Positron trapping at phase interfaces and dislocations in pearlitic eutectoid steel

Positron annihilation studies of isothermally annealed eutectoid steel revealed that positrons prefer to trap and annihilate at discrete dislocations rather than phase interfaces. PO-WE KAO, formerly with the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT.     

Thymic muscle cells bear acetylcholine receptors: possible relation to myasthenia gravis

Culture of dissociated thymus from rats and humans yielded cells identical to skeletal muscle with respect to morphology, contractility, electrophysiological properties, and the presence of acetylcholine receptors. These cells, strategically located in the thymus, may play a role in initiation of the autoimmune response against acetylcholine receptors, which is characteristic of myasthenia gravis.     

Residence time distribution in a twin screw extruder

The residence time distribution (RTD) in a fully intermeshing, corotating twin screw extruder was determined with a stimulus-response technique. In addition to varying three process parameters (i.e. throughput, screw rotational speed, and barrel temperature), two screw configurations were also studied: one containing four kneading block mixing sections, and the other consisting only of regular screw bushings. Although screw configuration was an important variable, it was found that for both configurations the throughput had the largest effect on RTD. The screw rotational speed was second in importance, and the barrel temperature change produced no effect. A fluid mechanical model based on the fluid flow in a partially-filled rectangular channel was used to explain the experimentally observed dependence of RTD on the process parameters. Reaction engineering approaches were adopted to compare the RTD results of two screw configurations with two idealized flows.     

Antitermitic and Antifungal Activities of Essential Oil of Calocedrus formosana Leaf and Its Composition

Calocedrus formosana Florin (Cupressaceae) is an endemic tree species in Taiwan; its timber is recognized for natural decay resistance. To examine the antitermitic and antifungal activities of leaf essential oil and its main constituents, C. formosana leaves were extracted and the essential oils analyzed by GC-MS. Bioactivity tests against the termite Coptotermes formosanus demonstrate that the LC50 value of leaf essential oil is 27.6 mg/g. Furthermore, exposure to T-muurolol caused 100% mortality at a dosage of 5 mg/g after 14 d. Leaf oil constituents displayed activity against four fungi, Lenzites betulina, Pycnoporus coccineus, Trametes versicolor, and Laetiporus sulphureus. Two compounds, alpha-cadinol and T-muurolol, exhibited the strongest antifungal activity. The LC50 values of alpha-cadinol against L. sulphureus, L. betulina, and T. versicolor are 9.9, 28.6, and 30.4 microg/ml, respectively.     

Radius margin bounds for support vector machines with the RBF kernel

An important approach for efficient support vector machine (SVM) model selection is to use differentiable bounds of the leave-one-out (loo) error. Past efforts focused on finding tight bounds of loo (e.g., radius margin bounds, span bounds). However, their practical viability is still not very satisfactory. Duan, Keerthi, and Poo (2003) showed that radius margin bound gives good prediction for L2-SVM, one of the cases we look at. In this letter, through analyses about why this bound performs well for L2-SVM, we show that finding a bound whose minima are in a region with small loo values may be more important than its tightness. Based on this principle, we propose modified radius margin bounds for L1-SVM (the other case) where the original bound is applicable only to the hard-margin case. Our modification for L1-SVM achieves comparable performance to L2-SVM. To study whether L1- or L2-SVM should be used, we analyze other properties, such as their differentiability, number of support vectors, and number of free support vectors. In this aspect, L1-SVM possesses the advantage of having fewer support vectors. Their implementations are also different, so we discuss related issues in detail.     

OSNR Monitoring Method for OOK and DPSK Based on Optical Delay Interferometer

We describe a simple method to measure the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) of on-off-keying (OOK) and differential phase-shift-keying (DPSK) signals by using an optical delay interferometer (ODI) having a sinusoidal and tunable passband. This OSNR monitoring method is independent of chromatic dispersion, polarization-mode dispersion, and noise polarization. We show experimentally that accurate OSNR measurements are made for a 10-Gb/s OOK signal by using a 1-bit ODI and a 40-Gb/s DPSK signal by using a partial-bit ODI with the OSNR ranging from 5 to 25 dB.     

