The effects of multiple sclerosis (MS) on the central nervous system often manifest as abnormalities in gait kinematics. Clinically practical, valid, and reliable measures of gait kinematics are necessary to address research and clinical questions about MS. Wireless flexible electrogoniometry (EG) is a clinically practical measure of joint angles. The GAITRite walkway system is a clinically practical, valid and reliable measure of temporal and spatial gait characteristics. The overall objective of this two-study research project was to explore whether these clinically practical measures of gait kinematics can be used to accurately detect gait abnormalities in people with multiple sclerosis. Study 1 examined the reliability and validity of EG and Study 2 examined the gait kinematics of people with MS (PWMS) using EG and GAITRite. For Study 1, angle at initial contact and total joint excursion were measured by EG at both the knee and ankle while ten healthy adults walked at a self-selected comfortable speed. Measurements were repeated for two testers and two visits to assess reliability. The same variables were measured concurrently with three-dimensional motion analysis (3D) to assess validity. For all variables, reliability was good as indicated by low measurement error and validity was good as indicated by association and agreement of EG with 3D. For Study 2, the same joint angles, along with speed, cadence, step length, stride length, stance duration and double support duration were assessed for six PWMS and six controls without MS. PWMS showed significantly reduced speed, cadence, and ankle excursion and increased stance and double support duration as previously shown with 3D. Spasticity and/or instability may lead to these kinematic gait abnormalities in PWMS; however, reduced velocity may confound this interpretation by affecting the other observed gait abnormalities. Further research about the determinants of gait dysfunction in PWMS is required. EG and GAITRite are clinically practical, valid and reliable measures of gait kinematics and should be included in further clinic-based research to determine which kinematic gait abnormalities are causes and which are effects of the observed decrease in gait speed in PWMS.

Thalidomid ist eine in der Therapie des fortgeschrittenen refraktären oder rezidivierten multiplen Myeloms (MM) wirksame Substanz, obwohl dosislimitierende Toxizitäten (DLT) ihren Einsatz beschränken können. In der vorliegenden Phase-I-Studie mit 28 Patienten mit rezidiviertem oder refraktärem MM nach konventioneller Chemotherapie oder Hochdosis (HD)-Chemotherapie mit Stammzelltransplantation (SCT) konnte gezeigt werden, dass eine Kombination von niedrig dosiertem Thalidomid mit Bendamustin und Prednisolon (BPT) die Wirksamkeit beibehält oder erhöht und gleichzeitig keine DLT auftritt. Die BPT-Therapie umfasste eine Dosis von Bendamustin (60mg/m2) Tag 1, 8 und 15 und Prednisolon (100mg) Tag 1, 8, 15 und 22, und eine eskalierende tägliche Dosis Thalidomid (50, 100, 200mg). Die Behandlungszyklen wurden alle 28 Tage bis zum Auftreten des maximalen Ansprechens, DLT oder Fortschreiten der Erkrankung wiederholt. 24 Patienten sprachen nach mindestens zwei Zyklen auf die Therapie an (vier komplette, sechs sehr gute partielle und 14 partielle Remissionen). Das mediane progressionsfreie Überleben und Gesamtüberleben für alle Patienten betrug 11 und 19 Monate. Nur leichte oder mittelschwere nicht-hämatologische Nebenwirkungen wurden beobachtet und kein Patient entwickelte dosislimitierende Hämatotoxizitäten. Die BPT-Therapie weist bei Patienten mit rezidiviertem oder refraktärem MM eine gute Verträglichkeit mit einem Ansprechen von über 80% auf. Die maximal tolerierte Dosis von Thalidomid wurde in dieser Studie nicht erreicht.

The purpose of Morphology is to capture features and attributes of image, such as boundaries and contours. It has been widely applied to computer vision, the analysis and processing of image and even industry examinations and medical image processing. The reason why the Morphology is widely applied is that we can use its simple structure elements to process images, and get up to our requirements. Therefore, it¡¦s become our primary study to find out those suitable structure elements. In this paper, we used the laws of judging the multiple mask relationship to find out filters which came up to the condition that we set, and also came up with an efficient way to find out filters that we want to get.

We revisited an empirical relationship between the integrated volume depolar- ization ratio, oacc, and the effective multiple scattering factor, -n, on the basis of Monte Carlo simulations of spaceborne lidar backscatter associated with homogeneous wa- ter clouds. The relationship is found to be sensitive to the extinction coefficient and to the particle size. The layer integrated attenuated backscatter is also obtained. Comparisons made between the simulations and statistics derived relationships of the layer integrated depolarization ratio, oacc, and the layer integrated attenuated backscatter, -n, based on the measurement by the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite show that a cloud with a large effective size or a large extinction coefficient has a relatively large integrated backscatter and a cloud with a small effective size or a large extinction coefficient has a large integrated volume depolarization ratio. The present results also show that optically thin water clouds may not obey the empirical relationship derived by Y. X. Hu. and co-authors.

