Personalized identification of abdominal wall hernia meshes on computed tomography

An abdominal wall hernia is a protrusion of the intestine through an opening or area of weakness in the abdominal wall. Correct pre-operative identification of abdominal wall hernia meshes could help surgeons adjust the surgical plan to meet the expected difficulty and morbidity of operating through or removing the previous mesh. First, we present herein for the first time the application of image analysis for automated identification of hernia meshes. Second, we discuss the novel development of a new entropy-based image texture feature using geostatistics and indicator kriging. Third, we seek to enhance the hernia mesh identification by combining the new texture feature with the gray-level co-occurrence matrix feature of the image. The two features can characterize complementary information of anatomic details of the abdominal hernia wall and its mesh on computed tomography. Experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed study. The new computational tool has potential for personalized mesh identification which can assist surgeons in the diagnosis and repair of complex abdominal wall hernias.     

The effects of bleached and unbleached rosemary oleoresins on light-sensitized oxidation of soybean oil

Bleached and unbleached forms of a rosemary oleoresin (RO) in stripped and nonstripped soybean oil behave both as antioxidant and prooxidant in a light-induced oxidative system. At 0.02 and 0.05% levels, RO had the greatest antioxidant activity, while at 0.01 and 0.5% levels it had the highest prooxidant activity in both stripped and nonstripped soybean oil. Treatment of both soybean oil systems with tertiary butylhydroquinone controlled light-induced oxidation of the oil better than did the oleoresin treatments. The prooxidant activity of the 0.5% RO level was probably due to an excess of prooxidant components being carried into the oil at that level, whereas the reduced antioxidant activity at 0.01% was probably due to the low initial level of active antioxidant components being added to the oil. Published as Journal Series No. 10072, Nebraska Agricultural Research Division, Department of Food Science and Technology, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583-0919.     

Isolation of the trail recruitment pheromone ofSolenopsis invicta

TheSolenopsis invicta trail pheromone is synthesized by the Dufour's gland and is released through the sting apparatus. The recruitment subcategory of theS. invicta trail pheromone was shown to be composed of a mixture of the orientation pheromone, (Z,E)--farnesene and an unidentified homosesquiterpene consisting of three rings and one double bond (C-1). C-1 is present in worker Dufour's glands at only 75 pg per worker equivalent. This is the first report that demonstrates that different exocrine products from the same gland control different subcategories of behavior related to mass recruitment.     

Operation of a full-scale pumped flow biofilm reactor (PFBR) under two aeration regimes

A novel technology suitable for centralised and decentralised wastewater treatment has been developed, extensively tested at laboratory-scale, and trialled at a number of sites for populations ranging from 15 to 400 population equivalents (PE). The two-reactor-tank pumped flow biofilm reactor (PFBR) is characterised by: (i) its simple construction; (ii) its ease of operation and maintenance; (iii) low operating costs; (iv) low sludge production; and (v) comprising no moving parts or compressors, other than hydraulic pumps. By operating the system in a sequencing batch biofilm reactor (SBBR) mode, the following treatment can be achieved: 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and total suspended solids (TSS) reduction; nitrification and denitrification. During a 100-day full-scale plant study treating municipal wastewater and operating at 165 PE and 200 PE (Experiments 1 and 2, respectively), maximum average removals of 94% BOD5, 86% TSS and 80% ammonium-nitrogen (NH4-N) were achieved. During the latter part of Experiment 2, effluent concentrations averaged: 14 mg BOD5/l; 32 mg COD(filtered)/l; 14 mg TSS/l; 4.4 mg NH4-N/l; and 4.0 mg NO3-N/l (nitrate-nitrogen). The average energy consumption was 0.46-0.63 kWh/m3(treated) or 1.25-1.76 kWh/kg BOD5 removed. No maintenance was required during these experiments. The PFBR technology offers a low energy, minimal maintenance technology for the treatment of municipal wastewater.     

A comparative study of the use of colorimetric assays in the assessment of biocompatibility

A panel of colorimetric assays was assessed for sensitivity, reproducibility, and performance in the investigation of the biocompatibility of a representative range of orthopædic biomaterials, using a commercially available human osteosarcoma-derived cell line. The MTT assay was the most sensitive, with a detection limit of 4×10² cells per well against background, while the NR assay was the least sensitive, with no colour change until the cell density reached 2×10⁴ per well. All of the assays investigated showed a highly significant edge effect when within-plate reproducibility was examined; between-plate reproducibility was good for all assays except the MTT assay. When the assays were tested on cells adherent on biomaterials, there was a wide variation in the results obtained; in particular, the MTS assay showed poor reproducibility in the presence of materials. The MTT and BrdU assays both showed sufficient precision to detect cells on two of the materials studied. The study demonstrates that colorimetric assays are potentially useful in biocompatibility assessment but must be fully validated for the application chosen.     

Biochemical and behavioral evidence foe hybridization between fire ants,Solenopsis invicta andSolenopsis richteri (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Behavioral and biochemical evidence is presented for hybridization between the fire ants,Solenopsis richteri andS. invicta. The response of the two species to extracts of their trail pheromones presented as a point source is clearly species-specific; however, hybrid workers responded to parental Dufour's gland extracts and parental workers responded to Dufour's gland extracts of the hybrid. The behavioral evidence for hybridization was confirmed by gas Chromatograph comparison of the Dufour's gland extracts of the three fire ant forms, which showed a pattern for the hybrid that was intermediate to the two parental species.     

Distributed Job Scheduling in Rings

We give a distributed approximation algorithm for job scheduling in a ring architecture. In contrast to many other parallel scheduling models, the model we consider captures the influence of the underlying communications network by specifying that task migration from one processor to another takes time proportional to the distance between those two processors in the network. As a result, our algorithm must balance computational load and communication time. The algorithm is simple, requires no global control, and yields schedules of length at most 4.22 times optimal. We also give a lower bound on the performance of any distributed algorithm and the results of simulation experiments which suggest better performance than does our worst-case analysis.     

Folate in Beer

Folate levels in a range of beers and other beverages have been measured using high‐performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection (HPLC‐FLD) and by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS). The data from the LC‐MS/MS study was revealed to be unreliable, through the masquerading of polyphenol degradation products as folates. Using the HPLC‐FLD procedure most beers ranged between 2.2 and 24.2 μg per bottle, or up to 6.1% of the recommended daily allowance. Some imported beers contained no detectable folate and we believe that this is due to the folate decreasing in level during storage and transportation. Wine, vodka and whiskey contained no detectable folate, while orange juice contained folate at a comparable level to that found in the beer with the highest folate.