Healthy Aims: Developing New Medical Implants and Diagnostic Equipment

Healthy Aims is a 23- million, four-year project, funded under the EU's information society technology sixth framework program to develop intelligent medical implants and diagnostic systems (www.healthyaims.org). The project has 25 partners from 10 countries, including commercial, clinical, and research groups. This consortium represents a combination of disciplines to design and fabricate new medical devices and components as well as to test them in laboratories and subsequent clinical trials. The project focuses on medical implants for nerve stimulation and diagnostic equipment based on strain-gauge technology.     

Epoxidharze

Epoxy Resins The significance of epoxy resins in view of new commercial developments is explained. Developments and advances in the application of basic types of epoxy resins based on Bisphenol A are described and the present status in the field of flame resistant epoxy resins, epoxidized novolacs, reactive diluents, and flexible cycloaliphatic diepoxy compounds is shown.     

Design and characterization of a multistage,mechanically stirred column absorber

A multistage, mechanically stirred column absorber has been designed and built with a modular construction, based on preliminary experiments with a test column. The column has been characterized as a gas-liquid contactor by its gas holdup, gas and liquid axial dispersion, mixing times, oxygen transfer coefficients and power consumptions, determined as a function of gas velocity, liquid velocity and impeller speed for one and two impellers per stage.Gassed power was correlated with ungassed power, gas rate and impeller speed. The gas phase axial mixing was essentially plug flow and the liquid phase axial mixing varied between 5 and 12 equivalent stages.Oxygen transfer coefficients were correlated with power consumptions and aeration rates by the equation K_La γ (P/V)^a(υ_sg)^b. The oxygen transfer coefficients with single stiffer stages were 25% above those for the double stirrer stages for equal power consumption and gas rates. Except for the low aeration and high power consumption extremes, the column showed superior oxygen transfer performance. in comparison to tubular loop and tank fermenters.     

Integrating scientific modeling and supporting dynamic hazard management with a GeoAgent-based representation of human–environment interactions: A drought example in Central Pennsylvania, USA

Recent natural disasters indicate that modern technologies for environmental monitoring, modeling, and forecasting are not well integrated with cross-level social responses in many hazard-management systems. This research addresses this problem through a Java-based multi-agent prototype system, GeoAgent-based Knowledge System (GeoAgentKS). This system allows: (1) computer representation of institutional regulations and behavioral rules used by multiple social institutions and individuals in cross-level human–environment interactions, (2) integration of this representation with scientific modeling of dynamic hazard development, and (3) application of automated reasoning that suggests to users the appropriate actions for supporting cooperative social responses. This paper demonstrates the software architecture of GeoAgentKS and presents such an integrated approach by modeling the drought management processes in Central Pennsylvania, USA. The results show that it is possible to use GeoAgentKS to represent multilevel human–environment interactions and to use those interactions as input to decision making in hazard management.     

美国的下一代航空运输系统——发展愿景、成就与未来方向

1. Introduction The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) manages the lar-gest air traffic control system in the world. This system controls approximate...     

Real Option—A New Approachin the Evaluation of TelecomInvest ment Projects

1IntroductionNowadays ,telecomindustry is facing many uncer-tainties ,because of which some carefully designed planshave to be completely renewed.It s a great challenge tous to adapt our work to the changing circumstances anddi minish the loss brought by various uncertainties .Option,by enabling the investor to control uncertainrisks at the expense of some cost can effectively li mitlosses and indefinitely increase the potential to grow.This is the most attractive feature of modern option,andf…     

CMOS-compatible optical rib waveguides defined by local oxidation of silicon

The local oxidation of silicon process is shown to be an effective means of defining optical rib waveguides in silicon on insulator while maintaining the surface planarity required for CMOS integration. Experimental waveguides have shown singlemode operation and losses of less than 1 dB/cm in the telecommunications band around 1550 nm     

Error probability analysis of bit-interleaved coded modulation

This correspondence presents a simple method to accurately compute the error probability of bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM). Thanks to the binary-input output-symmetric (BIOS) nature of the channel, the pairwise error probability (PEP) is equal to the tail probability of a sum of random variables with a particular distribution. This probability is in turn computed with a saddlepoint approximation. Its precision is numerically validated for coded transmission over standard Gaussian noise and fully interleaved fading channels for both convolutional and turbo-like codes.     

Television Dramas and Support for Controversial Public Policies: Effects and Mechanisms

In this experiment, we examine effects of television dramas on support for controversial public policies (gay marriage and the death penalty) and explore mechanisms that may explain such effects. The dramas influenced support for death penalty but not gay marriage. As predicted, exposure to the relevant drama eliminated the relationship between prior ideology (conceptualized as a continuous variable) and death penalty support. Moreover, the valence of the relationship between prior (increasingly liberal) ideology and salience of a relevant value (perceived importance of a safe and crime-free society) went from negative in the comparison condition to positive after exposure to the relevant drama. These and other results suggest that a television narrative can influence policy support by reframing the dramatic situation to reduce the effect of prior ideology and values and by minimizing processing of the story as intentionally persuasive discourse.