Complete Runtime Research Articles

Pharmacokinetic Study of Safrole and Methyl Eugenol after Oral Administration of the Essential Oil Extracts of Asarum in Rats by GC-MS.

Asarum is a traditional medicine and has been widely used as remedies for inflammatory diseases, toothache, headache, local anesthesia, and aphthous stomatitis in China, Japan, and Korea. Our previous research found that safrole and methyl eugenol were vital compounds that contribute to distinguish the different species and raw Asarum and its processed products apart. The pharmacokinetics of safrole and methyl eugenol after oral administration of Asarum extract has not been reported yet. In this study, a rapid and simple gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy (GC–MS) method that has a complete run time of only 4.5 min was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination and pharmacokinetic study of safrole and methyl eugenol in rat plasma after administration of Asarum extracts. The chromatographic separation was realized on a DB-17 column (30 m × 0.25 mm × 0.25 μm). And detection was carried out under selected ion monitoring (SIM) mode. Plasma samples were pretreated by n-hexane. The pharmacokinetic parameters provided by this study will be beneficial for further developments and clinical applications of Asarum.

Pharmacokinetic and bioavailability studies of α-viniferin after intravenous and oral administration to rats

Alpha-viniferin is a trimer of resveratrol and has various pharmacological activities including anti-Alzheimer’s disease, anti-tuberculosis, anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic. To investigate the pharmacokinetic characteristics and absolute bioavailability of α-viniferin in rats, using naringenin as an internal standard (IS), a rapid HPLC-MS/MS method of 5 min complete run time was developed. The chromatographic separation of α-viniferin and naringenin were accomplished with Waters XBridge™ C18 column (2.1 mm × 100 mm, 3.5 μm) and the mobile phase were acetonitrile and 0.1 % formic acid at a flow rate of 0.3 mL/min. Plasma samples were pretreated by ethyl acetate. The negative ion mode with electrospray ionization (ESI) source was used for detecting the sample. Oral bioavailability of α-viniferin was 4.2 %. This study will be beneficial in better understanding the pharmacological properties and the further development of α-viniferin.

On the Kinematics, Stability and Lifetime of Kinematically Distinct Cores: A Case Study

We present a case study of a early-type galaxy (ETG) hosting a kinematically distinct core (KDC) formed in a binary high resolution 1:1 spiral galaxy merger simulation. The runtime of the simulation is pushed up to 10 Gyr to follow the complete evolution of various physical properties. To investigate the origin of the KDC, the stellar component residing within the KDC is dissected, revealing that the rotational signal is purely generated by stars that belong to the KDC for at least 0 . 5 Gyr and are newly formed during the merging process. Following the orientation of the total stellar angular momentum of the KDC, we show that it performs a motion comparable to the precession of a gyroscope in a gravitational potential. We draw the conclusion that the motion of the KDC is a superposition of an intrinsic rotation and a global precession that gets gradually damped over cosmic time. Finally, the stability of the KDC over the complete runtime of the simulation is investigated by tracing the evolution of the widely used λ R parameter and the misalignment angle distribution. We find that the KDC is stable for about 3 Gyr after the merger and subsequently disperses completely on a timescale of ≈1.5 Gyr .

Mining and checking paired functions in device drivers using characteristic fault injection

ContextDevice drivers often call specific kernel interface functions in pairs to allocate and release resources, and these functions can be called as paired functions. But due to poor documentation and carelessness, developers sometimes misuse paired functions in drivers, which causes resource-usage violations. ObjectiveMany dynamic approaches have been proposed to mine API rules and check resource usage for user-mode applications, but they are rarely applied to kernel-mode device drivers due to their designs. Meanwhile, most existing dynamic approaches lack systematic mechanisms to cover error handling code, which limits their availability and scalability. Our goal is to improve dynamic analysis to solve these problems. MethodIn this paper, we propose PairCheck, a novel approach for mining and checking paired functions in device drivers, using three techniques. Firstly, we design a characteristic fault injection framework to generate test cases, which simulates occasional errors and covers most error handling code with little effort. Secondly, complete runtime information is recorded through call interception during test-case execution. Thirdly, we mine and check paired functions based on collected runtime information, name patterns and statistical analysis. ResultTo validate the availability of PairCheck, we evaluate it on 11 Linux Ethernet card drivers. PairCheck mines 37 and 43 real paired functions in Linux 3.1.1 and 3.17.2, respectively. With these mined paired functions, it finds 10 violations in Linux 3.1.1 which have been fixed in 3.17.2, and 35 new violations in 3.17.2. The replies from developers indicate the false positive rate is low. Compared to normal execution, code coverage increases by 8.3% on average. ConclusionOur work shows that it is possible to precisely mine API rules of resource usage by using characteristic fault injection. The mined rules are useful for improving the reliability of device drivers.

