Teaching materials to enhance the visual expression of Web pages for students not in art or design majors

The explosive growth of the Internet has made the knowledge and skills for creating Web pages into general subjects that all students should learn. It is now common to teach the technical side of the production of Web pages and many teaching materials have been developed. However teaching the aesthetic side of Web page design has been neglected, and students not in art or design majors are normally confronted with difficulties when they do expressive design of Web pages.     

Adaptive control design for a class of nonsmooth nonlinear systems with matched and linearly parameterized uncertainty

This paper presents an adaptive control design for a class of nonsmooth nonlinear systems with matched uncertainty, which is linearly parameterized with a known discontinuous function. The design framework is based on the concept of the Filippov solution as the classical Lyapunov theory for smooth systems cannot be applied to establish the stability of the adaptive control system due to the presence of the discontinuity. It is proved that as an adaptive control system, the global Lyapunov stability with the convergence of the state of the controlled system to the origin can be achieved by evaluating the monotonicity of the Lyapunov function in the state space, particularly on the discontinuous surface, while the uniqueness of the solution of the closed‐loop system is not necessarily guaranteed. Some interesting numerical examples are demonstrated with simulation results. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

FENECIA: failure endurable nested-transaction based execution of composite Web services with incorporated state analysis

Interest in the Web services (WS) composition (WSC) paradigm is increasing tremendously. A real shift in distributed computing history is expected to occur when the dream of implementing Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is realized. However, there is a long way to go to achieve such an ambitious goal. In this paper, we support the idea that, when challenging the WSC issue, the earlier that the inevitability of failures is recognized and proper failure-handling mechanisms are defined, from the very early stage of the composite WS (CWS) specification, the greater are the chances of achieving a significant gain in dependability. To formalize this vision, we present the FENECIA (Failure Endurable Nested-transaction based Execution of Composite Web services with Incorporated state Analysis) framework. Our framework approaches the WSC issue from different points of view to guarantee a high level of dependability. In particular, it aims at being simultaneously a failure-handling-devoted CWS specification, execution, and quality of service (QoS) assessment approach. In the first section of our framework, we focus on answering the need for a specification model tailored for the WS architecture. To this end, we introduce WS-SAGAS, a new transaction model. WS-SAGAS introduces key concepts that are not part of the WS architecture pillars, namely, arbitrary nesting, state, vitality degree, and compensation, to specify failure-endurable CWS as a hierarchy of recursively nested transactions. In addition, to define the CWS execution semantics, without suffering from the hindrance of an XML-based notation, we describe a textual notation that describes a WSC in terms of definition rules, composability rules, and ordering rules, and we introduce graphical and formal notations. These rules provide the solid foundation needed to formulate the execution semantics of a CWS in terms of execution correctness verification dependencies. To ensure dependable execution of the CWS, we present in the second section of FENECIA our architecture THROWS, in which the execution control of the resulting CWS is distributed among engines, discovered dynamically, that communicate in a peer-to-peer fashion. A dependable execution is guaranteed in THROWS by keeping track of the execution progress of a CWS and by enforcing forward and backward recovery. We concentrate in the third section of our approach on showing how the failure consideration is trivial in acquiring more accurate CWS QoS estimations. We propose a model that assesses several QoS properties of CWS, which are specified as WS-SAGAS transactions and executed in THROWS. We validate our proposal and show its feasibility and broad applicability by describing an implemented prototype and a case study.     

Production of monodisperse water-in-oil emulsions consisting of highly uniform droplets using asymmetric straight-through microchannel arrays

This paper reports the production of monodisperse water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions using new microchannel emulsification (MCE) devices, asymmetric straight-through MC arrays that were hydrophobically modified. The silicon asymmetric straight-through MC arrays consisted of numerous pairs of microslots and circular microholes whose cross-sectional sizes were 10 μm. This paper primarily focused on investigating the effect of the osmotic pressure of a dispersed phase (Π_d) on MCE. This paper also investigated the effects of the type of continuous-phase oils and the dispersed-phase flux (J _d) on MCE. The dispersed phases were Milli-Q water and Milli-Q water solutions containing sodium chloride. The continuous phases were decane (as control), hexane, medium chain triacylglyceride (MCT), and refined soybean oil (RSO) solutions containing tetraglycerin monolaurate condensed ricinoleic acid ester (TGCR) as a surfactant. At Π_d of exceeding threshold, highly uniform aqueous droplets with coefficients of variation of less than 3% were stably generated via hydrophobic asymmetric straight-through MCs. Monodisperse W/O emulsions with average droplet diameters between 32 and 45 μm were produced using the alkane–oil and triglyceride–oil solutions as the continuous phase. This work also demonstrated that the hydrophobic asymmetric straight-through MC array had remarkable ability to produce highly uniform aqueous droplets at very high J _d of up to 1,200 L m⁻² h⁻¹.     

Superconductivity in the tetragonal phase of La1.9Bi0.1CuO4+δ annealed under high oxygen pressure

We have investigated the relation between the crystal structure and superconductivity in La_1.9Bi_0.1CuO₄₊ , in which the phase separation observed in La₂CuO₄₊ is suppressed. A phase diagram in theT– plane is given for La_1.9Bi_0.1CuO₄₊ with excess oxygen. For very small values, the crystal structure is orthorhombic, and an orthorhombic-tetragonal phase transition occurs markedly at 0.03 in the measured temperature range between 13 and 293 K. Superconductivity is observed in the range of 0.04<<0.11. This is clear evidence thathigh-T _c superconductivity also appears in the tetragonal phase.     

