Improved emission uniformity from a liquid-jet laser-plasma extreme-ultraviolet source

Many modern compact soft-x-ray and extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) imaging systems operate with small fields of view and therefore benefit from the use of small high-brightness sources. Such systems include water-window microscopes and EUV lithography tools. We show that the photon losses in such systems can be minimized while uniformity of object-plane illumination is maintained by controlled scanning of the source. The improved collection efficiency is demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally for a scanned laser-plasma source compared with static sources. A prospective aerial image microscope and a liquid-xenon-jet laser-plasma source are offered as examples of modern imaging tools that may benefit from such scanning of the source.     

Accent Patterning on Domain-Related Information in Swedish Travel Dialogues

Investigation of travel-domain dialogues reveals travel-agent (System) utterances with intonational contours characterized by late-timed focal accents on given information. These accents occur on content words in utterance-initial position. The accentuation can be assumed to be related to the interactive nature of the dialogue in which the travel agent links back to a domain-related concept introduced by the client (User) and comments on it in an engaged manner. A perception test using constructed human-machine dialogues in which the machine (synthesized) responses vary as to the type of accent pattern on the initial words was developed to test listeners' preference for accent type. Results indicate that i) focal accents on domain-related utterance-initial given concepts are indeed preferred to nonfocal accents and that ii) late-timed focal accents are preferred to early-timed focal accents. These results have implications for the design of the prosody-generating component of human-machine dialogue systems.     

Occupational posture exposure among construction electricians

The aim of this study is to record, objectively describe and compare working postures of Brazilian and Norwegian construction electricians. Postures of the upper arms, head, and neck during work and breaks were quantified by means of inclinometry for a representative sample of 12 Brazilian and 12 Norwegian electricians in the construction industry during a full work-shift. Despite that differences were found between specific work-related factors, Brazilian and Norwegian workers revealed a high and very similar level and pattern of postures for all evaluated body regions, suggesting that results could be extrapolated to other electricians. Upper arm elevation was high and similar for both groups and head flexion and extension was pronounced compared to other occupations. Thus, extreme postures were identified for construction electricians in both countries, with similar exposure pattern also for defined tasks (planning, support and wiredraw), suggesting that this job is risky regardless organizational differences.     

Inhibitory effects of interleukin-1 blockers on corneal fibroblast proliferation

The regulation of would healing is one of the most important fields of research in ophthalmology today. Rabbit corneal fibroblast cultures were used to study the effects of interleukin-1 (IL-1) blockers on the proliferation of fibroblasts which is closely related to the wound healing. It was found that IL-1 blockers, such as CK-17, CK-101A, CK-2 and CK-103A, suppress fibroblast proliferation in a concentration-dependent manner. DNA synthesis was significantly inhibited by CK-17 and CK-103A but not by CK-101A and CK1-102. Although the synthesis of mRNA was reduced by all CK-compounds at most concentration tested, the synthesis of protein was only slightly reduced or unaffected. These results indicate that CK-compounds are potent fibroblast inhibitors but not cytolytic agents.     

Creating Space for Research: The Charismatic Entrepreneur as Research Director

The paper discusses research leadership in public universities in a time of transformation. It focuses on the role of entrepreneurial strategies in creating space for research under conditions that increasingly depend on balancing managerial control in the university against openness to other knowledge organizations, arenas and networks. Here the generation of resources is becoming more important than ever, and a creative entrepreneurial strategy is a way to produce new knowledge centres. By analysing two new research groups in social science institutions in Denmark, we show how dilemmas, uncertainty and complex relations to other managerial systems in the universities can be decisive. Entrepreneurial network organizing offers a new platform for innovation in the university. We find that the charismatic traits of the research director have an important impact on the strength of this platform.     

10 Years of research on debugging concurrent and multicore software: a systematic mapping study

Debugging—the process of identifying, localizing and fixing bugs—is a key activity in software development. Due to issues such as non-determinism and difficulties of reproducing failures, debugging concurrent software is significantly more challenging than debugging sequential software. A number of methods, models and tools for debugging concurrent and multicore software have been proposed, but the body of work partially lacks a common terminology and a more recent view of the problems to solve. This suggests the need for a classification, and an up-to-date comprehensive overview of the area. This paper presents the results of a systematic mapping study in the field of debugging of concurrent and multicore software in the last decade (2005–2014). The study is guided by two objectives: (1) to summarize the recent publication trends and (2) to clarify current research gaps in the field. Through a multi-stage selection process, we identified 145 relevant papers. Based on these, we summarize the publication trend in the field by showing distribution of publications with respect to year, publication venues, representation of academia and industry, and active research institutes. We also identify research gaps in the field based on attributes such as types of concurrency bugs, types of debugging processes, types of research and research contributions. The main observations from the study are that during the years 2005–2014: (1) there is no focal conference or venue to publish papers in this area; hence, a large variety of conferences and journal venues (90) are used to publish relevant papers in this area; (2) in terms of publication contribution, academia was more active in this area than industry; (3) most publications in the field address the data race bug; (4) bug identification is the most common stage of debugging addressed by articles in the period; (5) there are six types of research approaches found, with solution proposals being the most common one; and (6) the published papers essentially focus on four different types of contributions, with “methods” being the most common type. We can further conclude that there are still quite a number of aspects that are not sufficiently covered in the field, most notably including (1) exploring correction and fixing bugs in terms of debugging process; (2) order violation, suspension and starvation in terms of concurrency bugs; (3) validation and evaluation research in the matter of research type; (4) metric in terms of research contribution. It is clear that the concurrent, parallel and multicore software community needs broader studies in debugging. This systematic mapping study can help direct such efforts.     

Neck postures in air traffic controllers with and without neck/shoulder disorders

Prolonged computer work with an extended neck is commonly believed to be associated with an increased risk of neck-shoulder disorders. The aim of this study was to compare neck postures during computer work between female cases with neck-shoulder disorders, and healthy referents. Based on physical examinations, 13 cases and 11 referents were selected among 70 female air traffic controllers with the same computer-based work tasks and identical workstations. Postures and movements were measured by inclinometers, placed on the forehead and upper back (C7/Th1) during authentic air traffic control. A recently developed method was applied to assess flexion/extension in the neck, calculated as the difference between head and upper back flexion/extension. Results: cases and referents did not differ significantly in neck posture (median neck flexion/extension: -10 degrees vs. -9 degrees ; p=0.9). Hence, the belief that neck extension posture is associated with neck-shoulder disorders in computer work is not supported by the present data.