Direct determination of carbohydrates, amino acids, and antibiotics by microchip electrophoresis with pulsed amperometric detection

The separation and detection of underivatized carbohydrates, amino acids, and sulfur-containing antibiotics in an electrophoretic microchip with pulsed amperometric detection (PAD) is described. This report also describes the development of a new chip configuration for microchip electrophoresis with PAD. The configuration consists of a layer of poly(dimethylsiloxane) that contains the microfluidic channels, reservoirs, and a gold microwire, sealed to a second layer of poly(dimethylsiloxane). Example separations of carbohydrates, amino acids, and sulfur-containing antibiotics are shown. The effect of the separation and injection potentials, buffer pH and composition, injection time, and PAD parameters were studied in an effort to optimize separations and detection. Detection limits ranging from 6 fmol (5 microM) for penicillin and ampicillin to 455 fmol (350 microM) for histidine were obtained.     

Estimating average growth trajectories in shape-space using kernel smoothing

In this paper, we show how a dense surface point distribution model of the human face can be computed and demonstrate the usefulness of the high-dimensional shape-space for expressing the shape changes associated with growth and aging. We show how average growth trajectories for the human face can be computed in the absence of longitudinal data by using kernel smoothing across a population. A training set of three-dimensional surface scans of 199 male and 201 female subjects of between 0 and 50 years of age is used to build the model.     

Microstructure evolution of the Sn–Ag–y%Cu interconnect

The lead free Sn–Ag–y%Cu (y = 0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0) interconnect interfacial microstructures and the microstructure evolution under thermal treatment (isothermal aging, 150 °C/1000 h) were studied in detail by using surface microetching microscopy and cross section microscopy. The corresponding mechanical and reliability behaviors were evaluated by performing shear test and fracture mode analysis before and after the thermal treatment. The results indicate: (i) The interconnects could have different microstructures and intermetallic compound (IMC), depending on the Cu content. The Cu–Sn IMC could have microstructures that were clusters or protrusion-like, Augustine grass leaf-like, scissor-like, tweezers-like, etc. (ii) Ag₃Sn IMCs were not observed at time zero for any interconnect groups, but they occurred after the aging for all groups. The Ag₃Sn IMC could have different microstructures, again depending on Cu content. For low Cu content, the Ag₃Sn IMCs were granules or nodules; for higher Cu content, Ag₃Sn IMCs were plate-like. (iii) The growth of Ag₃Sn plates was promoted by the growth of Cu–Sn IMCs, but indirectly linked to the Cu content. (iv) High Cu content (1.0 wt% and higher) could degrade the mechanical and reliability performances of the LF interconnect by providing a brittle joint, which was mainly achieved through the substantial growth of Cu–Sn IMCs and Ag₃Sn plates.     

Design and testing of a belt-driven induction starter-generator

The advent of higher voltages in automobiles constitutes an opportunity for new electrical features and systems. In that regard, a combined starter-generator would have several important benefits, most notably it would enable the turning off of the engine at idle and provide efficient, high power generation, both resulting in improved fuel economy. Several ongoing starter-generator projects have focused on locating the starter-generator around the engine flywheel. This paper describes the design of a belt-driven alternative with an induction machine drive. The proposed system would be easier to package than a flywheel-mounted system, since it would not affect the overall length of the powertrain. The paper presents various models as well as test results from a prototype system. Some specific implementation issues, such as induction generator stability at high speed, are also explored in some depth.     

A Pattern Decomposition Algorithm for Data Mining of Frequent Patterns

Efficient algorithms to mine frequent patterns are crucial to many tasks in data mining. Since the Apriori algorithm was proposed in 1994, there have been several methods proposed to improve its performance. However, most still adopt its candidate set generation-and-test approach. In addition, many methods do not generate all frequent patterns, making them inadequate to derive association rules. We propose a pattern decomposition (PD) algorithm that can significantly reduce the size of the dataset on each pass, making it more efficient to mine all frequent patterns in a large dataset. The proposed algorithm avoids the costly process of candidate set generation and saves time by reducing the size of the dataset. Our empirical evaluation shows that the algorithm outperforms Apriori by one order of magnitude and is faster than FP-tree algorithm. Received 14 May 2001 / Revised 5 September 2001 / Accepted in revised form 26 October 2001 Correspondence and offprint requests to: Qinghua Zou, Department of Computer Science, California University–Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. Email: zou@cs.ucla.eduau     

Sydis and the voice/data terminal craze of 1984

In 1984, computing firms saw integrated voice/data terminals (IVDTs) as the solution to the proliferation of new forms of executive communication. The Sydis VoiceStation was hailed as the best of this new class of office machine but, like all IVDTs, it failed. Sydis succumbed to "integration stress," one danger of product development driven by the urge to integrate traditionally discrete functions. Sydis also failed from poor integration of financial and market actors.     

Utility function of TCP

Understanding the TCP congestion control mechanism from a global optimization point of view is not only important in its own right, but also crucial to the design of other transport layer traffic control protocols with provable properties. In this paper, we derive a global utility function and the corresponding optimal control law, known as TCP control law, which maximizes the global utility. The TCP control law captures the essential behaviors of TCP, including slow start, congestion avoidance, and the binary nature of congestion feedback in TCP. We find that the utility function of TCP is linear in the slow start phase and is proportional to the additive increase rate and approaches the well-known logarithm function as the data rate becomes large in the congestion avoidance phase. We also find that understanding the slow start phase with a fixed threshold is critical to the design of new transport layer control protocols to enable quality of service features. Finally, as an application, we design a Minimum Rate Guaranteed (MRG) traffic control law that shares the same utility function as the TCP control law. Our simulation study of the MRG control law indicates that it is indeed TCP friendly and can provide minimum rate guarantee as long as the percentage of network resource consumed by the MRG flows is moderately small.     

Product Review: Near-IR gets the job done

Infrared brings to mind spectra with narrow, well-separated peaks; anybody expecting something similar from near-IR needs to think again.     

Focus: DNA microarrays in toxicology

Gene expression analysis promises to change toxicology.