Favourable effect of olive oil in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes. The effect on blood pressure, blood glucose and lipid levels of a high-fat diet rich in monounsaturated fat compared with a carbohydrate-rich diet

The aim of the study was to elucidate the role of the neuropeptide galanin in the regulation of somatotropic and gonadotropic function in normal women. Thirteen normally ovulating (aged 28 to 40 years), non-obese (body mass index, 18.4 to 27.1 kg/m2) women with infertility due to a tubal or male factor were studied. Each woman underwent three tests: (1) bolus intravenous (IV) injection of growth hormone (GH)-releasing hormone (GHRH) (1-29)NH2 1 microgram/kg plus gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) 100 micrograms at time 0; (2) IV infusion of porcine galanin 500 micrograms in 100 mL saline from -10 minutes; and (3) bolus IV injection of GHRH(1-29)NH2 1 microgram/kg plus GnRH 100 micrograms at time 0 plus IV infusion of porcine galanin 500 micrograms in 100 mL saline from -10 to +30 minutes. All results are expressed as the mean +/- SEM. GH peak after GHRH was 14 +/- 5 micrograms/L; porcine galanin significantly increased serum GH (GH peak, 7.3 +/- 1.2) with respect to baseline levels. No significant differences were observed between either GH peak or GH absolute values after galanin as compared with GHRH alone. Porcine galanin significantly enhanced GH response to GHRH (peak, 31.4 +/- 4.4 micrograms/L) with respect to either GHRH or galanin alone. Luteinizing hormone (LH)/follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) peaks after GnRH were 16.5 +/- 5.3 and 17.4 +/- 4 IU/L, respectively. Porcine galanin did not cause significant increases in serum LH and FSH levels with respect to baseline.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Al surface morphology effect on flip-chip solder bump shear strength

This paper reports the result of a study on the effect of aluminum pad surface morphology on the flip-chip solder bump reliability. The influence of the Al surface morphology on the electroless zinc/nickel/gold UBM is presented. The reliability of the solder bump as measured by ball shear force is reported. Al pad were produced using two RF sputtering systems: CVC-601 and Varian-3180. The Al targets used in CVC and Varian system were 99%Al–1%Si and 98.95%Al–1%Si–0.05%Ti respectively. The surface of the CVC sputtered Al samples were smooth while the surface of the Varian sputtered Al samples were rough. All the samples were subjected to the electroless zinc/nickel/gold plating. The results suggest that after plating, the smooth Al surface resulted in a fine nickel UBM surface while the rough Al surface formed a coarse nickel UBM surface. Ball shear test was conducted after the solder balls were bumped on the UBM. Result shows that the fine UBM surface samples have twice the shear strength compared to the samples with coarse UBM surface samples. The analysis of the results indicates that shear surface occurred at the UBM and the solder interface for samples with rough UBM surface leading to the lower shear strength. Nickel bump shear test result shows that pretreatment of Al pad surface by sodium hydroxide and nitric acid created more zinc seeds this led to better electroless nickel plating. Nickel bump shear tests also shows that double zincated bumps had higher shear strength than single zincated bumps. To obtain reliable flip-chip solder bumps, it is essential to maintain good Al pad surface morphology, pretreatment of the Al pad and undergo second zincation.     

Process windows for low-temperature Au wire bonding

The process windows are presented for low-temperature Au wire bonding on Au/Ni/Cu bond pads of varying Au-layer thicknesses metallized on an organic FR-4 printed circuit board (PCB). Three different plating techniques were used to deposit the Au layers: electrolytic plating, immersion plating, and immersion plating followed by electrolytic plating. Wide ranges of wire bond force, bond power, and bond-pad temperature were used to identify the combination of these processing parameters that can produce good wire bonds, allowing the construction of process windows. The criterion for successful bonds is no peel off for all 20 wires tested. The wire pull strengths and wire deformation ratios are measured to evaluate the bond quality after a successful wire bond. Elemental and surface characterization techniques were used to evaluate the bond-pad surfaces and are correlated to wire bondability and wire pull strength. Based on the process windows along with the pull strength data, the bond-pad metallization and bonding conditions can be further optimized for improved wire bondability and product yields. The wire bondability of the electrolytic bond pad increased with Au-layer thickness. The bond pad with an Au-layer thickness of 0.7 μm displayed the highest bondability for all bonding conditions used. The bondability of immersion bond pads was comparable to electrolytic bond pads with a similar Au thickness. Although a high temperature was beneficial to wire bondability with a wide process window, it did not improve the bond quality as measured by wire pull strength.     

Magnetostatic surface wave straight-edge resonators

The performance of the magnetostatic surface wave straight-edge resonator (MSSW-SER) is presented. The resonator uses a rectangular YIG film to propagate MSSWs where the straight edge serves as a reflector. Problems arising from coupling to width mode resonances and their effect on the main resonance are investigated. Through a careful choice of YIG and transducer parameters, the interference effects of the width mode resonances with the main resonance are minimized. As a result, highQ tunable microwave resonators with a tuning range from 2–20 GHz, insertion loss less than 10 dB, and spurious rejection better than 10 dB could be designed and fabricated. This MSSW resonator could be used to construct a tunable low-phase-noise feedback oscillator. However, the tuning range of this MSW feedback oscillator is limited by the phase change of the external amplifier circuit.     

