Formation and elimination of surface ion milling defects in cadmium telluride,zinc sulphide and zinc selenide

The nature of damage produced by low energy Ar⁺ ion and Ar atom milling in the II–VI semiconductors CdTe, ZnS and ZnSe is studied in detail by conventional and high resolution transmission electron microscopy. It is demonstrated that the damage consists of dense arrays of small dislocation loops near to each milled surface. When ion or atom milling of this type is used for thin specimen preparation prior to microscopy the loop arrays can seriously obscure images and so complicate their interpretation. This problem concerning the presence of artifactual defects can be greatly reduced by the use of reactive I⁺ ion milling for specimen thinning and, in the case of CdTe, spurious dislocation loop formation can be completely suppressed.     

Multiresolution segmentation of respiratory electromyographicsignals

Analysis of respiratory electromyographic (EMG) signals in the study of respiratory control requires the detection of burst activity from background (signal segmentation), and focuses upon the determination of onset and cessation points of the burst activity (boundary estimation). The authors describe a new automated multiresolution technique for signal segmentation and boundary estimation. During signal segmentation, a new transitional segment is defined which contains the boundary between background a burst activity. Boundary estimation is then performed within this transitional segment. Boundary candidates are selected and a probability is attributed to each candidate, using an artificial neural network. The final boundary for a given transitional segment is the boundary estimate with the maximum a posteriori probability. This new method has proved accurate when compared to boundaries chosen by two investigators     

Enhanced security protocol engineering through a unified multidimensional framework

Multidimensional security protocol engineering is effective for creating cryptographic protocols since it encompasses a variety of design, analysis, and deployment techniques, thereby providing a higher level of confidence than individual approaches offer. SPEAR II, the Security Protocol Engineering and Analysis Resource II, is a protocol engineering tool built on the foundation of previous experience garnered during the SPEAR I project in 1997. The goal of the SPEAR II tool is to facilitate cryptographic protocol engineering and to aid users in distilling the critical issues during an engineering session by presenting them with an appropriate level of detail and guiding them as much as possible during design, analysis and implementation. The SPEAR II tool currently consists of four components that have been integrated into one consistent and unified graphical interface: a protocol specification environment (GYPSIE), a GNY statement construction interface (visual GNY), a Prolog-based GNY analysis engine (GYNGER), and a message rounds calculator. The multidimensional approach realized by SPEAR II is combined with a graphical interface that focuses on making specification of a protocol and its associated conditions for formal analysis as straight forward and painless as possible. Experiments that we have conducted confirm that the analysis engine is able to generate accurate proofs for achievable GNY-based goals, while preliminary usability experiments have indicated that the interface utilized by SPEAR II is both expressive and simple to use for specifying cryptographic protocols and constructing logic statements pertaining to these protocols.     

Questionnaire for the identification of back pain for epidemiological purposes

OBJECTIVES: To design a questionnaire for the identification and assessment of severity of back pain for epidemiological purposes, and gain preliminary experience of its use. METHODS: A group of specialists, experienced in the epidemiology and clinical assessment of back pain, designed the questionnaire, and tested it individually. It was also given cross sectionally by interview to a population of male coal mine workers. RESULTS: The questionnaire comprised a maximum of 12 questions on the presence, radiation, frequency, and severity of back pain with reference to difficulty with specific activities, interference with normal work, and absence from work. 471 coal miners answered the questionnaire (66% of those invited). 56% (265 men) of the responders reported pain or ache in the back during the previous 12 months, and the incidence of first ever attacks during the same period was reported to be 34%. 69% reported having had back pain at some time. The responses to the questionnaire were partially validated by comparison with certified sickness absence for two days or more attributed to back pain. In men who were symptomatic in the previous 12 months, for the question relating to absence from work because of back pain, the sensitivity was 82% and specificity was 84%. CONCLUSION: The questionnaire is easy to administer and generates clear cut data that could be useful for epidemiological or screening purposes. Preliminary, limited, studies of its validity are reasonably encouraging, although further validation is required. It is hoped that researchers will find the questionnaire useful, will extend its validation, and continue to develop it.     

Animal and plant cell lysates share a conserved chaperone system that assembles the glucocorticoid receptor into a functional heterocomplex with hsp90

The hormone-binding domain of the glucocorticoid receptor must be bound to heat shock protein (hsp) 90 for it to have a high-affinity steroid-binding conformation. Cell-free assembly of a glucocorticoid receptor-hsp90 heterocomplex is brought about in reticulocyte lysate by a preformed protein-folding complex containing hsp90, hsp70, and other proteins [Hutchison, K.A., Dittmar, K. D., & Pratt, W.B. (1994) J. Biol. Chem. 269, 27894-27899]. In this "foldosome" system, hsp70 is required for assembly of the receptor-hsp90 complex and concomitant activation of steroid-binding activity [Hutchison, K.A., Dittmar, K.D., Czar, M.J., & Pratt, W.B. (1994) J. Biol. Chem. 269, 22157-22161]. All previous experiments involving cell-free assembly of both receptor-hsp90 and protein kinase-hsp90 heterocomplexes have been carried out with the protein-folding system in rabbit reticulocyte lysate. In this work, we show that concentrated lysates of receptor-free mouse (L cells) and insect (Sf9) cells and also a plant (wheat germ) lysate fold the immunopurified glucocorticoid receptor into a functional (i.e., steroid binding) heterocomplex with hsp90. Receptor heterocomplex formation in animal lysates and in the plant lysate are not identical in that the dynamics of complex assembly are different, but both systems produce a functional complex that binds steroid. Also, in contrast to animal and insect complexes, receptor-plant hsp90 complexes are not stabilized by molybdate. When added to the other lysate, purified plant and animal hsp90s show partial complementarity, in that a receptor-hsp90 complex is formed but the receptor is not converted to the steroid-binding conformation. When added to rabbit reticulocyte lysate that has been depleted of endogenous hsp70, purified wheat germ and mouse hsp70's are equally active in promoting both assembly of receptor-hsp90 heterocomplexes and conversion of receptor to the steroid-binding conformation. Thus, hsp70 from the plant kingdom has conserved the ability to interact functionally with chaperone proteins of the animal kingdom to cooperate in protein folding as evidenced by formation of a functional receptor-hsp90 heterocomplex.     

