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Forging closer links between university research and teaching has become an important way to enhance the quality of higher education across the world. As student engagement takes centre stage in academic life, how can academics and university leaders engage with their students to connect research and teaching more effectively? In this highly accessible book, the contributors show how students and academics can work in partnership to shape research-based education. Featuring student perspectives, it offers academics and university leaders practical suggestions and inspiring ideas on higher education pedagogy, including principles of working with students as partners in higher education, connecting students with real-world outputs, transcending disciplinary boundaries in student research activities, connecting students with the workplace, and innovative assessment and teaching practices. Written and edited in full collaboration with students and leading educator-researchers from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines, this book poses fundamental questions about learning and learning communities in contemporary higher education.

Noting the increase in false accusations of child sexual abuse where divorce and custody litigation is in progress, this book examines the consequences of such accusations for everyone involved and provides defensive strategies for those falsely accused. The book draws on four case studies, including a personal one, to illustrate the chronology and effects of false allegations brought by the mother against the father, noting commonalities among the cases, and personality traits of the accuser and of the accused. The effects of false allegations and subsequent proceedings on the child are also detailed. The book then explores this phenomenon as "Sexual Allegations in Divorce" or SAID Syndrome, and identifies "red flags" during proceedings that suggest this syndrome may be occurring. The book also examines how social service agencies and courts appear to work in concert to substantiate false allegations rather than investigating to determine the truth, and how therapeutic interventions, when no abuse occurred, can affect children. The dubious use of anatomically correct dolls as evidence of sexual abuse in such cases is also examined. Finally, the book summarizes the legal and social service problems inherent to such cases, offering solutions, and then presents legal and emotional strategies for fighting false allegations. Three appendices include a questionnaire for identifying SAID syndrome, guidelines for determining presence of abuse, and a court monitor checklist. A list of support organizations is included, along with state listings of the Vocal National Network and a 29-item bibliography. (HTH)

In order to ensure better service quality during service design and execution, requirements raised by service customers need to be fully and rightly gathered, understood and described as models. Co-production between service providers and customers is a key feature of services, however until today there still lack of proper methods to address this issue. In this paper, state of the art of service models in literatures are firstly summarized, then several key aspects of service models are analyzed in details, e.g., roles, interactive behaviors, value and risk, etc. Subsequently, a new service behavior model named "Service-Provider-Customer (SPC)" is presented, including its graphical representations and attribute-based semantics descriptions. To validate this model, a case study on ocean logistics services is put forward, and a qualitative comparison between SPC and some other service models from literatures is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the ability of CLASS (Canadian Land Surface Scheme) to simulate sensible and latent heat fluxes, and soil moisture at two tundra sites in the Trail Valley Creek basin, Northwest Territories, Canada. These sites are underlain by continuous permafrost and feature mineral earth hummocks with organic soil in the inter-hummock zones. Two versions of CLASS were used, one with and the other without an organic soil parameterization developed for peatland conditions. CLASS was driven in a stand-alone mode and the results were compared with measurements obtained at each site during three summer months. Results from the peatland version of CLASS showed significant improvement over the standard version though both cases underestimated latent heat and overestimated sensible heat fluxes. CLASS used in this study is a one-dimensional column model and cannot explicitly represent lateral flow. The observed soil moisture content remained almost constant at both sites over the study period. As one site is in a local depression and the other at the bottom of a valley, it is reasonable to assume that the constant moisture content was maintained by lateral flow from adjacent hillslopes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preliminary comparisons showed that the public Affymetrix array platform was more sensitive in detecting changes in gene expression in developing wheat grain than a cDNA array platform. Affymetrix arrays were therefore used to compare gene expression patterns in developing grain of seven doubled haploid lines (DHLs) from a cross between wheat cvs Spark ×Rialto, showing that over 440 genes were differentially expressed (significant at P <0.05). The seven DH lines also exhibited differences in processing properties and a number of the differentially expressed transcripts were associated with these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We will attempt to provide an overview on the hydrodynamics of fishlike swimming propulsion based on our recent work performed experimentally, numerically and theoretically. In the present paper, we mainly review some typical work, including measurement on kinematics of free-swimming fish and prediction of dynamics acting on an arbitrarily deformable body, numerical and experimental simulations of flow over flapping and traveling wavy bodies, and theoretical modeling and analysis on flow around a waving plate and a flapping plate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In automated positioning machines such as Co-ordinate Measuring Machines (CMM) and machine tools, the relative position errors between the end-effector of the machine and the workpiece directly affect the quality of the final product or the process of concern. These positioning inaccuracies arise from various sources, including static/quasi-static sources such as geometrical errors from the structural elements, tooling and fixturing errors, thermally induced and load induced errors, and also dynamic ones due to the kinematics of the machine (Hayati 1983; Zhang et al. 1985; Duffie and Maimberg 1987; Weekers and Schellekens 1995). These errors may be generally classified under two main categories: Systematic errors which are completely repeatible and reproducible, andApparently random errors which vary under apparently similar operating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the various configurations of long travel and high precision Cartesian robotic systems, one of the most popular is the H-type which is more commonly known as the moving gantry system. In this configuration, two motors which are mounted on two parallel slides move a gantry simultaneously in tandem. An example of this stage is shown in Figure 4.1. This gantry system consists of four sub-assemblies, viz., the X and Y-axis sub-assemblies, the planar platform, and two orthogonal guide bars. When positioning precision is of the primary concern, direct drive linear motors are usually used and fitted with aerostatic bearings for optimum performance. Another setup of H-type gantry stage is shown in Figure 4.2. It consists of two X-axis servo motors: SEMs MT22G2-10 and a Y-axis servo motor: Yaskawa's SGML-01AF12. This gantry configuration has been in use for large overhead travelling cranes in ports, rolling mills and flying shear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A control system, based on the above developments, is developed and applied to a precision 3D Cartesian robotic system as shown in Fig. 8.1 with a travel of 250×400×50 (dimensions are in mm). Other engineering aspects are signficant to the overall development effort, such as sizing and choice of components, hardware architecture, software development platform, user interface design and performance assessment. Details of these aspects are described in the ensuing sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mechanical vibration in machines and equipment can occur due to many factors, such as unbalanced inertia, bearing failures on turbines, motors, generators, pumps, drives, turbofans, etc., poor kinematic design resulting in a non-rigid support structure, component failure and/or operations outside prescribed load ratings. The machine vibration signal can typically be characterised as a narrow-band interference signal anywhere in the range from 1 Hz to 500 kHz. To prevent equipment damage from the severe shaking that occurs when machines malfunction or vibrate at resonant frequencies, a real-time monitoring or control device is very useful. When the machine is used to perform highly precise positioning functions, undue vibrations can lead to poor repeatibility properties, impeding any systematic error compensation effort. This results directly in a loss of precision and accuracy achievable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-precision and resolution motion control relies critically on the precision and resolution of positional measurements achievable from the encoders. These factors are in turn limited by the technology behind the manufacturing of encoders. To date, the scale grating on linear optical encoders can be manufactured to less than 4 μm in pitch, but clearly, further reduction in pitch is greatly constrained by physical considerations in the manufacturing processes. This implies an optical resolution of 1 μm is currently achievable after a fourfold interpolation. Analog interpolation using soft techniques will provide an interesting possibility to improve further on the encoder resolution, by processing the analog encoder signals online to yield the small intermediate positions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Riding on the advances in adaptive control and techniques, modern industrial controllers are becoming increasingly intelligent. Many high-end controllers appearing in the market now come equipped with auto-tuning and self-tuning features. No longer is tedious manual tuning an inevitable part of control systems. The role of