Linear Filament Array Sheet for EUV Production.

An EUV radiation source that generates a sheet of a liquid target material that has a width that matches the desired laser spot size for good conversion efficiency and a thickness that matches the laser beam/target interaction depth. The EUV source includes a reservoir containing a pressurized cryogenic liquid target material. such as liquid Xenon. The reservoir also includes an array of closely spaced orifices into a vacuum chamber as separated liquid stream filaments of the target material that define the sheet. The liquid streams freeze to form an array of frozen target filaments. A laser beam is directed to a target area in the vacuum chamber where it irradiates the stream of filaments to create a plasma that emits EUV radiation

‘Take Two and See me in the Morning’: Reflections on the Political Placebo Effect

The use of medical metaphors in politics is a well-honed rhetorical strategy. We talk of ‘diagnosing’ political and social ills; of governments having to ‘prescribe tough medicine’; and of politicians ‘sugar coating’ policies the public doesn’t want to swallow. Sometimes these metaphors help clarify the political world. Other times the rhetorical comparison hides more truth than it reveals. We ask whether the idea of a ‘political placebo’ — or more precisely, a political placebo effect — can be usefully applied to the social sciences. Up to this point, the idea of a ‘political placebo’ has been used only haphazardly (and with little conceptual clarity) to describe cynical political efforts to sell snake oil to the masses. In contrast, we argue that a more refined conceptualization of a political placebo effect — one which understands the placebo effect as a phenomenon in which certain actions and words by medical or scientific authorities lead to an observable effect other than those that would have been predicted on the basis of the dominant predictive scientific and medical models — would be a useful tool for social scientific reflection. When applied to the political realm, such a concept (with its attentiveness to the multi-faceted effects of structures of meaning, emotions and the complex interaction between mind and body) helps us understand a wide variety of situations in which primarily mental stimuli — e.g. language, concepts, policy ideas — have important and observable effects other than those that would be predicted by the dominant predictive rational-actor theories. This article develops this conceptualization of the political placebo effect by (a) synthesizing three of the main findings of contemporary scientific explanations of medical placebos; (b) identifying how these characteristics should also define the concept of a political placebo effect; and (c) demonstrating with reference to two examples how such a concept can help us understand specific political events and situations more convincingly than would otherwise be the case

Globalization and the health of Canadians: ‘Having a job is the most important thing’

Background Globalization describes processes of greater integration of the world economy through increased flows goods, services, capital and people. Globalization has undergone significant transformation since the 1970s, entrenching neoliberal economics as the dominant model of global market integration. Although this transformation has generated some health gains, since the 1990s it has also increased health disparities. Methods As part of a larger project examining how contemporary globalization was affecting the health of Canadians, we undertook semi-structured interviews with 147 families living in low-income neighbourhoods in Canada’s three largest cities (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver). Many of the families were recent immigrants, which was another focus of the study. Drawing on research syntheses undertaken by the Globalization Knowledge Network of the World Health Organization’s Commission on Social Determinants of Health, we examined respondents’ experiences of three globalization-related pathways known to influence health: labour markets (and the rise of precarious employment), housing markets (speculative investments and affordability) and social protection measures (changes in scope and redistributive aspects of social spending and taxation). Interviews took place between April 2009 and November 2011. Results Families experienced an erosion of labour markets (employment) attributed to outsourcing, discrimination in employment experienced by new immigrants, increased precarious employment, and high levels of stress and poor mental health; costly and poor quality housing, especially for new immigrants; and, despite evidence of declining social protection spending, appreciation for state-provided benefits, notably for new immigrants arriving as refugees. Job insecurity was the greatest worry for respondents and their families. Questions concerning the impact of these experiences on health and living standards produced mixed results, with a majority expressing greater difficulty ‘making ends meet,’ some experiencing deterioration in health and yet many also reporting improved living standards. We speculate on reasons for these counter-intuitive results. Conclusions Current trends in the three globalization-related pathways in Canada are likely to worsen the health of families similar to those who participated in our study

