Hybrid Secure Equivalent Computing Model for Distributed Computing Applications

Wireless Personal Communications - Distributed computing applications provide concurrent processing and services executed from different systems through a common cloud platform. However, without...     

Bibliometric analysis of the evolution of biochar research trends and scientific production

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Biochar has caught great attention over the last decade, yielding a large number of publications in a broad range of disciplines. This scientometric...     

Helicobacter pylori gastric infections in children

OBJECTIVES: Numerous reports have established the association of Helicobacter pylori and recurrent abdominal pain in children. We investigated the clinical, bacteriological and therapeutic features of our patients seen over a 1 year period. METHODS: We investigated 121 children during 1992 in Hospital Saint Vincent-de-Paul, Paris. At endoscopy, biopsies were taken and sent for histology and bacteriology and urease testing. A decision regarding treatment by amoxicillin and metronidazol was made after positive results of bacteriology and/or histology. RESULTS: Heliobacter pylori was found in 47 antral biopsies after pathology examination with Giemsa staining alone 16 times, bacterial culture 9 times and both methods 22 times. Abdominal pain was the prominent symptom, occurring in 35.5% of Helicobacter pylori+patients. In 25 of the positive negative patients, a nodular gastritis was observed (53.1%) and in 27.6% of them a weight loss or a delay in weight gain. Few patients became after combined treatment with amoxicillin and metronidazol whereas eradication rates after triple therapy with amoxicillin-metronidazol and H2 antagonist or proton pump blocker were higher. CONCLUSION: Helicobacter pylori related gastritis is a common cause of abdominal complaints in children. The most common symptom is recurrent abdominal pain. Antral nodularity is a peculiar endoscopic finding in children. Two-drug therapy associating amoxicillin-metronidazol is often ineffective to eradicate the bacteria whereas eradication rates after triple therapy amoxicillin-metronidazol and H2 antagonist or proton pump blocker are higher.     

Chemical composition and nutritional quality of tehineh (sesame butter)

The chemical composition and nutritional quality of tehineh, a paste of dehulled roasted sesame seeds, from Saudi Arabia and other countries, were studied. Results showed 24.7% protein, 58.9% fat, 2.3% fiber, 3.0% ash and <1.0% moisture. The tehineh contained relatively high amounts (mg/100 g) of P (692), Mg (362), Fe (7.19), Cu (1.96), Mn (1.46) and Zn (7.82) and low amounts of Ca (61) and Se (0.05). Gas-liquid chromatography (GLC) analysis of the oil revealed percentages of 42.4 for oleic, 39.7 for linoleic, 9.8 for palmitic and 6.4 for stearic acid. Lysine was the only limiting amino acid with a chemical score of 64, while the sulphur-containing amino acids (methionine + cystine) and tryptophan were present in amounts exceeding the requirement of the FAO/WHO (1973) reference protein. The in vitro protein digestibility (IVPD) value of 83.3% and the calculated protein efficiency ratio (C-PER), 2.14, were slightly higher than those of sesame seeds and both values were lower than the IVPD and C-PER of 90.0% and 2.50, respectively, for ANRC casein.     

Ethoxylated fatty alcohols as corrosion inhibitors for dissolution of zinc in hydrochloric acid

The effect of some ethoxylated fatty alcohols, with different numbers of ethylene oxide units, on the corrosion of zinc in 0.5 M HCl has been studied using weight loss and polarization measurements. The inhibition efficiency was found to increase with increasing concentration, number of ethylene oxide units per molecule and with decreasing the temperature. Inhibition was explained on the basis of adsorption of ethoxylated fatty alcohols molecules on the metal surface through their ethoxy groups. The degree of surface coverage varied linearly with logarithm of inhibitor concentration fitting Temkin isotherm. The thermodynamic parameters were calculated for the tested system from the data obtained at different temperatures.     

Size, diffusibility and transfection performance of linear PEI/DNA complexes in the mouse central nervous system

Currently in vivo gene delivery by synthetic vectors is hindered by the limited diffusibility of complexes in extra-cellular fluids and matrices. Here we show that certain formulations of plasmid DNA with linear polyethylenimine (22 kDa PEI, ExGene 500) can produce complexes that are sufficiently small and stable in physiological fluids so as to provide high diffusibility. When plasmid DNA was formulated with 22 kDa PEI in 5% glucose, it produced a homogeneous population of complexes with mean diameters ranging from 30 to 100 nm according to the amount of PEI used. In contrast, formulation in physiological saline produced complexes an order of magnitude greater (> or = 1 micron). Intraventricular injection of complexes formulated in glu-cose showed the complexes to be highly diffusible in the cerebrospinal fluid of newborn and adult mice, diffusing from a single site of injection throughout the entire brain ventricular spaces. Transfection efficiency was followed by histochemistry of beta-galactosidase activity and double immunocytochemistry was used to identify the cells transfected. Transgene expression was found in both neurons and glia adjacent to ventricular spaces. Thus, this method of formulation is promising for in vivo work and may well be adaptable to other vectors and physiological models.     

用六水氯化钙作为相变材料的换热器储热性能研究

研究了一种以传统的管壳式换热器作为结构基础、管内充填相变材料——六水氯化钙的新型相变材料换热器的储热性能。对这种新型相变材料换热器分别通入温度不同的冷热流体，利用温度测试系统对其进口、出口的温度进行了测试。实验结果表明，这种相变材料换热器结构能将温度较高的热流体的热能通过其管内充填的相变材料储存起来，必要时又可以将储存的热能释放给所需的流体中，从而使其既具有热量交换的功能又具有热量储存的功能。它主要适用于温室、暖房、工业生产中的低品位热能的回收和利用，还可以应用于热能供应与人们需求之间不一致的场合，如太阳能热利用、采暖和空调领域等。     

A novel blind watermarking approach for medical image authentication using MinEigen value features

Developing new watermarking approaches that consider special features of medical images become increasingly necessary. This paper proposes a new watermarking approach to ensure medical images authenticity, using MinEigen value features, chaotic sequence, and Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) in the spatial domain. The idea is to choose the 3?×?3 non overlapping blocks around MinEigen values points, then embed the watermark bits in these blocks using a novel blind way based on chaotic sequence and QIM. The proposed technique is purely blind and fast in terms of execution time. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is robust against all DICOM JPEG compression attacks while keeping high imperceptibility.

     

Trust-based authentication scheme with user rating for low-resource devices in smart environments

In smart environments, pervasive computing contributes in improving daily life activities for dependent people by providing personalized services. Nevertheless, those environments do not guarantee a satisfactory level for protecting the user privacy and ensuring the trust between communicating entities. In this study, we propose a trust evaluation model based on user past and present behavior. This model is associated with a lightweight authentication key agreement protocol (Elliptic Curve-based Simple Authentication Key Agreement). The aim is to enable the communicating entities to establish a level of trust and then succeed in a mutual authentication using a scheme suitable for low-resource devices in smart environments. An innovation in our trust model is that it uses an accurate approach to calculate trust in different situations and includes a human-based feature for trust feedback, which is user rating. Finally, we tested and implemented our scheme on Android mobile phones in a smart environment dedicated for handicapped people.