Controlling thickness to tune performance of high-mobility transparent conducting films deposited from Ga-doped ZnO ceramic target

Structure modification has been found to tune significantly the transparent-conducting performance, especially mobility and conductivity of hydrogenated Ga-doped ZnO (HGZO) films. The strong correlation between film thickness and mobility of the films is revealed. The mobility increases quickly with increasing the thickness from 350 to 900 nm, and then tends to be saturated at further thicknesses. A higher mobility than 50 cm²/Vs can be achieved, which is an extra-high value for polycrystalline ZnO films deposited by using the sputtering technique. The thickness-dependent mobility originates from scatterings on grain boundaries and dislocation-induced defects controlled by thin-film growth. Based on the Volmer-Weber model, an expansion model is built up to describe the thickness-dependent crystal growth of the HGZO films, especially at the thick films. As a result, the 800 nm-thick HGZO film obtains the highest performance with high mobility of 51.5 cm²/Vs, low resistivity of 5.3 × 10^?4 Ωcm, and good transmittance of 83.3 %.     

High affinity presentation of an autoantigenic peptide in type I diabetes by an HLA class II protein encoded in a haplotype protecting from disease

Tissue composition and the distribution of body mass are described for four genera of East African Bovidae (Madoqua, Gazella, Damaliscus, Hippotragus) with supporting data from four others (Neotragus, Oryx, Tragelaphus, Connochaetes). These species are high in muscle mass, an adaptation convergent with other high-speed terrestrial cursors, bounders, and saltators. The segments below the elbow/cubitus and knee/stifle/genu joints in small bovids are both lighter in percent of total body mass (8.6% TBM) and less heavily muscled (10-15% of total limb musculature) than those segments in macaques (13.6% TBM, 20-25% of the limb musculature). Bovid species differ from one another in the regional distribution of muscle mass. Madoqua kirkii (4-5 kg) concentrates muscle in the lumbar extensors and hindlimbs; large species such as Damaliscus doreas (50-60 kg) and Hippotragus niger (160-220 kg) distribute it more evenly between the lumbar and cervical regions and between the hindlimbs and forelimbs. Gazella dorcas (10-20 kg) is quantitatively intermediate in those characteristics. The redistribution of muscle mass with increasing size correlates with the loss of axial bending of the vertebral column: in small, hindlimb dominant, 'dorsomobile' species such as Madoqua sagittal mobility increases stride length through 'extended' suspension; in large 'dorsostable' species such as Damaliscus and Hippotragus the vertebral column resists bending, consequently abbreviating or omitting this non-contact phase of the gait cycle. Locomotor adaptation as it is reflected in size, shape, and musculoskeletal structure is the key to habitat choice, dietary specialization, social structure, and male agonistic behavior and, therefore, central to the fabric of behavioral ecology.     

Improved modulation techniques for PWM-VSI drives

PWM-VSI based AC motor drives have two main problems. The inverter is nonlinear which causes instability problems in some specific working points of the AC machine and it emits acoustic noise due to the switching frequency. Nonlinearities like dead-time in the inverter, load dependent DC-link voltage ripple and the voltage drop across the switches are modeled and compensated by improved modulation techniques in order to obtain an almost ideal inverter. Different feedback and feedforward techniques are proposed. The acoustic noise is reduced by using a random modulation strategy. Measurements show a significant improvement by using feedforward and feedback techniques for linearizing the inverter. An improvement in reduction of the acoustic noise emission is also achieved by using random modulation. It is concluded that a combination of a random modulation strategy and feedforward/feedback techniques gives an almost ideal AC motor drive system     

Frontiers in research on cystic fibrosis: understanding its molecular and chemical basis and relationship to the pathogenesis of the disease

In recent years a new family of transport proteins called ABC transporters has emerged. One member of this novel family, called CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator), has received special attention because of its association with the disease cystic fibrosis (CF). This is an inherited disorder affecting about 1 in 2000 Caucasians by impairing epithelial ion transport, particularly that of chloride. Death may occur in severe cases because of chronic lung infections, especially by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which cause a slow decline in pulmonary function. The prospects of ameliorating the symptoms of CF and even curing the disease were greatly heightened in 1989 following the cloning of the CFTR gene and the discovery that the mutation (deltaF508), which causes most cases of CF, is localized within a putative ATP binding/ATP hydrolysis domain. The purpose of this introductory review in this minireview series is to summarize what we and others have learned during the past eight years about the structure and function of the first nucleotide binding domain (NBF1 or NBD1) of the CFTR protein and the effect thereon of disease-causing mutations. The relationship of these new findings to the pathogenesis of CF is also discussed.     

