Investigation of the relationship between sensitivity and stored energy

This paper is focused on the theoretical investigation of the relationship between the time average stored energy (t.a.s.e) in conventional lumped-element Chebychev low-pass prototype filters, and the sensitivity of the return loss with respect to properly tuned resonators. It is well known that the resonant frequencies are the most sensitive parameters in a filter to achieve the required return loss and often some form of manual adjustment is needed. Different degree transfer functions, and also different topologies, are investigated throughout the paper. It is shown that both, the t.a.s.e and the sensitivity behaviors are strongly related. This work provides some new insight in fundamental properties of passive filters and can be useful for the design of filters with reduced sensitivity for high power applications and tuningless filters, for example.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Ref. TEC2007-67630-C03-02. Fundación Séneca, Ref. 08833/PI/08

Efficient Calculation of the Green's Functions for Multilayered Shielded Cavities with Right Isosceles-Triangular Cross-Section

An efficient calculation of the Green’s functions inside multilayered shielded cavities with right isosceles-triangular cross-section is presented. The method is entirely developed in the spatial domain, and it is based on image theory. The idea is to use the spatial-domain Green’s functions inside a multilayered shielded square box, in order to accurately obtain the Green’s functions for the right isosceles-triangular cavity. Image theory is then used to enforce the boundary conditions along the non-equal side of the triangle. It is shown that the new algorithm is very robust, with limited computational effort. Resonance frequencies and potential patterns of a triangular cavity have been calculated and compared with those obtained by other techniques, showing very good agreement. Finally, a transversal filter inside a multilayered triangular-shaped cavity is designed, manufactured and tested using the developed technique.This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under Grant FPU-AP2006-015 and with the Project TEC2007-67630-C03-02

Design of Dual-Bandpass Hybrid Waveguide-Microstrip Microwave Filters

A simple dual-bandpass filtering structure is pro- posed. The filter is implemented by means of a new hybrid waveguide­microstrip technology. The novelty of the structure is that it combines two standard printed microstrip coupled line resonators, with a resonance of the base waveguide cavity, to implement a dual-band operation. Important aspects about the filter design, useful for practical applications are treated. This includes a study on the maximum coupling that can be achieved to the cavity resonance, and guidelines to control the positions of the two passbands and the transmission zeros. Besides, an example has been designed, manufactured and tested. The measurements on the fabricated prototype have confirmed the validity of the new structure to perform dual-band operation.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Ref. TEC2007-67630-C03-0

Novel broadside trisection filters employing nonresonating nodes

This work presents novel filter topologies implemented in microstrip technology. The topologies combine printed line resonators with non resonating nodes (NRN) to implement transmission zeros in a very flexible way. Depending on the number of resonators and NRN, the filtering response exhibits a single transmission zero either below or above the passband, or two transmission zeros, one at each side of the passband. Several examples are designed and validated, using the new proposed structures.The authors thank Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain, which has supported this work under Grant TEC2007- 67630-C03-02

An interpolated spatial images method for the analysis of multilayered shielded microwave circuits

In this paper, an efficient interpolation method is presented in order to compute the Green’s function associated to electrical sources, when they are placed inside cylindrical cavities. The interpolation scheme is formulated in the frame of the spatial images technique recently developed. The original idea was to calculate, for every location of a point electric source, the complex values of the electric dipole and charge images, placed outside the cavity, to impose the appropriate boundary conditions for the potentials. In order to considerably reduce the computational cost of the original technique, a simple interpolation method is proposed to obtain the complex values of the images for any source location. To do that, a rectangular spatial subdivision inside the cavity is proposed. Each new sub-region is controlled by means of the exact images values obtained when the source is placed at the four corners of the region. The key idea is to use a bilinear interpolation to obtain the images complex values when the source is located anywhere inside this sub-region. The interpolated images provide the Green’s functions of the new source positions fast, and with high accuracy. This new approach can be directly applied to analyze printed planar filters. Two examples with CPU time comparisons are provided, showing the high accuracy and computational gain achieved with the technique just derived.This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under Grant FPU-AP2006-015 and with the Project TEC2007-67630-C03-02

Background harmonic distortion measurement at power networks with wind farms

Standard IEC 61400-21 specifies that background voltage distortion must be lower than the threshold limits specified in standards. However, this background distortion information is not used for calculating the real harmonic emission from the wind turbine leading to misleading voltage harmonics assessment from the wind turbine. In this paper a methodology for assessing the real harmonic emission from wind turbines is proposed based on current and voltage measurements where the background harmonic distortion at the Point of Common Coupling is considered

