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Focuses on the computation of the windchill index.

Abstract: Composite membranes with a rubbery polymer skin layer are promising for the separation of organic vapours (e.g., light olefins and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)) from nitrogen for emission control and recovery of valuable components. Because of the high flux of composite membranes, the resistance of the substrate becomes increasingly important to the overall permeation. The effect of substrate resistance on gas permeation was studied using flat poly(ether block amide)/polysulfone (PEBA/PSf) and poly(dimethyl siloxane)/polyetherimide (PDMS/PEI) hollow fiber composite membranes. It was found that for a given substrate, the selectivity of the PEBA/PSf membrane for the separation of binary methanol/N2 and ethanol/N2 mixtures decreased as the PEBA skin layer thickness was reduced. The selectivity of the PDMS/PEI composite membrane to C2H4/N2 and C3H6/N2 was much lower than the intrinsic selectivity of PDMS. This is attributed to the substrate resistance that represents a significant contribution to the overall mass transport resistance for the permeation of highly permeable components (e.g., VOCs), while the skin layer may still dominate the permeation of slow permeant (e.g., N2). Depending on the magnitude of the substrate resistance relative to the skin layer, the membrane permselectivity can be compromised substantially. In the development of advanced composite membranes, when the skin thickness is reduced, the substrate structure should be optimized so as to minimize the effect of the substrate resistance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

HIV progression is characterized by immune activation and microbial translocation. One factor that may be contributing to HIV progression could be a dysbiotic microbiome. We therefore hypothesized that the GI mucosal microbiome is altered in HIV patients and this alteration correlates with immune activation in HIV. 121 specimens were collected from 21 HIV positive and 22 control human subjects during colonoscopy. The composition of the lower gastrointestinal tract mucosal and luminal bacterial microbiome was characterized using 16S rDNA pyrosequencing and was correlated to clinical parameters as well as immune activation and circulating bacterial products in HIV patients on ART. The composition of the HIV microbiome was significantly different than that of controls; it was less diverse in the right colon and terminal ileum, and was characterized by loss of bacterial taxa that are typically considered commensals. In HIV samples, there was a gain of some pathogenic bacterial taxa. This is the first report characterizing the terminal ileal and colonic mucosal microbiome in HIV patients with next generation sequencing. Limitations include use of HIV-infected subjects on HAART therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces a type of DBMS called the Intentionally-Linked Entities (ILE) DBMS for use as the basis for temporal and historical Geographical Information Systems. ILE represents each entity in a database only once, thereby mostly eliminating redundancy and fragmentation, two major problems in Relational and other database systems. These advantages of ILE are realized by using relationship objects and pointers to implement all of the relationships among data entities in a native fashion using dynamically-allocated linked data structures. ILE can be considered to be a modern and extended implementation of the E/R data model. ILE also facilitates storage of things that are more faithful to the historical records, such as gazetteer entries of places with imprecisely known or unknown locations. This is difficult in Relational database systems but is a routine task using ILE because ILE is implemented using modern memory allocation techniques. We use the China Historical GIS (CHGIS) and other databases to illustrate the advantages of ILE. This is accomplished by modeling these databases in ILE and comparing them to the existing Relational implementations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the demographics and treatment outcome of penetrating neck injuries in a Canadian trauma center. Major cause of death among patients with penetrating neck injuries; Mechanism of injury for injuries to the neck which penetrated the platysma; Potential for death from a missed esophageal injury as the rate limiting factor with conservative management.

Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)-infected macaques are the preferred animal model for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccines that elicit CD8+ T cell responses. Unlike humans, whose CD8+ T cell responses are restricted by a maximum of six HLA class I alleles, macaques express up to 20 distinct major histocompatibility complex class I (MHC-I) sequences. Interestingly, only a subset of macaque MHC-I sequences are transcriptionally abundant in peripheral blood lymphocytes. We hypothesized that highly transcribed MHC-I sequences are principally responsible for restricting SIV-specific CD8+ T cell responses. To examine this hypothesis, we measured SIV-specific CD8+ T cell responses in MHC-I homozygous Mauritian cynomolgus macaques. Each of eight CD8+ T cell responses defined by full-proteome gamma interferon (IFN-γ) enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay were restricted by four of the five transcripts that are transcriptionally abundant (>1% of total MHC-I transcripts in peripheral blood lymphocytes). The five transcriptionally rare transcripts shared by these animals did not restrict any detectable CD8+ T cell responses. Further, seven CD8+ T cell responses were defined by identifying peptide binding motifs of the three most frequent MHC-I transcripts on the M3 haplotype. Combined, these results suggest that transcriptionally abundant MHC-I transcripts are principally responsible for restricting SIV-specific CD8+ T cell responses. Thus, only a subset of the thousands of known MHC-I alleles in macaques should be prioritized for CD8+ T cell epitope characterization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]