The critical heat flux (CHF) is an important thermal-hydraulic parameter that must be determined during the design of water-cooled reactors to ensure safety operation. In this paper, a methodology proposed predict CHF in VVER rod bundles. A whole-reactor model VVER-1000 implemented RELAP-SCDAPSIM, and, based on bundle-average approach, parameters hot channel are used assess four predictors (i.e...

Normal pregnancy and the follicular phase of the ovarian cycle are both estrogen-dominated physiological states that are characterized by elevations in uterine blood flow and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) protein expression in the uterine artery (UA) endothelium. It is unknown if elevations in mRNA level account for the changes in protein or eNOS activity. We tested the hypothesis th...

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of lutein alone or in combination with vitamin C on the antioxidant defense system in rats. A total of 18 eight-week-old male Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were randomly assigned to three groups for 4 weeks: control (CON), lutein (LUT, 50 mg lutein/kg BW) and lutein plus vitamin C (LVC, 50 mg lutein/kg BW+1,000 mg vitamin C/kg BW). No differences i...

The red-blue-green (RGB) calibration technique consists in constructing an a priori calibration table of the isochromatic retardation versus the triplet of RGB values obtained with a RGB CCD camera. In this way a lookup table (LUT) is built in which the entry is the corresponding RGB triplet and the output is the given retardation. This calibration (a radiometric quantity) depends on the geomet...

Malformation of the urogenital tract represents a considerable paediatric burden, with many defects affecting the lower urinary tract (LUT), genital tubercle and associated structures. Understanding the molecular basis of such defects frequently draws on murine models. However, human anatomical terms do not always superimpose on the mouse, and the lack of accurate and standardised nomenclature ...

Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are devices used in many VLSI applications, which are programmable in nature. Researchers had proposed various threat models like bit stream copying, unauthorized usage of FPGA systems etc. The problem of bit-stream copying can be avoided by incorporating cryptographic techniques. This not only increases FPGA system security, but increases complexity and c...

Aims To determine whether the amount of ATP, prostaglandin E2 (PGE2), and acetylcholine (ACh) in voided urine are influenced enough by that released within lower urinary tract (LUT) for them to be useful biomarkers bladder function. Methods Participants without LUT symptoms collected total voids at 15, 30, 60, 120 min (20 males/23 females) 240 (18 males/26 following previous void. Aliquots were...

In FPGAs, the internal connections in a cluster of lookup tables (LUTs) are often fully-connected like a full crossbar. Such a high degree of connectivity makes routing easier, but has significant area overhead. This paper explores the use of sparse crossbars as a switch matrix inside the clusters between the cluster inputs and the LUT inputs. We have reduced the switch densities inside these m...

There are two main approaches to the problem of gender classification, Support Vector Machines (SVMs) and Adaboost learning methods, of which SVMs are better in correct rate but are more computation intensive while Adaboost ones are much faster with slightly worse performance. For possible real-time applications the Adaboost method seems a better choice. However, the existing Adaboost algorithm...