Impact of Metrical Prosody on Performances

This thesis is about testing Frederick Turner and Ernst Pöppel\u27s claim that suggestmetrical poem tends to measure three seconds in terms of psychological limitwhen it is performed aloud. The objective of the study is to present metricalpoems as the new data to test their claim by using corpus analysis. Hereby, theresearcher uses publicly available 28 read-aloud poems from poetryoutloud.orgby using Praat to find the duration of each metrical line. The findings indicate thatthere are 18 English metrical poems with 314 lines in total, supported by metricaltree analysis, meanwhile there are 10 poems which are free verse and found that1) most lines have iamb feet, 2) 10 of the metrical pattern of the poems are iambicpentameter, whereas others are in diverse meter, 3) there is no psychological limiton the duration of metrical lines in performance as the researcher only founds62.73% that fit to the 3 seconds of temporal window based on the analysis in thecorpus of 314 metrical lines. This study has shown what Frederick Turner andErnst Pöppel claim is not methodologically proven

Reaction Characteristics of Monolithic Catalysts with Different Size of Channels for NOₓ Reduction

The NOₓ reduction with carbon and NH₃ on various monolithic catalysts was investigated over a wide range of space velocity. A three-component composite catalyst, Co-La₂O₃-Pt, supported on active carbon (DIAHOPE 008) was used. It was pulverized into fine powder, and after mixing with hydrogel of aluminum hydroxide, this was molded into cylindrical forms with an inner channel of three sizes along the axial direction. The maximum limit of space velocity (SVₘₐₓ) to achieve a 100% NO conversion was mainly discussed. The same catalyst components were extensively supported on substrates having various channel structures of ceramic honeycomb. For these substrates, the effects of alumina sol-precoating and thermal treatment on the NO-NH₃ reaction were studied. The 0.93% Co-0.51% La₂O₃-1.6% Pt catalyst supported on the honeycomb precoated with 9.2% AI₂O₃ and calcined at 600°C for 1 hour gave the best performance among the various catalyst components. It also showed the best performance among the various structures from the viewpoint of SVₘₐₓ for achieving a 100% NO conversion

Applicability Of A Flood Forecasting Method Utilizing Global Satellite Information To An Insufficiently-Gauged River Basin: A Case Of A River Basin In The Philippines

Currently, basin-wide flood monitoring and warning systems are being implemented sequentially in river basins of the Philippines, which suffer from severe floods. The Cagayan River basin is among them draining the area of 27,280km2, where five rainfall and water level gauges are installed for the purpose of flood monitoring and warning. Despite the installed monitoring system, an operational flood forecasting model based on physical processes has not been performed for this basin. IFAS, a distributed hydrological model developed by ICHARM, was applied to the Cagayan River basin as a flood forecasting model. One of its notable functions is the capability of using both ground-gauge data and global satellite information, such as topography, land use and rainfall, in the model. In developing countries, hydrological ground observation still remains insufficient. To utilize global satellite information as supplementary information makes it much easier to forecast flood discharge in an insufficiently-gauged river basin. On the other hand, little has been addressed about accuracy validation of global satellite information as input data of the flood forecasting model. Therefore, simulation results utilizing satellite-based rainfall were compared with those with ground rainfall. GSMaP provided by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was applied to the flood forecasting model as a rainfall input. The comparison shows ground rainfall excels at accuracy of quantity, whereas GSMap excels at spatial distribution. In accordance with this result, GSMaP calibrated by the ground rainfall was applied to the IFAS model in order to increase reproducibility of flood discharge. As a result, the study found that simulation with calibrated GSMaP can reproduce river discharge with high accuracy, suggesting that satellite information is applicable to and effective in flood forecasting and warning activities in the Philippines

Quantitative PET image reconstruction employing nested expectation-maximization deconvolution for motion compensation