Polarization Mode-Hopping Suppression and Performance Enhancement by Optical Feedback in a Current-Driven Polarization Switching VCSEL

This research investigates the effect of optical feedback on the characteristics of current-driven polarization switching (CDPS) in a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL). Experimental results indicate that the noise of polarization mode-hopping around the polarization switching current can be significantly suppressed by optical feedback. Furthermore, with the assistance of polarization-selective optical feedback, the percentage of successful switching of CDPS approaches to 100% at a driving frequency of up to 50 MHz. While, without optical feedback, that percentage is less than 26%. These results can be used to greatly enhance the performance of CDPS in VCSELs.     

A geometric method for automatic extraction of sulcal fundi

Sulcal fundi are 3-D curves that lie in the depths of the cerebral cortex and, in addition to their intrinsic value in brain research, are often used as landmarks for downstream computations in brain imaging. In this paper, we present a geometric algorithm that automatically extracts the sulcal fundi from magnetic resonance images and represents them as spline curves lying on the extracted triangular mesh representing the cortical surface. The input to our algorithm is a triangular mesh representation of an extracted cortical surface as computed by one of several available software packages for performing automated and semi-automated cortical surface extraction. Given this input we first compute a geometric depth measure for each triangle on the cortical surface mesh, and based on this information we extract sulcal regions by checking for connected regions exceeding a depth threshold. We then identify endpoints of each region and delineate the fundus by thinning the connected region while keeping the endpoints fixed. The curves, thus, defined are regularized using weighted splines on the surface mesh to yield high-quality representations of the sulcal fundi. We present the geometric framework and validate it with real data from human brains. Comparisons with expert-labeled sulcal fundi are part of this validation process.     

A reconstruction algorithm for breast cancer imaging with electrical impedance tomography in mammography geometry

The conductivity and permittivity of breast tumors are known to differ significantly from those of normal breast tissues, and electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is being studied as a modality for breast cancer imaging to exploit these differences. At present, X-ray mammography is the primary standard imaging modality used for breast cancer screening in clinical practice, so it is desirable to study EIT in the geometry of mammography. This paper presents a forward model of a simplified mammography geometry and a reconstruction algorithm for breast tumor imaging using EIT techniques. The mammography geometry is modeled as a rectangular box with electrode arrays on the top and bottom planes. A forward model for the electrical impedance imaging problem is derived for a homogeneous conductivity distribution and is validated by experiment using a phantom tank. A reconstruction algorithm for breast tumor imaging based on a linearization approach and the proposed forward model is presented. It is found that the proposed reconstruction algorithm performs well in the phantom experiment, and that the locations of a 5-mm-cube metal target and a 6-mm-cube agar target could be recovered at a target depth of 15 mm using a 32 electrode system.     

Site-specific health risk assessment of dioxins and furans in an industrial region with numerous emission sources

While the sources of releasing dioxins have received much attention, the health risks of incinerators are studied considerably more than those of other sources, such as metallurgical industry. Furthermore, risk assessments focus primarily on the effects of single sources; few have addressed the aggregate risks from multiple sources in a region. When many sources of dioxins exist in an area, such as the Industrial Park located in the densely populated district—Siaogang District in southern Taiwan where 17 primary known PCDD/F stationary emission sources are clustered, is the aggregate exposure to these sources imposing high risks even though individual sources comply with emission standards? The study combined the multimedia and multiple pathway exposure modeling and site-specific exposure scenario to assess dioxin risks contributed by the 17 emission sources in the District, including municipal waste incinerators, medical waste incinerators, sinter plants, electric arc furnace, secondary aluminum smelters, cement kilns, etc. The average cancer risk of a resident living in the District was found to be 3.43E−04 under the site-specific exposure scenario. The top emission source is the sinter plant, followed by the electric arc furnace. The information has driven the local government to conduct more complete assessment and at the same time to consider enforcing a stricter local standard of dioxin emissions in the Siaogang District.