FISCHERPLOTS: An Excel spreadsheet for computing Fischer plots of accommodation change in cyclic carbonate successions in both the time and depth domains

Fischer plots are plots of accommodation (derived by calculating cumulative departure from mean cycle thickness) versus cycle number or stratigraphic distance (proxies for time), for cyclic carbonate platforms. Although many workers have derived programs to do this, there are currently no published, easily accessible programs that utilize Excel. In this paper, we present an Excel-based spreadsheet program for Fischer plots, illustrate how the data are input, and how the resulting plots may be interpreted. The plots can be used to derive periods of increased accommodation, shown on the plots as a rising limb (which commonly matches times of more open marine, subtidal parasequence development). Times of decreased accommodation, shown on the plots as a falling limb, generally are coincident with thin, shallow, peritidal parasequences.     

Middleware and Metrology for the Pervasive Future

Looks at the data and metrology tools developed by The National Institute of Standards and Technology for the research community, including common middleware for distributed sensor data acquisition and processing.     

Profiling and quantification of isoflavones in soymilk from soy protein isolate using extracted ion chromatography and positive ion fragmentation techniques

Dietary supplements on soy based foods and beverages are increasingly gaining prominence all over the world. In this study, liquid chromatography coupled with positive electrospray ionisation tandem mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) and diode array detection was used for the quantitation and characterisation of isoflavones in fermented and unfermented soymilk made from soy protein isolate SUPRO 590. Bifidobacterium animalis ssp. lactis Bb12 was used for the fermentation of soymilk. The isoflavones were found to produce characteristic radical ions as well as molecules of H₂O, CO₂, a sugar unit, and an alcohol through collision-induced fragmentation. Product ion fragments revealed unique fragmentation pathways for each isoflavone compound. Characteristic fragmentation of different isoflavones were unequivocally identified and differentiated. The occurrence of aldehydes such as pentanal, ethanal and methanal was shown to be specifically linked with isoflavone aglycones, daidzein, genistein and glycitein, respectively. Main glycosides such as genistin, daidzin and glycitin as well as the acetyl-, and malonyl forms also showed respective aglycone ions in their spectra fragmentation. Thus positive ion fragmentation was important in the absolute confirmation of isoflavones and to reveal the occurrence of other related compounds such as aldehydes in soymilk.     

2003 Roy W. Tess Award

Conclusions Mechanical interlocking of topcoat with the nonpolar TPO surface can be achieved through the use of an adhesion promoter, namely a chlorinated poly(olefin). The type of CPO used, in addition to the types of solvents and heat effects used, can substantially influence the degree of adhesion/cohesion obtained within the CPO.TPO system. Heat histories, TPO molding variations, CPO types, including solvent and resin variations, and topcoat (basecoat/clearcoat) chemistries were all found to influence the adhesion/cohesion of the painted TPO assembly. Surface damage resistance was found to mirror the effects of adhesion as described earlier. Control of the interphase formed between the TPO substrate and the subsequent topcoat layers becomes increasingly important if one wishes to maintain damage resistance within the painted composite. Testing methodology development, namely “gouge” chip, abrasion, and scratch resistance, is paramount in predicting performance under specified loads. Through interpretation of data received in the various testing methodologies, the mechanical properties of the topcoat/substrate combination may be varied to obtain the performance required in a variety of applications. The Roy W. Tess Award in Coatings is presented annually by the Division of Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering (PMSE) in recognition of outstanding contributions to coatings science and technology. Funded by a grant to the Division by Dr. and Mrs. Roy W. Tess, the purpose of the award is to encourage interest and progress in coatings and recognize significant contributions to the field. Dr. Rose Ryntz, Manager and Staff Technical Fellow with Visteon Corporatiom, Dearborn, MI, received the award from Dr. Paul Valint, Jr., Chair of the PMSE Division in September 2003 during the 226th meeting of the American Chemical Society in New York, NY. Dr. Ryntz's award address followed the Award Symposium. The following papers were presented at that symposium.     

A Look-Up-Based Universal Real-Time Transformer for Image Coding

A universal transformer for two-dimensional separable linear transforms in image coding is proposed. It is not restricted to fast transforms, and switching between transforms only requires writing the appropriate constants into an internal RAM. Look-up tables are used to reduce computational complexity. The linear transform properties are exploited to reduce the memory requirements by decomposing the input vector into smaller arrays and into bit planes. The input is pipelined into parallel data paths. An implementation example on a single gate array with existing technology achieves real-time transformation of 8 × 8 blocks, with area requirements of around 38K gates.     

Natural type selection in adaptive lossy compression

Consider approximate (lossy) matching of a source string ~P, with a random codebook generated from reproduction distribution Q, at a specified distortion d. Previous work determined the minimum coding rate R₁=R(P, Q, d) for this setting. We observe that for a large word length and with high probability, the matching codeword is typical with a distribution Q₁ which is different from Q. If a new random codebook is generated ~Q₁, then the source string will favor codewords which are typical with a new distribution Q₂, resulting in a minimum coding rate R₂=R(P, Q₁, d), and so on. We show that the sequences of distributions Q₁, Q ₂,... and rates R₁, R₂,..., generated by this procedure, converge to an optimum reproduction distribution Q*, and the rate-distortion function R(P, d), respectively. We also derive a fixed rate-distortion slope version of this natural type selection process. In the latter case, an iteration of the process stochastically simulates an iteration of the Blahut-Arimoto (1972) algorithm for rate-distortion function computation (without recourse to prior knowledge of the underlying source distribution). To strengthen these limit statements, we also characterize the steady-state error of these procedures when iterating at a finite string length. Implications of the main results provide fresh insights into the workings of lossy variants of the Lempel-Ziv algorithm for adaptive compression     

Die direkte gewichtsanalytische Bestimmung der Bors?ure in Nahrungsmitteln

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Visual short-term memory in the first year of life: Capacity and recency effects.

A span task was developed to assess the amount of information infants could hold in short-term memory. In this task, infants were presented with up to 4 items in succession and then tested for recognition by successively pairing each item with a novel one. A large sample of full-terms and low-birth-weight preterms (