Enantioselective antiplatelet actions of nipecotamides

This investigation retrospectively examined changes in marital satisfaction following stroke. The relationship between such changes and other pertinent factors were also examined, including severity of aphasia, knowledge of aphasia, number of months after stroke, and length of the marriage. The subjects were 40 spouses of patients with aphasia grouped according to severity of the aphasia (mild, moderate, severe). Spouses completed two different measures of marital satisfaction--the Marital Satisfaction Scale (MSS) and the Marital Comparison Level Index (MCLI). These measures were completed in both a prestroke (retrospective reporting) and a poststroke format to allow for change to be assessed. In addition, a Knowledge of Aphasia questionnaire was completed by the normal spouses to evaluate their understanding of the disorder of aphasia. There was a significant difference between prestroke and poststroke scores on both the MSS and the MCLI, indicating a lower level of satisfaction following the stroke. The amount of change between prestroke and poststroke MSS and MCLI scores was not related to either number of months poststroke or number of years married. Although there was no relationship between changes in prestroke and poststroke scores on the MCLI and Knowledge of Aphasia scores, there was a significant correlation between changes in these scores on the MSS and Knowledge of Aphasia scores. Hence, the more knowledge spouses had regarding aphasia, the less the negative impact the stroke had on marital satisfaction, as measured by the MSS. Results are discussed in terms of the interdisciplinary treatment needs of aphasic patients and the implications for future investigations.     

Preparation and surface- active properties of polyoxyethylene-glycol (600) monoesters of fatty acids

Polyoxyethyleneglycol (PEG-600) monoesters of undecylenic, lauric, myristic, palmitic, stearic, oleic, ricinoleic and 12-hydroxystearic acids were prepared in 80-85% yield by reacting PEG with boric acid, esterifying the resultant borate with fatty acid, and selectively hydrolyzing the borate ester; their surface active properties were evaluated. Increase in acyl chain length increased the surface tension. The presence of a double bond or hydroxyl group in C₁₈ series improved the wetting and emulsifying proper-ties. Unsaturation in the fatty acid chain reduced the foaming power.     

Set-membership adaptive equalization and an updator-sharedimplementation for multiple channel communications systems

This paper considers the problems of channel estimation and adaptive equalization in the novel framework of set-membership parameter estimation. Channel estimation using a class of set-membership identification algorithms known as optimal bounding ellipsoid (OBE) algorithms and their extension to tracking time-varying channels are described. Simulation results show that the OBE channel estimators outperform the least-mean-square (LMS) algorithm and perform comparably with the RLS and the Kalman filter. The concept of set-membership equalization is introduced along with the notion of a feasible equalizer. Necessary and sufficient conditions are derived for the existence of feasible equalizers in the case of linear equalization for a linear FIR additive noise channel. An adaptive OBE algorithm is shown to provide a set of estimated feasible equalizers. The selective update feature of the OBE algorithms is exploited to devise an updator-shared scheme in a multiple channel environment, referred to as updator-shared parallel adaptive equalization (USHAPE). U-SHAPE is shown to reduce the hardware complexity significantly. Procedures to compute the minimum number of updating processors required for a specified quality of service are presented     

Preparation of Some New Ethylene Glycol Monoesters and Mixed Diesters of Fatty Acids

Tri-(2-hydroxyethyl)-orthoborate, obtained by reaction of ethylene glycol with boric acid, was esterified with palmitic, stearic, arachidic, oleic, hydnocarpic, elaidic and stearolic acids. Pure monoesters were obtained on hydrolysis with water in high yields. Monoelaidate and monostearolate are reported for the first time. The monoesters were reacted with acyl chlorides to yield the mixed diesters, viz., oleostearate, oleopalmitate, oleoarachidate, oleoelaidate, oleostearolate, elaidohydnocarpate, stearocaproate and stearolaurate. Except oleostearate the other compounds are reported for the first time.     

Convergence analysis of the quasi‐OBE algorithm and related performance issues

‘Quasi‐OBE’ (QOBE) is an adaptive set identification and filtering algorithm which is based on the principles of optimal bounding ellipsoid processing, but which has other geometric and classic least‐squares interpretations which greatly enhance its application potential. In particular, because of its unusual optimization criterion, the ellipsoidal membership set associated with QOBE is more likely to retain (i.e. to move in the parameter space with) the system model's ‘true parameters, ’ say θ _*, when those parameters are time varying. Moreover, in the unlikely event that θ _* moves outside the set, the integrity of the point‐set estimation remains intact, and the estimator provably converges under known conditions. The consistency of the set estimation can be restored at any time using typical ‘rescue procedures’ if desired. Understanding convergence performance is very critical to successful QOBE application. Convergence analysis of both the central point estimate and measures of the hyperellipsoidal membership set is presented. The main results give conditions for point estimate convergence, and show that set convergence to a point is not possible. Implications of these convergence results for practical application are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Antiplatelet effects of R,S-(meso)-alpha, alpha'-bis[3-(N,N-diethylcarbamoyl) piperidino]-p-xylene ex vivo in the dog and in vivo in the mouse

1. The nipecotamide alpha,alpha'-bis[3-(N,N-diethylcarbamoyl)piperidino]-p-xylene (A-1) is a platelet aggregation inhibitor. The meso diastereomer A-1c is superior in potency and duration to the synthetic diastereomeric mixture consisting of the R,R-, S,S-, and R,S- (meso) isomers in inhibiting collagen-induced platelet aggregation ex vivo in the dog. 2. A-1c also is more potent and longer acting than A-1 in protecting mice from collagen+epinephrine-induced thromboembolic death. 3. The mechanism of antiplatelet action of this compound appears to be related to its ability to prevent agonist-induced inhibition of platelet cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) levels.     

