Inhalation of partially ionized oxygen may have less adverse effects on lung functions than medical oxygen. Guinea pigs inhaled air, 100% molecular medical oxygen (O(2)mol), partially negatively (O(2)neg) or positively (O(2)posit) ionized oxygen during 17 and 60 h. After 17 h, dityrosines, markers of oxidative injury, in lung homogenate increased in O(2)neg and decreased in O(2)posit groups vs....

The aim of this study was to investigate whether stimulation of the cutaneous mechanoreceptors of the rat foot sole could partially or totally prevent the soleus muscle atrophy developed after 14 days in hindlimb unloading conditions. Final experiments were achieved under deep anesthesia using pentobarbital sodium (60 mg/kg, ip injection). Atrophy was characterized by a significant decrease in ...

A total of 6, 933 cattle slaughtered at Kano old abattoir during the wet season month of July, 2014 were examined during post mortem meat inspection in order to determine the prevalence of liver condemnation in weight (kg) due to fascioliasis and its financial losses in naira (N) equivalent. Data were obtained by macroscopic examination, palpation and incision of each liver for size, consistenc...

Weeds are a major constraint to the success of dry-seeded rice (DSR). The main means of managing these in a DSR system is through chemical weed control using herbicides. However, the use of herbicides alone may not be sustainable in the long term. Approaches that aim for high crop competitiveness therefore need to be exploited. One such approach is the use of high rice seeding rates. Experiment...

De-Doncker, Laurent, Florence Picquet, and Maurice Falempin. Effects of cutaneous receptor stimulation on muscular atrophy developed in hindlimb unloading condition. J Appl Physiol 89: 2344–2351, 2000.—The aim of this study was to investigate whether stimulation of the cutaneous mechanoreceptors of the rat foot sole could partially or totally prevent the soleus muscle atrophy developed after 14...

This paper presents an analysis of an electro-optical hazard alerting system based on intruder line-of-sight rate. We use a recently-developed airspace encounter model to analyze intruder line-of-sight rate behavior prior to near miss. We look at a simple hazard alerting system that alerts whenever the line-of-sight rate drops below some set threshold. Simulations demonstrate that such an appro...

In this article, we present an idea for solving deterministic partially observable markov decision processes (POMDPs) based on a history space containing sequences of past observations and actions. A novel and sound technique for learning a Q-function on history spaces is developed and discussed. We analyze certain conditions under which a history based approach is able to learn policies compar...

In this article we propose a qualitative ( ordi­ nal) counterpart for the Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes rnodel (POMDP) in which the uncertainty, as well as the prefer­ ences of the agent, are modeled by possibility distributions. This qualitative counterpart of the POMDP model relies on a possibilistic theory of decision under uncertainty, recently developed. One advantage of s...