Drug assessment by a Pharmacy and Therapeutics committee: from drug selection criteria to use in clinical practice

Background: In Spain, hospital medicines are assessed and selected by local Pharmacy and Therapeutics committees (PTCs). Of all the drugs assessed, cancer drugs are particularly important because of their budgetary impact and the sometimes arguable added value with respect to existing alternatives. This study analyzed the PTC drug selection process and the main objective was to evaluate the degree of compliance of prescriptions for oncology drugs with their criteria for use. Methods: This was a retrospective observational study (May 2007 to April 2010) of PTC-assessed drugs. The variables measured to describe the committee's activity were number of drugs assessed per year and number of drugs included in any of these settings: without restrictions, with criteria for use, and not included in formulary. These drugs were also analyzed by therapeutic group. To assess the degree of compliance of prescriptions, a score was calculated to determine whether prescriptions for bevacizumab, cetuximab, trastuzumab, and bortezomib were issued in accordance with PTC drug use criteria. Results: The PTC received requests for inclusion of 40 drugs, of which 32 were included in the hospital formulary (80.0%). Criteria for use were established for 28 (87.5%) of the drugs included. In total, 293 patients were treated with the four cancer drugs in eight different therapeutic indications. The average prescription compliance scores were as follows: bevacizumab, 83% for metastatic colorectal cancer, 100% for metastatic breast cancer, and 82.3% for non-small-cell lung cancer; cetuximab, 62.0% for colorectal cancer and 50% for head and neck cancer; trastuzumab, 95.1% for early breast cancer and 82.4% for metastatic breast cancer; and bortezomib, 63.7% for multiple myeloma. Conclusion: The degree of compliance with criteria for use of cancer drugs was reasonably high. PTC functions need to be changed so that they can carry out more innovative tasks, such as monitoring conditions for drug use

Influence of relative humidity on the carbonation of calcium hydroxide nanoparticles and the formation of calcium carbonate polymorphs

A consolidating product based on nanoparticles of slaked lime (Ca(OH)2) dispersed in isopropyl alcohol was exposed under different relative humidities (RH), 33%, 54%, 75% and 90% during 7, 14, 21 and 28days. The characterization of the calcium hydroxide nanoparticles and the formed calcium carbonate polymorphs have been performed by Micro Raman spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM) with Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD). Precipitation and transformation of calcium carbonate polymorphs strongly depend on the relative humidity (RH). Higher RH (75%-90% RH) gives rise to amorphous calcium carbonate and monohydrocalcite, calcite, aragonite and vaterite, faster carbonation and larger particles sizes with higher crystallinity compared to lower RH (33%-54% RH) that gives rise mainly to portlandite and vaterite, slower carbonation and smaller particle sizes with lower crystallinity. © 2010 Elsevier B.V.This study was funded by the Government of the Community of Madrid by GEOMATERIALES (S2009/MAT-1629) and CONSOLIDERTCP (CSD2007-0058) and to the JAE-Doc CSIC contracts for supporting P. López-Arce and L.S. Gómez-Villalba to develop this work.Peer Reviewe

A Systematic Algorithm for the Design of Hybrid Waveguide-Microstrip Transversal Microwave Filters

A novel algorithm to design hybrid waveguide-microstrip transversal microwave filters is proposed in this study. The idea consists in isolating each resonator involved in the filter structure, to synthesise individually its frequency response, both in resonant frequency and bandwidth. These separated optimisations lead to the dimensions of the filtering structure to meet the requirements of a certain, specified transfer function. The novel algorithm introduces an iterative procedure in order to synthesise the direct coupling term between source and load, which is always present in the hybrid filter structure. The whole algorithm is illustrated by means of a design example, where a very good agreement between the ideal specified transfer function and the final frequency response of the designed hybrid filter is obtained. A second different design example, which has been manufactured and tested, is also included for validation.Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, Ref. TEC2010-21520-C04-0

Novel implementations for microstrip resonator filters in transversal topology

This paper presents novel implementations of bandpass filters in multilayered microstrip technology. The structures presented implement transversal filter topologies of order three. In order to allow for easy implementation of the required couplings, multilayered broadside configurations are proposed. We demonstrate that with the proposed configurations, both dualband and quasi-elliptic responses can be easily synthesized, by only changing the sign of certain entries in the coupling matrix. To easily adjust the signs of the couplings, novel resonators are proposed, including simple half-wavelength transmission line resonators, meander line resonators and short-circuited resonators. Experimental validation for one prototype is presented, demonstrating the validity and usefulness of the proposed configurations.The authors thank Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain, which has supported this work under Grant TEC2007- 67630-C03/TCM