Ginkgo biloba is among the most sold medicinal plants of this world with estimates of sales in the USA of more than $249 million (de Kosky et al., 2008). Most of the sales are of special extracts from the leaves and are mainly used for the improvement of peripheral and central blood circulation (DeFeudis, 1998). Important constituents present in the leaves are terpene trilactones, i.e., ginkgol...

In this paper, the simple eco-grammar systems with prescribed teams of ter Beek [2] are reconsidered. We show that limited L systems can be simulated by such systems. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of programming which is imposed upon the prescribed teams of the systems. Depending on the success of the application of a team to the actual state of the system, it is specified which teams a...

To the editor: Since late 2012, Scotland has seen a significant increase in norovirus activity and the norovirus season began earlier than usual [1]. The article by van Beek et al. published in last week’s issue of Eurosurveillance described the emergence of a new variant of norovirus GII.4 (Sydney strain) in a number of countries [2]. To examine whether this was also the case in Scotland, we e...

In the acquisition of skills requiring periodic body movements such as in cascade juggling, the establishment of stable body movements seems crucial. We investigated the processes of developing stable body movements in each of the three learning stages defined by the framework established by Beek and Van Santvoord (1992). We focused on two types of stability: stability of the body’s physical ce...

Recent progress in the diagnosis and treatment of coronary artery disease has intensified the need to differentiate viable from nonviable myocardium with accuracy and high spatial resolution. Contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) had been investigated as a potential technique to assess myocardial viability for several years (1), before the development of gradient echo-imaging techn...

1 Select Committee on Home Affairs. Third report. May 2002. www. parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200102/cmselect/cmhaff/ 318/31802.htm (accessed 30 Dec 2003). 2 Van Beek I. The Sydney medically supervised injecting centre: a clinical model. J Drug Issues 2003;22:625-38. 3 Zador D. Injectable opiate maintenance in the UK: is it good clinical practice? Addiction 2001;96:547-53. 4 Van ...

Suppose you want to take a car for a test drive. You prefer a smooth ride, so you are probably particularly interested in the car’s suspension system. Where do you take your car? Will you take it for a ride on a well-maintained highway, or will you select worn-down roads with cobblestones, potholes and speed bumps? The answer is clear: you can’t test the car’s suspension system if you don’t cha...

Two-dimensional mesh-based models provide a good alternative to motion estimation and compensation. The estimation of the best motion vectors at the node-point motion vectors is a challenging task. To this effect, Nakaya et al. proposed a hexagonal matching procedure. Toklu et al. improved the hexagonal search algorithm in terms of both motion estimation accuracy and computational complexity by...