Microstrip loss calculations

Loss calculations have been performed for microstrip lines by relating the longitudinal component of current to the charge distributions obtained without the substrate. Comparison with experiment shows good agreement.     

The turnover time of dietary cholesterol in the lactating rat

The secretion of dietary 4-¹⁴C-cholesterol into milk of the rat was determined as a function of post-feeding time by a single dose technique. The time interval which elapsed before maximum specific radioactivity was reached in milk (17–20 hr after maximum activity in the serum) suggests a route through the mammary gland involving transport of the cholesterol by intracellular membranes. It also suggests that the exogenous cholesterol is incorporated into the milk fat globule membranes rather than into the fat globules during their synthesis within the cell. Paper No. 3978 in the Journal Series of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station.     

Effect of feeding a milk replacer to early-weaned pigs on growth, body composition, and small intestinal morphology, compared with suckled littermates

Feeding of milk replacer to early-weaned pigs was evaluated in two experiments. In Exp. 1, 18 litters of pigs were either weaned conventionally (d 21), split-weaned and fed milk replacer plus starter diet (d 14 and 21), or weaned and fed milk replacer plus starter diet (d 21). Split weaning combined with feeding a milk replacer increased ADG 22% from d 14 and d 28 compared to conventional weaning (P < .05). Feeding a milk replacer plus starter diet after weaning increased ADG 30% between d 21 and 28 compared to conventional weaning (P < .01). In Experiment 2, four litters of 12 pigs each were divided at d 18 into six heavy and six light pigs and randomized across sow-suckled, milk replacer, or starter diet groups. After 1 wk, pigs fed milk replacer weighed 20% more (P < .001), contained 10% more protein (P < .01) and 17% more fat (P < .05), and had 74% longer villi in the proximal small intestine (P < .001) than suckled pigs. In contrast, pigs fed starter diet weighed 19% less (P < .001), contained 20% less protein and fat (P < .001), and had 28% shorter villi in the proximal small intestine (P < .05) than suckled pigs. Therefore, milk replacer feeding the 1st wk after weaning stimulates pig development, both locally in the small intestine and on a whole-body basis, most likely by an increased energy and nutrient intake. Suckling beyond 18 d postnatally inhibits pigs to reach maximal potential weight gain. In conclusion, milk replacer feeding might be beneficial to reach maximal pig weight gain at weaning.     

Impedance and guide wavelength on an arbitrary ferromagnetic substrate

This letter indicates a useful extension of the duality which has already been recognised as relating the calculation of static inductance and capacitance of microstrip lines supported by a substrate with scalar permeability and permittivity. Values of characteristic impedance and guide wavelength obtained by this simplified and more exact approach are compared with previously published results.     

Effect of various water immersions on mechanical properties of roselle fiber–vinyl ester composites

In the present communication, the effect of water absorptions on mechanical properties of roselle fiber reinforced vinyl ester composites prepared by wet hand lay‐up method was studied. Water absorption tests were conducted by immersing composite specimens into three different water environments, namely distilled water, ground water, and sea water, which were at room temperature, for a period of 10 days. The water absorption behavior of composite was found to follow a non‐Fickian behavior. The maximum water absorption percent and diffusion coefficient were determined from the obtained water absorption curves. The scanning electron microscopy was used for the fractographic studies on the fractured surface of composite. The results show that composites exposed to sea water environment absorb more water absorption percent than that of other water environments. It was observed that the water absorption percent increased with increasing fiber loading. Mechanical properties of dry composite specimens were compared with wet composite specimens. Mechanical properties were found to decrease with an increasing percentage of water uptakes. POLYM. COMPOS., 36:1638–1646, 2015. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Parameter estimation in stochastic mammogram model by heuristic optimization techniques.

The appearance of disproportionately large amounts of high-density breast parenchyma in mammograms has been found to be a strong indicator of the risk of developing breast cancer. Hence, the breast density model is popular for risk estimation or for monitoring breast density change in prevention or intervention programs. However, the efficiency of such a stochastic model depends on the accuracy of estimation of the model's parameter set. We propose a new approach-heuristic optimization-to estimate more accurately the model parameter set as compared to the conventional and popular expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. After initial segmentation of a given mammogram, the finite generalized Gaussian mixture (FGGM) model is constructed by computing the statistics associated with different image regions. The model parameter set thus obtained is estimated by particle swarm optimization (PSO) and evolutionary programming (EP) techniques, where the objective function to be minimized is the relative entropy between the image histogram and the estimated density distributions. When our heuristic approach was applied to different categories of mammograms from the Mini-MIAS database, it yielded lower floor of estimation error in 109 out of 112 cases (97.3 %), and 101 out of 102 cases (99.0%), for the number of image regions being five and eight, respectively, with the added advantage of faster convergence rate, when compared to the EM approach. Besides, the estimated density model preserves the number of regions specified by the information-theoretic criteria in all the test cases, and the assessment of the segmentation results by radiologists is promising.     

Characterization and modeling of oxide chemical-mechanicalpolishing using planarization length and pattern density concepts

Chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) has emerged as the dominant dielectric planarization method due to its ability to reduce topography over longer lateral distances than earlier techniques. However, CMP still suffers from pattern dependencies that result in large variation in polished oxide thickness across typical chips, which can impact circuit performance and yield. A comprehensive semiphysical pattern dependent model of the CMP process, integrated with a parameter extraction and process characterization methodology, has been developed to enable accurate and efficient prediction of post-CMP oxide thickness across patterned chips. In the characterization phase, test wafers are polished to obtain model parameters for the desired CMP process. Standard test layouts have been defined which consist of regions with different feature density and pitch; a new contribution is the inclusion of "step density" structures which provide large abrupt post-CMP thickness variations to improve parameter extraction. The key extracted parameter which characterizes the particular CMP process is the planarization length