Economic implications of bovine somatotropin use for the Arizona dairy industry

This study examined the impacts of bST on income of dairy producers in Arizona. The nature of milk production in Arizona, the institutional aspects of the Milk Order, and the supply management program of the United Dairymen of Arizona (the only milk cooperative in Arizona) were considered in the model. Prices declined with increased milk yields from bST. Three dairy enterprise budgets demonstrated that gross revenue minus variable costs initially increased for adopters of bST but declined for nonadopters. If government milk purchase increases cause support price reductions, gross revenues less variable costs would decrease for both adopters and nonadopters but more for nonadopters. Adjustments in size of dairy farms would be required if increased milk production due to bST is large enough to result in decreases in milk price support levels.     

Evolution of Stress Failure Resulting from High-Temperature Stress-Corrosion Cracking in a Hot Isostatically Pressed Silicon Nitride

Stress-corrosion cracking in a commercially available, hot isostatically pressed (HIPed), yttria-fluxed, silicon nitride was the prevalent mode of failure in specimens creepruptured at 1370°C. High-temperature diffusional processes associated with oxygen were responsible for the creation of an advancing stress-corrosion front that had formed at the specimen surface and advanced radially inward. The volume of material in the wake of the stress-corrosion front possessed a high concentration of lenticular cavities at two-grain boundaries, a high concentration of multigrain junction cavities, and large amorphous "pockets" in other multigrain junctions that were abnormally rich in oxygen and yttrium. The combination of tensile stress and the high concentration of cavities in the near-surface volume of the material resulted in microcrack coalescence or the formation of a planar, stress-corrosion crack . The concurrent growth of the stress-corrosion front and crack during the tensile creep-rupture tests ultimately led to stress-induced failure.     

First use of an airborne thermal infrared hyperspectral scanner for compositional mapping

In May 1999, the airborne thermal infrared hyperspectral imaging system, Spatially Enhanced Broadband Array Spectrograph System (SEBASS), was flown over Mormon Mesa, NV, to provide the first test of such a system for geological mapping. Several types of carbonate deposits were identified using the 11.25-μm band. However, massive calcrete outcrops exhibited weak spectral contrast, which was confirmed by field and laboratory measurements. Because the weathered calcrete surface appeared relatively smooth in hand specimen, this weak spectral contrast was unexpected. Here we show that microscopic roughness not readily apparent to the eye has introduced both a cavity effect and volume scattering to reduce spectral contrast. The macroroughness of crevices and cobbles may also have a significant cavity effect. The diminished spectral contrast is important because it places higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) requirements for spectroscopic detection and identification. This effect should be factored into instrumentation planning and interpretations, especially interpretations without benefit of ground truth. SEBASS had the required high SNR and spectral resolution to allow us to demonstrate for the first time the ability of an airborne hyperspectral thermal infrared scanner to detect and identify spectrally subtle materials.     

Stable and unstable angina: Identifying novel markers on circulating leukocytes

There is currently no blood-based test that can rapidly and objectively distinguish between chest pain which is initiated by increased myocardial oxygen demand (stable angina pectoris (SAP)) and chest pain initiated due to decreased coronary blood flow (unstable angina pectoris (UAP)). Since leukocytes play an active role in the progression of coronary artery disease (CAD), we hypothesize these can provide novel markers of SAP and UAP. Here we use a microarray of 82 cluster of differentiation (CD) antibodies (plus controls) to selectively immobilize peripheral blood mononuclear cells. We find that the pattern of leukocyte immobilization from patients with CAD significantly differs from healthy donors. Within the CAD group, 15 SAP patients exhibited significant (p<0.05) changes in 8 of 82 CD antibody spots compared to 19 age-matched healthy blood donors. An additional ten CD antigens differed between healthy donors and patients with UAP (p<0.05). Furthermore, seven CD antibody spots are significantly different between SAP and UAP patients. These preliminary data suggest it is now appropriate to undertake a larger clinical trial to test the hypothesis that these antibody microarrays can monitor the progression from SAP to UAP.     

Changes in cardiac output and total peripheral resistance during development of renal hypertension in the rabbit: lack of confomity with the autoregulation theory

Serial measurements of cardiac output (CO), mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate, and total peripheral resistance (TPR), were made on unanesthetized rabbits with previously implanted Doppler flowmeters. After 2 days of control measurements the rabbits were subjected alternatively to bilateral renal cellophane wrapping (wrap group) or to sham operation and additional measurements were made 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 25, and 32 days after operation. During the 1st week after operation changes in CO were identical in the wrap and sham-operated groups, with an overall increase to a value of 110% of control on day 4 (P less than 0.05). Thereafter CO fell gradually, reaching 75% of control by day 32 in the wrap group, but only 95% of control in the sham-operated group. When CO was expressed per unit of body weight the latter differences were somewhat reduced, but still were significant. In wrap animals MAP and TPR rose progressively to 155% and 194% of control by day 32. In the sham-operated group the corresponding increases to 108% and 118% of control were significantly smaller. The MAP and TPR of the renal wrap rabbits exceeded the values in sham-operated rabbits, even over the 1st week after operation, by an average for MAP of 8.6 +/- 1.4% (P less than 0.001), and for TPR of 8.0 +/- 2.5% (P = 0.01). The results suggest that the changes in CO during the 1st week were a nonspecific consequence of the preceding wrap or sham operation. They bore no apparent relationship to the subsequent development of the hypertension which was "resistance-mediated" from the earliest stages. We conclude that the present findings for the rabbit differ from those reported for other species and do not conform to the changes predicted by the autoregulation theory of the pathogenesis of hypertension.     