Optimized high performance liquid chromatography–ultraviolet detection method using core-shell particles for the therapeutic monitoring of methotrexate

Methotrexate (MTX) is an antineoplastic drug, and due to its high toxicity, the therapeutic drug monitoring is strictly conducted in the clinical practice. The chemometric optimization and validation of a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method using core–shell particles is presented for the determination of MTX in plasma during therapeutic monitoring. Experimental design and response surface methodology (RSM) were applied for the optimization of the chromatographic system and the analyte extraction step. A Poroshell 120 EC-C18 (3.0mm×75mm, 2.7μm) column was used to obtain a fast and efficient separation in a complete run time of 4min. The optimum conditions for the chromatographic system resulted in a mobile phase consisting of acetic acid/sodium acetate buffer solution (85.0mM, pH=4.00) and 11.2% of acetonitrile at a flow rate of 0.4mL/min. Selectivity, linearity, accuracy and precision were demonstrated in a range of 0.10–6.0µM of MTX. The application of the optimized method required only 150µL of patient plasma and a low consumption of solvent to provide rapid results.

HARS

The current trend in embedded computing consists in increasing the number of processing resources on a chip. Following this paradigm, cluster-based many-core accelerators with a shared hierarchical memory have emerged. Handling synchronizations on these architectures is critical since parallel implementations speed-ups of embedded applications strongly depend on the ability to exploit the largest possible number of cores while limiting task management overhead. This article presents the combination of a low-overhead complete runtime software and a flexible hardware accelerator for synchronizations called HARS (Hardware-Assisted Runtime Software). Experiments on a multicore test chip showed that the hardware accelerator for synchronizations has less than 1% area overhead compared to a cluster of the chip while reducing synchronization latencies (up to 2.8 times compared to a test-and-set implementation) and contentions. The runtime software part offers basic features like memory management but also optimized execution engines to allow the easy and efficient extraction of the parallelism in applications with multiple programming models. By using the hardware acceleration as well as a very low overhead task scheduling software technique, we show that HARS outperforms an optimized state-of-the-art task scheduler by 13% for the execution of a parallel application.

Embedded Runtime Reconfigurable Nodes for Wireless Sensor Networks Applications

The use of reconfigurable hardware (HW) can improve the processing performance of many systems, including Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). Moreover, reconfigurable devices permit remote and runtime HW reconfiguration, which implies benefits in WSNs deployment and maintainability and, finally, cost reduction. In this paper, WSN node runtime reconfigurability is tackled from several aspects. First, the sensor node includes a commercial reconfigurable device, a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), that permits to take advantage of the tools and support provided by the industry, while exploiting the inherent hardware parallelism. Second, two software (SW) and hardware reconfiguration scenarios are defined along with a support middleware. Third, in order to provide runtime reconfigurability to the WSN node, a complete runtime reconfigurable system has been defined and designed for the FPGA included in the node. Fourth, the HW reconfiguration cost has been evaluated, as well as the cost of transmitting new HW configurations and SW programs through the network, based on a set of defined parameters. Finally, the feasibility of the runtime reconfigurable system has been demonstrated with a use case.

