Synthesis and characterization of biocompatible hydroxyapatite coated ferrite

Ferrite particles coated with biocompatible phases can be used for hyperthermia treatment of cancer. We have synthesized substituted calcium hexaferrite, which is not stable on its own but is stabilized with small substitution of La. Hexaferrite of chemical composition (CaO)_0.75(La₂0₃)_0.20(Fe₂O₃)₆ was prepared using citrate gel method. Hydroxyapatite was prepared by precipitating it from aqueous solution of Ca(NO₃)₂ and (NH₄)₂HPO₄ maintaining pH above 11. Four different methods were used for coating of hydroxyapatite on ferrite particles. SEM with EDX and X-ray diffraction analysis shows clear evidence of coating of hydroxyapatite on ferrite particles. These coated ferrite particles exhibited coercive field up to 2 kOe, which could be made useful for hysteresis heating in hyperthermia. Studies by culturing BHK-21 cells and WBC over the samples show evidence of biocompatibility. SEM micrographs and cell counts give clear indication of cell growth on the surface of the sample. Finally coated ferrite particle was implanted in Kasaulli mouse to test its biocompatibility. The magnetic properties and biocompatibility studies show that these hydroxyapatite coated ferrites could be useful for hyperthermia.     

A transmit/receive IF chip set for WCDMA mobiles in 0.35 /spl mu/m CMOS

An implementation of the IF section of WCDMA mobile transceivers with a set of two chips fabricated in an inexpensive 0.35-/spl mu/m two-poly three-metal CMOS process is presented. The transmit/receive chip set integrates quadrature modulators and demodulators, wide dynamic range automatic gain control (AGC) amplifiers, with linear-in-decibel gain control, and associated circuitry. This paper describes the problems encountered and the solutions envisaged to meet stringent specifications, with process and temperature variations, thus overcoming the limitations of CMOS devices, while operating at frequencies in the range of 100 MHz-1 GHz. Detailed measurement results corroborating successful application of the new techniques are reported. A receive AGC dynamic range of 73 dB with linearity error of less than /spl plusmn/2 dB and spread of less than 5 dB for a temperature range of -30/spl deg/C to +85/spl deg/C in the gain control characteristic has been measured. The modulator measurement shows a carrier suppression of 35 dB and sideband/third harmonic suppression of over 46 dB. The core die area of each chip is 1.5 mm/sup 2/.     

Function dependent fully testable programmable logic array

Two techniques for designing function-dependent easily testable programmable logic arrays are presented. The techniques can detect all the multiple stuck-at, crosspoint and bridging faults, as compared with most of the existing techniques where some of the faults, especially bridging faults, remain undetected.<>     

Algorithms and complexity concerning the preemptive scheduling of periodic,real-time tasks on one processor

We investigate the preemptive scheduling of periodic, real-time task systems on one processor. First, we show that when all parameters to the system are integers, we may assume without loss of generality that all preemptions occur at integer time values. We then assume, for the remainder of the paper, that all parameters are indeed integers. We then give, as our main lemma, both necessary and sufficient conditions for a task system to be feasible on one processor. Although these conditions cannot, in general, be tested efficiently (unless P=NP), they do allow us to give efficient algorithms for deciding feasibility on one processor for certain types of periodic task systems. For example, we give a pseudo-polynomial-time algorithm for synchronous systems whose densities are bounded by a fixed constant less than 1. This algorithm represents an exponential improvement over the previous best algorithm. We also give a polynomial-time algorithm for systems having a fixed number of distinct types of tasks. Furthermore, we are able to use our main lemma to show that the feasibility problem for task systems on one processor is co-NP-complete in the strong sence. In order to show this last result, we first show the Simultaneous Congruences Problem to be NP-complete in the strong sense. Both of these last two results answer questions that have been open for ten years. We conclude by showing that for incomplete task systems, that is, task systems in which the start times are not specified, the feasibility problem is ₂ ^p -complete.This work was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant No. CCR-8711579. Some of these results were presented at the 15th Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science, 1990.     

VIMTEX: A Visualization Interface for Multivariate,Time‐Varying,Geological Data Exploration

Observing interactions among chemical species and microorganisms in the earth's sub‐surface is a common task in the field of geology. Bioremediation experiments constitute one such class of interactions which focus on getting rid of pollutants through processes such as carbon sequestration. The main goal of scientists’ observations is to analyze the dynamics of the chemical reactions and understand how they collectively affect the carbon content of the soil. In our work, we extract the high‐level goals of geologists and propose a visual analytics solution which helps scientists in deriving insights about multivariate, temporal behavior of these chemical species. Specifically, our key contributions are the following: i) characterization of the domain‐specific goals and their translation to exploratory data analysis tasks, ii) developing an analytical abstraction in the form of perceptually motivated screen‐space metrics for bridging the gap between the tasks and the visualization, and iii) realization of the tasks and metrics in the form of VIMTEX, which is a set of coordinated multiple views for letting scientists observe multivariate, temporal relationships in the data. We provide several examples and case studies along with expert feedback for demonstrating the efficacy of our solution.     

Extraction efficiency of saturated-gain high-power dye laser amplifiers: effect of nonlinear signal absorption

The effect of nonlinear signal absorption (NLSA) due to ground-state absorption and excited-state absorption in a transversely pumped high-power dye laser amplifier is theoretically examined with a one-dimensional steady-state model for a dye amplifier pumped by a copper vapor laser. A well-approximated analytical expression for the extraction efficiency is derived, from which the effect of NLSA in reducing the amplifier efficiency can be appreciated immediately and can also be interpreted in terms of certain characteristic lengths. The reduction in efficiency due to NLSA is found to be largely independent of the pump power, provided that the signal power is increased linearly with the pump power to continue to saturate the amplifier gain and suppress amplified spontaneous emission.