Development and analysis of trapped field magnets in electromechanical devices

High temperature superconducting trapped field magnets (TFM) offer great potential as an alternative to 2>d generation YBCO wire, both in cost and performance. Attention is given to the calculation of current distribution within YBCO disks at partial and full activation and comparing this to experimental values. The best results are obtained by treating the current as a sequence of nested current rings. The fields are computed by integrating the elliptic integrals representing the fields from these rings and using variable metric optimization to choose the ring radii to best match the activation field over the on-activated material. A technique for treating the sub-regions of the TFM as voltage fed coils appears most expeditious for computing forces.Center for Electromechanic

Application of firefly luciferase assay for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to antimicrobial drug sensitivity testing

The development of a rapid method for determining microbial susceptibilities to antibiotics using the firefly luciferase assay for adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is documented. The reduction of bacterial ATP by an antimicrobial agent was determined to be a valid measure of drug effect in most cases. The effect of 12 antibiotics on 8 different bacterial species gave a 94 percent correlation with the standard Kirby-Buer-Agar disc diffusion method. A 93 percent correlation was obtained when the ATP assay method was applied directly to 50 urine specimens from patients with urinary tract infections. Urine samples were centrifuged first to that bacterial pellets could be suspended in broth. No primary isolation or subculturing was required. Mixed cultures in which one species was predominant gave accurate results for the most abundant organism. Since the method is based on an increase in bacterial ATP with time, the presence of leukocytes did not interfere with the interpretation of results. Both the incubation procedure and the ATP assays are compatible with automation

L'opera di Natalia Ginzburg

Two characteristics prevail in the works of Natalia Ginzburg: the tendency towards reduction and the tendency towards repetition. Reduction and repetition resemble each other; they are analogous, complementary; both are efficient and dramatic means to express a reality which is partial and incomplete and to underline the inherent obscure suffering which results from that reality. Although Natalia Ginzburg does not belong to any of the various literary trends (and, in particular, not to neo-realism which coincides chronologically with the beginning of her career), she interprets a sorry and limited world and bears sensitive witness to its loneliness, to its "male di vivere". In this sense, Natalia Ginzburg's works, although not in the mainstream of literary currents, touch the heart of modern literary sensibility.This is, in brief, the thrust of my thesis