OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects and the tolerability of mud packs and thermal baths in a group of patients affected with this disease. METHODS Twenty-four patients with spondylitis and Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, treated with 5-ASA or sulfasalazine, were randomised and assessed by an investigator independent from the spa staff: 12 were submitted t...

gases and liquids in the subsurface erupt to the surface, carrying slurries of fluid, mud, and millimeter-to-meter sized rocks [12-14]. The driving force is generally a combination of overpressure and compression. These conditions often occur in orogenic belts and involve hydrocarbon generation, but other mechanisms (e.g. rapid sedimentation with gas hydrate destabilization or clay dewatering) ...

Burrowers and borers are ecosystem engineers that alter their physical environments through bioturbation, bioirrigation and bioerosion. The mechanisms of moving through solid substrata by burrowing or boring depend on the mechanical properties of the medium and the size and morphology of the organism. For burrowing animals, mud differs mechanically from sand; in mud, sediment grains are suspend...

SDMA (Space-Division Multiple Access) is a MIMO (Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output) based wireless communication network architecture which has the potential to significantly increase the spectral efficiency and the system performance. The maximum likelihood (ML) detection provides the optimal performance, but its complexity increases exponentially with the constellation size of modulation and...

Active mud volcanoes in the northern Apennines, Italy, currently have gentle eruptions. There are, however, historical accounts of violent eruptions and outbursts. Evidence for large past eruptions is also recorded by large decimeter rock clasts preserved in erupted mud. We measured the rheological properties of mud currently being erupted in order to evaluate the conditions needed to transport...

Hemorrhagic cystitis (HC) remains a common complication of allogeneic blood and marrow transplantation. Previous analyses of risk factors for this complication were performed in heterogeneous populations, with dissimilar diagnosis and conditioning regimens. We postulated that HC is more prevalent in matched unrelated donor (MUD) and unrelated cord blood (UCB) transplantations than in matched re...

A field experiment was performed offshore Cassino Beach, Southern Brazil. In this area mud deposits were observed, mainly originated from the Patos Lagoon. Episodically, and associated with storm waves able to transport the mud from offshore to the beach, the usual sandy beach is covered by mud. This is a unique process along the Brazilian coastline, and the field experiment aimed to record the...

Recent developments in climate change have increased the frequency of dust storms in the Middle East. Dust storms significantly influence the performances of solar energy harvesting systems, particularly (photovoltaic) PV systems. The characteristics of the dust and the mud formed from this dust are examined using various analytical tools, including optical, scanning electron, and atomic force ...

Space-Division Multiple Access-OFDM based wireless communication has the potential to significantly increase the spectral efficiency, system performance and number of users. Research in the development of efficient Multiuser Detection (MUD) algorithms for such systems has generated much interest in recent years. The linear Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) MUD processes with low complexity but i...

Identification of natural and anthropogenic events in the past is important for studying their patterns and mechanisms; and sensitive proxies in marine sediments are more reliable for identifying these events than those in terrestrial sediments, which are usually disturbed by human activities. Since the main source materials for the sediments in the Northern Yellow Sea Mud are transported by th...