Bulk body motion may randomly occur during PET acquisitions introducing blurring, attenuation-emission mismatches and, in dynamic PET, discontinuities in the measured time activity curves between consecutive frames. Meanwhile, dynamic PET scans are longer, thus increasing the probability of bulk motion. In this study, we propose a streamlined 3D PET motion-compensated image reconstruction (3D-MCIR) framework, capable of robustly deconvolving intra-frame motion from a static or dynamic 3D sinogram. The presented 3D-MCIR methods need not partition the data into multiple gates, such as 4D MCIR algorithms, or access list-mode (LM) data, such as LM MCIR methods, both associated with increased computation or memory resources. The proposed algorithms can support compensation for any periodic and non-periodic motion, such as cardio-respiratory or bulk motion, the latter including rolling, twisting or drifting. Inspired from the widely adopted point-spread function (PSF) deconvolution 3D PET reconstruction techniques, here we introduce an image-based 3D generalized motion deconvolution method within the standard 3D maximum-likelihood expectation-maximization (ML-EM) reconstruction framework. In particular, we initially integrate a motion blurring kernel, accounting for every tracked motion within a frame, as an additional MLEM modeling component in the image space (integrated 3D-MCIR). Subsequently, we replaced the integrated model component with a nested iterative Richardson-Lucy (RL) image-based deconvolution method to accelerate the MLEM algorithm convergence rate (RL-3D-MCIR). The final method was evaluated with realistic simulations of whole-body dynamic PET data employing the XCAT phantom and real human bulk motion profiles, the latter estimated from volunteer dynamic MRI scans. In addition, metabolic uptake rate Ki parametric images were generated with the standard Patlak method. Our results demonstrate significant improvement in contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and noise-bias performance in both dynamic and parametric images. The proposed nested RL-3D-MCIR method is implemented on the Software for Tomographic Image Reconstruction (STIR) open-source platform and is scheduled for public release

Extension of adrenocortical carcinoma into the right atrium – echocardiographic diagnosis: A case report

BACKGROUND: Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare, highly malignant tumor. Cardiac involvement of the tumor is very rare. Echocardiography facilitates the evaluation of the cardiac involvement of the tumor. CASE PRESENTATION: We describe a patient with an adrenal tumor. Transthoracic echo showed its extension into the right atrium. Accordingly, a combined abdominal and cardiac operation was performed, monitored by transesophageal echocardiography. CONCLUSION: This case highlights the importance of echocardiography in revealing the cardiac involvement by this tumor and in planning the operative procedure

A Case of Non-Functioning Huge Adrenocortical Carcinoma Extending Into Inferior Vena Cava and Right Atrium

Primary adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare tumor and its usual sites of metastasis are the lung (71%), lymph node (68%), liver (42%), and bone (26%). However, intracaval invasion extending into the right atrium is very rare and spontaneous regression of tumor burden in adrenal carcinoma is also rare. We report a case of ACC with direct invasion of the inferior vena cava and right atrium. A 34-yr-old male patient presented with progressive dyspnea, weight loss, and poor oral intake over 3 months. Non-functioning ACC with direct invasion of the inferior vena cava and right atrium was confirmed by imaging, pathologic, and hormonal study. Chemo-radio-therapy was attempted. However, tumor burden was not changed, but rather toxic hepatitis and thrombocytopenia were developed. His subjective symptoms and general conditions were improved after 1 month of conservative management and the patient was discharged. During clinical follow-up, this tumor showed spontaneous regression

Expression of angiogenic factors predicts response to chemoradiotherapy and prognosis of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma

The ability to predict patients' responses to chemoradiotherapy by analyzing pre-treatment biopsy specimens would be valuable for managing oesophageal squamous-cell cancer. To this end, the expression of p53, thymidine phosphorylase and vascular endothelial cell growth factor was analyzed by immunohistochemistry in 52 patients with oesophageal squamous-cell cancer prior to chemoradiotherapy. Treatment consisted of radiotherapy (40 Gy) and 5 day-infusion of 5-Fluorouracil (500 mg m−2 per day) combined with cisplatin (10 mg m−2 per day). Following treatment, imaging and endoscopic reassessment was performed to establish treatment response. Thirty-one patients underwent radical surgery and 21 patients were treated with an additional 20 Gy of radiotherapy. Of the tumours studied, 58% were p53-positive, 40% thymidine phosphorylase-positive and 44% vascular endothelial cell growth factor-positive. A clinical response was observed in 36 patients (69%) and was negatively associated with thymidine phosphorylase expression (P=0.02) and vascular endothelial cell growth factor expression (P<0.001). However, the 5-year survival rate was significantly lower only in patients with vascular endothelial cell growth factor-positive tumours (P=0.037). Multivariate analysis identified vascular endothelial cell growth factor as a significant independent prognostic factor (P=0.0147). These results suggest that expression of angiogenic factors has predictive value for the treatment response and outcome of patients with oesophageal cancer