An improved version of ISICS: A program for calculating K-, L- and M-shell cross sections from PWBA and ECPSSR theory using a personal computer

The formatting of the M-shell atomic parameters imbedded in file XCSC.H in ISICS has been corrected. The problem only affected cross section calculations for Uranium and heavier elements. The corrected version of ISICS has been re-compiled and is now available.

New version program summary

Program title: ISICSCatalogue identifier: ADDS_v3_0Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADDS_v3_0.htmlProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. IrelandLicensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.htmlNo. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 4645No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 106 731Distribution format: tar.gzProgramming language: C++Computer: 80486 or higher-level PCsOperating system: WINDOWS 98 through WINDOWS XPClassification: 16.7Does the new version supersede the previous version?: YesNature of problem: Ionization and X-ray production cross section calculations for ion-atom collisions.Solution method: Numerical integration of form factor using a logarithmic transform and Gaussian quadrature, plus exact integration limits.Reasons for new version: The formatting of the M-shell atomic parameters involving cross section calculations for Uranium and heavier elements needed to be corrected.Summary of revisions: The affected file XCSC.H in ISICS has been corrected and ISICS has been recompiled.Restrictions: The consumed CPU time increases with the atomic shell (K, L, M), but execution is still very fast.Running time: This depends on which shell and the number of different energies to be used in the calculation. For example, to calculate K-shell cross sections for protons striking carbon for 19 different proton energies it took less than 10 s; to calculate M-shell cross sections for protons on gold for 21 proton energies it took 4.2 min.     

Concerted evolution at the population level: pupfish HindIII satellite DNA sequences

The canonical monomers (approximately 170 bp) of an abundant (1.9 x 10(6) copies per diploid genome) satellite DNA sequence family in the genome of Cyprinodon variegatus, a "pupfish" that ranges along the Atlantic coast from Cape Cod to central Mexico, are divergent in base sequence in 10 of 12 samples collected from natural populations. The divergence involves substitutions, deletions, and insertions, is marked in scope (mean pairwise sequence similarity = 61.6%; range = 35-95.9%), is largely confined to the 3' half of the monomer, and is not correlated with the distance among collecting sites. Repetitive cloning and direct genomic sequencing experiments failed to detect intrapopulation and intraindividual variation, suggesting high levels of sequence homogeneity within populations. The satellite sequence has therefore undergone "concerted evolution," at the level of the local population. Concerted evolution has previously almost always been discussed in terms of the divergence of species or higher taxa; its intraspecific occurrence apparently has not been reported previously. The generality of the observation is difficult to evaluate, for although satellite DNAs from a large number of organisms have been studied in detail, there appear to be little or no other data on their sequence variation in natural populations. The relationship (if any) between concerted, population level, satellite DNA divergence and the extent of gene flow/genetic isolation among conspecific natural populations remains to be established.     

Recent advances in amperometric glucose biosensors for in vivo monitoring

The substance-use, positive health practices, diet and eating habits, driving behaviours and preventive health care practices of 113 nurses living in the southeast of England were assessed by means of a postal questionnaire. Females were generally more compliant than males with most of the behaviours assessed. Females reported taking greater risks with driving behaviours by an occasional tendency to "drink and drive". Many males reported both a lack of knowledge of how to self-examine their testicles for signs of cancer and little compliance with this behaviour. This sample reported more smoking and alcohol use than previously reported samples of American nurses and U.K. norms. The nurses in this sample were more likely to avoid foods high in cholesterol, add fibre to their diet and be more vigilant in their driving behaviour than American nurses and British non-nurses.     

Highly Efficient Quasi 2D Blue Perovskite Electroluminescence Leveraging a Dual Ligand Composition

Perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) are advancing because of their superior external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) and color purity. Still, additional work is needed for blue PeLEDs to achieve the same benchmarks as the other visible colors. This study demonstrates an extremely efficient blue PeLED with a 488 nm peak emission, a maximum luminance of 8600 cd m⁻², and a maximum EQE of 12.2% by incorporating the double-sided ethane-1,2-diammonium bromide (EDBr₂) ligand salt along with the long-chain ligand methylphenylammonium chloride (MeCl). The EDBr₂ successfully improves the interaction between 2D perovskite layers by reducing the weak van der Waals interaction and creating a Dion–Jacobson (DJ) structure. Whereas the pristine sample (without EDBr₂) is inhibited by small stacking number (n) 2D phases with nonradiative recombination regions that diminish the PeLED performance, adding EDBr₂ successfully enables better energy transfer from small n phases to larger n phases. As evidenced by photoluminescence (PL), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) characterization, EDBr₂ improves the morphology by reduction of pinholes and passivation of defects, subsequently improving the efficiencies and operational lifetimes of quasi-2D blue PeLEDs.     

