Chemical quality of bottled waters from three cities in eastern Alabama

Twenty-five brands of bottled waters consisting of both purified and spring types collected randomly from three Alabama cities, USA were assessed for their suitability for human consumption. Water quality constituents analyzed include pH, conductivity, alkalinity, chloride, nitrate + nitrite, sulfate, phosphate, total carbon (TC), inorganic carbon (IC), total organic carbon (TOC), and 27 elements on the inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES). The results obtained were compared with US EPA drinking water standards and the European union (EU) drinking water directive. Ni was non-detectable in all the samples and Cu, Pb, Sb, Zn, Mn, Al, Cr, Mg, P, Ca, sulfate, chloride and nitrates + nitrites were all below their respective USEPA drinking water standards or EU maximum admissible concentrations (MAC). The conductivity, pH, As, Cd, Hg, Zn, Se and Tl values in some samples exceeded the EU and USEPA standards for drinking water. No sample had pH > 8.5, but seven bottled water brands analyzed were acidic (pH < 6.5). Most of the sampled brands had TOC concentrations exceeding 3 mg/l. The concentrations of most water quality constituents analyzed, in most cases, were higher in the spring water brands compared to the purified or distilled brands of bottled water. A one-way parametric analysis of variance (ANOVA) conducted on pH, conductivity, IC, TOC, Ca, Na, K, Mg, Se, sulfate, chloride and nitrate + nitrite values for 10 brands of bottled water to ascertain the homogeneity of variances within and between the brands, suggested significant differences in variances across the brands at a 95% confidence level except for selenium, sodium and calcium.     

40nm FPGA的功耗管理和优势

随着工艺尺寸的减小,数字逻辑电路的漏电流成为当前FPGA面临的主要挑战.静态功耗增大的主要原因是各种漏电流源的增加.图1所示为随着更小逻辑门长度的技术实现,这些漏电流源是怎样随之增加的.此外,如果不采取专门的功耗措施,较大的逻辑电容和较高的开关频率也会导致动态功耗增大.     

Performance profile comparison of the quasi-lumped element resonator antenna

The performance profile comparison of the quasi-lumped element resonator antenna is presented. The specific advantages of this antenna are investigated by comparing it to the standard long wire antenna approach, and, in particular, also to the many available differently loaded wire antenna approaches, which are also optimized for maximal radiation efficiency and directivity for example, the capacitively loaded long wire antenna and the planar H-shaped elements loaded transmission line design. It was noted that the quasi-lumped element resonator antenna formed by small interdigital capacitors and line inductors proved to be compact in size with an aperture size of 5.8 × 5.6 mm² and better directional characteristics.     

A novel 5.8 GHz quasi-lumped element resonator antenna

In this paper, a novel quasi-lumped element resonator antenna is presented. The proposed antenna consists of the interdigital capacitor in parallel with a straight line inductor and is fabricated on Duroid RC4003C circuit board. The entire arrangement was fed by a coaxial feed at a frequency of 5.8 GHz. The size, bandwidth and radiation patterns were studied. The proposed antenna exhibits better impedance bandwidth and significant size reduction in comparison with similar results obtained from the conventional microstrip patch antenna with similar feeding technique and resonant frequency. The size of the proposed antenna structure is 5.8 × 5.6 mm² and experimental results are shown to be in good agreement with the design simulation.     

Design of a negative conductance dielectric resonator oscillator for X-band applications

An X-band tunable microwave low-phase noise planar oscillator employing a novel-fed dielectric resonator (DR) with a single transistor has been investigated and realized. A ZrSnTi oxide composite ceramic-based DR with dielectric permittivity of 95 enclosed in a metallic cavity with an unloaded Q factor of 5,000 at 10 GHz is proposed. The resonant frequency affinity with respect to geometric parameters is established by using the compensation technique based on dual negative conductance feedback, the outputs of which are combined via a Wilkinson power divider (WPD). The feedback parallel-coupled DR oscillator is incorporated into a laminate microwave board using the photolithographic technique. The oscillator includes a pseudomorphic low noise amplifier based on a high-electron-mobility transistor. Hence, the proposed oscillator with mechanic tuning is measured, and the results show that DR resonates at TE _01δ mode with frequency of 10 GHz. The measured phase noise of the oscillator is –81.03 dBc/Hz at a 100 kHz offset.