QoS Filtering and Resource Reservation in an Internet Environment

Multimedia group applications often operate in an environment where the various participants are located on systems and communication links with different capabilities. Mechanisms are required that ensure full-quality media for high-performance workstations but lower-quality media for playout at low-end systems. QoS filters have been proposed as a way to adapt QoS to the user specified level by changing the structure of a media stream in a well defined way. Resource reservation and QoS filter instantiation should be closely integrated since both represent one particular aspect of the provision of individualistic QoS for heterogeneous users in multipeer communications. The Internet reservation protocol RSVP is receiver oriented and allows each receiver to specify its resource requirements. However, no actual mechanisms are defined that adapt the data stream to the receiver specified QoS requirements.In this paper we present an enhanced version of RSVP (called RSVP++) that integrates resource reservation and QoS filter control. In order to achieve this integration we extend the RSVP functional model and define a new QoS service class. RSVP++ can coexist with common RSVP systems, thus, openness and interoperability of the system are ensured.     

The structure of nanocomposite 1D cationic conductor crystal@SWNT

Nanocomposites consisting of one-dimensional (1D) crystals of the cationic conductors CuI, CuBr and AgBr inside single-walled carbon nanotubes, mainly (n, 0), were obtained using the capillary technique. 1D crystal structure models were proposed based on the high resolution transmission electron microscopy performed on a FEI Titan 80-300 at 80 kV with aberration correction. According to the models and image simulations there are two modifications of 1D crystal: hexagonal close-packed bromine (iodine) anion sublattice (growth direction <001>) and 1D crystal cubic structure (growth direction <112>) compressed transversely to the nanotube (D(m) ～1.33 nm) axis. Tentatively this kind of 1D crystal can be considered as monoclinic. One modification of the anion sublattice reversibly transforms into the other inside the nanotube, probably initiated by electron beam heating. As demonstrated by micrographs, copper or silver cations can occupy octahedral positions or are statistically distributed across two tetrahedral positions. A 1DAgBr@SWNT (18, 0; 19, 0) pseudoperiodic 'lattice distortion' is revealed resulting from convolution of the nanotube wall function image with 1D cubic crystal function image.     

Liquid helium cryostat for SQUID-based MRI receivers

We describe a liquid helium cryostat, developed to cool SQUID-based receivers in low field MRI systems. The cryostat has a 4 L liquid helium capacity, a hold time of over 3 days and accommodates 10 cm diameter receiver coils. New vacuum insulation methods reduce the noise level by at least an order of magnitude compared to existing commercial designs. The minimum detectable field at 425 kHz, with a 5 cm diameter circular coil, was estimated to be 0.018 fT/Hz^1/2 from Q-factor measurements and 0.035 fT/Hz^1/2 by direct measurement with a SQUID amplifier. Further measurements indicated that most of this field noise probably originates with dielectric losses in the cryostat’s fibreglass shells.     

Transporting QoS adaptive flows

Distributed audio and video applications need to adapt to fluctuations in delivered quality of service (QoS). By trading off temporal and spatial quality to available bandwidth, or manipulating the playout time of continuous media in response to variation in delay, audio and video flows can be made to adapt to fluctuating QoS with minimal perceptual distortion. In this paper, we extend our previous work on a QoS Architecture (QoS-A) by populating the QoS management planes of our architecture with a framework for the control and management of multilayer coded flows operating in heterogeneous multimedia networking environments. Two key techniques are proposed: i) an end-to-end rate-shaping scheme which adapts the rate of MPEG-coded flows to the available network resources while minimizing the distortion observed at the receiver; and ii) an adaptive network service, which offers “hard” guarantees to the base layer of multilayer coded flows and “fairness” guarantees to the enhancement layers based on a bandwidth allocation technique called Weighted Fair Sharing.     

Towards Pseudonymous e-Commerce

The lack of privacy is one of the main reasons that limits trust in e-commerce. Current e-commerce practice enforces a customer to disclose her identity to the e-shop and the use of credit cards makes it straightforward for an e-shop to know the real identity of its customers. Although there are some payment systems based on untraceable tokens, they are not as widely used as credit cards. Furthermore, even without buying anything, a customer is already disclosing some information about who or where she may be by just connecting to the e-shop's web server and leaving behind an IP-address. In this paper, we present novel components that enable secure pseudonymous e-commerce. On the one hand, these components allow a customer to browse through an e-shop, select goods, and pay the goods with her credit card such that neither the e-shop operator nor the credit card issuer nor an eavesdropper is able to get any information about the customer's identity. On the other hand, it is guaranteed that none of the involved parties is able to act dishonestly during the credit card payment. Such a system could greatly enhance trust in e-commerce since it overcomes the customers' privacy concerns.