Study of electrode erosion by discharges in a dielectric liquid.

Samples of copper, iron and graphite, commonly used as tool and workpiece electrodes in the electro-discharge machining process are subjected to single electrical discharges by breakdown of the paraffin liquid in which they are immersed. The discharge currents and durations used are typical of the repetitive discharges used in EDM. The electrode morphologies, resulting from the erosive action of the discharges, are examined using both optical and electron microscopy. The results of these examinations are related to single discharge erosion data derived from performance figures of commercial EDM equipment. It is concluded that the anode is heated by a plasma discharge which expands with time. During the discharge cathode material is evaporated by cathode spots which differ in character for thermionic and nonthermionic materials. Molten anode and cathode material is evacuated after the discharge by a fall in pressure within a bubble of vapour which surrounds the electrodes during the discharge. Graphite electrodes are eroded by sublimation during the discharge. A novel proposal for the relation between micro-cratering of iron cathodes and the plasma diameter is proposed and tested

Valuation of Intellectual Property: Placing a Dollar Value on Technology (or, Are Real-Options Real?)

Valuation professionals have for a long time been appraising business enterprises and their underlying assets. The “dot-com” New Economy has dramatically changed how businesses can do business and has introduced us to some new forms of intellectual property rights. Have these changes altered our valuation methodologies? Prior to the 1960s, when valuation professionals were faced with a situation in which the value of a business enterprise appeared to exceed the value of its underlying assets, the difference was ascribed to “goodwill” or “blue sky.” No real effort was made to identify the constituents of this catch-all category, it was simply the difference between the value of the business and the value of its clearly identifiable assets. During the 1960s, however, the United States experienced the first of a series of “merger mania” periods. These were the days when the so-called conglomerates were being assembled. Acquirers quickly realized that there could be significant tax benefits in allocating a portion of an ambitious purchase price to identifiable intangible assets. The Internal Revenue Code at that time permitted amortization of such intangibles if the taxpayer could successfully support the notion that these assets had value, were identifiable, and had finite remaining economic lives. Because the resulting amortization reduced the post-acquisition tax burden for the buyer, this strategy attracted much attention. Valuation professionals were called upon to identify, value, and estimate the remaining economic life of these intangible assets that were formerly lumped together as goodwill

Karyotypes versus Genomes: The Nymphalid Butterflies Melitaea cinxia, Danaus plexippus, and D. chrysippus

his is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Karger via the DOI in this recordThe number of sequenced lepidopteran genomes is increasing rapidly. However, the corresponding assemblies rarely represent whole chromosomes and generally also lack the highly repetitive W sex chromosome. Knowledge of the karyotypes can facilitate genome assembly and further our understanding of sex chromosome evolution in Lepidoptera. Here, we describe the karyotypes of the Glanville fritillary Melitaea cinxia (n = 31), the monarch Danaus plexippus (n = 30), and the African queen D. chrysippus (2n = 60 or 59, depending on the source population). We show by FISH that the telomeres are of the (TTAGG) n type, as found in most insects. M. cinxia and D. plexippus have “conventional” W chromosomes which are heterochromatic in meiotic and somatic cells. In D. chrysippus, the W is inconspicuous. Neither telomeres nor W chromosomes are represented in the published genomes of M. cinxia and D. plexippus. Representation analysis in sequenced female and male D. chrysippus genomes detected an evolutionarily old autosome-Z chromosome fusion in Danaus. Conserved synteny of whole chromosomes, so called “macro synteny”, in Lepidoptera permitted us to identify the chromosomes involved in this fusion. An additional and more recent sex chromosome fusion was found in D. chrysippus by karyotype analysis and classical genetics. In a hybrid population between 2 subspecies, D. c. chrysippus and D. c. dorippus, the W chromosome was fused to an autosome that carries a wing colour locus. Thus, cytogenetics and the present state of genome data complement one another to reveal the evolutionary history of the species

Statistics of soliton-bearing systems with additive noise

We present a consistent method to calculate the probability distribution of soliton parameters in systems with additive noise. Even though a weak noise is considered, we are interested in probabilities of large fluctuations (generally non-Gaussian) which are beyond perturbation theory. Our method is a further development of the instanton formalism (method of optimal fluctuation) based on a saddle-point approximation in the path integral. We first solve a fundamental problem of soliton statistics governing by noisy Nonlinear Schr\"odinger Equation (NSE). We then apply our method to optical soliton transmission systems using signal control elements (filters, amplitude and phase modulators).Comment: 4 pages. Submitted to PR

Research on Long-Term Care Homes for Older People in Brazil: Protocol for Scoping Review

