Trade-off analysis on cost and manufacturing technology of an electronic product: Case study

A trade-off analysis on the cost and system packaging metrics of an electronic product aimed at the commercial/retail industry has been carried out. By comparing the system cost and packaging metrics with those of comparable consumer products, we have determined that there is opportunity for significant cost, size, and weight reduction of the overall electronics packaging system. These include the use of fine pitch IC packages, smaller discrete components, denser PCB wiring technology, double sided IC package surface mount, surface mount connectors, and improved plastics for the product housing. The analysis concluded that PCB area reduction of 40%, using a single PCB instead of three boards, reduction in board cost of over 50% and product weight reduction of over 28% are possible using available technologies.     

A Specific Stability Indicating Hplc Method to Determine Diclofenac Sodium in Raw Materials and Pharmaceutical Solid Dosage Forms

A high performance liquid chromatography method is described for the determination of diclofenac sodium, its related compounds and degradation products in commercial sources of raw materials and solid dosage forms. This method is specific, accurate and stability indicating. The method employs a reverse-phase octylsilane (C18) column with a mobile phase composed of acetonitrile/methanol/pic B-6 (25:25:50) and detection at 229 nm. The method resolves six principal related compounds with quantitation in the range 0.3-1.5%. Assay recoveries by spiking commercial formulations with diclofenac sodium were 99.64 ± 1.30%. Drug content in several commercial formulations are reported. Accelerated stability tests were conducted on raw materials and drug products and 1-(2,6-dichlorophenyl)-2-indolin-2-one was identified for the first time as a degradation product in solid dosage forms which are stressed under humidity and heat.     

B. F. Skinner: Au-delá de la controverse.

Discusses controversies surrounding the work of B. F. Skinner's influence on various theories of human and animal behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of goal difficulty on physiological arousal, cognition, and task performance.

Conducted 2 laboratory experiments with 117 undergraduates to examine (1) the effect of assigned goal difficulty on arousal (self-report and heart rate), cognition (perceived norm, self-efficacy strength, and personal goal), and behavioral (task performance) measures and (2) the role of heart rate as a mediator of the goal-difficulty–performance relation. All Ss performed a task requiring cognitive and physical responses. Results of both experiments demonstrate that assigned goal difficulty affected heart rate, cognition, and task performance and that heart rate change was positively related to the cognitive and behavioral measures. Regression analyses suggested that a cognitive–affective mechanism may mediate the goal-difficulty–performance relation. Discussion is focused on the theoretical and practical implications of integrating an arousal concept within goal-setting theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A connectionist implementation of the theory of planned behavior: Association of beliefs with exercise intention.

The theory of planned behavior suggests attitudes are a product of salient beliefs. This study examined whether aggregating salient beliefs was plausible within a more biologically centered information-processing environment. A neural network was used to examine associations among beliefs relating to exercise intention. Data on intentions and behavioral, normative, and control beliefs from 114 respondents were used to train (by error backpropagation) a neural network to associate beliefs with intention. The R2 between the network's estimated and self-reported intention was .66. The network's representation comprised 6 belief profiles associated with high, moderate, or low behavioral intention. The neural network accommodated complex relationships among beliefs and belief-intention associations and indicated how high-level constructs such as attitudes may be viewed as the best fit (compromise state) between aroused beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adolescent egocentrism and formal operations: Tests of a theoretical assumption.

The theoretical relation between adolescent egocentrism and formal operations was addressed in 2 studies. In Study 1, this relation was assessed with the Adolescent Egocentrism Scale (AES; R. Enright et al, see PA, Vols 63:5127 and 65:10218) and a battery of formal reasoning tasks administered to 183 6th-, 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-graders. The results reveal only significant negative or nonsignificant correlations between the measures in early adolescence. There was also no evidence of significant developmental covariation from early to middle adolescence. The validation effort was extended in Study 2 to include 2 measures of adolescent egocentrism (AES and the Imaginary Audience Scale [IAS; D. Elkind and R. Bowen, see PA, Vol 62:5769]) and a 2nd battery of formal operations problems. These measures were administered to 117 7th-, 9th-, and 11th-graders and to 56 undergraduates. There was once again no evidence of significant developmental covariation among the measures. The correlations between the AES and IAS were modest, reflecting differences in the nature and content of the measures. It is concluded that little support exists in this study or in the literature for the crucial theoretical assumption of adolescent egocentrism. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

S-invariant analysis of general recursive Petri boxex

The paper shows how to synthesise S-invariants and S-components for Petri Boxes constructed through general recursions, from S-invariants/S-components of their constituents. The construction is based on the tree-structure of the interface places used to define this operator and extends similar results obtained for the refinement operator. Emphasis is put on deriving coverability results; these results are then used to show that all the nets obtained through refinements and recursions from a family covered by S-components are self-concurrency free, at most 2-safe and exhibit a generalised emptiness property; in particular, this is the case for the nets obtained in the translation of the process algebra of Box expressions.Work done within the Esprit Basic Research Working Group 6067     

Industrial and spatial interdependency in modeling: An employment forecasting model for the counties in the San Francisco Bay Region

This paper discusses the structure and empirical estimation of the County Employment Forecasting System (CEFS), a system used to forecast employment for 32 sectors for each one of the nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Region. CEFS differs in several aspects from the majority of models which attempt to simulate employment change at the subregional level; it explicitly considers the relationships between sectors, it accounts for the interactions between counties, and can provide a set of county forecasts which are consistent with the overall regional projections.     

Distribution of diethylstilboestrol in pigs

The synthetic growth promoter diethylstilboestrol (DES) administered orally to pigs can be detected by radioimmunoassay (RIA) analysis of kidney, liver, faeces, bile and urine from animals fed continuously to slaughter, but not in muscle, fat or plasma. If treated animals are fed on material not containing DES for 72 h prior to slaughter, then the levels of parent compound and metabolite in all products decrease to become not significantly greater than those in control animals. The gross metabolism of DES in pigs and bovines appears to be similar.