To evaluate the effects of co-administration of inactivated avian influenza H9N2 virus and adjuvants in waterfowls, 10-d-old ducks were immunized intranasally with inactivated avian influenza virus (IAIV) combined with CpG DNA and sodium cholate. Immunoglobulin A and IgG antibody levels in throat and tracheal tissues increased significantly, as did specific IgA and IgG antibody levels in the serum after intranasal immunization with IAIV combined with CpG DNA and sodium cholate, compared with immunization with IAIV only. Furthermore, enhanced hemagglutination inhibition titers were also detected in serum samples taken between the third and seventh weeks after immunization with IAIV and both adjuvants compared with IAIV alone. The expression of IL-2 and IL-6 in tracheal and lung tissues increased significantly in the early period after booster immunization. However, the enhancement induced by a single adjuvant was insignificant, and no significant change was detected in the antibody titers or cytokine levels between the ducks that received IAIV alone or saline. In the viral challenge study, prior administration of both CpG DNA and sodium cholate with IAIV reduced the viral titers in the oropharynx and cloaca swabs. Our study suggests that the combination of CpG DNA and sodium cholate could be beneficial to immunization with inactivated H9N2 virus by enhancing the local and systemic immune responses.

An integrated power supply controller-monitor has been designed and is in use to control large power supplies for SLC DC magnets. This single-width CAMAC module contains a 14-bit DAC, a 14-bit ADC, and several channels of optically coupled digital status and control signals. Additional features include built-in selectable ramping rates, self-test capabilities, and a ripple monitor circuit to measure AC ripple in the power supply current. Linearity and temperature stability tolerances for the analog output and input are quite tight. Several interlocking features were built-in to the module to prevent damage to power supplies/magnets. For example, it is not permissible to set a ramping time of zero (no ramping) except when the unit is in self-test mode. In this mode the analog output to the power supply is zero, and the supply cannot be damaged by excessive ramp rates

We present a non-photorealistic rendering technique that automatically delivers a stylized abstraction of a photograph. Our approach is based on shape/color filtering guided by a vector field that describes the flow of salient features in the image. This flow-based filtering significantly improves the abstraction performance in terms of feature enhancement and stylization. Our method is simple, fast, and easy to implement. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our method in producing stylistic and feature-enhancing illustrations from photographs.

This paper presents a novel application of neural network modeling in the optimization of sensor locations for the measurement of flue gas flow in industrial ducts and stacks. The proposed neural network model has been validated with an experiment based upon a case-study power plant. The results have shown that the optimized sensor location can be easily determined with this model. The industry can directly benefit from the improvement of measurement accuracy of the flue gas flow in the optimized sensor location and the reduction of manual measurement operation with Pitot tube

Amphiphilic copolymers based on poly(2-hydroxyethyl aspartamide) (PHEA) formed self-aggregates for the entrapment and release of methotrexate (MTX) by physical entrapment and chemical conjugation. In physical entrapment, MTX was partitioned into hydrophobic domains in self-aggregates of PHEA grafted with octadecyl chains (PHEA–C18) and the amount of the entrapped drug increased linearly by 3.39 mg per the degree of substitution of grafted octadecyl groups. The amphiphilic nature of the drug induced a large initial release in the buffer medium, irrespective of the amount of octadecyl chains. However, PEG-grafted PHEA–C18 copolymers conjugated with MTX, ConG, formed a micelle-like structure by self-association of the conjugates and suppressed the initial large release. The alkyl grafting lowered the CAC, meaning enhancement of aqueous stability. The release was accelerated in pH 10.0 by rapid hydrolysis of ester linkage by base-catalyzed cleavage, while it was significantly reduced at pH 5.0.