operators in PID tuning has been reduced to simple specifications and decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precision control is one of the core requirements to be met by ultra precision machines. A well chosen control strategy will enable a comprehensive complete control and compensation of the mechanical system to achieve precise positioning. The field of high-precision motion control is now an interesting subject of research. Precision control technology will be discussed here with respect to the following broad fields: Precision engineeringMicromanufacturingBiotechnologyNanotechnology [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this chapters, two precision actuation systems using piezoelectric actuators and permanent magnet linear motors will be presented. Common configurations of these systems, their mathematical model as well as control schemes will be included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relatively recent discovery of persistent adult neurogenesis has led to the experimental isolation and characterization of central nervous system neural stem cell populations. Protocols for in vitro analysis and expansion of neural stem cells are crucial for understanding their properties and defining characteristics. The methods described here allow for cell and molecular analysis of individual clones of cells—neurospheres—derived from neural stem/progenitor cells. Neurospheres can be cultivated from a variety of normal, genetically altered, or pathological tissue specimens, even with protracted postmortem intervals, for studies of mechanisms underlying neurogenesis, cell fate decisions, and cell differentiation. Neurosphere-forming cells hold great promise for the development of cell and molecular therapeutics for a variety of neurological diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Normal adaptive immune responses operate under major histocompatibility complex (MHC) restriction by binding to specific short antigenic peptides. Sequence-structure-function information is critical in facilitating the understanding of principles governing MHC-specific peptide recognition and binding. Three-dimensional structures of bound peptide ligands to MHC receptors are today characterized in great number using X-ray crystallography, offering a rich source of information for structural analysis. By utilizing information derived from available experimental structures, it is possible to predict binders for alleles that have not been studied extensively and offers an alternative to sequence-based approaches that require a large dataset for training. This chapter will introduce the use of structural descriptors, as well as comparative modeling and docking techniques for predicting whether a peptide sequence can bind to a specific MHC allele. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impact acoustic is an effective non-destructive evaluation (NDE) method for many applications especially for inspecting the bonding quality of mosaic tile-walls. However, the audio noise can affect the power spectrum density (PSD) distribution of an acquired signal seriously. So, the traditional method of using PSD as the main identification tool is not sufficient. This paper proposes an evaluation method based on wavelet packet decomposition (WPD). Using WPD, the PSD of the signal is allocated into certain component fields. Investigation on the component PSD indicates it can reveal the bonding quality even in a noisy environment. An artificial neural network (ANN) is chosen as a classifier to simplify the evaluation system and makes it more effective and efficient. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated experimentally. It is verified that this WPD approach can be applied to impact acoustic method to enhance its evaluation capability in a noisy environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, our understandings on services and SSME are presented, then current state and development plans for research and education on SSME in the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) are briefly introduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degradation bonding of tile-wall structure has emerged as an urgent issue in metropolitan cities, with more and more tile-dropping accidents caused. In order to ascertain the bonding integrity of tile-walls, impact acoustics features obtained from the sound signals generated by controlled impact are employed to develop a rapid and effective nondestructive inspection technique. Aiming to develop a robust inspection method that can adapt to interference caused by surface roughness in practical applications, a novel strategy which exploring the wavelet domain features and the hidden Markov model (HMM) is proposed in this paper. With the help of the specially designed artificial sample slabs, experiments were carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning from imbalanced data has emerged as a new challenge to the machine learning (ML), data mining (DM) and text mining (TM) communities. Two recent workshops in 2000 [17] and 2003 [7] at AAAI and ICML conferences respectively and a special issue in ACM SIGKDD explorations [8] are dedicated to this topic. It has been witnessing growing interest and attention among researchers and practitioners seeking solutions in handling imbalanced data. An excellent