Multiple transverse fracturing along a horizontal well is a relatively new technology that is designed to increase well productivity by increasing the contact between the reservoir and the wellbore. For multiple transverse fractures, the performance of the well system is determined by three aspects: the inflow from the reservoir to the fracture, the flow from the fracture to the wellbore, and the inflow from the reservoir to the horizontal wellbore. These three aspects influence each other and combined, influence the wellbore outflow. In this study, we develop a model to effectively formulate the inter-relationships of a multi-fracture system. This model includes a reservoir model and a wellbore model. The reservoir model is established to calculate both independent and inter-fracture productivity index to quantify the contribution from all fractures on pressure drop of each fracture, by using the source functions to solve the single-phase gas reservoir flow model. The wellbore model is used to calculate the pressure distribution along the wellbore and the relationship of pressure between neighboring fractures, based on the basic pressure drop model derived from the mechanical energy balance. A set of equations with exactly the same number of fractures will be formed to model the system by integrating the two models. Because the equations are nonlinear, iteration method is used to solve them. With our integrated reservoir and wellbore model, we conduct a field study to find the best strategy to develop the field by hydraulic fracturing. The influence of reservoir size, horizontal and vertical permeability, well placement, and fracture orientation, type (longitudinal and transverse), number and distribution are completely examined in this study. For any specific field, a rigorous step-by-step procedure is proposed to optimize the field.

In this thesis, an estimation method adapted from MUSIC algorithm is presented for estimation of signal arrival time for impulse radio UWB systems. An accurate estimate of signal arrival time is considered essential in time-based wireless and indoor location systems. Since most wireless communications systems used for indoor position location may suffer from dense multipath situation, the accuracy of determining signal arrival time become an important issue for the time-based location systems. The fine resolution of UWB signals provides potentially accurate ranging for indoor location applications. However, the ambiguity caused by the unresolved first arrival path may still yield an error in determining the true signal arrival time. The presented method uses improved MUSIC techniques in time domains to estimate the shortest and the real signal arrival time for UWB radio link. For a two-multipath case, analysis and simulation results of multipath resolvability and the variance of estimation errors of signal arrival time are discussed.

Abstract¡G Activating point mutations of the BRAF gene have been recently reported to be restricted to papillary thyroid carcinomas (PTCs) and anaplastic thyroid carcinomas (ATCs) arising from PTCs among various benign and malignant thyroid tumors. A thymine-to-adenine transversion at nucleotide 1799 (T1799A), formerly designated as T1796A, in exon 15 resulting in a valine to glutamate substitution at residue 600 (V600E), formerly designated as V599E, was the only mutational site reported in thyroid cancer. We have previously shown that BRAFV600E mutations were detected in 49 of 105 (47%) PTCs but not in 5 follicular thyroid carcinomas (FTCs), 10 follicular adenomas, 3 Hürthle cell adenomas and 10 nodular goiters. In contrast to PTC, to date only few studies have been published concerning the frequency of BRAFV600E in ATCs and their coexisting differentiated thyroid carcinomas. In addition, there is no report concerning the BRAF status in multiple PTCs. In this study, paraffin-embedded tumor tissues of 25 patients with thyroid cancer (15 ATCs and 10 PTCs) were obtained from the Department of Pathology of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital-Kaohsiung. Nine ATCs were found to contain a coexisting differentiated carcinoma, including three follicular and six papillary carcinomas. Ten cases of PTC with multiple tumor foci were selected from a cohort of 105 PTCs as previously reported. Paraffin blocks containing tumor were sectioned followed by microdissection to obtain tissue for DNA extraction. Mutational hot spot in exon 15 (codon 600) of the BRAF gene were amplified by PCR and sequenced with an automatic sequencer. BRAFV600E mutations were detected in 3 of 15 (20%) ATCs. In the 9 coexisting differentiated carcinomas, 2 out of 6 PTCs harbored BRAF mutations but not in the three follicular carcinomas. In none of 3 ATCs with coexisting PTCs were mutations detectable in both tumor types. Among the ten cases of PTCs with multiple tumor foci, 5 cases demonstrated the same BRAF status in each tumor foci whereas 5 cases showed distinct BRAF status in different tumor foci. We conclude that the distinct BRAF status in anaplastic carcinoma and its coexisting differentiated carcinoma suggests that anaplastic carcinoma might not arise from differentiated carcinoma.The distinct BRAF status in different tumor foci of multiple papillary carcinomas suggests that multifocal tumors might not be formed through intrathyroidal lymphatic metastasis.

No description available.

The multiple sequence alignment (MSA) is a fundamental technique of molecular biology. Biological sequences are aligned with each other vertically in order to show the similarities and differences among them. Due to its importance, many algorithms have been proposed. With dynamic programming, finding the optimal alignment for a pair of sequences can be done in O(n2) time, where n is the length of the two strings. Unfortunately, for the general optimization problem of aligning k sequences of length n , O(nk) time is required. In this thesis, we shall first propose an efficient group alignment method to perform the alignment between two groups of sequences. Then we shall propose a clustering method to build the tree topology for merging. The clustering method is based on the concept that the two sequences having the longest distance should be split into two clusters. By our experiments, both the alignment quality and required time of our algorithm are better than those of NJ (neighbor joining) algorithm and Clustal W algorithm.

Mobile robots are used for a wide range of purposes such as mapping an environment and transporting material goods. Regardless of the specific application, the navigation of the mobile robot is usually divided into three separate parts: localization, path planning and path execution. Localization is the process of determining the location of the robot with respect to a reference coordinate system. There are many different approaches to localizing a mobile robot which employ a wide variety of sensors. The objective of my research is to develop a method for the localization of multiple mobile robots equipped with inexpensive range sensors in an indoor environment. Each mobile robot will be equipped with a rotating infrared sensor and a rotating CMOS camera. The multiple mobile robot system will be treated as a linked robot for localization. The proposed localization method is verified via both simulation and experiment. Through the use of the virtual link length and relative heading information, a system of mobile robots can be effectively localized using detected environmental features.