Electrical Properties of Lead Zirconate Titanate Thin Films With a ZrO2 Buffer Layer on an Electroless Ni-Coated Cu Foil

The effect of zirconia (ZrO₂) buffer layers on the phase development and electrical properties of lead zirconate titanate (PZT, 52/48) capacitors on an electroless Ni (P)-coated Cu foil was investigated. It was demonstrated that the buffer layer can be used to engineer the final properties. The incorporation of the ZrO₂ buffer layers retained acceptable capacitance densities (>350 nF/cm² for 50 nm thick ZrO₂), while significantly reducing leakage currents and improving reliability (<10⁻⁷ A/cm² after 1 h at 25 VDC for 100 nm thick ZrO₂), compared with PZT thin films directly on electroless Ni (P). The results are particularly important for embedded capacitor applications.     

Stereoscopic highlighting: 2D graph visualization on stereo displays

In this paper we present a new technique and prototype graph visualization system, stereoscopic highlighting, to help answer accessibility and adjacency queries when interacting with a node-link diagram. Our technique utilizes stereoscopic depth to highlight regions of interest in a 2D graph by projecting these parts onto a plane closer to the viewpoint of the user. This technique aims to isolate and magnify specific portions of the graph that need to be explored in detail without resorting to other highlighting techniques like color or motion, which can then be reserved to encode other data attributes. This mechanism of stereoscopic highlighting also enables focus+context views by juxtaposing a detailed image of a region of interest with the overall graph, which is visualized at a further depth with correspondingly less detail. In order to validate our technique, we ran a controlled experiment with 16 subjects comparing static visual highlighting to stereoscopic highlighting on 2D and 3D graph layouts for a range of tasks. Our results show that while for most tasks the difference in performance between stereoscopic highlighting alone and static visual highlighting is not statistically significant, users performed better when both highlighting methods were used concurrently. In more complicated tasks, 3D layout with static visual highlighting outperformed 2D layouts with a single highlighting method. However, it did not outperform the 2D layout utilizing both highlighting techniques simultaneously. Based on these results, we conclude that stereoscopic highlighting is a promising technique that can significantly enhance graph visualizations for certain use cases.     

An optimal QoS-based Web service selection scheme

Quality-of-service (QoS) in Web services encompasses various non-functional issues such as performance, dependability and security, etc. As more and more Web services become available, QoS capability is becoming a decisive factor to distinguishing services. This study proposes an efficient service selection scheme to help service requesters select services by considering two different contexts: single QoS-based service discovery and QoS-based optimization of service composition. Based on QoS measurement metrics, this study proposes multiple criteria decision making and integer programming approaches to select the optimal service. Experimental results show that the scheme is not only efficient, but also works well for complicated scenarios.     

Lead‐Free Perovskite Nanowire‐Employed Piezopolymer for Highly Efficient Flexible Nanocomposite Energy Harvester

In the past two decades, mechanical energy harvesting technologies have been developed in various ways to support or power small‐scale electronics. Nevertheless, the strategy for enhancing current and charge performance of flexible piezoelectric energy harvesters using a simple and cost‐effective process is still a challenging issue. Herein, a 1D–3D (1‐3) fully piezoelectric nanocomposite is developed using perovskite BaTiO₃ (BT) nanowire (NW)‐employed poly(vinylidene fluoride‐co‐trifluoroethylene) (P(VDF‐TrFE)) for a high‐performance hybrid nanocomposite generator (hNCG) device. The harvested output of the flexible hNCG reaches up to ≈14 V and ≈4 µA, which is higher than the current levels of even previous piezoceramic film‐based flexible energy harvesters. Finite element analysis method simulations study that the outstanding performance of hNCG devices attributes to not only the piezoelectric synergy of well‐controlled BT NWs and within P(VDF‐TrFE) matrix, but also the effective stress transferability of piezopolymer. As a proof of concept, the flexible hNCG is directly attached to a hand to scavenge energy using a human motion in various biomechanical frequencies for self‐powered wearable patch device applications. This research can pave the way for a new approach to high‐performance wearable and biocompatible self‐sufficient electronics.     

Electrolysis of liquid hydrogen sulphide

Electrolysis of liquid hydrogen sulphide has been investigated. Pyridine was used to provide conductivity. The cathodic current efficiency for hydrogen production was 99.7 ± 0.5%; sulphur was the major anodic product with a current efficiency of 84.2 ± 4.5%. Ohmic losses in the solution were the largest source of voltage drop.