The Fusion Science Research Plan for the Major U.S. Tokamaks

This is the May 1996 report of a subpanel of the US Department of Energy Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee (FESAC), charged with conducting a review of the progress, priorities and potential near-term contributions of TFTR, DIII-D and Alcator C-MOD (and other facilities as appropriate) as part of the transition to a Fusion Energy Sciences Program and produce an optimum plan for obtaining the most scientific benefit from them.     

Doucet,Michel; Fleck,Klaus E. W.: Wörterbuch der Rechts- und Wirtschaftssprache,Teil 1: Französisch-Deutsch, 6. Aufl.

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

2-Amino-3-substituted-6-[(E)-1-phenyl-2-(N-methylcarbamoyl)vinyl]imid azo[1,2-a]pyridines as a novel class of inhibitors of human rhinovirus: stereospecific synthesis and antiviral activity

A series of 2-amino-3-substituted-6-[(E)-1-phenyl-2-(N-methylcarbamoyl)vinyl]+ ++imid azo[1,2-a]pyridines 1a-i, structurally related to Enviroxime and its analogous benzimidazoles, was designed and prepared for testing as antirhinovirus agents. The imidazo ring in this class of compounds was constructed starting from the aminopyridine after tosylation and subsequent treatment with the appropriate acetamides. The key steps in the synthesis include the development and use of a new Horner-Emmons reagent for the direct incorporation of methyl vinylcarboxamide. The reaction was stereospecific in the substrates 5a-f leading exclusively to the desired E-isomer and avoiding the use of reverse-phase preparative HPLC for the separation of both possible isomers before antiviral activity evaluation. The isopropylsulfonyl group, known as the best substituent at the 1-position in the benzimidazole SAR in terms of activity, was introduced in this new series of imidazo[1,2-a]pyridines via halogen-metal exchange and subsequent treatment with isopropyl isopropanethiolsulfonate. Compounds 1a-i were evaluated in plaque reduction assay and in a cytopathic effect assay. Compounds 1b-d,h exhibited a strong antirhinovirus activity, and no apparent cellular toxicity was visible. The substitution at the 3-position was required for activity. Surprisingly the isopropylsulfonyl in this family of compounds did not enhance the activity as in the case of benzimidazoles. Instead, compound 1i was 4 times less active than its phenyl and sulfide partners. The chemistry as well as the biological evaluation are discussed.     

From sentence to emotion: a real-time three-dimensional graphics metaphor of emotions extracted from text

This paper presents a novel concept: a graphical representation of human emotion extracted from text sentences. The major contributions of this paper are the following. First, we present a pipeline that extracts, processes, and renders emotion of 3D virtual human (VH). The extraction of emotion is based on data mining statistic of large cyberspace databases. Second, we propose methods to optimize this computational pipeline so that real-time virtual reality rendering can be achieved on common PCs. Third, we use the Poisson distribution to transfer database extracted lexical and language parameters into coherent intensities of valence and arousal—parameters of Russell’s circumplex model of emotion. The last contribution is a practical color interpretation of emotion that influences the emotional aspect of rendered VHs. To test our method’s efficiency, computational statistics related to classical or untypical cases of emotion are provided. In order to evaluate our approach, we applied our method to diverse areas such as cyberspace forums, comics, and theater dialogs.     

The effects of surface oxidation on luminescence of nano diamonds

In this work we quantify and characterise the effects of air-oxidation on nitrogen-vacancy defect luminescence in both high-temperature-high-pressure and detonation synthesized nanodiamonds using Raman and luminescence spectroscopies. We find that oxidation treatments result in an increased nitrogen-vacancy centre excited state lifetime from 13 ns to 25 ns and in 5-nm diamonds the intensity of this luminescence increases by at least 5-fold. At the same time, in 5-nm diamonds, short lived surface-defect related luminescence is reduced by 10-fold. Furthermore we find that air oxidation reduces the sp² and disordered carbon fraction of nanodiamonds by up to 5-fold in 5-nm nanodiamonds. Based on these results, the authors suggest that the disordered-carbon and graphite shell of 5-nm nanodiamonds quenches nitrogen-vacancy luminescence, and that this quenching can be partially reduced by surface oxidation. These findings provide useful insights into the role of the graphite and disordered carbon shell in quenching luminescence, and have implications for the applicability of 5-nm nanodiamonds to bio- and quantum physics applications.     

New low-dimensional solids: Tellurium-rich alkali metal tellurides

The crystal and electronic structure of several recently reported tellurium-rich alkali metal tellurides is discussed. Some of these materials contain defective square planar tellurium lattices, which on the basis of band structure calculations are expected to be new low-dimensional metals. The structural interrelations between some of these new phases can be understood once the primordial template role of the alkali metal as well as the secondary Te…Te interactions are considered. Tellurium-rich alkali metal tellurides seem to be promising materials in the search for new solids with interesting structural and electronic properties.     

Bin-picking with a solid state range camera

In this paper we present new work done on the bin-picking problem. The work was triggered by the advent of a new solid state range camera which enables the economic and robust use of range imagery in industrial robotic automation tasks. The application presented is that of pick-and-place of randomly oriented but known polyhedral objects in an industrial robotic work cell. The algorithms for segmentation, pose estimation, and grasp point determination are presented along with practical results from a real industrial grade work cell.