Hot isostatic pressing of tetragonal ZrO2 solid-solution powders prepared from acetylacetonates in the system ZrO2-Y2O3-Al2O3

In compositions having ZrO₂/Y₂O₃=(74.25–71.25)/(0.75–3.75) (mol% ratio) with 25 mol% Al₂O₃, metastable t-ZrO₂ solid solutions crystallize at 780° to 860°C from amorphous materials prepared by the simultaneous hydrolysis of zirconium, yttrium and aluminium acetylacetonates. Hot isostatic pressing has been performed for 1 h at 1130 and 1230°C under 196 MPa using their powders. Two kinds of material are fabricated: (i) perfect ZrO₂ solid-solution ceramics and (ii) composites of ZrO₂ solid solution and -Al₂O₃. Their mechanical properties are examined, in connection with microstructures and t/m ZrO₂ ratios. Composites with a homogeneous dispersed -Al₂O₃ derived from solid-solution ceramics result in a remarkable increase of strength.     

A low wall-loading DEMO reactor design with high priority for early and reliable realization of a tokamak fusion reactor over the cost performance

Based on scientific databases adopted for designing ITER plasmas and on the advancement of fusion nuclear technology from the recent R&D program, a low wall-loading DEMO fusion reactor has been designed, where high priority has been given to the early and reliable realization of a tokamak fusion plasma over the cost performance. Since the major radius of this DEMO reactor is chosen to be 10 m, plasma ignition is achievable with a low fusion power of 0.8 GW and an operation period of 4–5 hours is available only with inductive current drive. The low ignition power makes it possible to adopt a first wall with an austenitic stainless steel, for which significant databases and operating experience exists, due to its use in the presence of neutron irradiation in fission reactors. In step with development of advanced materials, a step-wise increase of the fusion power seems to be feasible and realistic, because this DEMO reactor has the potential to produce a fusion power of 5 GW.     

Deformation and Fracture of Micron‐Sized Metal‐Coated Polymer Spheres: An In Situ Study

In situ imaging and analysis of the mechanical behavior of micron‐sized metal‐coated polymer particles under compression is reported. A nanoindentation set‐up mounted in a scanning electron microscope is used to observe the deformation and fracture of 10 μm polymer spheres with Ni, Ni/Au, Au, and Ag coatings. The spheres fracture in one of two metallization‐dependent modes, brittle, and ductile, depending only on the presence of a nickel layer. The metal coating always fractures parallel to the direction of compression. The mechanical properties up to the point of coating fracture are rate‐dependent due to the viscoelastic polymer core. Metal‐coated polymer spheres are an important composite material in electronics packaging, and this study demonstrates a novel method of evaluating the mechanical properties of particles to tailor them for electronic materials.

     

Rank 2 proximal Cantor systems are residually scrambled

Downarowicz and Maass [7 T. Downarowicz and A. Maass, Finite-rank Bratteli–Vershik diagrams are expansive, Ergod. Th. Dynam. Sys. 28 (2008), pp. 739–747.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]] proposed topological ranks for all homeomorphic Cantor minimal dynamical systems using properly ordered Bratteli diagrams. In this study, we adopt this definition to the case of the essentially minimal zero-dimensional systems. We consider the cases in which topological ranks are 2 and unique minimal sets are fixed points. Akin and Kolyada [2 E. Akin and S. Kolyada, Li–Yorke sensitivity, Nonlinearity 16(4) (2003), pp. 1421–1433.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], had shown that if the unique minimal set of an essentially minimal system is a fixed point, then the system must be proximal. The finite topological rank implies expansiveness; furthermore, in the case of proximal Cantor systems with topological rank 2, the expansiveness is always from the lowest degree. Rank 2 proximal Cantor systems are residually scrambled. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for the unique ergodicity of these systems. In addition, we show that the number of ergodic measures of the systems that are topologically mixing can be 1 and 2. Moreover, we present examples that are topologically weakly mixing, not topologically mixing, and uniquely ergodic. Finally, we show that the number of ergodic measures of the systems that are not weakly mixing can be 1 and 2.     

International trends in influenza control: preparing for the next pandemic and vaccination

The prevention of influenza continues to be a major public health concern, and a program of vaccination has been promoted, especially to high-risk individuals such as the elderly. In addition, concerted efforts are being expended in many developed countries in order to better cope with the next influenza pandemic. These efforts include enhancing influenza virus surveillance, improving vaccine production and its delivery systems, centralizing vaccine distribution and establishing priorities, etc. In Japan, on the other hand, influenza is only considered a minor illness, and thus little attention has been give to measures against influenza. To disseminate information on recent international trends in influenza control to Japanese public health specialists, I herein outline the recommendations made at two recent international meetings: "Pandemic Influenza: Confronting a Reemergent Threat" held in the u.s., at Bethesda, Maryland, in December 1995; and "The 7th European Meeting of Influenza and Its Prevention" held in Berlin. Germany, in September 1993. Since a routine system capable of responding adequately to annual epidemics is considered to be the best defense against a pandemic, I also describe the present state of influenza control in other countries to contrast it with that in Japan: the target groups for special vaccination programs recommended by the U.S. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices; the recommendations for influenza vaccination and reimbursement for the vaccination of recommended groups in developed countries: and influenza vaccine distribution in Japan and the U.S., 1980-1994. At present in Japan, the efficacy of the currently used inactivated vaccine is regarded as either very low or none at all. There is also no official national recommendations as to what groups should be targeted for active immunization, nor any system for vaccination reimbursement. Public health specialists in Japan, therefore need to fully understand Japan's peculiar situation and, as a result, better recognize the importance of influenza and its prevention.