New Middle-Class Labor Migrants

Migration researchers have tended to focus on social extremes: either highly skilled elites, on the one hand, or low-wage workers on the other. Less attention has been directed toward “ordinary” middle-class professional movers, and there have been no reviews of this literature to date. The chapter addresses this gap and identifies five important themes to guide future class-orientated migration research. First, the complex relationship between migration, social mobility, place, and middle-class membership is examined. Second, age is shown to be an important consideration in middle-class migration decision-making. Third, the cultural versus economic basis of the mobile middle-class is explored, and the role of lifestyle factors in shaping migration is critically examined. Fourth, middle-class migration decisions are connected to gendered household strategies, with the preponderance of dual-career couples now taking migration decision-making well beyond the individual career path. Finally, the social and communal emplacement of middle-class migrants is considered as an important but neglected dimension of research. Overall, it is clear that the class-based analysis of migration is an important yet neglected field of study, and this is especially true for middle-class movers

Database of diagnostic images in hospital integrated picture archiving and communication systems

The implementation of a database management system in a clinical open-architecture picture archiving and communication system (PACS) is discussed. Standardization of communication protocols and file formats permit the equipment of various vendors to be linked. The main functions of the database management system are introduced at two levels of the system. Clinical experiences show three main advantages which are causing increasing interest in this concept. Access time, computer-assisted diagnosis and cost-effectiveness are the parameters describing the the system's efficiency

Theory of fuzzy sets in edge location of the posterior cruciate ligament region

An approach to location of a region including the posterior and anterior cruciate ligament in the MR knee images has been developed. The proposed method of the PCL location in T1-weighted MR knee images is based on entropy (or energy) measure of fuzziness and fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm. Then, edges of a region of interest containing the ligament are found. The procedure has been tested on clinical T1- and T2- weighted MR knee images resulting in a 3D visualisation

THz Time Domain Spectroscopy of Thin Gold Layers on GaAs

Thin layers of Au with the thickness of several nanometers were prepared on a semi-insulating GaAs substrate. The layers' thickness was determined by ellipsometry. THz time-domain spectroscopy was applied to determine a complex index of refraction of thin Au layers. The obtained results allow for a more precise modeling of the performance of semiconductor devices at THz frequencies