Some factors affecting the electrical properties of carbon-black-loaded butyl rubber during vulcanization

Butyl rubber mixtures loaded with 70 phr general purpose furnace black (GPF) and tetramethyl thiuram disulphide (TMTD)/S as vulcanizing system were prepared. The kinetics of their electrical conductivity development during the vulcanization process were followed by using an especially devised system. It was found that the increase in the electrical conductivity during vulcanization obeys an exponential growth function with time constant τ, which markedly decreases with increasing vulcanization temperature as well as with the efficiency of the vulcanizing system. After completion of the vulcanization process, about 80 min, the samples obtained possess reasonable stability and reproducibility of electrical conductivity.     

Numerical investigation of nitriding of refractory metals (with account of the phase constitution diagrams for metal-gas systems)

A mathematical model of dissolution of gas in a metal is suggested with account of phase formation in accordance with the phase constitution diagram (PCD). The stage-by-stage saturation process to the final product formation is shown for an individual particle, through which a reaction wave passes, depending on the diffusion permeability of the metal and solubility conditions that obey Sieverts's law. The effect of the filtration supply of the oxidant to the reaction zone and the process exothermicity on the course of the process is shown.Institute of Structural Macrokinetics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Chernogolovka, Russia. Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 65, No. 4, pp. 447–450, October, 1993.     

A practical controller for explicit rate congestion control

This paper examines congestion control for explicit rate data networks. The available bit rate (ABR) service category of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks serves as an example system, however, the results of this paper are applicable to other explicit rate systems as well. After a plant model is established, an adaptive control strategy is presented. Several algorithm enhancements are then introduced. These enhancements reduce convergence time, improve queue depth management, and reduce parameter bias. This work differentiates itself from the other contributions in the area of rate-based congestion control in its balanced approach of retaining enough complexity as to afford attractive performance properties, but not so much complexity as to make implementation prohibitively expensive     

A Collection of Papers and Memoirs Celebrating the Contribution of Rod Burstall to Advances in Computer Science

Formal Aspects of Computing are dedicated to Professor Rod Burstall, and, as a collection of papers, memoirs and incidental pieces, form a Festschrift for Rod. The contributions are made by some of the many who know Rod and have been in uenced by him. The research papers included here represent some of the areas in which Rod has been active, and the editors thank their colleagues for agreeing to contribute to this Festschrift.     

Object-oriented H.263 compatible video coding platform forconferencing applications

This paper describes a prototype video coding platform meant for the conception and testing of multimedia products such as next-generation videophones. The platform is largely based on ITU-T Recommendation H.263, with a number of additional object-oriented quality enhancement features which make it especially well suited for very low bit-rate coding of “head-and-shoulders” video material typical of real-time multimedia applications, video teleconferencing, and video telephony. These features consist of: (1) segmentation into objects of interest, (2) segmentation-based prefiltering, (3) model-assisted rate control, (4) adaptive vector quantization, and finally (5) segmentation-based postfiltering. In the spirit of Recommendation H.263, these enhancements are modular and can be selectively turned on or off, thereby enabling a wide variety of coding modes     

Cathepsin D in diagnosis of neoplastic diseases

The paper presents a review of results concerning the aspartic proteinase cathepsin D and its role in tumor invasion and metastasis. Special attention was paid to the clinical prognostic value of cathepsin D determination in the breast cancer cytosol.     

Acquired hemophilia and rheumatoid arthritis. Value of intravenous immunoglobulins

The authors report an exceedingly rare complication of rheumatoid arthritis, i.e. acquired hemophilia due to anti-factor VIII autoantibody production. Treatment with intravenous immune globulin ensured control of hemorrhagic manifestations by inducing a transient rise in factor VIII level.