Survey over Existing Query and Transformation Languages

A widely acknowledged obstacle for realizing the vision of the Semantic Web is the inability of many current Semantic Web approaches to cope with data available in such diverging representation formalisms as XML, RDF, or Topic Maps. A common query language is the first step to allow transparent access to data in any of these formats. To further the understanding of the requirements and approaches proposed for query languages in the conventional as well as the Semantic Web, this report surveys a large number of query languages for accessing XML, RDF, or Topic Maps. This is the first systematic survey to consider query languages from all these areas. From the detailed survey of these query languages, a common classification scheme is derived that is useful for understanding and differentiating languages within and among all three areas

High Temperature EUV Source Nozzle

A nozzle for a laser-plasma EUV radiation source that provides thermal isolation between the nozzle body and the target material flowing therethrough. A target delivery tube is provided that extends through the nozzle body. The delivery tube has an expansion aperture positioned behind an exit collimator of the nozzle body. The delivery tube is made of a low thermal conductivity material, such as stainless steel, and is in limited contact with the nozzle body so that heating of the nozzle body from the plasma does not heat the liquid target material being delivered through the delivery tube. The expansion aperture has a smaller diameter than the exit collimator

Liquid Sprays As the Target for A Laser-Plasma EUV Light Source

A laser-plasma EUV radiation source that generates larger liquid droplets for the plasma target material. The EUV source forces a liquid, preferably Xenon, through a nozzle, instead of forcing a gas through the nozzle. The geometry of the nozzle and the pressure of the liquid through the nozzle atomizes the liquid to form a dense spray of droplets. Because the droplets are formed from a liquid, they are larger in size, and are more conducive to generating EUV radiation. A condenser is used to convert gaseous Xenon to the liquid prior to being forced through the nozzle

In sickness and in health : AIDS activism and the politics of identity

How identity politics has both helped and harmed the fight against AIDS. Includes in-depth interviews with four AIDS activists

PAR1 activation initiates integrin engagement and outside-in signalling in megakaryoblastic CHRF-288 cells

AbstractTo better understand the means by which cells such as human platelets regulate the binding of the integrin αIIbβ3 to fibrinogen, we have examined agonist-initiated inside-out and outside-in signalling in CHRF-288 cells, a megakaryoblastic cell line that expresses αIIbβ3 and the human thrombin receptor, PAR1. The results show several notable similarities and differences. (1) Activation of PAR1 caused CHRF-288 cells to adhere and spread on immobilized fibrinogen in an αIIbβ3-dependent manner, but did not support the binding of soluble fibrinogen or PAC-1, an antibody specific for activated αIIbβ3. (2) Direct activation of protein kinase C with PMA or disruption of the actin cytoskeleton with low concentrations of cytochalasin D also caused CHRF-288 cells to adhere to fibrinogen. (3) Despite the failure to bind soluble fibrinogen, activation of PAR1 in CHRF-288 cells caused phosphoinositide hydrolysis, arachidonate mobilization and the phosphorylation of p42MAPK, phospholipase A2 and the Rac exchange protein, Vav, all of which occur in platelets. PAR1 activation also caused an increase in cytosolic Ca2+, which, when prevented, blocked adhesion to fibrinogen. (4) Finally, as in platelets, adhesion of CHRF-288 cells to fibrinogen was followed by a burst of integrin-dependent (‘outside-in’) signalling, marked by FAK phosphorylation and a more prolonged phosphorylation of p42MAPK. However, in contrast to platelets, adhesion to fibrinogen had no effect on Vav phosphorylation. Collectively, these observations show that signalling initiated through PAR1 in CHRF-288 cells can support αIIbβ3 binding to immobilized ligand, but not the full integrin activation needed to bind soluble ligand. This would suggest that there has been an increase in integrin avidity without an accompanying increase in affinity. Such increases in avidity are thought to be due to integrin clustering, which would also explain the results obtained with cytochalasin D. The failure of αIIbβ3 to achieve the high affinity state in CHRF-288 cells was not due to the failure of PAR1 activation to initiate a number of signalling events that normally accompany platelet activation nor did it prevent at least some forms of outside-in signalling. However, at least one marker of outside-in signalling, the augmentation of Vav phosphorylation seen during platelet aggregation, did not occur in CHRF-288 cells