review of the state-ofthe- art is given by Gary Weiss [43]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DDT, HCH, toxaphene, HCB, chlordane, heptachlor, and mirex were produced in China. Historically, there were about 60 POP pesticide-producing enterprises located in 18 provinces in China. The accumulated output of DDT, toxaphene, and HCB were 459,000, 20,660, and 79,278 MT, respectively, while the accumulated output of HCH was 141,366MT during 1990-2003. In the 1980s, China set up the legal framework for controlling organochlorine pesticides, and the production and use of organochlorine pesticides for agriculture were banned. Presently, DDT and HCH can still be detected in air, water, sediment, field soil, grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, animals and human tissue in many areas, although their concentrations are lower than the relevant standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Germinated pollen grains form pollen tubes that accomplish rapid polarized growth within female gametophytic tissues in order to deliver the sperm cell to the ovule. This process is essential for successful plant fertilization in vivo. Pollen tubes are considered to be an ideal model system to study tip growth. A more comprehensive understanding of proteins involved in pollen development, germination and tube elongation is important not only for unraveling the intricate machinery of sexual reproduction in flowering plants, but has considerable potential for the improvement of crop plant production. Integrated proteomic, genomic and cell biological studies offer powerful tools for dissection of the fascinating mechanisms of pollen development and tip-growth regulation in higher plants. Here, we provide a brief overview of current advances in pollen and pollen tube proteomics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Arsenic (As) is a common pollutant of concern in environmental clean up because its contamination is recognized to lead to a variety of cancers, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and other health problems. Because Pteris vittata L. was discovered to hyperaccumulate As from soils, As hyperaccumulators have been attracting more and more attention and are proposed to be promising for phytoremediation. Although laboratory studies on the tolerance and accumulation of As by the hyperaccumulators are available, little information about field performance of phytoremediation using the plants is available. Here, the research priorities for As-phytoremediation technologies, As accumulation, and the relationships between As and other elements in the plants, are discussed. Primarily, however, results from a pilot field study on phytoremediation of As-contaminated soil in Chenzhou City of Hunan Province, China are summarized. It is concluded that P. vittata can effectively phytoextract As from an As-contaminated site under a subtropical climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Poly(ADP-Ribose) Polymerase-1 (PARP-1) is the prototypical and most abundantly expressed member of a family of PARPs that catalyze the polymerization of ADP-ribose (ADPR) units from donor NAD+ molecules on target proteins. PARP-1 plays roles in a variety of genomic processes, including the regulation of chromatin structure and transcription in response to specific cellular signals. PARP-1 also plays important roles in many stress-induced disease states. In this chapter, we review the molecular and cellular aspects of PARP-1's chromatin-modulating activities, as well as the impact that these chromatin-modulating activities have on the regulation of gene expression. In addition, we highlight the potential therapeutic use of drugs that target PARP-1's enzymatic activity for the treatment of human diseases [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years much progress has been made in the integration of physical transducers into clothing e.g. breathing rate, heart rate and temperature [1]. The integration of chemical sensing into textiles adds a new dimension to the field of smart clothing. Wearable chemical sensors may be used to provide valuable information about the wearer's health, monitoring the wearer during their daily routine within their natural environment. In addition to physiological measurements chemical sensors may also be used to monitor the wearer's surrounding environment, identifying safety concerns and detecting threats. Whether the clothes are looking into the wearer's personal health status or looking out into the surroundings, chemical sensing calls for a novel approach to sensor and textile integration. In contrast to physical sensors, chemical sensors and biosensors depend on selective reactions happening at an active surface which must be directly exposed to a sample. Therefore issues of fluid handling, calibration and safety must be considered. This paper discusses the constraints in integrating chemical sensors into a textile substrate. Methods of fluid control using inherently conducting polymers (ICPs) are discussed and a pH textile sensor is presented. This sensor uses colorimetric techniques using LEDs controlled by a wireless platform. Some of the potential applications of wearable chemical sensors are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microtubule-actin interactions are fundamental to many cellular processes such as