Context-aware systems — a primer for user-centred services

Convergence in the telecommunications industry provides an excellent platform and opportunity for new context-aware services. Context awareness, i.e. being able to harvest environmental information and use it to meet or anticipate user needs, is a key enabler for personalised applications and services that will be attractive to users in the future. This paper explores relevant research studies that have been undertaken, and proposes a new architecture for realisation of a context-aware system.     

Photoacoustic effect in laser annealing

The acoustic wave generated in silicon crystal during laser annealing has been observed. The acoustic signal increases superlinearly with incident laser energy beyond the melting threshold. This can be used for monitoring the state of melting during the annealing.     

Crack tip opening displacement of a Dugdale crack in a three-phase cylindrical model composite material

The analytical investigation of the plastic zone size of a crack in three-phase cylindrical model composite material was carried out. The physical problem is simulated as a crack near a circular inclusion (a single fiber) in the composite matrix, while the three-phase cylindrical composite model is used to represent the composite matrix. In the solution procedure, the crack is simulated as a continuous distribution of edge dislocations. With the Dugdale model of small scale yielding, a thin strip of yielded plastic zone is introduced at each crack tip. Using the solution for a three-phase model with a single dislocation in the matrix phase as the Green’s function, the physical problem is formulated into a set of singular integral equations. By employing Erdogan and Gupta’s method, as well as iterative numerical procedures, the singular integral equations are solved numerically for the plastic zone sizes and crack tip opening displacements.     

Bioorthogonal Click Chemistry‐Based Synthetic Cell Glue

Artificial methods of cell adhesion can be effective in building functional cell complexes in vitro, but methods for in vivo use are currently lacking. Here, a chemical cell glue based on bioorthogonal click chemistry with high stability and robustness is introduced. Tetrazine (Tz) and trans‐cyclooctene (TCO) conjugated to the cell surface form covalent bonds between cells within 10 min in aqueous conditions. Glued, homogeneous, or heterogeneous cell pairs remain viable and stably attached in a microfluidic flow channel at a shear stress of 20 dyn cm⁻². Upon intravenous injection of assembled Jurkat T cells into live mice, fluorescence microscopy shows the trafficking of cell pairs in circulation and their infiltration into lung tissues. These results demonstrate the promising potential of chemically glued cell pairs for various applications ranging from delivering therapeutic cells to studying cell–cell interactions in vivo.     

On the plastic zone size and CTOD study for a Zener�CStroh crack interacting with a circular inclusion

An analytical solution is given for plastic yielding of a Zener?CStroh crack near a circular inclusion embedded in an infinite matrix. The crack is orientated along the radial direction of the inclusion. In the solution procedure, the crack is simulated as a continuous distribution of edge dislocations. Using the Dugdale model of small-scale yielding, plastic zones are introduced at both crack tips. Using the solution of a circular inclusion, interacting with a single dislocation as the Green??s function, the physical problem is formulated into a set of singular integral equations. With the aid of Erdogan??s method and iterative numerical procedures, the singular integral equations are solved numerically for the plastic zone sizes and crack tip opening displacement. The results obtained in the current work are verified by reduction to simpler cases of the Dugdale model. Various parameters such as the distance, shear modulus ratio, Poisson??s ratio, and loading condition are studied.     

Continuous Casting of Demanding HSLA Steel Grades for Heavy Plate Application

Continuous casting has evolved as the most important production process in the steel industry.Today it counts for about 95% of the world’s steel production.Parallel to its rising significance,the process technologies have been enhanced in yield,productivity and-in particular quality of semi-finished products has been improved close to the realm of possibility.Further optimizing the product quality beyond the present status has to put the whole manufacturing route from hot metal and/or steel melting through refining to continuous casting under integrated control.Prerequisite for the production of HSLA steel grades of the highest standard are clean steel,internal soundness and defect-free slab surfaces.In this context a brief look is cast on the recent trend of process technology in casting "thick slabs" for extra-heavy plate production.     

Thallium-201 SPECT and positron emission tomography equal predictors of glioma grade and recurrence

Diode laser energy has been applied through a fiberoptic probe using a power setting of 2.5 watts (W) in the continuous mode. In this study we employed high-power diode laser energy (4 to 12 W, continuous wave) to incise ocular tissue through a fiberoptic probe using 100 microns and 300 microns tips. The retina was photocoagulated with a 300 microns orb tip. No bleeding occurred at the incision sites. Histologic evaluation revealed coagulation into the healthy tissue ranging from 10 to 50 microns.