Maternal performance differences between porcine stress syndrome-normal and -carrier Landrace females

Differences between porcine stress syndrome (PSS) normal (NN) and carrier (Nn) Landrace dams were determined for adjusted number of pigs born alive, adjusted number of pigs at 21 d, adjusted 21-d litter weight, proportion of pigs surviving to 21 d, and farrowing interval. Data were analyzed from a total of 841 females, 623 normal (NN) and 218 carriers (Nn) having 2,231 and 869 records, respectively. Three susceptible (nn) females from two herds were dropped from the analysis because of their small contribution to the total number of records. Frequency of the recessive PSS allele ranged from .07 to .28 in the nine herds involved in this study. Data were adjusted using Landrace breed-specific adjustments and analyzed with mixed-model derivative-free REML procedures fitting the dams' PSS genotype as a fixed effect in the model. Only females having two or more successive parities were used in the analysis of farrowing interval, resulting in a reduction of total records analyzed to 2,201 (1,564 NN and 637 Nn records) from 632 females (445 NN and 187 Nn females). No differences between NN and Nn dams were observed for adjusted number of pigs born alive, adjusted number of pigs at 21 d, adjusted 21-d litter weight, proportion of pigs surviving to 21 d, and farrowing interval. The results of this investigation indicate no significant maternal performance differences between PSS NN or Nn Landrace dams.     

Prospective study of the 1st 197 endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatographies (ERCP) in Basel (1973-1975)

Cannulation of the papilla has been successful in 144 out of 197 ERCPs. The rate of success increases with the experience of the endoscopist. The intended filling of the pancreatic duct was successful in 87%, of the bile ducts in 64% and of both duct systems in 28%. The correct diagnosis was made in 77% of pancreatic affections, 71% of biliary diseases and in 43% when both duct systems had to be evaluated. 10 ERCP findings disagreed with the final diagnosis, mainly because the distinction between acute and chronic pancreatitis was not correct. The differentiation of chronic pancreatitis from pancreatic carcinoma is not easy and the evaluation of processes localized to the papilla may be difficult. Complications occurred in 6.6%. It is concluded that the ERCP should be limited to regional hospital centers and should be performed only in cases with well defined indications.     

Improved Performance of Molecular Bulk‐Heterojunction Photovoltaic Cells through Predictable Selection of Solvent Additives

Solvent additives provide an effective means to alter the morphology and thereby improve the performance of organic bulk‐heterojunction photovoltaics, although guidelines for selecting an appropriate solvent additive remain relatively unclear. Here, a family of solvent additives spanning a wide range of Hansen solubility parameters is applied to a molecular bulk‐heterojunction system consisting of an isoindigo and thiophene containing oligomer as the electron donor and [6,6]‐phenyl‐C₆₁‐butyric acid methyl ester (PC₆₁BM) as the electron acceptor. Hansen solubility parameters are calculated using the group contribution method and compared with the measured solubilities for use as a screening method in solvent additive selection. The additives are shown to alter the morphologies in a semipredictable manner, with the poorer solvents generally resulting in decreased domain sizes, increased hole mobilities, and improved photovoltaic performance. The additives with larger hydrogen bonding parameters, namely triethylene glycol (TEG) and N‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidone (NMP), are demonstrated to increase the open circuit voltage by ~0.2 V. Combining a solvent additive observed to increase short circuit current, poly(dimethylsiloxane), with TEG results in an increase in power conversion efficiency from 1.4 to 3.3%.     

Polydimethylsiloxane as a macromolecular additive for enhanced performance of molecular bulk heterojunction organic solar cells

The effect of the macromolecular additive, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), on the performance of solution processed molecular bulk heterojunction solar cells is investigated, and the addition of PDMS is shown to improve device power conversion efficiency by ～70% and significantly reduce cell-to-cell variation, from a power conversion efficiency of 1.25 ± 0.37% with no PDMS to 2.16 ± 0.09% upon the addition of 0.1 mg/mL PDMS to the casting solution. The cells are based on a thiophene and isoindigo containing oligomer as the electron donor and [6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PC(61)BM) as the electron acceptor. PDMS is shown to have a strong influence on film morphology, with a significant decrease in film roughness and feature size observed. The morphology change leads to improved performance parameters, most notably an increase in the short circuit current density from 4.3 to 6.8 mA/cm(2) upon addition of 0.1 mg/mL PDMS. The use of PDMS is of particular interest, as this additive appears frequently as a lubricant in plastic syringes commonly used in device fabrication; therefore, PDMS may unintentionally be incorporated into device active layers.     