In vivo clonal expression of T lymphocytes specific for an immunodominant N-terminal myelin basic protein epitope in healthy individuals

The role of myelin basic protein (MBP) T cell recognition in the induction of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis (EAE) has been well established in mice and rats. A remarkable restriction has been observed in T cell receptor (TCR) genes utilized by encephalitogenic T cell lines (TCLs) specific for immunodominant epitopes in these species. Pathological similarities between this animal model and multiple sclerosis (MS) has led to consider MBP as a major candidate autoantigen in this human disorder. Unlike in inbred strains of animals, the T cell response to MBP in humans is quite heterogenous with regard to fine epitope specificity. The existence of V alpha and/or V beta restriction in MBP-specific T cells, from MS patients and healthy controls, is still a matter of debate. In this study we generated 77 MBP-specific TCLs from nine healthy donors and showed that peptide 7-27 is one of the most frequently recognized epitopes. 37% of all epitope-specific TCLs recognized this peptide and p7-27 specific TCLs were generated from seven out of the nine subjects studied. A high level of in vivo clonal expansion was observed in p7-27-specific TCLs in several subjects, which however is not specific of this epitope since this phenomenon was also observed in p85-104- and 149-162-specific TCLs.     

Cardiac risk in surgery. A review and guidelines for risk evaluation and reduction of cardiac risk in general surgery

We report herein the phenotypic and functional analysis of human bone marrow and thymus derived early T cells. Commitment to T cell lineage is acquired during CD7 antigen expression by CD34+ precursors in human bone marrow and before thymus colonization. Early thymocytes show similar phenotypic characteristics as bone marrow T cells. They rapidly acquire CD4 before the dual expression of CD4 and CD8. Their expansion and differentiation is regulated by two major factors: thymic stroma and cytokines produced by these stroma cells or by thymocytes themselves. Among cytokines, IL1 and sCD23 produced by thymic epithelial cells support in vitro early T cell development.     

Excited-state-absorption cross sections and amplifier modeling inthe 1300-nm region for Nd-doped glasses

The performance of Nd³⁺-doped fibre amplifiers is limited by strong excited-state absorption (ESA) of the signal, and, even for fluorozirconate glasses, ESA prevents the important region below 1320 nm from being used. To quantify this limitation and explore alternative host materials, ESA and stimulated-emission cross sections have been measured for a representative group of glass compositions. These parameters have been used in an accurate fiber-amplifier model to provide the first quantitative comparisons of performance for Nd³⁺ -doped glasses in the 1300-nm band as a function of host     

Room electromagnetics

In analogy with the established discipline of room acoustics, various aspects of diffuse wideband microwave propagation in a room are treated. It is shown that an equivalent to Sabine's equation for reverberation time in a room is valid for the completely diffused field, depending only on the volume, the surface area, and an effective absorption coefficient. An exponential decay of the power as a function of the delay is a consequence of the assumptions. Furthermore, the concept of a reverberation distance is also valid. This is the distance from a transmitting antenna where the received diffuse, randomly scattered power equals the direct line-of-sight received power, such that the diffuse power dominates for distances larger than the reverberation distance. A number of measurements in a large room support the theory with an effective absorption coefficient of 0.5. The power delay profiles around the room from a transmitter in the ceiling vary only in the first arriving part of the impulse, whereas the tail, being dominated by the diffuse field, has the same power level for a given delay and the same decay rate all over the room. It is also a consequence of the theory that the diffuse fields incident on an antenna are uniformly distributed in angle.     

Determination of volterra transfer functions of non-linear multiport networks

A method is presented to determine frequency domain Volterra transfer functions of non-linear multiport networks containing non-linear multiport subsystems (elements). the method is based on an extension of the probing method to allow arbitrary (also commensurate) frequencies. A recursively based algorithm for the determination of Volterra transfer functions of non-linear multiport networks is derived. A computer implementation of the method in a symbolic programming language is presented. This makes it possible to determine algebraic expressions of the Volterra transfer functions. Three examples are considered.     

Buckling behaviour of imperfect spherical shells subjected to different load conditions

The paper deals with an analysis of the bifurcation and initial post-buckling behaviour of highly imperfection-sensitive large spherical .shells, such as cargo tanks for ship transportation of liquefied natural gas and large spherical containment shells for nuclear power plants. The numerical analysis procedure has sufficient generality to treat shells of revolution with arbitrary curved generators and with arbitrary variation of the thickness. The shells can be subjected to non-axisymmetric time-varying loadings. The purpose of the paper is to present simple procedures for scantling selections in the initial design phase and to propose an analysis procedure for verification of the final design of optimized thin-walled spherical shells.