Fast simulation of a kolmogorov phase screen

A previously presented method for modeling Kolmogorov phase fluctuations over a finite aperture is both formalized and improved on. The method relies on forming an initial low-resolution Kolmogorov phase screen from direct factorization of a covariance. The resolution of the screen is then increased by a randomized interpolation to produce a Kolmogorov phase screen of the desired size. The computational requirement is asymptotically proportional to the number of points in the phase screen.     

Early childhood intellectual differences between schizophrenic adults and their siblings.

Inferior premorbid intellectual performance of schizophrenics in comparison with normals has been found in a few studies. Because schizophrenia is more prevalent in the lower socioeconomic groups which are at the greatest disadvantage on tests anyway, the meaning of this difference has been obscure. IQs obtained in the 2nd grade for 36 children who later became adult schizophrenics were significantly lower than the means of their respective siblings who were tested with the same tests in the same grade. Control children matched for IQ and neighborhood did not differ significantly from the average of their siblings. These results suggest a genuine deficit in intellectual performance in early childhood, long before incipient schizophrenia was apparent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrated-circuit digital logic families II?TTL devices

TTL devices offer the distinct advantages of many complex functions, compatibility with DTL, and adaptability to many designs, including some highly complex ones. Because of their wide availability in the market, they are extremely attractive from an applications and price standpoint. This second part of a three-part article describes their use in medium- and high-speed circuits and also covers Schottky TTL devices.     

The structural features of TiO2 thin films formed by pyrosol methods

Photovoltaic cells employing an extremely thin absorber layer can be fabricated as p-i-n devices with TiO₂ as the transparent, n-type component. We have examined in detail the structural features of such TiO₂ films fabricated via an aerosol pyrolysis method. A precursor solution, produced by dissolving Ti powder in hydrogen peroxide and ammonium hydroxide, was diluted in water and atomized using a 2.4-MHz ultrasonic nebulizer. The resultant aerosol was transported with a carrier gas to heated, ITO-coated glass substrates. The effects on the film structures of different fabrication conditions were investigated. Samples were structurally characterized by X-ray powder diffraction and electron microscopy. Average properties were determined using synchrotron X-rays and a detailed mapping of structural features was provided by a laboratory diffraction system. The crystalline films were shown to consist of mostly anatase and to be compact. On average, the TiO₂ crystallites possessed significant microstrain that remained constant with increasing precursor concentration. Mapping across the aerosol footprint showed that the thickest and most crystalline films were formed from the greatest precursor concentration at 350 °C. Furthermore, it was also shown that the film crystallinity was significantly lower in a penumbra region, where a greater degree of preferred orientation was demonstrated.     

Structure-function relationships in high-density octadecylsilane stationary phases by Raman spectroscopy. 4. Effects of neutral and basic aromatic compounds

The effects of aromatic compounds (toluene, benzene, p-xylene, anisole, aniline, and pyridine), temperature, and surface grafting method (surface- or solution-polymerized) on alkyl chain rotational and conformational order in a series of high-density octadecylsilane stationary phases ranging in surface coverage from 3.09 to 6.45 micromol/m2 are examined by Raman spectroscopy. Rotational and conformational order are assessed using the intensity ratio of the antisymmetric to symmetric v(CH2) modes as well as the frequency at which the symmetric v(CH2) band is observed. Alkyl rotational and conformational order decrease with decreasing surface coverage in these aromatic compounds, which is consistent with the behavior of these materials in air and in other solvents. In addition, order of the alkyl chains is dependent on solvent hydrophobicity, hydrogen-bonding ability, and basicity. The most hydrophobic compounds impart disorder to the stationary phase; the hydrogen-bonding aromatics increase the rotational order of homogeneously distributed, high-surface-coverage materials; and basic aromatic compounds increase the conformational order of high- and low-coverage materials as the basic compounds undergo silanophilic interactions with exposed surface silanols. From these observations, molecular pictures of the chromatographic interface that display interactions between the alkyl chains and these aromatic compounds are proposed.     

A double-blind randomized vehicle-controlled clinical trial investigating the effect of ZnPTO dose on the scalp vs. antidandruff efficacy and antimycotic activity

Dandruff is a common problem in approximately 30% of the world's population. Reports in the literature regarding treatment of this condition with various antidandruff shampoos usually report the level of active ingredient within the formulation. However, we propose that a more important parameter relating to antidandruff efficacy is the amount of active ingredient delivered to the scalp from the shampoo. This report describes the results from two studies designed to investigate the relationship between the level of zinc pyrithione (ZnPTO) deposited onto the scalp and the resultant scalp condition. A double-blind randomized vehicle-controlled clinical study comparing three shampoos - a vehicle, a low-depositing ZnPTO shampoo and a high-depositing ZnPTO shampoo - was carried out in the U.K. with 53 panelists with dandruff or mild-to-moderate seborrheic dermatitis of the scalp. Both shampoos containing ZnPTO were significantly superior in antidandruff efficacy to the vehicle. Furthermore, the high-depositing ZnPTO shampoo was significantly superior compared with the low-depositing ZnPTO shampoo in terms of both antidandruff efficacy and antimycotic activity. Antidandruff performance and antimycotic activity of ZnPTO-containing shampoos is highly dependent on the amount of active ingredient delivered to the scalp. Furthermore, careful manipulation of the formulation parameters of an antidandruff shampoo can result in enhanced levels of delivery of the active ingredient without having to increase the level of active ingredient within the formulation.     

Out-of-Domain Utterance Detection Using Classification Confidences of Multiple Topics

One significant problem for spoken language systems is how to cope with users' out-of-domain (OOD) utterances which cannot be handled by the back-end application system. In this paper, we propose a novel OOD detection framework, which makes use of the classification confidence scores of multiple topics and applies a linear discriminant model to perform in-domain verification. The verification model is trained using a combination of deleted interpolation of the in-domain data and minimum-classification-error training, and does not require actual OOD data during the training process, thus realizing high portability. When applied to the "phrasebook" system, a single utterance read-style speech task, the proposed approach achieves an absolute reduction in OOD detection errors of up to 8.1 points (40% relative) compared to a baseline method based on the maximum topic classification score. Furthermore, the proposed approach realizes comparable performance to an equivalent system trained on both in-domain and OOD data, while requiring no OOD data during training. We also apply this framework to the "machine-aided-dialogue" corpus, a spontaneous dialogue speech task, and extend the framework in two manners. First, we introduce topic clustering which enables reliable topic confidence scores to be generated even for indistinct utterances, and second, we implement methods to effectively incorporate dialogue context. Integration of these two methods into the proposed framework significantly improves OOD detection performance, achieving a further reduction in equal error rate (EER) of 7.9 points     

Convection and radiation in layers of low-density fibrous insulants

Attempts to reduce national energy demands have led to increases in insulation thicknesses in roof spaces in northern Europe and North America. Generally it has been assumed that the apparent thermal conductivity of each material used has been a constant and equal to the value obtained in a testing laboratory under different conditions. Examination of the vertical temperature profiles through various horizontal thicknesses of loose-fill mineral wool insulants suggests that convection in the upper surface layers exposed to the free air and radiation contributions result in much larger apparent thermal conductivities than those quoted in the literature and the magnitudes of these effects increase with the thickness of the insulant layer.