PCB Prototyping

In today’s world, Printed Circuit Boards, also known as PCBs, are part of our daily lives. However, it is currently difficult for students in university classes or hobbyists to quickly produce custom made PCBs since no system exists where every step in the production process is on one platform. There are four main steps that go into manufacturing a PCB once it is fully designed which are: milling, solder dispensing, component placement, and a reflow process. The goal will be to create various toolheads and place them onto a single platform allowing the user to perform the aforementioned production processes. After the design and manufacturing of these toolheads, functionality of the system was tested. Although single components of the system work, the entire system is not currently able to function in synchrony. This means there is still a lot of user input for the system such as having to use outdated operating systems, place the components in the component tray and move the board three times throughout the process

The differential hormonal milieu of morning versus evening, may have an impact on muscle hypertrophic potential

Substantial gains in muscle strength and hypertrophy are clearly associated with the routine performance of resistance training. What is less evident is the optimal timing of the resistance training stimulus to elicit these significant functional and structural skeletal muscle changes. Therefore, this investigation determined the impact of a single bout of resistance training performed either in the morning or evening upon acute anabolic signalling (insulin-like growth factor-binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3), myogenic index and differentiation) and catabolic processes (cortisol). Twenty-four male participants (age 21.4±1.9yrs, mass 83.7±13.7kg) with no sustained resistance training experience were allocated to a resistance exercise group (REP). Sixteen of the 24 participants were randomly selected to perform an additional non-exercising control group (CP) protocol. REP performed two bouts of resistance exercise (80% 1RM) in the morning (AM: 0800 hrs) and evening (PM: 1800 hrs), with the sessions separated by a minimum of 72 hours. Venous blood was collected immediately prior to, and 5 min after, each resistance exercise and control sessions. Serum cortisol and IGFBP-3 levels, myogenic index, myotube width, were determined at each sampling period. All data are reported as mean ± SEM, statistical significance was set at P≤0.05. As expected a significant reduction in evening cortisol concentration was observed at pre (AM: 98.4±10.5, PM: 49.8±4.4 ng/ml, P0.05). Timing of resistance training regimen in the evening appears to augment some markers of hypertrophic potential, with elevated IGFBP-3, suppressed cortisol and a superior cellular environment. Further investigation, to further elucidate the time course of peak anabolic signalling in morning vs evening training conditions, are timely

Functional body composition and related aspects in research on obesity and cachexia: report on the 12th Stock Conference held on 6 and 7 September 2013 in Hamburg, Germany

The 12th Stock Conference addressed body composition and related functions in two extreme situations, obesity and cancer cachexia. The concept of ‘functional body composition’ integrates body components into regulatory systems relating the mass of organs and tissues to corresponding in vivo functions and metabolic processes. This concept adds to an understanding of organ/tissue mass and function in the context of metabolic adaptations to weight change and disease. During weight gain and loss, there are associated changes in individual body components while the relationships between organ and tissue mass are fixed. Thus an understanding of body weight regulation involves an examination of the relationships between organs and tissues rather than individual organ and tissue masses only. The between organ/tissue mass relationships are associated with and explained by crosstalks between organs and tissues mediated by cytokines, hormones and metabolites that are coupled with changes in body weight, composition and function as observed in obesity and cancer cachexia. In addition to established roles in intermediary metabolism, cell function and inflammation, organ-tissue crosstalk mediators are determinants of body composition and its change with weight gain and loss. The 12th Stock Conference supported Michael Stocks' concept of gaining new insights by integrating research ideas from obesity and cancer cachexia. The conference presentations provide an in-depth understanding of body composition and metabolism

NEOTROPICAL XENARTHRANS: a data set of occurrence of xenarthran species in the Neotropics

