Recurrent abdominal pain in paediatric patients

Recurrent abdominal pain is a common problem in the paediatric population. While functional abdominal pain accounts for the majority of cases, an organic cause for pain may be found in about 5% to 10% of children. Diagnostic evaluation depends on the clinical presentation and the presence of specific findings. Excessive testing should be avoided as this may increase parental anxiety and put the child through unnecessary stress.published_or_final_versio

PCNL trajectory to predict success in supine PCNL: a novel concept

This journal suppl. contatin program & abstracts of the 29th World Congress of Endourology & SWL WCE, 2011Session - MP23: PNL 2: abstract no. MP23-13INTRODUCTION: Supine PCNL confers certain advantages over prone. Access parameters change with positioning. Supine position limits maneuverability of instruments, limiting access to upper & mid-pole stones. We aim to determine predictive factors for success of supine PCNL through road-mapping of PCNL trajectory. MATERIAL & METHOD: Consecutive patients undergoing PCNL from July-Dec2010 were recruited. Choice of position was made by surgeon. Tracts were performed under USG & fluoroscopy. Distances and angles were measured intra-operatively with rigid and flexible nephroscope, and correlated with pre-operative imaging. RESULTS 19 patients underwent PCNL(13supine, 6prone) Stone load was comparable in both groups. Overall stone clearance after single PCNL was 74%. Regardless of abdominal thickness and approach, all lower pole and renal pelvic stones were reached with mean excursion of 140 mm in supine & 105 mm in prone position. Mean entry angle was 59 for supine, and 35 for prone. In supine PCNL, the upper pole was reached in 4 of 11 tracts, with mean-excursion of 172mm& entry angle of 33. Similarly, 2 of 11 supine PCNL reached middle pole. Conversely, all prone PCNL tracts reached upper & middle pole with decreased excursion & angle. CONCLUSION: PCNL in prone position can reach renal pelvis and 3 poles via lower pole puncture. PCNL trajectory may be a tool to predict success in supine PCNL by estimating chance of reaching mid & upper pole. Skin to upper pole distance larger than 185mm and entry angle more than 48 degrees decrease chance of upper pole access.published_or_final_versionThe 29th World Congress of Endourology & SWL WCE, Kyoto, Japan, 30 November–3 December 2011. In Journal of Endourology, v. 25 suppl 1, p. A145, abstract no. MP23-1

Piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties of PZT/P (VDF-TrFE) composites with constituent phases poled in parallel or anti-parallel directions

2000-2001 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

PCNL trajectory: a novel concept to predict success in supine PCNL

香港泌尿外科學會Oral (Free Paper) Session IV - Andrology, Men’s Health and Stone Disease: OP.4-5OBJECTIVE: Supine PCNL confers certain advantages over its prone counterpart but access parameters change with supine positioning. Supine position limits maneuverability of instruments, limiting access to upper and mid-pole stones. We aim to determine predictive factors for success of supine PCNL through road-mapping of ...published_or_final_versionThe 17th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Hong Kong Urological Association, Hong Kong, 6 November 2011. In Program Book, 2011, p. 5

Applications of domain-domain interactions in pathway study

[[abstract]]The domain combination pair approach is employed to derive putative protein domain-domain interactions (DDI) from the protein-protein interactions (PPI) database DIP. The results of putative DDI are computed for seven species. To determine the prediction performance, putative DDI results are compared With that of the database InterDom, where an average matching ratio of about 76% can be achieved. Several real PPI pathways are reconstructed based on the predicted DDI results. It is found that the pathways could be reconstructed with reasonable accuracy. Furthermore, a novel quantity, so called AP-order index, is introduced to predict the regulatory order for six PPI pathways. It is found that the AP-order index is a very reliable parameter to determine the regulatory order of PPI. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

On the rendering and post-processing of simplified dynamic light fields with depth information

This paper studies the rendering and post-processing of a dynamic image-based representation called the simplified dynamic light fields (SDLF) (or plenoptic videos) with depth information. The user viewpoints are limited to a camera line to simplify the capturing and compression processes. By associating each image pixel with its depth value, methods for improving the rendering quality and detecting occlusions are proposed. Due to the limited sampling at depth discontinuities, adaptive lowpass filtering is applied to the detected occluded regions near object boundaries in order to suppress the aliasing artifacts. Rendering results using computer-generated images show that considerable improvement in rendering quality even for dynamic scenes with large depth variations.published_or_final_versio

Swift Detection of a 65 Day X-Ray Period from the Ultraluminous Pulsar NGC 7793 P13

NGC 7793 P13 is an ultraluminous X-ray source harboring an accreting pulsar. We report on the detection of a ~65 day period X-ray modulation with Swift observations in this system. The modulation period found in the X-ray band is P = 65.05 ± 0.10 days and the profile is asymmetric with a fast rise and a slower decay. On the other hand, the u-band light curve collected by Swift UVOT confirmed an optical modulation with a period of P = 64.24 ± 0.13 days. We explored the phase evolution of the X-ray and optical periodicities and propose two solutions. A superorbital modulation with a period of ~2700–4700 days probably caused by the precession of a warped accretion disk is necessary to interpret the phase drift of the optical data. We further discuss the implication if this ~65 day periodicity is caused by the superorbital modulation. Estimated from the relationship between the spin-orbital and orbital-superorbital periods of known disk-fed high-mass X-ray binaries, the orbital period of P13 is roughly estimated as 3–7 days. In this case, an unknown mechanism with a much longer timescale is needed to interpret the phase drift. Further studies on the stability of these two periodicities with a long-term monitoring could help us to probe their physical origins.postprin

A 2000 BPS LPC vocoder based on multiband excitation

This paper presents an improved mixed LPC vocoder at 2000 bps using Multi-Band Excitation analysis by a synthesis algorithm. The new vocoder determines the voiced/unvoiced characteristics harmonic by harmonic in a frame, and finds the first voiced/unvoiced transition as the cut-off frequency, which is more accurate and efficient than traditional cut-off frequency detection. The synthetic speech below the cut-off frequency is excited by a series of voiced harmonics, while the signal above the cut-off frequency is simulated by a noise source. The final output speech is the sum of these two outputs. To increase the naturalness and clearness of the synthesized speech, this model applies phase prediction and spectral enhancement in the synthesizer. It is also possible to reduce the bit rate to 1200 bps. Informal listening tests indicate that the output speech possesses higher intelligibility and quality than that of the 2.4 kbps LPC-10e standard, and is comparable with the 4.8 kbps FS1016 CELP vocoder.published_or_final_versio