tenella. All chickens were euthanized to determine the effects of immunization on the 7th day post-challenge. The results showed that both DNA vaccines containing the SO7 gene and the recombinant SO7 protein could obviously alleviate body weight loss and cecal lesions compared with unvaccinated and challenged control. These findings also suggested that chicken IL-2 could effectively enhance the immunity of SO7 against E. tenella challenge compared with vaccination using pVAX-SO7 alone. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Purpose: To retrospectively compare the diagnostic performance of 1.5- and 3.0-T magnetic resonance (MR) imaging protocols for evaluating the articular

cartilage of the knee joint in symptomatic patients.

Materials and Methods: This HIPAA-compliant study was performed with a waiver of informed consent from the institutional review board. The study group consisted of 200 symptomatic patients undergoing PS 341 MR examination of the knee at 1.5 T (61 men, 39 women; mean age, 38.9 years) or 3.0 T (52 men, 48 women; mean age, 39.1 years), who also underwent subsequent arthroscopic knee surgery. All MR examinations consisted of multiplanar fast spin-echo sequences with similar tissue contrast at 1.5 and 3.0 T. All articular surfaces were graded at arthroscopy by using the Noyes classification system. Three

musculoskeletal radiologists retrospectively and independently graded all articular surfaces seen at MR imaging by using a similar classification system. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the 1.5- and 3.0-T MR protocols for detecting cartilage Nec-1s lesions were determined by using arthroscopy as the reference standard. The z test was used to compare sensitivity, TPX-0005 ic50 specificity, and accuracy values at 1.5 and 3.0 T.

Results:

For all readers combined, the respective sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of MR imaging for detecting cartilage lesions were 69.3%, 78.0%, and 74.5% at 1.5 T (n = 241) and 70.5%, 85.9%, and 80.1% at 3.0 T (n = 226). The MR imaging protocol had significantly higher specificity and accuracy (P < .05) but not higher sensitivity (P = .73) for detecting cartilage lesions at 3.0 T than at 1.5 T.

Conclusion: A 3.0-T MR protocol has improved diagnostic performance for evaluating the articular cartilage of the knee joint in symptomatic patients when compared with a 1.5- T protocol. (c) RSNA, 2009″
“Polarization forces have become of high interest in micro- and nanomechanical systems. In this paper, an analytical model for a transduction scheme based on the Kelvin polarization force is presented. A dielectric beam is actuated by placing it over the gap of two coplanar electrodes. Finite element method simulations are used to characterize the scheme and to evaluate a field correction factor, which results from simplifying the form of the electric field. The model has been shown to be valid for dielectrics with different permittivities.