Intelligent motion control for linear piezoelectric ceramic motor drive

Since the dynamic characteristics of a linear piezoelectric ceramic motor (LPCM) are highly nonlinear and time varying, it is difficult to design a suitable motor drive and position controller that realizes accurate position control at all time. This study investigates a double-inductance double-capacitance (LLCC) resonant driving circuit and a sliding-mode fuzzy-neural-network control (SMFNNC) system for the motion control of an LPCM. First, the motor structure and LLCC driving circuit of an LPCM are introduced. The LLCC resonant inverter is designed to operate at an optimal switching frequency such that the output voltage will not be influenced by the variation of quality factor. Moreover, a SMFNNC system is designed to achieve favorable tracking performance without precise dynamic models being controlled. All adaptive learning algorithms in the SMFNNC system are derived in the sense of Lyapunov stability analysis, so that system-tracking stability can be guaranteed in the closed-loop system. The effectiveness of the proposed driving circuit and control system is verified by experimental results.     

Fine mapping of the locus for nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome on chromosome 9q

The nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome is an autosomal dominant disorder characterized primarily by multiple basal cell carcinomas, odontogenic keratocysts, and pits of the palms and soles. Tumor deletion studies and linkage analysis in Caucasians have revealed that the gene is on chromosome 9q. To further refine the location of the nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome locus, we tested linkage to this region in three families. Evaluation of recombinants suggested that the nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome locus lies in the interval defined distally by D9S127. Our data, together with existing published data defining D9S12 as a proximal flanking marker, refine the location of nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome to an 8.3-cM interval. Two of the families studied were African-American and show a notable variation in phenotypic expression in which affected individuals developed few skin cancers. However, despite clinical heterogeneity, our data are consistent with the hypothesis that the same locus is involved in these African-American families.     

Ultrawide-band La-codoped Bi/sub 2/O/sub 3/-based EDFA for L-band DWDM systems

The demonstration of a 253-cm-long lanthanum-codoped Bi/sub 2/O/sub 3/-based erbium-doped fiber which provides gain of greater than 20 dB and noise figure less than 6.7 dB to 142 dense wavelength-division-multiplexing channels simultaneously over an extended wavelength range of 58 nm from 1554 to 1612 nm is reported. The 3-dB (gain of 17-20 dB) bandwidth of the erbium-doped fiber amplifier is 54 nm when it is pumped with 350 mW of 1480-nm light. The power conversion efficiency of the fiber is about 54%.     

Supplier Selection Based on Process Capability and Price Analysis

Supplier selection is an important part of supply chain management. Among the numerous methods that have been proposed, process capability index is considered to be the most effective technique for identifying quality parts. However, supplier selection should be carried out on the basis of quality and cost together. There is no easy tool available to evaluate the price and quality in an integrated manner. In this article, a new approach to supplier selection using capability index and price comparison (CPC) chart is presented. The CPC chart integrates the process capability and price information of multiple suppliers and presents them in a single chart. It provides a simple but effective method to consider quality and price simultaneously in the supplier selection process.     

Self-tuning PID controller using Newton-Raphson search method

A new algorithm for self tuning of proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers is proposed. A combined least-squares estimation and Newton-Raphson search technique is used to determine the ultimate gain and period of an unknown system for the purpose of automatic tuning of PID controllers based on Ziegler and Nichols (ZN) or refined Ziegler and Nichols (RZN) formulas. The proposed algorithm can be applied to systems with known time delay, as well as those with unknown dead time. Simulation studies are used to demonstrate the performance of this algorithm. The performance of this PID self tuner is also compared with a popular commercial auto-tuner for simulated systems and a laboratory-scale real plant     

Multiple-antenna differential lattice decoding

From a lattice viewpoint, Clarkson, Sweldens and Zheng significantly reduced the complexity of multiantenna differential decoding. Their approximate decoding algorithm, however, has not unleashed the full potential of lattice decoding. In this paper, we present several improved algorithms, generally referred to as differential lattice decoding (DLD), for multiantenna communication. We first analyze two distinct approximate DLD algorithms, and then develop an algorithm that exactly finds the closest lattice point in the Euclidean space. This exact DLD is subsequently augmented by local search to compensate for the remaining approximation. The small amount of extra complexity of the exact or augmented DLD is rewarded by a clear performance gain. We find that employing basis reduction is very effective to reduce the overall decoding complexity for high lattice dimensions. Moreover, the dimension of the lattice defined in this paper is independent of the number of receive antennas, which results in not only lower complexity, but also better performance for a multiantenna receiver.