Xenarthrans – anteaters, sloths, and armadillos – have essential functions for ecosystem maintenance, such as insect control and nutrient cycling, playing key roles as ecosystem engineers. Because of habitat loss and fragmentation, hunting pressure, and conflicts with 24 domestic dogs, these species have been threatened locally, regionally, or even across their full distribution ranges. The Neotropics harbor 21 species of armadillos, ten anteaters, and six sloths. Our dataset includes the families Chlamyphoridae (13), Dasypodidae (7), Myrmecophagidae (3), Bradypodidae (4), and Megalonychidae (2). We have no occurrence data on Dasypus pilosus (Dasypodidae). Regarding Cyclopedidae, until recently, only one species was recognized, but new genetic studies have revealed that the group is represented by seven species. In this data-paper, we compiled a total of 42,528 records of 31 species, represented by occurrence and quantitative data, totaling 24,847 unique georeferenced records. The geographic range is from the south of the USA, Mexico, and Caribbean countries at the northern portion of the Neotropics, to its austral distribution in Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay. Regarding anteaters, Myrmecophaga tridactyla has the most records (n=5,941), and Cyclopes sp. has the fewest (n=240). The armadillo species with the most data is Dasypus novemcinctus (n=11,588), and the least recorded for Calyptophractus retusus (n=33). With regards to sloth species, Bradypus variegatus has the most records (n=962), and Bradypus pygmaeus has the fewest (n=12). Our main objective with Neotropical Xenarthrans is to make occurrence and quantitative data available to facilitate more ecological research, particularly if we integrate the xenarthran data with other datasets of Neotropical Series which will become available very soon (i.e. Neotropical Carnivores, Neotropical Invasive Mammals, and Neotropical Hunters and Dogs). Therefore, studies on trophic cascades, hunting pressure, habitat loss, fragmentation effects, species invasion, and climate change effects will be possible with the Neotropical Xenarthrans dataset

A thesaurus to supplement the international patent classification in the field of biomedical engineering

The International Patent Classification, in spite of its clear advantages, does not meet the requirements of research and development in biomedical engineering. This article presents a descriptor thesaurus system providing finer classification of patent information for research and development needs, developed at the Chirana Research Institute of Medical Engineering. The article describes in detail the arrangement of the thesaurus, the data storage and retrieval using the computer facility of the Institute, and various outputs available from the storage and retrieval system for various purposes.

Fixed and Variable Sized Block Techniques for Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication with General Matrix Structures

In this paper, several blocking techniques are applied to matrices that do not have a strong blocked structure. The aim is to efficiently use vectorization with current CPUs, even for matrices without an explicit block structure on nonzero elements. Different approaches are known to find fixed or variable sized blocks of nonzero elements in a matrix. We present a new matrix format for 2D rectangular blocks of variable size, allowing fill-ins per block of explicit zero values up to a user definable threshold. We give a heuristic to detect such 2D blocks in a sparse matrix. The performance of a Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication for chosen block formats is measured and compared. Results show that the benefit of blocking formats depend – as to be expected – on the structure of the matrix and that variable sized block formats can have advantages over fixed size formats

Transmission of XeCl-excimer laser pulses through optical fibers : dependence on fiber and laser parameters

Measurements of the transmission of XeCl excimer laser pulses (308 nm) through optical all-silica fibers are reported. The observed photodegradation effects during long time irradiation are dependent on the laser energy density and the laser repetition rate. Also the influence of the fiber drawing parameters and fiber geometry have been investigated. Absorption spectra of the fibers in the wavelength range from 200nm to 400nm before and after the irradiation with the excimer laser give some insight in the physical reasons for the changes in transmission properties. A spectral analysis of the fiber fluorescence has been performed

The DynB Sparse Matrix Format Using Variable Sized 2D Blocks for Efficient Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplications with General Matrix Structures

The Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication is an important operation on sparse matrices. This operation is the most time consuming operation in iterative solvers and therefore an efficient execution of that operation is of great importance for many applications. Numerous different storage formats that store sparse matrices efficiently have already been established. Often, these storage formats utilize the sparsity pattern of a matrix in an appropiate manner. For one class of sparse matrices the nonzero values occur in small dense blocks and appropriate block storage formats are well suited for such patterns. But on the other side, these formats perform often poor on general matrices without an explicit / regular block structure. In this paper, the newly developed sparse matrix format DynB is introduced. The aim is to efficiently use several optimization approaches and vectorization with current processors, even for matrices without an explicit block structure of nonzero elements. The DynB matrix format uses 2D rectangular blocks of variable size, allowing fill-ins per block of explicit zero values up to a user controllable threshold. We give a simple and fast heuristic to detect such 2D blocks in a sparse matrix. The performance of the Sparse Matrix Vector Multiplication for a selection of different block formats and matrices with different sparsity structures is compared. Results show that the benefit of blocking formats depend – as to be expected – on the structure of the matrix and that variable sized block formats like DynB can have advantages over fixed size formats and deliver good performance results even for general sparse matrices