cytokinesis and cellular locomotion. Investigating the mechanism of microtubule-actin interactions is the key to understand the cellular morphogenesis and related pathological processes. The abundance and highly dynamic nature of microtubules and F-actin raise a serious challenge when trying to distinguish between the real and fortuitous interactions within a cell. Xenopus oocyte wound model represents an ideal system to study microtubule-actin interactions as well as microtubule-dependent control of the actin polymerization. Here, we describe a series of cytoskeleton specific treatments in Xenopus oocyte wound healing experiments and use confocal fluorescence microscopy to analyze fixed oocytes to examine microtubule-actin interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solubility is one of the most important physicochemical properties studied during pharmaceutical preformulation. For liquid dosage form development, accurate solubility data are essential to ensure the robustness of the finished product. For solid dosage forms, solubility data are important in determining if an adequate amount of drug is available for absorption in vivo. If a compound has a low aqueous solubility, it may be subject to dissolution rate-limited or solubility-limited absorption within the gastrointestinal (GI) residence time (Lobenberg et al., 2000). The importance of solubility, in biopharmaceutical terms, is highlighted by its use in the biopharmaceutics classification system (BCS) described by Amidon et al. (1995). This system defines low solubility compounds as those whose aqueous solubility in 250 mL of pH 1-7.5 aqueous solution is less than the total dose. Solubility data are also used to estimate the maximum absorbable dose (MAD) (Johnson and Swindell, 1996). MAD is a conceptual tool that relates the solubility requirement for oral absorption to the dose, permeability and GI volume and transit time. It is defined as: [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grids provide a uniform interface to a collection of heterogeneous, geographically distributed resources. In recent years, the research on the Grid Monitoring System gets increasingly essential and significant. In this paper we put forward a novel Mobile Agent-based Grid Monitoring Architecture (MA-GMA), which is based on the GMA from GGF and introduces the mobile agents and cache mechanism of MDS. Based on the Open Grid Service Architecture (OGSA) standard, we merge the intelligence and mobility characteristic of mobile agent into the current OGSA to constructing a dynamic and extensible monitoring system. In the end, we do some experiments under different environments. As the results shown, this MA-GMA is proved to be effective and improve the monitoring performance greatly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the automated text classification, tfidf is often considered as the default term weighting scheme and has been widely reported in literature. However, tfidf does not directly reflect terms' category membership. Inspired by the analysis of various feature selection methods, we propose a simple probability based term weighting scheme which directly utilizes two critical information ratios, i.e. relevance indicators. These relevance indicators are nicely supported by probability estimates which embody the category membership. Our experimental study based on two data sets, including Reuters-21578, demonstrates that the proposed probability based term weighting scheme outperforms tfidf significantly using Bayesian classifier and Support Vector Machines (SVM). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hedgehog (Hh)-signaling pathway has been intensively studied in the past decade. Increasing evidence suggests that dynamic formation of protein complexes plays a critical role in the organization and regulation of Hh signaling. Immunoprecipitation (IP) is a powerful tool to study protein-protein interactions and has provided important insights into the regulation of Hh signal transduction. Here, we show how to use IP to study protein-protein interactions in the Drosophila Hh-signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The binding of bound peptide ligands to major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules plays a key role in the activation of normal immune responses and is an intricate theoretical problem that remains unsolved. Geometric and energetic complementarities between an MHC molecule and its corresponding bound peptide ligand are critical in determining the stability of the complex. In this context, the introduction of structural information can greatly facilitate our understanding of how well a peptide ligand can associate with a particular MHC molecule. This chapter introduces the use of structural models as a predictive method to determine whether a peptide sequence can bind to a specific MHC allele [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a framework for margin based active learning of linear separators. We instantiate it for a few important cases, some of which have been previously considered in the literature. We analyze the effectiveness of our framework both in the realizable case and in a specific noisy setting related to the Tsybakov small noise condition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic PET reconstruction is a challenging issue due to the