Development of Anticandidal Delivery Systems: (I) Anticandidal Activities of Antifungal Agents and Synergistic Combination with Other Drugs

Susceptibility testing with antifungal agents, e. g., minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) determination, is performed to obtain reliable data that permit selection of the most suitable agents for treatment of an infective condition. To determine the drugs that provide maximum effectiveness against oral candidiasis, the MICs of various antifungal agents were determined. Also, synergism between two chosen antifungal agents was evaluated, and the effect of benzocaine, an anesthetic, and hydrocortisone, an antiinflammatory agent, on their MICs was examined. It was observed that among all the drugs tested, clotrimazole was the most promising candidate for use as an oral local antifungal. The combination of clotrimazole and chlorhexidine resulted in a decrease in the MIC. While the addition of hydrocortisone to this combination resulted in a slight increase in the MIC, the inclusion of benzocaine resulted in a substantial decrease in the MIC of the antifungal agent combination.     

An enhanced zone 3 algorithm of a distance relay using transient components and state diagram

Zone 3 of a distance relay is used to provide the remote backup protection in case of the failure of the primary protection. However, the risk of maloperation under stressed conditions such as heavy loading, voltage, and transient instability is quite high. Zone 3 is used in combination with the derivatives of the voltage and current, etc. to prevent maloperation. At times, the impedance characteristics that restrict the tripping area of relay are used to avoid maloperation due to load encroachment. This work presents a novel zone 3 scheme based on combining the steady-state components (i.e., 60 Hz) and the transient components (TCs) using a state diagram that visualizes the sequence of studies that emanate from the sequence of events. The simulation results show that the novel zone 3 distance relay elements using the proposed method operate correctly for the various events.     

Fabrication of Arsenic Sulfide Optical Fiber with Low Hydrogen Impurities

Arsenic sulfide glass optical fibers typically possess extrinsic absorption bands in the infrared wavelength region associated with residual hydrogen and oxygen related impurities, despite using purified precursors. We report a purification process based on the addition of tellurium tetrachloride (TeCl₄) to the glass. During melting, the chlorine from TeCl₄ reacts with the hydrogen impurities to produce volatile products (e.g., HCl) that can be removed by subsequent dynamic distillation. The processing conditions have been modified accordingly to produce optical fibers with significantly reduced loss due to hydrogen sulfide impurity content (1.5 dB/m).     

A generalized scheme for mapping parallel algorithms

A generalized mapping strategy that uses a combination of graph theory, mathematical programming, and heuristics is proposed. The authors use the knowledge from the given algorithm and the architecture to guide the mapping. The approach begins with a graphical representation of the parallel algorithm (problem graph) and the parallel computer (host graph). Using these representations, the authors generate a new graphical representation (extended host graph) on which the problem graph is mapped. An accurate characterization of the communication overhead is used in the objective functions to evaluate the optimality of the mapping. An efficient mapping scheme is developed which uses two levels of optimization procedures. The objective functions include minimizing the communication overhead and minimizing the total execution time which includes both computation and communication times. The mapping scheme is tested by simulation and further confirmed by mapping a real world application onto actual distributed environments     

On the network effect in Web 2.0 applications

In recent years, the proliferation of the world wide web has lead to an increase in a number of applications such as search, social networks and auctions, whose success depends critically upon the number of users of that service. Two examples of such applications are internet auctions and social networks. One of the characteristics of online auctions is that a successful implementation requires a high volume of buyers and sellers at its website. Consequently, auction sites which have a high volume of traffic have an advantage over those in which the volume is limited. This results in even greater polarization of buyers and sellers towards a particular site. The same is true for social networks in which greater use of a given social network increases the use from other participants on the network. This is often referred to as the “network effect” in a variety of interaction-centric applications in networks. While this effect has qualitatively been known to increase the value of the overall network, its effect has never been modeled or studied rigorously. In this paper, we construct a Markov model to analyze the network effect in the case of two important classes of web applications. These correspond to auctions and social networks. We show that the network effect is very powerful and can result in a situation in which an auction or a social networking site can quickly overwhelm its competing sites. Thus, the results of this paper show the tremendous power of the network effect for Web 2.0 applications.     

Computation of surface orientation and structure of objects using grid coding

In this correspondence, algorithms are introduced to infer surface orientation and structure of visible object surfaces using grid coding. We adopt the active lighting technique to spatially ``encode' the scene for analysis. The observed objects, which can have surfaces of arbitrary shape, are assumed to rest on a plane (base plane) in a scene which is ``encoded' with light cast through a grid plane. Two orthogonal grid patterns are used, where each pattern is obtained with a set of equally spaced stripes marked on a glass pane. The scene is observed through a camera and the object surface orientation is determined using the projected patterns on the object surface. If the surfaces under consideration obey certain smoothness constraints, a dense orientation map can be obtained through proper interpolation. The surface structure can then be recovered given this dense orientation map. Both planar and curved surfaces can be handled in a uniform manner. The algorithms we propose yield reasonably accurate results and are relatively tolerant to noise, especially when compared to shape-from-shading techniques. In contrast to other grid coding techniques reported which match the grid junctions for depth reconstruction under the stereopsis principle, our techniques use the direction of the projected stripes to infer local surface orientation and do not require any correspondence relationship between either the grid lines or the grid junctions to be specified. The algorithm has the ability to register images and can therefore be embedded in a system which integrates knowledge from multiple views.     

Parallel 2-d convolution on a mesh connected array processor

In this correspondence, a parallel 2-D convolution scheme is presented. The processing structure is a mesh connected array processor consisting of the same number of simple processing elements as the number of pixels in the image. For most windows considered, the number of computation steps required is the same as that of the coefficients of a convolution window. The proposed scheme can be easily extended to convolution windows of arbitrary size and shape. The basic idea of the proposed scheme is to apply the 1-D systolic concept to 2-D convolution on a mesh structure. The computation is carried out along a path called a convolution path in a systolic manner. The efficiency of the scheme is analyzed for windows of various shapes. The ideal convolution path is a Hamiltonian path ending at the center of the window, the length of which is equal to the number of window coefficients. The simple architecture and control strategy make the proposed scheme suitable for VLSI implementation.     

On Iron Metabolism and Its Regulation

Iron is a critical metal for several vital biological processes. Most of the body’s iron is bound to hemoglobin in erythrocytes. Iron from senescent red blood cells is recycled by macrophages in the spleen, liver and bone marrow. Dietary iron is taken up by the divalent metal transporter 1 (DMT1) in enterocytes and transported to portal blood via ferroportin (FPN), where it is bound to transferrin and taken up by hepatocytes, macrophages and bone marrow cells via transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1). While most of the physiologically active iron is bound hemoglobin, the major storage of most iron occurs in the liver in a ferritin-bound fashion. In response to an increased iron load, hepatocytes secrete the peptide hormone hepcidin, which binds to and induces internalization and degradation of the iron transporter FPN, thus controlling the amount of iron released from the cells into the blood. This review summarizes the key mechanisms and players involved in cellular and systemic iron regulation.