Improved method to determine succinylacetone in dried blood spots for diagnosis of tyrosinemia type 1 using UPLC‐MS/MS

We describe an improved diagnostic method for tyrosinemia type 1 based on quantifying succinylacetone in dried blood spots by ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Succinylacetone extracted from a single 3/16 inch disk of specimen collection paper containing a dried blood spot was derivatized with dansylhydrazine, separated on an Acquity UPLC BEH C(18) column (2.1 x 50 mm, 1.7 microm) and detected by electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry. Succinylacetone derivative eluted at 0.6 min with a complete run time of 1 min. Using a 13C4 labeled succinylacetone as an internal standard, the calibration plot was linear up to 100 micromol/L with a detection limit (S/N = 3) of 0.2 micromol/L. Intra-day (n = 13) and inter-day (n = 10) variations were better than 10%. The cutoff level of succinylacetone in dried blood spots from healthy infants obtained by the current method was 0.63 micromol/L (n = 151). In dried blood spots from patients with established tyrosinemia type 1 (n = 11), concentration of succinylacetone was 6.4-30.8 micromol/L.

Evaluation of a micro gas chromatographic technique for environmental analyses of CO2 and C1–C6 alkanes

A performance evaluation of a portable gas chromatograph (Chrompack CP2002P), equipped with a micro thermal conductivity detection (micro-TCD) system was conducted for carbonious gases of environmental relevance, by analysis of calibration standards, atmospheric air samples and bottled mineral water samples compared with air-saturated water samples. The reliability of an headspace equilibration method has also been tested for application to gas dissolved in natural waters. The instrument has been tested for its sensitivity, reproducibility, linearity and retention time stability. The miniaturization technique of the micro gas chromatograph allows for analyses much faster than those of traditional TCD equipped gas chromatographs: complete run time, including C6, is about 30 s. This rapidity may allow a large number of field data to be achieved over a short time and the immediate analysis on site may drive the survey strategy as the results are examined.

Sound production during the waggle dance of the honey bee

1. 1. A pulsed sound of approximately 200 cps. which is produced during the straight run of the honey bee waggle dance is described. The presence of this sound provides a new possibility for explaining the method whereby information about the distance of the food source from the hive is communicated among bees. Besides the elements considered by von Frisch & Jander (1957), sound production time during the straight run and number of pulses present in the straight run are each shown to be also capable of carrying distance information. Since the ratio of the sound pulse rate to waggle rate is approximately 2·5 to 1, the sound is not an incidental result of waggling of the abdomen by the dancing bee. 2. 2. The complete run time, straight run sound production time, and number of sound pulses were all graphically found to be more closely related to the distance of the food source from the hive than the circle run time. These three remaining components were not found to be significantly different from each other on the basis of raw data. 3. 3. The results of a variation analysis of complete run time, straight run time, and circle run time indicate that variability of the complete run time can largely be attributed to variability of the circle run time. 4. 4. The effect of wind is greater on the straight run time than on either complete run time or circle run time. Also, that variability in the complete run time which is due to an effect of wind can largely be attributed to the effect of wind on the straight run time. This information, together with that from 3 (above), shows that the average complete run time is mainly a sum of average circle run time and average straight run time and probably does not transmit distance information in its own right. Since the average complete run time of this study must be equivalent to the average complete run time of the study of von Frisch & Jander, the complete run time of their study can also be eliminated as a possibility for transmitting distance information. 5. 5. The straight run time and number of sound pulses present in the straight run were found to be inseparable on the basis of available data. Either of these two components was found to be a better possibility for transmitting distance information than any of the other components of the dance which were covered in this study. Neither of these two components can be directly compared to the straight run waggle time or number of waggles produced during the straight run ( von Frisch & Jander, 1957). Such a comparison must await further experimentation. 6. 6. The following four components (or a combination of any of these four) of the honey bee waggle dance now remain as best possibilities for conveying the information about distance of the food source from the hive: 6.1. (a) time of waggling during the straight run. 6.2. (b) number of waggles produced during the straight run. 6.3. (c) time of sound production during the straight run. 6.4. (d) number of sound pulses produced during the straight run. 7. 7. Analysis of wind effects reveals that bees signal the flight time out to the food source, not the flight time of the return trip. 8. 8. The sound pulse rate did not vary appreciably with temperature. Although the sound pulse rate did vary with distance, the amount of change was slight and the significance was marginal. 9. 9. The interpretation of the results of the step-experiments (Stüfenversuchen) of von Frisch and co-workers is questionable, since a performance much poorer than that given by the standard deviation of the results, coupled with bees visiting more than one of the unevenly spaced stations, would give similar results. 10. 10. The possible use of sound by honey bees in communicating information about the distance of a food source from the hive is discussed.