LOTUS CONSORTIUM - Improving care in Long-term Care Institutions in Brazil and Europe through Collaboration and ResearchBackground The fast growth of the ageing population in low and middle-income countries, such as Brazil, has allowed little time for social and health care systems to adapt. As the care needs for the most vulnerable and frail older people become increasingly complex, services and governments need to ensure that long term care homes deliver high-quality and evidence-based care to meet their healthcare needs. Aim To examine and map the range of research undertaken in Brazil regarding care homes published in peer reviewed journals. Method This scoping review will consider all relevant peer-reviewed primary studies fully or partly conducted in Brazilian care homes including those which consider workforce (for example, e.g. healthcare professionals, care staff, and management level staff) and care home residents (older people aged 60 years and above), using empirical and original research focused on any health related topic. The searches will be conducted using bibliographic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, LILACS and Google Scholar) and manual searching of the reference lists of relevant studies published in English, Portuguese or Spanish from inception up to 2018. Two authors will independently screen each document by title and abstract against the eligibility criteria. In case of disagreement, a third reviewer will be consulted. Data from the included studies will be extracted and reported using tables, graphs, and narrative accounts using elements of content analysis. The Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool will be used to appraise the methodological quality of the included studies

Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry-Based Proteomics: Biological and Technological Aspects

Mass spectrometry-based proteomics has become the tool of choice for identifying and quantifying the proteome of an organism. Though recent years have seen a tremendous improvement in instrument performance and the computational tools used, significant challenges remain, and there are many opportunities for statisticians to make important contributions. In the most widely used "bottom-up" approach to proteomics, complex mixtures of proteins are first subjected to enzymatic cleavage, the resulting peptide products are separated based on chemical or physical properties and analyzed using a mass spectrometer. The two fundamental challenges in the analysis of bottom-up MS-based proteomics are as follows: (1) Identifying the proteins that are present in a sample, and (2) Quantifying the abundance levels of the identified proteins. Both of these challenges require knowledge of the biological and technological context that gives rise to observed data, as well as the application of sound statistical principles for estimation and inference. We present an overview of bottom-up proteomics and outline the key statistical issues that arise in protein identification and quantification.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS341 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

A dynamic ion cooling technique for FTICR mass spectrometry

AbstractA fast dynamic ion cooling technique based upon the adiabatic invariant phenomenon for Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (FTICR) is presented. The method cools ions in the FTICR trap more efficiently, within a few hundred milliseconds without the use of a buffer gas, and results in a substantial signal enhancement. All performance aspects of the FTICR spectrum, e.g., peak intensities, mass resolution, and mass accuracy, improve significantly compared with cooling based on ion–ion interactions. The method may be useful in biological applications of FTICR, such as in proteomic studies involving extended on-line liquid chromatography (LC) separations, in which both the duty cycle and mass accuracy are crucially important

Parkfield earthquakes of June 27-29, 1966, Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties, California—Preliminary report

Two earthquakes, M = 5.3 and 5.5, shook the Parkfield area in southern Monterey County, California, at 0409:56.5 and 0426:13.8 GMT, 28 June 1966. They were preceded by foreshocks on the same day at 0100 and 0115. A third shock, M = 5.0, occurred in the same area at 1953:26.2 on 29 June. The earthquakes were followed by a heavy sequence of aftershocks with epicenters along the San Andreas fault zone extending for about 15 miles southward beyond Cholame in San Luis Obispo County. A P-wave first-motion fault plane solution shows strike of vertical fault plane is N 33°W, coinciding with a surface zone of en echelon fault fractures in the pattern characteristic of right-lateral, strike-slip movement. The motion appears to have an upward component on the west side, at about 20° from pure strike slip. Extensive instrumentation within a few miles of the epicentral district gave unusually complete records from foreshock to aftershock sequence. A strong-motion instrument in the fault zone near Cholame recorded the unusually high horizontal acceleration of 0.5 g. The epicentral region of the earthquakes is on a known active segment of the San Andreas fault. Earthquakes in 1901, 1922, and 1934 in this region were also accompanied by surface faulting. On the published State geologic map, scale 1:250,000, the San Andreas fault zone shows a braided pattern of several branching en echelon major faults. Topographic forms, typical of the features of rift valleys, testify to the recency of fault movements. Small right-lateral surficial displacements had been recognized prior to the late June earthquakes in at least three places on the Parkfield-Cholame trace of the fault. Similar creep, or slippage, has continued since the earthquakes. Extensive nets of survey markers installed by 30 June across the active fault trace had recorded slippage as great as 0.1 inch per day by 12 July. The fault trace associated with the earthquakes is principally in alluvium of unknown depth in Cholame Valley, apparently a faulted graben within the San Andreas fault zone. Under a blanket of Tertiary and Quaternary sedimentary rocks in this part of the southern Coast Ranges, the great fault separates Jurassic-Cretaceous granitic and metamorphic rocks in the western block from Late Jurassic eugeosynclinal sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Franciscan Formation in the eastern block. In spite of the large horizontal acceleration recorded near the fault, very little building damage occurred in this sparsely populated region. Small concrete and steel bridges in, and adjacent to the fault trace, did not have their structural strength impaired