PHYSIOLOGISTS OF MANY GENERATIONS have employed tractable model systems to make observations and then have extrapolated those observations to other more complex or less amenable systems. Such an approach is built on initial obvious similarities of the systems in form or function. The success of this philosophical approach has been mixed. Depending on the tissue, species, and especially dependin...

Hypersonic airbreathing vehicles are characterized by highly-integrated airframe and propulsion system. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tools have been used extensively in the design and analysis phrase of hypersonic vehicles. In this paper, an engineering method and a finite volume method based on the center of grid are developed for preliminary research of interested integrative hypersonic...

Partial skeletons of two new fossil whales, Artiocetus clavis and Rodhocetus balochistanensis, are among the oldest known protocetid archaeocetes. These came from early Lutetian age (47 million years ago) strata in eastern Balochistan Province, Pakistan. Both have an astragalus and cuboid in the ankle with characteristics diagnostic of artiodactyls; R. balochistanensis has virtually complete fo...

BACKGROUND To date, no direct measurement has been done that quantitatively characterizes the foot-ground contact during Tai Chi Chuan movements. The goal of this study was to quantify the biomechanical characteristics of foot-ground contact during a Tai Chi gait (TCG), one of the basic but common Tai Chi Chuan movements. METHODS The ground reaction force profiles, center of pressure (COP) an...

Tetrapod fore-and hindlimbs have evolved from the pectoral and pelvic fins of an ancient vertebrate ancestor. In this ancestor, the pectoral fin appears to have arisen following the rostral homeotic recapitulation of an existing pelvic appendage (Tabin and Laufer (1993), Nature 361, 692-693). Thus the basic appendage outgrowth program is reiterated in both tetrapod fore- and hindlimbs and the p...

Seats have been newly developed with an anti-vibration suspension system for agricultural machinery. These seats were examined in a series of laboratory tests to determine their static and dynamic physical characteristics. These seats are specifically designed for the Japanese physique. An artificial track was constructed to simulate a farm field based on BSI (British Standard) and to examine v...

UNLABELLED We compare 3 image reconstruction algorithms for use in 3-dimensional (3D) whole-body PET oncology imaging. We have previously shown that combining Fourier rebinning (FORE) with 2-dimensional (2D) statistical image reconstruction via the ordered-subsets expectation-maximization (OSEM) and attenuation-weighted OSEM (AWOSEM) algorithms demonstrates improvements in image signal-to-noise...

Recent years have seen a rapidly growing recognition of the complexity and diversity of the myriad individual synaptic connections that define brain synaptic networks. It has also become increasingly apparent that the synapses themselves are a major key to understanding the development, function and adaptability of those synaptic networks. In spite of this growing appreciation, the molecular, s...