Player Simulation and General Adversary Structures in Perfect Multiparty Computation

The goal of secure multiparty computation is to transform a given protocol involving a trusted party into a protocol without need for the trusted party, by simulating the party among the players. Indeed, by the same means, one can simulate an arbitrary player in any given protocol. We formally define what it means to simulate a player by a multiparty protocol among a set of (new) players, and we derive the resilience of the new protocol as a function of the resiliences of the original protocol and the protocol used for the simulation. In contrast to all previous protocols that specify the tolerable adversaries by the number of corruptible players (a threshold), we consider general adversaries characterized by an adversary structure, a set of subsets of the player set, where the adversary may corrupt the players of one set in the structure. Recursively applying the simulation technique to standard threshold multiparty protocols results in protocols secure against general adversaries. The classical results in unconditional multiparty computation among a set of n players state that, in the passive model, any adversary that corrupts less than n/2 players can be tolerated, and in the active model, any adversary that corrupts less than n/3 players can be tolerated. Strictly generalizing these results we prove that, in the passive model, every function (more generally, every cooperation specified by involving a trusted party) can be computed securely with respect to a given adversary structure if and only if no two sets in the adversary structure cover the full set of players, and, in the active model, if and only if no three sets cover the full set of players. The complexities of the protocols are polynomial in the number of maximal adverse player sets in the adversary structure. Received 31 December 1997 and revised 26 February 1999     

The use of a velocity gauge in impact testing of polymers

A velocity gauge has been devised for fracture studies on polymers which seems to describe well the state of strain existing under the gauge. In view of the growing interest in impact properties, a detailed examination is made here on the characteristics of this gauge at high loading rates and high crack velocities. A range of polymers were tested which show that the state of elastic strain and the length of the plastic zone are recorded before the crack velocity is measured. An interesting feature resides in the fact that the small dimensions of the gauge permit considering these results as being dynamic parameters, directly linked to the crack tip behaviour. Some further possibilities are pointed out in the field of toughness measurements for high-impact resistant polymers.     

Conditionally-perfect secrecy and a provably-secure randomized cipher

Shannon's pessimistic theorem, which states that a cipher can be perfect only when the entropy of the secret key is at least as great as that of the plaintext, is relativized by the demonstration of a randomized cipher in which the secret key is short but the plaintext can be very long. This cipher is shown to be perfect with high probability. More precisely, the eavesdropper is unable to obtain any information about the plaintext when a certain security event occurs, and the probability of this event is shown to be arbitrarily close to one unless the eavesdropper performs an infeasible computation. This cipher exploits the assumed existence of a publicly-accessible string of random bits whose length is much greater than that of all the plaintext to be encrypted; this is a feature that our cipher has in common with the previously considered book ciphers. Two modifications of this cipher are discussed that may lead to practical provably-secure ciphers based on either of two assumptions that appear to be novel in cryptography, viz., the (sole) assumption that the enemy's memory capacity (but not his computing power) is restricted and the assumption that an explicit function is, in a specified sense, controllably-difficult to compute, but not necessarily one-way.A preliminary version of this paper was presented at Eurocrypt '90, May 21–24, Århus, Denmark, and has appeared in the proceedings, pp.361–373.     

Spatially resolved measurements of electron cyclotron resonance ion source beam profile characteristics

Simulations predict that the concentric rings and the triangular structures in the profiles of strongly focused ion beams that are found in different experiments should be dominated by ion species with the same or at least similar m/q-ratio. To verify these theoretical predictions we have tuned our ECR ion source to deliver a beam consisting of multiple ion species whose particular m/q-depending focusing ranges from weakly focused to overfocused. We then recorded spatially resolved charge-state distributions of the beam profile at characteristic positions in the plane perpendicular to the beam line. The results validate theoretical predictions and are summarized in this paper. To achieve the required beam profile characteristics we moved the extraction along the beam line to achieve stronger focusing than by only changing the extraction voltage. To fit the regions of interest of the beam profile into the transmission area of the sector magnet, we steered the beam by moving the extraction in the plane perpendicular to the beam axis. The results of both investigations, beam focusing and beam steering by using a 3D-movable extraction, are also reported in this paper. A brief overview of the new beam monitor extensively used during these measurements, the Faraday cup array, is also given.