Comments on `Semianalytic BER evaluation by simulation for noisynonlinear bandpass channels'

Pent et al. (see ibid., vol.SAC-6, no.1, p.34-41, 1988) proposed a semianalytic method for performance evaluation of communication channels with a bandpass nonlinearity. This method is based on a decomposition of the composite signal at the output of the nonlinear device which leads to the definition of an equivalent nonlinearity. In Pent et al. such an equivalent model is evaluated via numerical integration. In the present comment it is shown that a suitable series expansion of the nonlinearity characteristic yields to an evaluation of the equivalent nonlinearity in closed form     

THERMAL REACTIONS OF WHOLE CRUDE OILS AND RELATED MODEL COMPOUNDS

The quantities of olefins, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and char formed during thermal decomposition in closed systems of alkylbenzenes are substantially reduced if the decomposition takes place in the presence of a good acceptor molecule such as pyrene or adamantane. The chemistry seems to be applicable to the upgrading of whole crude oils by a thermal treatment at 425-450°C in a closed system for 20-25 minutes.     

IDENTIFICATION OF VOLATILE COMPOUNDS FROM RIPE MAYHAW FRUIT (CRATAEGUS OPACA,C. AESTIVALIS,AND C. RUFULA)1

Steam volatile fractions obtained from three commercial mayhaw cultivars and two native selections were analyzed by GC and GC/MS. Twenty-four compounds were identified. The nine major components, which comprised 70–80% of the volatile fraction, were hexanal, butyl acetate, (E)-2-hexenal, butyl butyrate, linalool, butyl hexanoate, methyl octanoate, pentyl hexanoate, and hexyl hexanoate. Minor constituents included eight esters, four terpenes, two benzenoid compounds and (E)-2-hexenol.     

Variation de la plombemie en fonction de la contamination par le plomb de l'eau livree a la consommation: Variation of the blood lead level as a result of lead contamination of the subjects drinking water

The combination of the chemical aggressivity of water and lead piping, as is well known, can cause severe cases of lead poisoning in those who consume such water. After a great number of observations and epidemiological studies which have strongly incriminated this metal in a wide range of pathologic conditions, other materials have been gradually substituted for lead; however, the problem remains.In compliance with a European Directive to survey the risk of lead poisoning (Council Directive, 1977), a random sample of 321 residents was selected from the Vosgian Mountains of France. This region is noted for its high incidence of cases of lead poisoning: 150 reported during 8 months in 1983 (Barbier et al., 1983).During the course of a health evaluation, a blood sample was taken from each subject for lead analysis. At the same time, a sample of tap-water (after running for 5 s) was taken from each subject home. Both lead analyses (blood and water) were performed by electrothermal atomization-atomic absorption spectrophotometry. Because of the log-normality of the distributions of the blood lead levels and the concentrations of lead in the drinking water, a logarithmic transformation was performed so that the results are expressed as the geometric mean, which for the amount of lead in the drinking water of our sample was found to be 0.16 mg l^?1.Among the subjects of this study, 28% are served by water containing more than 0.10 mg l^?1 of lead (the standard for France) and 48% by water containing more than 0.05 mg l^?1 (the European and WHO standard). In concurrence with numerous authors, our study indicates that, among our subjects, the blood lead level is much higher in men than in women (geometric means 22.9 and 15.0 μg dl^?1 respectively); this difference is highly significant (t-test:P < 0.001). Table 1 summarizes the results, by sex, obtained in this region compared with those from a study (Huel, 1982) concerning an urban French population whose geometric mean blood lead levels were 15.9 μg dl^?1 for men and 11.4 μg dl^?1 for women. The irrespective of sex, is highly significant (P < 0.001). Table 2 shows the significance of the relation between these subjects, high blood lead levels and the concentration of lead in their drinking water, while Fig. 1 shows that for contamination levels up to 0.02 mg l^?1 of lead in water, the blood lead level remains relatively stable, while above this apparent “threshold” value, the blood lead level begins to increase finally reaching quite high values in response to high contamination levels, suggesting a direct translation of increases in the water above the 0.02 mg l^?1 level to increases in the blood.     

BerlinTainment: an agent-based context-aware entertainment planning system

Service providers, especially in the mobile entertainment domain, are facing increasing competition. The ability to design, develop, and deploy unique context-aware entertainment services fast and easily as well as the capability to provide intuitive user interfaces becomes essential for market players. Furthermore, today's mobile world is made up of heterogeneous networks accessible via various devices with different characteristics. Progressive users have the desire to utilize the same services and access the same information content on all available devices. At the same time, service providers have to diversify their services in order to remain competitive and attract the various customer segments making up the mass market. We introduce an agent-based serviceware framework to assist service providers in developing innovative services, thus reducing the time to market of the respective applications. The realized serviceware framework offers personalization, location awareness, and the multi-access service platform, a flexible solution for ubiquitous service access. Thus, our solution allows a heterogeneous landscape of end devices to access an application server's mobile services in a multimodal, multilingual, and multimedia-based manner. We describe the utilization of the different modules of the service framework as well as the BerlinTainment application, an entertainment planning system based on the framework.     

The incompatibility of knowledge regimes: consequences of the material world for cross-domain work

In this paper, we argue that successful integration of knowledge across work domains in the short-term can mask the generation of long-term consequences. We explore a setting, the introduction of environmental considerations into semiconductor manufacturing, where the eventual adoption of common measurement artifacts and associated practices enabled knowledge integration, but failed to address significant underlying consequences. Drawing from observational, interview, and archival data we develop an understanding of the work practices of the Tech and EnviroTech groups as structured by the material world and broader collective conventions. We introduce the concept of knowledge regime to outline the differences in knowledge across these work domains. More specifically, we find that differences in the causal specificity and developmental time horizon of knowledge and the measurement artifacts that result contribute to the relative power of one knowledge regime over another. Understanding these sources of incompatibility provides insight into the design requirements of information systems as boundary objects for knowledge integration, but also specifies the potential limits to any design effort.     

Service Parameters of Enamels for Pipes

The service parameters of protective coatings for pipes are analyzed. It is demonstrated that the most promising and durable are glass-enamel coatings. The results of measuring microhardness and impact strength of enamels are provided. Enamel compositions are recommended to protect the surface of steel pipes from corrosion. __________ Translated from Steklo i Keramika, No. 7, pp. 33 – 34, July, 2005.     

Computerized facility layout design

The paper describes a computerized facility layout designer, COMLAD II, for plant layout development. Besides developing an efficient layout, COMLAD II has useful features which allow fixing the departments, changing the shape of the departments and changing the length and width dimensions of the overall layout.     

IBM RISC System/6000: architecture and performance

The IBM RISC System/6000, a superscalar microprocessor, is presented. The architecture of this processor has its instruction set specifically designed for a superscalar machine containing three independent units-branch, fixed-point, and floating-point. The design also emphasizes high-performance floating-point operations. The design principles are to offer maximum overlap of the three functional units, avoid dead cycles, and define instructions that can (for the most part) be completed at a rate of one per cycle. The branch cycle, fixed- and floating-point units, cache management, and performance are described. Benchmark results are given