Orienting and schizophrenia: Stimulus significance, attention, and distraction in a signaled reaction time task.

Tested the hypothesis that poor performance among schizophrenics (SCZs) is associated with less orienting to task-relevant stimuli and more orienting to task-irrelevant stimuli, interpreting the orienting response as a call for controlled processing resources. 32 SCZs (aged 20–65 yrs) and 32 age- and sex-matched controls were exposed to a signaled reaction time (RT) task in which one tone was followed by an imperative noise stimulus and a different tone signaled nothing. During one phase of the experiment, distracting visual stimuli were presented both between and during RT trials. Controls differentiated between the signal and nonsignal tones in all measures and showed rapid habituation to the distracting visual stimuli. The SCZs showed slow RTs, less overall responding than controls, and limited differential responses to signal and nonsignal stimuli. For the responses to visual distractors, however, the SCZs showed significantly slower habituation than the controls, confirming their inefficient orienting style. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variability in captan residues in apples from a Canadian orchard

Apple trees in an orchard in Quebec, Canada were treated, following label directions, with the fungicide captan (1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-N-(trichloromethylthio)phthalimide) during the 2003 agricultural season. A total of 142 apples from three rows of trees were selected for determination of captan by GC/MS. Individual apples were found to contain captan levels ranging from 16.9 to 6350 ng g^-1. Only two individual apple samples exceeded the Canadian maximum residue limit (5000 ng g^-1) for captan in apples. Six composite samples, comprising half portions of eight individual apples, were analysed from each of the three experimental rows. Composite samples ranged in concentration from 166 to 2620 ng g^-1. The greatest uncertainty associated with the measured concentrations was due to variability among apples rather than the measurement of residue levels.     

Junction leakage current degradation under high temperature reverse-bias stress induced by band-defect-band tunnelling in power VDMOS

A deep analysis of the intrinsic junction and surface currents in power vertically diffused MOS devices with sub-micrometer channel length and thin gate oxide has been carried on after a typical reliability high temperature reverse bias (HTRB) stress. A reference set of gated diodes has also been examined in order to better understand the onset and evolution of post-stress leakage degradation. A comparison among complete MOSs, single body diodes and enriched diodes allows to highlight the role played by the point defectivity both at gate interface and in the bulk silicon close to the junction surface. We found that the typical interface defects involved in the leakage degradation are shallow traps and can be de-populated simply by a thermally activated mechanism. More specifically, the main degradation mechanism relies to band-defect-band tunneling localized at the surface drain/body junction where an intrinsic n-i-p region evolves due to a bird’s beak lateral profile of the body diffusion. We have demonstrated that the most important contribution to the activation of the precursor defect sites is given by the transverse electrical field that develops just below the SiO₂/Si interface within the n-i-p region during the stress.     

Force-field instability in surface grinding

In this paper, a particular kind of non-regenerative instability in surface grinding is studied. Clear evidences have been collected suggesting that vibrations can occur suddenly even during the first grinding pass, just after wheel dressing. These circumstances exclude workpiece and wheel surface regeneration as instability origin, whereas both surfaces have to be considered initially smooth. On these bases, the stability of the dynamic system constituted by an oscillating ideal wheel (namely without waviness on the surface) immerged in a positional and velocity-dependent process force field has been studied, demonstrating that, under particular conditions, the force field generates an unstable behaviour. The instability occurrence is strictly related to the oscillation direction of the wheel centre, according to the mode shape associated to the dominant resonance, with respect to the direction of the grinding force (identified by the ratio between its tangential and normal components). The analysis leads to the identification of a simple necessary condition for instability occurrence. The analytical results are confirmed by time-domain grinding simulations and compared with experimental evidences.     

Yeast vectors for the integration/expression of any sequence at the TYR1 locus

We have constructed new yeast vectors for targeted integration and conditional expression of any sequence at the Saccharomyces cerevisiae TYR1 locus which becomes disrupted. We show that vector integration is not neutral, causing prototrophy for tyrosine and auxotrophy for the vector's selectable marker (uracil or leucine, depending on the vector used). This feature allows a double screening of transformed yeast cells, improving the identification of colonies with the desired chromosomal structure. The GAL10 gene promoter has been added to drive conditional expression of cloned sequences. Using these vectors, chromosomal structure verification of recombinant clones is no longer necessary, since the noise of non-homologous recombination, as well as spontaneous reversion of the selected phenotype, can easily be identified. The ability of the vector to conditionally control gene expression has been confirmed using the gene for the green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a reporter.     

Assessment of biodiesel blending detection capability of the on-board diagnostic of the last generation automotive diesel engines

Results of a research project aimed at studying the capability to develop a method (economic and simple) for on-board biodiesel blending detection are described. The method is based on the direct measurement of the Indicated Mean Effective Pressure (IMEP).The study was carried out on a 2.0L four-cylinder “torque-controlled” Euro 5 diesel engine for passenger car (PC) application. This engine, equipped with instrumented glow plug for combustion closed-loop control, represents the state of the art of the diesel engine control technology.Two biodiesels were chosen for the experiments: a rapeseed methyl-ester (RME) and an aged RME, while the conventional diesel fuel was an European (EU) certification diesel fuel.Results indicate generally a good response in blending detection of the method. However, in order to attain an acceptable accuracy, a pre-calibration appears necessary.     

Making a mesh router/gateway from a smartphone: Is that a practical solution?

This paper aims at answering the question whether it is practical to build a mesh-phone or not. A mesh-phone is a smartphone acting as a mesh router, i.e. either actively participating in the process of packet forwarding towards a mesh gateway, or acting itself as a gateway toward the Internet. Technical aspects of the mesh-phone implementation, such as design constraints and implementation details, are addressed. The technical feasibility is validated by describing the implementation of a prototype of the mesh-enabled phone over the Openmoko^TM open platform. Besides technical feasibility also convenience of the addressed solution is analyzed in terms of the consumed power, and some “energy-saving” related enhancements are suggested to be applied to future user’s devices.     

Zirconium and hafnium oxide interface with silicon: Computational study of stress and strain effects

Computations of the periodic double-interface MO₂/Si (M = Zr and Hf) systems using density functional theory (DFT) demonstrate that very thin epitaxial MO₂ layers at silicon (1 0 0) surface adopt anatase-like structure with six-coordinate M atoms, while tetragonal-like MO₂ structure with seven-coordinated M atoms has a lower stability (metastable). This results from a closer match between Si(1 0 0) surface unit cell and anatase-like ZrO₂ and HfO₂ leading to the overall stress reduction if MO₂ adopts the anatase-like structure on silicon. In agreement with the previous study of Gavartin et al. [Gavartin, Fonseca, Bersuker, Shluger, Microelectron. Eng. 80 (2005) 412–415] formation of oxygen vacancy at the interface is demonstrated to be lower than in bulk film. This result appears to be independent from the film or interface structure but originates from the energy balance between M–O, M–M, Si–O and M–Si bonds, as revealed by a simple molecular model.