Grain refinement of Al-7Si alloys and the efficiency assessment by recognition of cooling curves

Under sand cup solidification condition, the influence of Ti, B concentration, and holding time on the grain size of a high-purity Al-7Si alloy has been systematically studied. It is found that the grain size decreases rapidly at lower Ti or B additions, and is almost constant at the higher concentrations. For Al-3B refined Al-7Si alloys, the grain size increases at the initial period of holding time, and then rapidly becomes independent of holding time; while for Al-7Si alloys refined with Al-5Ti-1B, the grain size increases with holding time throughout. To evaluate the refinement efficiency, a new method named “intelligent evaluating of melt quality by pattern recognition of thermal analysis cooling curves” has also been introduced in this article. The results show that comparing the cooling curve of the evaluated melt with those in a database to find the most similar one to it can precisely assess the grain refinement efficiency of the measured Al-7Si alloy. In addition, the influence of Ti, B addition levels, and pouring temperatures on some characteristic parameters of cooling curve has also been discussed.     

Peripheral nerve injury as a complication from orthopedic operation

We report a case of pulmonary carcinosarcoma. Surgery is required for this rare mixed type, biphasic tumor. It is generally considered to be a malignant formation issuing from a single cell line but with a two-way differentiation into epithelial and conjunctive components. There is a differentiation continuum between spindle-cell carcinomas (also called monophasic sarcomatoid carcinoma) and carcinosarcoma (or biphasic sarcomatoid carcinoma) leading to debate concerning the immunohistochemical and ultrastructural features.     

A probabilistic method for the design of power grounding systems

An improved multivariable, probabilistic method for the safety analysis of power grounding systems is presented. The application of this method is demonstrated in four examples. The first three examples illustrate the practical evaluation of one new and two existing substation grounding grids when the substation is connected to an overhead distribution system. The fourth example ascertains the relative impact of a difference between the S curve of IEC Publication 479 and Dalziel's equation for the allowable body current used in ANSI/IEEE Std 80-1986 on the validity of an exposure model based on the requirements of Std 80. In this example, the statistical data on ground faults have been taken from actual system records. Further possible refinements of the exposure model are discussed     

八种新功能晶体的比热及其与相变掺杂物关系的实验研究

本文对八种新型功能晶体Ｌｉ２Ｂ４Ｏ７、Ｂｉ１２ＴｉＯ２０、Ｂｉ１２ＧｅＯ２０、Ｂｉ１２ＧｅＯ２０、Ｂｉ４Ｇｅ３Ｏ１２、Ｓｒ１－ｘＢａｘＮｂ２Ｏ６（ｘ＝０．３３，０．４８）、ＬｉＴａＯ３等在１３０～９７３Ｋ范围内的比热行为及其与相变、组分之间的关系进行了实验研究，给出了比热的多项式拟合方程，并与用纽曼－卡普定律及用Ｗｉｋｅｌｍａｎｎ经验方程的比热计算值作了对比，为晶体比热的估算提供了依据和方法。     

Study of 18-cm long single-sided AC-coupled silicon microstripdetectors

The SSC GEM silicon Central Tracker design incorporated 18-cm long single-sided AC-coupled silicon microstrip ladders. Compared to the 12-cm long ladders considered in the preliminary stages of the tracker design, the 18-cm long ladders have the advantage of reduced cost, channel count and overall power consumption, and led to a simplified tracker assembly. However, such long ships also present the challenge of maintaining satisfactory performance. The increased capacitance and series resistance contribute to lower signal-to-noise ratios, longer time walk, higher power consumption per channel and increased probability of crosstalk to neighboring channels. In this paper, an accurate method to calculate the geometric capacitance of the AC-coupled microstrips is presented and the calculated results are compared with measurements, SPICE simulations are performed to predict the noise, the extent of interstrip capacitive coupling and the dispersion of the detector signal due to the finite series resistance of the metal strips and the long length of the detector. The influence of the preamplifier current and the shaping time on the signal and noise levels is also presented. The study concludes that the 18-cm long ladders can successfully satisfy the performance goals of the GEM silicon Central Tracker     

Dexamethasone perfusion of the labyrinth plus intravenous dexamethasone for Ménière's disease

Recent clinical and laboratory evidence indicates that Meniere's disease is an immune-mediated disease. Dexamethasone perfusion of the inner ear through the round window plus intravenous dexamethasone often will stop the dizzy spells, reduce the fullness and low-frequency tinnitus, and sometimes improve the hearing in patients with Meniere's disease. The dexamethasone must act mostly on the endolymphatic sac and, to a lesser extent, on the stria vascularis and spiral ligament, the known targets of immune response in the inner ear, to reduce the endolymphatic hydrops and restore the fluid dynamics of the endolymph. Despite the good results with streptomycin perfusion, the number of patients with further hearing loss is large, so dexamethasone perfusion with intravenous dexamethasone should be tried first. The initial response to dexamethasone perfusion plus intravenous dexamethasone has been very good, with very little risk of further hearing loss, and it holds great promise for the future.     

Singular value decomposition-based MA order determination ofnon-Gaussian ARMA models

Singular-value-decomposition (SVD)-based moving-average (MA) order determination of non-Gaussian processes using higher-order statistics is addressed. It is shown that the MA order determination of autoregressive moving-average (ARMA) models is equivalent to the rank determination of a certain error matrix, and a SVD approach is proposed. Its simplified form is applied to pure MA models. To improve the robustness of the order selection, a combination of the SVD and the product of diagonal entries (PODE) test is proposed. Some interesting applications of the two SVD approaches are presented, and simulations verify their performance