Neural network classifier and multiple hypothesis image segmentation for dietary assessment using calorie calculator

Nowadays, dietary assessment becomes the emerging system for evaluating the person’s food intake. In this paper, the multiple hypothesis image segmentation and feed-forward neural network classifier are proposed for dietary assessment to enhance the performance. Initially, the segmentation is applied to input image which is used to determine the regions where a particular food item is located using salient region detection, multi-scale segmentation, and fast rejection. Then, the significant feature of food items is extracted by the global feature and local feature extraction method. After the features are obtained, the classification is performed for each segmented region using feed-forward neural network model. Finally, the calorie value is computed with the aid of (i) food area volume and (ii) calorie and nutrition measure based on mass value. The outcome of the proposed method attains 96% of accuracy value which provides the better classification performance.     

Discriminating constant from variable angular velocities in structure from motion

We investigated accuracy in discriminating between constant and variable angular velocities for orthographic projections of three-dimensional rotating objects. The reported judgments of "constant" or "variable" angular velocity were only slightly influenced by the projected angular velocities, but they were greatly affected by the variations of the deformation, a first-order component of the optic flow. When viewing either a rotating ellipsoidal volume or a planar surface that accelerated and decelerated over the course of rotation, observers' tendencies to report a variable angular velocity were increased when the temporal phase of the acceleration pattern increased the range of variation of the median deformation; the tendencies were decreased when the same acceleration pattern was used to decrease the range of variation of the median deformation. These results provide evidence contrary to the hypothesis that the visual system performs a mathematically correct analysis of the optic flow.     

Fiber-optic probes with improved excitation and collection efficiency for deep-UV Raman and resonance Raman spectroscopy

The ability of ultraviolet resonance Raman spectroscopy (UVRRS) to determine structural, environmental, and analytical information concerning low-concentration aqueous biomolecules makes it a powerful bioanalytical and biophysical technique. Unfortunately, its utility has been limited by experimental requirements that preclude in situ or in vivo studies in most cases. We have developed the first high-performance fiber-optic probes suitable for long-term use in pulsed UVRRS applications in the deep- UV (DUV, 205-250 nm). The probes incorporate recently developed improved ultraviolet (IUV) fibers that do not exhibit the rapid solarization and throughput decay that previously hampered the use of optical fibers for delivering pulsed, DUV light. A novel 90 degrees mirrored collection geometry is used to overcome the inner-filtering effects that plague flush-probe geometries. The IUV fibers are characterized with respect to their efficacy at transmitting pulsed, DUV laser light, and prototype probes are used to obtain pulsed UVRRS data of aromatic amino acids, proteins, and hormones at low concentrations with 205-240-nm pulsed excitation. Efficient probe geometries and fabrication methods are presented. The performance of the probes in examining resonance-enhanced Raman signals from absorbing chromophores is investigated, and the optimal excitation wavelength is shown to be significantly red-shifted from the maximum of the resonance Raman enhancement profile. Generally applicable procedures for determining optimal experimental conditions are also introduced.     

Refining the systematic literature review process—two participant-observer case studies

Systematic literature reviews (SLRs) are a major tool for supporting evidence-based software engineering. Adapting the procedures involved in such a review to meet the needs of software engineering and its literature remains an ongoing process. As part of this process of refinement, we undertook two case studies which aimed 1) to compare the use of targeted manual searches with broad automated searches and 2) to compare different methods of reaching a consensus on quality. For Case 1, we compared a tertiary study of systematic literature reviews published between January 1, 2004 and June 30, 2007 which used a manual search of selected journals and conferences and a replication of that study based on a broad automated search. We found that broad automated searches find more studies than manual restricted searches, but they may be of poor quality. Researchers undertaking SLRs may be justified in using targeted manual searches if they intend to omit low quality papers, or they are assessing research trends in research methodologies. For Case 2, we analyzed the process used to evaluate the quality of SLRs. We conclude that if quality evaluation of primary studies is a critical component of a specific SLR, assessments should be based on three independent evaluators incorporating at least two rounds of discussion.     

Shape optimization for tumor location

In non-invasive thermal diagnostics, accurate correlations between the thermal image at skin surface and interior human physiology are desired. In this work, an estimation methodology to determine unknown geometrical parameters of an embedded tumor is proposed. We define a functional that represents the mismatch between a measured experimental temperature profile, which may be obtained by infrared thermography on the skin surface, and the solution of an appropriate boundary problem. This functional is related to the geometrical parameters through the solution of the boundary problem, in such a way that finding the minimum of this functional form also means finding the unknown geometrical parameters of the embedded tumor. Sensitivity analysis techniques coupled with the adjoint method were considered to compute the shape derivative of the functional. Then, a nonmonotone spectral projected gradient method was implemented to solve the optimization problem of finding the optimal geometric parameters.     

The convergence analysis and specification of the Population-Based Incremental Learning algorithm

In this paper, we investigate the global convergence properties in probability of the Population-Based Incremental Learning (PBIL) algorithm when the initial configuration p⁽⁰⁾ is fixed and the learning rate α is close to zero. The convergence in probability of PBIL is confirmed by the experimental results. This paper presents a meaningful discussion on how to establish a unified convergence theory of PBIL that is not affected by the population and the selected individuals.