Invasive group A streptococcal disease in Taiwan is not associated with the presence of streptococcal pyrogenic exotoxin genes

We reviewed the clinical features of 44 patients with invasive group A streptococcal (GAS) disease who were treated at two teaching hospitals in southern Taiwan from 1991 to 1994. Genes encoding streptococcal pyrogenic exotoxin types A (speA), B (speB), C (speC), and F (speF) and serotypes of M1, M6, and M12 were determined by polymerase chain reaction to target specific sequences in the 44 isolates recovered from these patients and in 28 isolates recovered from upper respiratory sites in 28 additional patients during the study period. The protease activity of these isolates was tested by using the casein plate method. Of the 44 patients with invasive diseases, 25 (57%) had no obvious underlying diseases, and 14 (32%) had preexisting neoplastic diseases or had previously used steroids. Twenty-five patients (57%) presented with cellulitis or necrotizing fasciitis, 24 (55%) had bacteremia, and eight (18%) had streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS). Eight patients (18%) died of invasive GAS disease; seven had STSS, and seven had underlying diseases. All eight patients died within 48 hours after hospitalization. The presence of speA, speC, or speF was not implicated in any particular clinical syndrome in patients with invasive GAS disease. High-level protease activity and the M1 serotype of the isolates were significantly associated with the clinical signs of STSS and with mortality. M1 serotype and protease activity, as well as host immune status, might play significant roles in the pathogenesis of invasive GAS disease in Taiwan.     

The 30-minute (1-24)ACTH test for evaluation of adrenocortical function in childhood

Twenty-eight children with normal adrenocortical function and two patients with adrenocortical insufficiency were enrolled in the present study. The ACTH test was performed in these 30 children, and the insulin hypoglycemia test was also performed for the same group, except for one with Addison's disease. Serum cortisol response after intravenous administration of (1-24)ACTH was below normal range in two patients with adrenocortical insufficiency. Neither significant correlation nor statistically significant difference was found between the serum cortisol level 30 minutes after (1-24)ACTH and the peak cortisol value during the insulin hypoglycemia test. None of these children had any adverse reaction to ACTH test. This study suggests that the 30-minute (1-24)ACTH test is a simple, safe and valuable screening procedure for evaluation of adrenocortical function in children.     

Calculation of the stress intensity factor for arbitrary finite cracked body by using the boundary weight function method

The state of thermal stresses for a periodic two-layered elastic space weakened by an interface thermally insulated Griffith crack and loaded by concentrated line heat sources is investigated. The analysis is performed within the framework of the homogenized model with microlocal parameters. The stress intensity factors at the crack tips are determined. Two examples of the application of the results obtained are detailed.     

VARCOV II: a computer program for the multivariate analysis of growth and response curves

A FORTRAN computer program written to perform a multivariate analysis of growth and response curves is described. The underlying statistical methodology is particularly applicable with incomplete observations, and may offer improved power performance to the distribution-free methods described previously.     

GaAs-GaAlAs heterostructure single-mode channel-waveguide cutoff modulator and modulator array

A GaAs single-mode channel-waveguide cutoff modulator that utilizes a GaAs-GaAlAs heterostructure and a linear array of such modulators are reported for the first time. We have measured a cutoff voltage as low as 9.0 V and an extinction ratio greater than 20 dB at an optical wavelength of 1.3 μm in a basic modulator that utilized a GaAs-Ga0.93Al0.07As heterostructure with a 0.9 μm thick GaAs epitaxial layer together with a ridge channel 2.5 mm in length and 5.0 μm in width. We have also succeeded in the realization of a high packing density (500 channels/cm) linear array of such cutoff modulators in the same GaAs substrate with equally satisfactory results. An RF bandwidth of 2.5 GHz has also been measured with the elementary modulator of such array. As in the case for LiNbO3substrates, the GaAs-based integrated optic modules that result from integration of such cutoff modulator arrays, microlens arrays, and planar acoustooptic or electrooptic Bragg diffraction grating arrays in a common substrate may be used to perform multiport switching, computing, and RF signal processing.     

