Abstracted from: Shukla-Mehta, S., Miller, T., & Callahyan, K. J. (2010). Evaluating the effectiveness of video instruction on social and communication skills for children with autism spectrum ...disorders: A review of the literature. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 25, 23-36.
Source of funding and disclosure of interest: The original authors reported that no financial support was received for the research and/or authorship of the article and that there were no conflicts of interest.
Design and optimization of higher efficiency, lower-emission internal combustion engines are highly dependent on fuel chemistry. Resolving chemistry for complex fuels, like gasoline, is challenging. ...A solution is to study a fuel surrogate: a blend of a small number of well-characterized hydrocarbons to represent real fuels by emulating their thermophysical and chemical kinetics properties. In the current study, an existing gasoline surrogate formulation algorithm is further enhanced by incorporating novel chemometric models. These models use infrared spectra of hydrocarbon fuels to predict octane numbers, and are valid for a wide array of neat hydrocarbons and mixtures of such. This work leverages 14 hydrocarbon species to form tailored surrogate palettes for the Fuels for Advanced Combustion Engine (FACE) gasolines, including candidate component species not previously considered: n-pentane, 2-methylpentane, 1-pentene, cyclohexane, and o-xylene. We evaluate the performance of "full" and "reduced" surrogates for the 10 fuels for advanced combustion engine (FACE) gasolines, containing between 8-12 and 4-7 components, respectively. These surrogates match the target properties of the real fuels, on average, within 5 %. This close agreement demonstrates that the algorithm can design surrogates matching the wide array of target properties: octane numbers, density, hydrogen-to-carbon ratio, distillation characteristics, and proportions of carbon-carbon bond types. We also compare our surrogates to those available in literature (FACE gasolines A, C, F, G, I and J). Overall, the approach demonstrated here offers a promising method to better design surrogates for gasoline-like fuels with a wide array of properties.
Liquid transportation fuels require costly and time-consuming tests to characterize metrics, such as Research Octane Number (RON) for gasoline. If fuel sale restrictions requiring use of standard ...Cooperative Fuel Research testing procedures do not apply, these tests may be avoided by using multivariate statistical models to predict RON and other quantities. Here we show that an accurate statistical model for the RON of gasoline and gasoline-like fuels can be constructed by ensuring the representation of key functional groups in the spectroscopic data set are used to train the model. We found that a principal component regression model for RON based on IR absorbance and informed using neat and 134 mixtures of n-heptane, isooctane, toluene, ethanol, methylcyclohexane, and 1-hexene could predict RON for the 10 Coordinating Research Council Fuels for Advanced Combustion Engine (FACE) gasolines and 12 FACE gasoline blends with ethanol within 34.8+/-36.1 on average and 51.2 in the worst case. We next studied the effect of adding 28 additional minor components found in the FACE gasolines to the statistical model, and determined that it was necessary to add additional representatives of the branched alkane and aromatics classes to reduce model error. For example, adding 2,3-dimethylpentane and xylene to the previous model allowed it to predict RON for the 22 target fuels within 0.3+/-4.4 on average and 7.9 in the worst case. However, we determined that the specific choice of fuel in those classes mattered less than ensuring the representation of the relevant functional group. This work builds upon previous efforts by creating models informed by neat and surrogate fuels---rather than complex real fuels---that could predict the performance of complex unknown fuels.
The cytokine lymphotoxin (LT) is known to exist in two forms, secreted LT
α and a membrane-bound LT
α/
β complex. LT
α shares the same receptor as tumor necrosis factor
α and LT
β is recognized by ...its receptor, LT
βR. Since LT has been associated with oligodendrocyte pathology, the present study has examined the expression of these molecules by immunocytochemistry in diseased and normal CNS tissue, with a panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to LT
α, LT
β and LT
βR. Of three mAb to LT
β, two (B27 and C37) gave specific membrane staining on astrocytes, as well as lymphocytes. The third anti-LT
β mAb, B9, was selectively immunoreactive for oligodendrocytes, suggesting specific recognition sites. The reactivity was not specific for multiple sclerosis (MS) since oligodendrocytes in normal and non-MS CNS tissue also displayed positivity. MAb to LT
βR reacted with astrocytes only, giving a punctate membrane staining pattern suggestive of receptor sites. MAb to LT
α gave strong reactivity on lymphocytes in active MS lesions and weak reactivity on microglia within lesion areas. These results show that mAb to LT
α and LT
β recognize different cell types within the CNS. Furthermore, individual mAb against LT
β were capable of distinguishing between astrocytes and oligodendrocytes, perhaps indicative of different epitopes on LT
β. The presence of LT
βR on astrocytes suggests possible interactions between infiltrating lymphocytes and astrocytes via the LT pathway.
This chapter focuses on the treatments for degenerative disc disease. The chapter also introduces several nucleus replacement design concepts prevalent in degenerative disc disease. Current treatment ...for degenerative disc disease focuses primarily on relieving back and leg pain. The most common surgical treatments, discectomy and spinal fusion, are performed to reduce pain, and not to restore disc function. Discectomy is employed when the disc has herniated and is impinging on nerve roots causing patient pain, but when the annulus degeneration is not severe. Surgical fusion, inducing bone growth across the functional spinal unit to eliminate disc loading and motion, is reserved for patients with chronic severely disabling pain. The replacement of the nucleus pulposus alone would result in a surgical technique that would offer a less invasive approach to pain relief while potentially restoring the functional biomechanics to the system. This approach could be most effective in patients with early diagnosis of disc disease, before the annulus has suffered significant degeneration. The chapter presents the surgical candidates for nucleus replacement, mechanical requirements of the nucleus replacements, and biocompatibility requirements for successful nucleus replacements.
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