfolio theory among market participants. Much research has been devoted to power portfolio optimization problems. However, the portfolio composition adopted in literature is rather hypothetical than realistic. From an engineering perspective, it is necessary to use real traded contract products to construct the portfolio. In this paper, clarification is made on commonly traded power contracts in the market, followed by a discussion of their pricing schemes. It is emphasized that actively traded electricity futures/forwards and options actually belong to commodity swaps and swaptions respectively. A power portfolio is then constructed for a generation company with these basic power contracts and the spot transaction as well. An optimization model is formulated to solve the asset allocation with Conditional Value at Risk (CVaR) as the risk measure. The viability of the model is tested through a numerical study. ©2010 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 2010 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting, Minneapolis, MN., 25-29 July 2010. In Conference Proceedings, 2010, p. 1-

A simulation study for comparing testing statistics in response-adaptive randomization

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Response-adaptive randomizations are able to assign more patients in a comparative clinical trial to the tentatively better treatment. However, due to the adaptation in patient allocation, the samples to be compared are no longer independent. At large sample sizes, many asymptotic properties of test statistics derived for independent sample comparison are still applicable in adaptive randomization provided that the patient allocation ratio converges to an appropriate target asymptotically. However, the small sample properties of commonly used test statistics in response-adaptive randomization are not fully studied.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Simulations are systematically conducted to characterize the statistical properties of eight test statistics in six response-adaptive randomization methods at six allocation targets with sample sizes ranging from 20 to 200. Since adaptive randomization is usually not recommended for sample size less than 30, the present paper focuses on the case with a sample of 30 to give general recommendations with regard to test statistics for contingency tables in response-adaptive randomization at small sample sizes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Among all asymptotic test statistics, the Cook's correction to chi-square test (<it>T</it>_<it>MC</it>) is the best in attaining the nominal size of hypothesis test. The William's correction to log-likelihood ratio test (<it>T</it>_<it>ML</it>) gives slightly inflated type I error and higher power as compared with <it>T</it>_<it>MC</it>, but it is more robust against the unbalance in patient allocation. <it>T</it>_{<it>MC </it>}and <it>T</it>_{<it>ML </it>}are usually the two test statistics with the highest power in different simulation scenarios. When focusing on <it>T</it>_{<it>MC </it>}and <it>T</it>_<it>ML</it>, the generalized drop-the-loser urn (GDL) and sequential estimation-adjusted urn (SEU) have the best ability to attain the correct size of hypothesis test respectively. Among all sequential methods that can target different allocation ratios, GDL has the lowest variation and the highest overall power at all allocation ratios. The performance of different adaptive randomization methods and test statistics also depends on allocation targets. At the limiting allocation ratio of drop-the-loser (DL) and randomized play-the-winner (RPW) urn, DL outperforms all other methods including GDL. When comparing the power of test statistics in the same randomization method but at different allocation targets, the powers of log-likelihood-ratio, log-relative-risk, log-odds-ratio, Wald-type Z, and chi-square test statistics are maximized at their corresponding optimal allocation ratios for power. Except for the optimal allocation target for log-relative-risk, the other four optimal targets could assign more patients to the worse arm in some simulation scenarios. Another optimal allocation target, <it>R</it>_{<it>RSIHR</it>}, proposed by Rosenberger and Sriram (<it>Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference</it>, 1997) is aimed at minimizing the number of failures at fixed power using Wald-type Z test statistics. Among allocation ratios that always assign more patients to the better treatment, <it>R</it>_{<it>RSIHR </it>}usually has less variation in patient allocation, and the values of variation are consistent across all simulation scenarios. Additionally, the patient allocation at <it>R</it>_{<it>RSIHR </it>}is not too extreme. Therefore, <it>R</it>_{<it>RSIHR </it>}provides a good balance between assigning more patients to the better treatment and maintaining the overall power.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The Cook's correction to chi-square test and Williams' correction to log-likelihood-ratio test are generally recommended for hypothesis test in response-adaptive randomization, especially when sample sizes are small. The generalized drop-the-loser urn design is the recommended method for its good overall properties. Also recommended is the use of the <it>R</it>_{<it>RSIHR </it>}allocation target.</p

Endoplasmic reticulum chaperone prolyl 4-hydroxylase, beta polypeptide (P4HB) promotes malignant phenotypes in glioma via MAPK signaling

published_or_final_versio

Intracellular interferons in fish : a unique means to combat viral infection

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Throughput analysis of full-duplex communication cognitive radio network

In this paper we deal with the throughput of full-duplex cognitive communication radio which exploits unused band of primary user (PU) network. Classical cognitive radio uses half-duplex communication spectrum sensing to perform spectrum sensing and data transmission at different time intervals. It’s well-established fact that in half-duplex communication cognitive radio spectrum sensing time increases at low SNR which gives rise to lesser data transmission time for secondary user (SU) and hence results in less throughput for SU. It’s useful idea to do spectrum sensing and data transmission at the same time with two different antennas co-located on the SU transceiver. This shall not only guarantee high probability of detection of PU but also increased data transmission which means more throughput for SU. However, simultaneous sensing and data transmission has inherent problem of self-interference. One of the possible solution is to use polarisation discrimination in which sensing and data transmission antennas must use different polarisation. This is feasible if there is prior information about the polarisation of the signals emitted by the PUs. It shall be of special interest to assess throughput using analytical expressions for probability of detection PD, probability of false alarm PFA at various values of SNR for time-slotted cognitive radio which uses half-duplex spectrum sensing and non-time-slotted cognitive radio which uses full-duplex communication cognitive radio

Epitaxial growth of SiC on complex substrates

Epitaxial growth of SiC on complex substrates was carried out at substrate temperature from 1200 degreesC to 1400 degreesC. Three kinds of new complex substrates, c-plane sapphire, AlN/sapphire, and GaN/AlN/sapphire, were used in this study. We obtained a growth rate in the range of 1-6 mum/h. Thick (6 mum) SIC epitaxial layers with no cracks were successfully obtained on AlN/sapphire and GaN/AlN/sapphire substrates. X-ray diffraction patterns have confirmed that single-crystal SiC was obtained on these complex substrates. Analysis of optical transmission spectra of the SIC grown on sapphire substrates shows the lowest-energy gap near 2.2 eV, which is the value for cubic SiC. The undoped SIC showed n-type electrical conductivity. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

Frozen and Invariant Quantum Discord under Local Dephasing Noise

In this chapter, we intend to explore and review some remarkable dynamical properties of quantum discord under various different open quantum system models. Specifically, our discussion will include several concepts connected to the phenomena of time invariant and frozen quantum discord. Furthermore, we will elaborate on the relation of these two phenomena to the non-Markovian features of the open system dynamics and to the usage of dynamical decoupling protocols.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figure