Frequency Doubling Nanocrystals for Cancer Theranostics

A novel bio-photonics approach based on the nonlinear optical process of second harmonic generation by non-centrosymmetric nanoparticles is presented and demonstrated on malignant human cell lines. The proposed method allows to directly interact with DNA in absence of photosensitizing molecules, to enable independent imaging and therapeutic modalities switching between the two modes of operation by simply tuning the excitation laser wavelength, and to avoid any risk of spontaneous activation by any natural or artificial light source.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

Investigation of the structure of recording head fields

Head fields of two recording heads (gap lengths 2.1 and 2.8 micrometer) have been measured with the help of a series of magnetoresistive transducers. The widths of these transducers are 1.9, 4.1 and 7.0 micrometer and they have been positioned in the gap field region very accurately using optical methods. The transducer outputs have been compared with computer simulated results. A systematic deviation between theoretical and experimental results may lead to the assumption that the surface of the recording head is magnetically inactive over a few tenths of a micrometer

What is the evidence of the impact of microfinance on the well-being of poor people?

The concept of microcredit was first introduced in Bangladesh by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus. Professor Yunus started Grameen Bank (GB) more than 30 years ago with the aim of reducing poverty by providing small loans to the country’s rural poor (Yunus 1999). Microcredit has evolved over the years and does not only provide credit to the poor, but also now spans a myriad of other services including savings, insurance, remittances and non-financial services such as financial literacy training and skills development programmes; microcredit is now referred to as microfinance (Armendáriz de Aghion and Morduch 2005, 2010). A key feature of microfinance has been the targeting of women on the grounds that, compared to men, they perform better as clients of microfinance institutions and that their participation has more desirable development outcomes (Pitt and Khandker 1998). Despite the apparent success and popularity of microfinance, no clear evidence yet exists that microfinance programmes have positive impacts (Armendáriz de Aghion and Morduch 2005, 2010; and many others). There have been four major reviews examining impacts of microfinance (Sebstad and Chen, 1996; Gaile and Foster 1996, Goldberg 2005, Odell 2010, see also Orso 2011). These reviews concluded that, while anecdotes and other inspiring stories (such as Todd 1996) purported to show that microfinance can make a real difference in the lives of those served, rigorous quantitative evidence on the nature, magnitude and balance of microfinance impact is still scarce and inconclusive (Armendáriz de Aghion and Morduch 2005, 2010). Overall, it is widely acknowledged that no well-known study robustly shows any strong impacts of microfinance (Armendáriz de Aghion and Morduch 2005, p199-230). Because of the growth of the microfinance industry and the attention the sector has received from policy makers, donors and private investors in recent years, existing microfinance impact evaluations need to be re-investigated; the robustness of claims that microfinance successfully alleviates poverty and empowers women must be scrutinised more carefully. Hence, this review revisits the evidence of microfinance evaluations focusing on the technical challenges of conducting rigorous microfinance impact evaluations

The universality of categories and meaning: a Coserian perspective

Studies in linguistic typology have challenged the idea that languages can be analyzed in terms of a set of preestablished universal categories. Each language should instead be described “in its own terms,” a view consistent with the ‘old’ structuralist paradigm in linguistics. The renewed orientation toward differences between languages raises two questions: (i) How do we identify the meanings which are assumed to be crosslinguistically comparable? (ii) What is the relationship between language-particular categories and comparative concepts commonly used in linguistic typology? To answer these questions, this article focuses on a number of distinctions advocated by Eugenio Coseriu (1921–2002). Coseriu distinguishes three levels of meaning (designation, “signifiés,” and sense) and three types of universals (essential, empirical, and possible universals). Their relevance for linguistic typology is discussed with regard to the expression of possession and a particular diathesis in Japanese, viz. ukemi or “indirect passive.” As well as relating language-particular categories and comparative concepts, Coseriu’s approach offers a promising avenue to account for the ways language-specific meanings interact with extralinguistic knowledge and contents of discourse and texts, which are the object of translation

Spectral moment estimation in MST radars

Signal processing techniques used in Mesosphere-Stratosphere-Troposphere (MST) radars are reviewed. Techniques which produce good estimates of the total power, frequency shift, and spectral width of the radar power spectra are considered. Non-linear curve fitting, autocovariance, autocorrelation, covariance, and maximum likelihood estimators are discussed