Adaptive multiuser detection and beamforming for interferencesuppression in CDMA mobile radio systems

This paper considers the problem of interference suppression in direct-sequence code-division multiple-access (DS-CDMA) systems over fading channels. An adaptive array receiver is presented which integrates multiuser detection, beamforming, and RAKE reception to mitigate cochannel interference and fading. The adaptive multiuser detector is formulated using a blind constrained energy minimization criterion and adaptation is carried out using a novel algorithm based on set-membership parameter estimation theory. The proposed detector overcomes the shortcomings of conventional LMS- and RLS-type algorithms, namely, that of slow convergence and large computational load, respectively. This is especially the case when strong interferers are present or when the number of adaptive weights is relatively large. DS-CDMA systems can have a relatively large number of spatially distributed interferers. Thus beamforming is based on direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimates provided by an approximate maximum-likelihood estimator (DOA-MLE). Unlike previous approaches, the DOA-MLE exploits the structure of the DS-CDMA signaling scheme resulting in robust performance and simple implementation in the presence of angle spreading. The overall method is suitable for real-time implementation and can substantially improve the interference suppression capabilities of a CDMA system     

BEACON: an adaptive set-membership filtering technique with sparseupdates

This paper deals with adaptive solutions to the so-called set-membership filtering (SMF) problem. The SMF methodology involves designing filters by imposing a deterministic constraint on the output error sequence. A set-membership decision feedback equalizer (SM-DFE) for equalization of a communications channel is derived, and connections with the minimum mean square error (MMSE) DFE are established. Further, an adaptive solution to the general SMF problem via a novel optimal bounding ellipsoid (OBE) algorithm called BEACON is presented. This algorithm features sparse updating, wherein it uses about 5-10% of the data to update the parameter estimates without any loss in mean-squared error performance, in comparison with the conventional recursive least-squares (RLS) algorithm. It is shown that the BEACON algorithm can also be derived as a solution to a certain constrained least-squares problem. Simulation results are presented for various adaptive signal processing examples, including estimation of a real communication channel. Further, it is shown that the algorithm can accurately track fast time variations in a nonstationary environment. This improvement is a result of incorporating an explicit test to check if an update is needed at every time instant as well as an optimal data-dependent assignment to the updating weights whenever an update is required     

Chest wall rhabdomyosarcoma

BACKGROUND: Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most common soft tissue sarcoma in the pediatric age group. The primary tumor site is an important prognostic determinant. Axial lesions are associated with decreased survival and provide a clinical challenge. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of the authors' institutional experience between 1972 and 1996 was performed. Patients were from a data base of 302 consecutive cases. RESULTS: Fifteen consecutive patients with chest wall rhabdomyosarcoma were identified. The median age was 16 years (range, 6 months-25 years). Median follow-up was 6.6 years (range, 10 months-18.5 years). Nine patients presented with a mass, six with pain, two with respiratory distress, and one with ulnar neuropathy. The median lesion size was 7 cm (range, 3-16 cm). A surgical procedure was the initial therapy for 13 of 15 patients. Fourteen patients received radiation therapy with a median dose of 4400 cGy. All but one were included in institutional-based trials using multiagent chemotherapy. At last follow-up, 10 patients were alive and disease free, with a median survival of 123 months (range, 51-221 months). Seven of ten survivors underwent a complete resection as their initial therapy. There was no surgical mortality, and only two patients had treatment-related complications. Of the five patients who died, two underwent complete resection as their initial therapy. All five patients had invasive tumors. Four were > 10 cm, 3 were of alveolar subtype, and 2 were embryonal. CONCLUSIONS: Complete resection of chest wall rhabdomyosarcoma is recommended. However, survival is possible for patients with microscopically positive surgical margins with the addition of chemotherapy and radiation.     

Intelligent antenna solutions for UMTS: algorithms and simulation results

This article outlines the development of intelligent antenna (IA) solutions for UMTS, a third-generation W-CDMA system. Since the selection of an antenna configuration paired with realizable uplink/downlink algorithms that can satisfy all operating environments is a broad task, this article focus is on cost-effective antenna arrays for macrocells. Algorithms that exploit the antenna configurations and act at both the physical and MAC layers are highlighted and supported by simulation results. Two solutions stand out for UMTS: a universal beamforming algorithm that unifies user-specific and fixed beamforming under one framework, and multibeam scheduling (MBS) that significantly increases downlink packet data throughput using the concept of code reuse in conjunction with beamforming. The article summarizes the critical issues that were faced in the development of an IA solution capable of delivering the theoretically promised benefits to end users.