A new process of fabricating inverted-staggered tri-layer thin-filmtransistors

A new method of fabricating a-Si:H TFT with etching-stop structure has been proposed. Only one plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition is required in this new method and a PH₃/H₂ plasma treatment during the deposition has been used to form the TFT contact and thus saved another plasma deposition. With this method, a TFT of 500 Å active layer has been fabricated successfully. The drain current and saturation mobility of this device is 2.4×10^-7 A and 0.1 cm²/V sec, respectively, which is comparable to the conventional fabricating method. The plasma treatment will also form an additional leakage path on the TFT top surface and increase the TFT subthreshold slope. However, a current of less than 1 pA at V_G=-2.4 V can still be obtained. The possible mechanism of the contact formation by the plasma treatment is also discussed     

Advances in software engineering

Software is the key technology in applications as diverse as accounting, hospital management, aviation, and nuclear power. Application advances in different domains such as these-each with different requirements-have propelled software development from small batch programs to large, real-time programs with multimedia capabilities. To cope, software's enabling technologies have undergone tremendous improvement in hardware, communications, operating systems, compilers, databases, programming languages, and user interfaces, among others. In turn, those improvements have fueled even more advanced applications. Improvements in VLSI technology and multimedia, for example, have resulted in faster, more compact computers that significantly widened the range of software applications. Database and user interface enhancements, on the other hand, have spawned more interactive and collaborative development environments. Such changes have a ripple effect on software development processes as well as on software techniques and tools. In this article, we highlight software development's crucial methods and techniques of the past 30 years     

Field theoretical treatment of H-plane waveguide junctionswith anisotropic medium

A method based on the equivalence principle and cavity field expansions is used to analyze an H-plane waveguide junction containing an anisotropic (ferrite or composite ferrite) post. Using the equivalence principle, magnetic surface currents are introduced at the imaginary boundaries chosen between the central region of the junction and the waveguides. The electric displacement in the junction can be completely expressed in terms of a solenoidal set. On the other hand, the magnetic induction in the junction must be expressed in terms of a solenoidal set and an irrotational set. Continuing the tangential magnetic field at the imaginary boundaries leads to a matrix equation, the unknowns of which are the amplitudes of the scattered waveguide modes. Using this method, H-plane waveguide junctions with ferrite and composite ferrite posts are considered. The numerical results show excellent agreement with previously published experimental and theoretical results     

Service-oriented smart home applications: composition, code generation, deployment, and execution

A smart home usually has a variety of devices or home appliance, instead of designing software for a specific home, this paper proposes a service-oriented framework with a set of ontology systems to support service and device publishing, discovery of devices and their services, composition of control software using existing control services that wrap devices, deployment, and execution of the composed service in an computing environment, monitoring the execution, and recovery from device failure. The ontology systems specify semantic information about devices, services, and workflows used in various smart home, and users can compose and recompose services for their specific needs. New devices, workflows, and services can be added into ontology. Most of the steps in this process can be automated including code generation. For example, service composition will be carried out in three steps: abstract workflow design, function construction, and device discovery, and different codes can be generated for different computing platforms such as Java and Open Services Gateway initiative environments. In this way, a variety of smart home can be constructed rapidly using the framework by discovery and composition using existing services and workflows. This paper illustrates this framework using a media control example to illustrate the ontology, discovery, composition, deployment, execution, monitoring, and recovery.     

An SVD-based image watermarking in wavelet domain using SVR and PSO

The paper presents a novel blind watermarking scheme for image copyright protection, which is developed in the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and is based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) and the support vector regression (SVR). Its embedding algorithm hides a watermark bit in the low–low (LL) subband of a target non-overlap block of the host image by modifying a coefficient of U component on SVD version of the block. A blind watermark-extraction is designed using a trained SVR to estimate original coefficients. Subsequently, the watermark bit can be computed using the watermarked coefficient and its corresponding estimate coefficient. Additionally, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) is further utilized to optimize the proposed scheme. Experimental results show the proposed scheme possesses significant improvements in both transparency and robustness, and is superior to existing methods under consideration here.