Making your own Automatic Test Equipment has never been easier

<正>Using Planet ATE's SOC "all-in-one" pin electronics solutions it is easy to make your own tester, ATE or to modify load boards for more advanced test capabilities.     

Spontaneous dissection of the internal carotid artery

The arteriographic diagnosis of spontaneous, nontraumatic dissection of the internal carotid artery was made in 19 patients and confirmed at operation in ten. The tapered narrowing beginning in or about the carotid bulb and ending at the bony canal was a consistent finding. Four patients had associated aneurysm formation. All but one patient developed an acute hemispheric neurologic deficit as the initial symptom. The deficit was transient in ten and prolonged in eight. The dissection occurred in the outer layers of the media. None of the surgical specimens showed atherosclerosis. Surgical methods of management included segmental resection and grafting, thrombectomy and intimectomy, dilation, and simple ligation. Considerable improvement of luminal diameter occurred in six of seven patients whose arteries were left undisturbed.     

Cognitive functioning under moderate and low dosage methadone maintenance

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) was administered to two groups of patients in the Santa Clara County Methadone Maintenance Program who were receiving low and moderate daily stabilized dosages of methadone hydrochloride. In the two separate statistical analyses performed, there were no significant differences found between subtest scores or verbal, performance, and full-scale scores of the groups measured. These results, combined with observations regarding the similarities of WAIS profiles of the two groups, indicate that cognitive functioning as measured by the WAIS was not differentially affected by the two dosages.     

Studies on monotreme proteins. VII. Amino acid sequence of myoglobin from the platypus, Ornithoryhynchus anatinus

Myoglobin isolated from skeletal muscle of the platypus contains 153 amino acid residues. The complete amino acid sequence has been determined following cleavage with cyanogen bromide and further digestion of the four fragments with trypsin, chymotrypsin, pepsin and thermolysin. Sequences of the purified peptides were determined by the dansyl-Edman procedure. The amino acid sequence showed 25 differences from human myoglobin and 24 from kangaroo myoglobin. Amino acid sequences in myoglobins are more conserved than sequences in the alpha- and beta-globin chains, and platypus myoglobin shows a similar number of variations in sequence to kangaroo myoglobin when compared with myoglobin of other species. The date of divergence of the platypus from other mammals was estimated at 102 +/- 31 million years, based on the number of amino acid differences between species and allowing for mutations during the evolutionary period. This estimate differs widely from the estimate given by similar treatment of the alpha- and beta-chain sequences and a constant rate of mutation of globin chains is not supported.     

Tuning of localized surface plasmon resonance of well-ordered Ag/Au bimetallic nanodot arrays by laser interference lithography and thermal annealing

A novel hybrid approach to fabricate large-area well-ordered Ag/Au bimetallic nanodot arrays and its potential applications for biosensing is investigated. With the combination of laser interference lithography and the thermal annealing technique, Ag/Au bimetallic nanodots about ~50 nm are formed inside periodic nanodisk arrays at a dimension of ~530 nm on quartz substrates. Extinction spectra of the fabricated nanostructures show their localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) can be well controlled by Au concentration, which offers a means to flexibly tune the optical properties of the nanodot arrays. To study the sensitivity of the nanodot arrays, resonance wavelength changes per refractive index unit (RIU) are performed in different surrounding environments. This shows a 94% increase in peak shift per refractive index unit (nanometers/RIU) compared to the nanodot arrays formed only by thermal annealing. These results demonstrate a feasible approach to improve LSPR-based biosensor performance.     

Staling of Starch-based Products: A Comparative Study by Firmness and Pulsed NMR Measurements

A study of the staling of corn starch gel, bread, and rice cup-cake showed that measurements by pulsed NMR (based on the increase in signal from the solid phase of a system on ageing) gave very highly significant correlations (P < 0.001) with firmness measurements using the Instron Food Testing Instrument. Experimental data from the two methods were fitted into the Avrami equation. Values for the Avrami exponent (n) and the rate constant (k) obtained by compression were in good agreement with the corresponding values derived from NMR measurements. The pulsed NMR method thus offers a rapid and non-destructive means of monitoring changes at the molecular level which manifest themselves at the macroscopic level as an increase in firmness during ageing of starch gels and starch-based products.