Automated knowledge capture in 2D and 3D design environments

In Life Cycle Engineering, it is vital that the engineering knowledge for the product is captured throughout its life cycle in a formal and structured manner. This will allow the information to be referred to in the future by engineers who did not work on the original design but are wanting to understand the reasons that certain design decisions were made. In the past, attempts were made to try to capture this knowledge by having the engineer record the knowledge manually during a design session. However, this is not only time-consuming but is also disruptive to the creative process. Therefore, the research presented in this paper is concerned with capturing design knowledge automatically using a traditional 2D design environment and also an immersive 3D design environment. The design knowledge is captured by continuously and non-intrusively logging the user during a design session and then storing this output in a structured eXtensible Markup Language (XML) format. Next, the XML data is analysed and the design processes that are involved can be visualised by the automatic generation of IDEF0 diagrams. Using this captured knowledge, it forms the basis of an interactive online assistance system to aid future users who are carrying out a similar design task

Compounds affecting cholesterol absorption

A class of novel compounds is described for use in affecting lymphatic absorption of cholesterol. Compounds of particular interest are defined by Formula I: ##STR1## or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof

Ru-Catalyzed, cis-Selective Living Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization of Various Monomers, Including a Dendronized Macromonomer, and Implications to Enhanced Shear Stability

An unsaturated polymer’s cis/trans-olefin content has a significant influence on its properties. For polymers obtained by ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP), the cis/trans-olefin content can be tuned by using specific catalysts. However, cis-selective ROMP has suffered from narrow monomer scope and lack of control over the polymerization (giving polymers with broad molecular weight distributions and prohibiting the synthesis of block copolymers). Herein, we report the versatile cis-selective controlled living ROMP of various endo-tricyclo[4.2.2.0^(2,5)]deca-3,9-diene and various norbornene derivatives using a fast-initiating dithiolate-chelated Ru catalyst. Polymers with cis-olefin content as high as 99% could be obtained with high molecular weight (up to M_n of 105.1 kDa) and narrow dispersity (<1.4). The living nature of the polymerization was also exploited to prepare block copolymers with high cis-olefin content for the first time. Furthermore, owing to the successful control over the stereochemistry and narrow dispersity, we could compare cis- and trans-rich polynorbornene and found the former to have enhanced resistance to shear degradation

{BOAO Photometric Survey of Galactic Open Clusters. II. Physical Parameters of 12 Open Clusters

We have initiated a long-term project, the BOAO photometric survey of open clusters, to enlarge our understanding of galactic structure using UBVI CCD photometry of open clusters which have been little studied before. This is the second paper of the project in which we present the photometry of 12 open clusters. We have determined the cluster parameters by fitting the Padova isochrones to the color-magnitude diagrams of the clusters. All the clusters except for Be 0 and NGC 1348 are found to be intermediate-age to old (0.2 - 4.0 Gyrs) open clusters with a mean metallicity of [Fe/H] = 0.0.Comment: 11 page

Charged particle display

An optical shutter based on charged particles is presented. The output light intensity of the proposed device has an intrinsic dependence on the interparticle spacing between charged particles, which can be controlled by varying voltages applied to the control electrodes. The interparticle spacing between charged particles can be varied continuously and this opens up the possibility of particle based displays with continuous grayscale.Comment: typographic errors corrected in Eqs (37) and (39); published in Journal of Applied Physics; doi:10.1063/1.317648

Muon-Spin-Rotation Measurements of the Penetration Depth in the Infinite-Layer Electron-Doped Cuprate Superconductor Sr0.9La0.1CuO2

Muon spin rotation (mSR) measurements of the in-plane penetration depth lambda_ab have been performed in the electron-doped infinite layer high-Tc superconductor (HTS) Sr0.9La0.1CuO2. Absence of the magnetic rare-earth ions in this compound allowed to measure for the first time the absolute value of lambda_ab(0) in electron-doped HTS using mSR. We found lambda_ab(0)=116(2) nm. The zero-temperature depolarization rate sigma(0)?1/lambda_ab(0)^2=4.6(1) MHz is more than four times higher than expected from the Uemura line. Therefore this electron-doped HTS does not follow the Uemura relation found for hole-doped HTS.Comment: to be published in Physical Review Letter