The main objectives of this task group under SETAC-Europe’s Second Working Group on Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA-WIA2) were to identify and discuss the suitability of toxicological impact measures for human health for use in characterization in LCIA. The current state of the art of defining health indicators in LCIA is summarized in this document, promising approaches are addressed in fur...

Heart failure is marked by frequent hospital admissions, often as a consequence of pulmonary congestion. Current gold standard techniques for thoracic fluid measurement require invasive heamodynamic access and therefore they are not suitable for continuous monitoring. Changes in thoracic impedance (TI) may enable non-invasive early detection of congestion and prevention of unplanned hospitaliza...

MicroRNA (miRNA) was a promising class of cancer biomarkers. Here we developed a label-free method for sensitive measurement of let-7d miRNA based on multiple amplification techniques. The primer will bind to the duplex strand DNA that was formed by stem-loop template and target let-7d to initiate strand displacement amplification (SDA) in tandem. The released single strand DNA will be a primer...

In the context of high performance computing (HPC), software investments in support of text-based diagnostics, which monitor a running application, are typically limited compared to those for other types of IO. Examples of such diagnostics include reiteration of configuration parameters, progress indicators, simple metrics (e.g., mass conservation, convergence of solvers, etc.), and timers. To ...

displacement coefficient method (dcm) stipulated in the asce 41-06 standard is becoming the preferred method for seismic rehabilitation of buildings in many high-seismic-hazard countries. applications of the method for non-building constructions such as bridges are beyond the scope of this standard. thus its application to this kind of structure should be approached with care. target displaceme...

OBJECTIVE In this study, we compare a new biological indicator that provides results within 3 hours with four conventional, 48-hour biological indicators and five chemical indicators. DESIGN Biological indicators tested included the conventional Attest 1262, Proof Plus, Assert, and Biosign, and the new Attest 1292 Rapid Readout biological indicator. Chemical indicators tested included Comply,...

Understanding the intermolecular interactions between nucleotides and artificial receptors is crucial to understanding the role of nucleic acids in living systems. However, direct structural evidence showing precise interactions and bonding features of a nucleoside monophosphate (NMP) with a macrocycle-based synthetic molecule has not been provided so far. Herein, we present two novel crystal s...

Article history: Received 1 November 2006 Received in revised form 29 March 2007 Accepted 17 April 2007 Exploratorymodeling is an approach used when process and/or parameter uncertainties are such that modeling attempts at realistic prediction are not appropriate. Exploratory modeling makes use of computational experimentation to test how varying model scenarios drive model outcome. The goal of...

The design and optimization of nanostructure-based surface acoustic wave (SAW) gas sensor is analyzed based on TiO2 sensing layer and modified electrode dimensions. The sensitivity of the gas sensor depends upon the type of sensing layer used and active surface area obtained by varying the aspect ratio. The performance of the sensor is observed from 0.1ppm to 100ppm concentration of ...