By using a small floor mock-up, the impact sound reduction of floor coverings can be determined by measuring the difference of the acceleration levels instead of measuring a sound pressure level in a receiving room (ISO 10140). The setup is validated for locally reacting floor coverings and standardized within the ISO 16251-1. To decide whether the covering under test can be considered as local...

We evaluated the ability of Doppler echocardiography to assess left ventricular performance in six open-chest dogs studied under various conditions. Intravenous infusions of nitroglycerin were used to vary preload, atrial pacing was used to control heart rate, and changes in inotropic state were induced by two different doses of dobutamine (5 and 10 micrograms/kg/min iv) and by administration o...

[formula: see text] Aminocyclodextrins (ACDs), perfunctionalized at the 6-position with amino groups, bind phosphonoformate (PFA) diesters and accelerate acyl transfer reactions with high efficiency at neutral pH. Aminolysis and esterolysis are accelerated and hydrolysis of PFA diesters is catalyzed by ACDs. PFA diesters have significant antiviral activity. The rapid reactions observed with ACD...

Embedding cardiac system sensing devices in wheelchairs is both necessary and attractive. Elders, diabetics, or stroke victims are a substantial group needing permanent cardiac monitoring, without restriction of their already limited mobility. A set of sensing devices was embedded in a wheelchair to monitor the user without his awareness and intervention. A dual-wavelength reflection photopleth...

The floor acceleration amplification (FAA) factor is one of the most critical parameters in computing equivalent seismic force nonstructural component (NC). To evaluate heightwise FAA distribution profile, recorded response instrumented buildings was analyzed using California Strong Motion Instrumentation Program (CSMIP) database. demands for three groups consisting reinforced concrete, steel, ...

We introduce R-PFA, a new model for predicting whether or not a student will answer an item correctly based on the student’s history of practice. The key idea in R-PFA is to represent history as a recentcy-weighted proportion of correct responses. In an evaluation on a dataset from the Assistments tutoring system, we find that R-PFA improves predictive accuracy over other logistic regression mo...

Malaria remains a global health problem, and though international efforts for treatment and eradication have made some headway, the emergence of drug-resistant parasites threatens this progress. Antimalarial therapeutics acting via novel mechanisms are urgently required. Plasmodium falciparum M1 and M17 are neutral aminopeptidases which are essential for parasite growth and development. Previou...

The Plasmodium falciparum PfA-M1 and PfA-M17 metalloaminopeptidases are validated drug targets for the discovery of antimalarial agents. In order to identify dual inhibitors of both proteins, we developed a hierarchical virtual screening approach, followed by in vitro evaluation of the highest scoring hits. Starting from the ZINC database of purchasable compounds, sequential 3D-pharmacophore an...