II. Yeast sequencing reports. Sequence of a segment of yeast chromosome II shows two novel genes,one almost entirely hydrophobic and the other extremely asparagine-serine rich

A 3·2 kb EcoRI fragment of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae was entirely sequenced. Two new open reading frames were identified. The first is extremely hydrophobic, and would likely be an integral membrane protein. It has significant similarity to only one reported gene, a gene of unknown function from Drosophila melanogaster. The second ORF is asparagine-rich and very serine-rich, with a remarkable stretch of nearly 26 consecutive asparagine residues comprised of the same codon. It has no significant similarity to any reported gene. The fragment maps to chromosome II on the left arm between the CDC27 and ILS1 loci. The nucleotide sequence reported in this paper has been deposited in the GenBank database with the Accession Number M89908.     

Nature of terpenoids of aTaxodioxylon gypsaceum from the fossil forest of Dunarobba (Italy)

A specimen fromt he fossil forest of Dunarobba (Central Italy) attributed toTaxodioxylon gypsaceum was chemically analyzed particularly for its terpene content. Main chemical constituents show variations related to ageing and carbonization process, while terpene content exhibits a drop of mono- and sesquiterpenes in favour of diterpenes and higher MW compounds. All components are exclusively hydrocarbons and represent alicyclic or partially aromatic structures. The identified families include abietane, phyllocladane, norabietane and norpimarane among diterpenes and traces of cadinane and selinane among sesquiterpenes.     

Effect of crack-growth mechanism on the prediction of fracture load of adhesive joints

This paper presents observations regarding the cracking behavior of tensile-loaded structural adhesive joints. Experiments showed that fracture occurred by the development and propagation of a damage zone, rather than a single, sharp crack, and that the presence of the adhesive spew fillet did not affect the fracture load of the adhesive joints studied. For joints bonded with the mineral-filled epoxy Cybond 4523GB (American Cyanamid), there was approximately 5 mm of subcritical crack propagation prior to final fracture. Fracture-load predictions based on the initial uncracked geometry made in previous papers were unaffected by this small change in geometry. For joints bonded with the rubber-toughened epoxy Permabond ESP 310, approximately 50 mm of subcritical crack propagation was observed. It was again found that predictions made in previous papers on the basis of the initial geometry gave a good estimate of the final fracture load even though this subcritical crack propagation significantly altered the geometry, and thus the applied energy release rates. The effect of shear deformations of the adherends was also investigated, and it was found that shear deformations could be neglected in engineering calculations for joints subject to remote tensile loading.     

A multi-purpose CMOS sensor interface for low-power applications

A dedicated low-power CMOS transponder microchip is presented as part of a novel telemetry implant for biomedical applications. This mixed analog-digital circuit contains an identification code and collects information on physiological parameters, i.e., body temperature and physical activity, and on the status of the battery. To minimize the amount of data to be transmitted, a dedicated signal processing algorithm is embedded within its circuitry. All telemetry functions (encoding, modulation, generation of the carrier) are implemented on the integrated circuit. Emphasis is on a high degree of flexibility towards sensor inputs and internal data management, extreme miniaturization, and low-power consumption to allow a long implantation lifetime     

Degrees and diversity at work

A study of of over 3000 engineers and scientists employed in the United States explored the interplay of levels of education with gender and native versus immigrant status. The results suggest that some of these R&D professionals may be underutilised and perhaps less effective than they could be     

Combined statistical study of joint angles and ground reactionforces using component and multiple correspondence analysis

The purpose of this research is to propose a general methodology to draw gait patterns when including hip, knee and ankle angle excursions in the sagital plane and the three components of the ground reaction force. The multidimensional signal analysis procedure is divided into three main stages: 1) describing the six signals of each step through sliding averages computed for successive time windows, 2) analyzing separately the six step-by-window tables obtained for each signal through principal component analysis to reduce the excessive quantity of data, and 3) analyzing the most informative time windows of the six signals at the same time. To emphasize both linear and nonlinear relationships between the respective time windows, the signal range within a window is cut into fuzzy modalities such as, “low” “medium” and “large.” The resulting table is investigated using multiple correspondence analysis. The outcomes are gait patterns combining both time and space aspects. The factor planes obtained from multiple correspondence analysis constitute initial data models so that new data obtained from pathological gait can be directly projected onto them. Such an operation can be used to show how the rehabilitation of a particular subject evolves in relation to normal gait patterns     

Modeling pentode-like characteristics of recessed-gate staticinduction transistor

A new analytical model is described for the pentode-like region of the characteristics of recessed-gate SIT structures. The model allows one to investigate the transition from saturating characteristics of long channel JFET's to nonsaturating behavior of SIT devices, taking into account realistic device geometry     

On the hot-carrier-induced post-stress interface trap generation inn-channel MOS transistors

A continued fast interface trap generation is observed in n-channel MOS transistors after termination of the hot-carrier stress. The magnitude of this post-stress effect is strongly dependent on the conditions of the preceding stress, on the post-stress conditions and on the process parameters. For measurements at 293 K, a simple model is proposed which is based on the release of hydrogen by the thermal detrapping of holes, and which can explain the observed dependencies. The importance of the post-stress D_it-generation is illustrated for the case of dynamic stress conditions where it can lead to an apparently deviating degradation behavior