spatio-temporal nature and the complexity of the data. Conventional frame-by-frame approaches fail to explore the temporal information of dynamic PET data, and may lead to inaccurate results due to the low SNR of data. Due to the ill-conditioning of image reconstruction, proper prior knowledge should be incorporated to constrain the reconstruction. In this paper, we propose a tracer kinetics guided reconstruction framework for dynamic PET imaging. The dynamic reconstruction problem is formulated in a state-space representation, where compartment model serves as a continuous-time system equation to describe the tracer kinetic processes, and the imaging data is expressed as discrete sampling of the system states in a measurement equation. The reconstruction problem has therefore become a state estimation problem in a continuous-discrete hybrid paradigm, and sampled-data H ∞  filtering is applied to for the estimation. As H ∞  filtering makes no assumptions on the system and measurement statistics, robust reconstruction results can be obtained for dynamic PET imaging where the statistical properties of measurement data and system uncertainty are not available a priori. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CELL architecture has one Power Processor Element (PPE) core, and eight Synergistic Processor Element (SPE) cores that have a distinct instruction set architecture of their own. The PPE core accesses memory via a traditional caching mechanism, but each SPE core can only access memory via a small 256K software-controlled local store. The PPE cache and SPE local stores are connected to each other and main memory via a high bandwidth bus. Software is responsible for all data transfers to and from the SPE local stores. To hide the high latency of DMA transfers, data may be prefetched into SPE local stores using loop blocking transformations and static buffers. We find that the performance of an application can vary depending on the size of the buffers used, and whether a single-, double-, or triple-buffer scheme is used. Constrained by the limited space available for data buffers in the SPE local store, we want to choose the optimal buffering scheme for a given space budget. Also, we want to be able to determine the optimal buffer size for a given scheme, such that using a larger buffer size results in negligible performance improvement. We develop a model to automatically infer these parameters for static buffering, taking into account the DMA latency and transfer rates, and the amount of computation in the application loop being targeted. We test the accuracy of our prediction model using a research prototype compiler developed on top of the IBM XL compiler infrastructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multidimensional arrays used in MOLAP are often sparse. They also suffer from the problem that the time consumed in sequential access to array elements heavily depends on the dimension along which the elements are accessed. In this paper, we resolve the problem of this further dimension dependency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of their small size, the specific surface areas of nanoparticulate materials (NP), described as particles having at least one dimension smaller than 100 nm, can be large compared with micrometer-sized respirable particles. This high specific surface area or nanostructural surface properties may affect NP toxicity in comparison with micrometer-sized respirable particles of the same overall composition. Respirable particles depositing on the deep lung surfaces of the respiratory bronchioles or alveoli will contact pulmonary surfactants in the surface hypophase. Diesel exhaust ultrafine particles and respirable silicate micrometer-sized insoluble particles can adsorb components of that surfactant onto the particle surfaces, conditioning the particles surfaces and affecting their in vitro expression of cytotoxicity or genotoxicity. Those effects can be particle surface composition-specific. Effects of particle surface conditioning by a primary component of phospholipid pulmonary surfactant, diacyl phosphatidyl choline, are reviewed for in vitro expression of genotoxicity by diesel exhaust particles and of cytotoxicity by respirable quartz and aluminosilicate kaolin clay particles. Those effects suggest methods and cautions for assaying and interpreting NP properties and biological activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the indentation delamination test, an indentation load generates a compressive stress field to delaminate a film from its substrate and the interfacial fracture is always of a mixed mode. The interfacial fracture toughness depends on the phase angle of the fracture mixed mode. If the delaminated film buckles, the buckling induces a tensile stress field and thus changes the phase angle and the measured value of interfacial fracture toughness. A simple equation was derived to calculate the phase angle. Based on the simple equation and the empirical formula, which describes the interfacial fracture toughness as a function of the phase angle, relations among interfacial fracture toughness, phase angle and indentation load/crack-length are discussed in details. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We summarize our recent simulation progress of micromanipulation experiments on RNAs. We mainly consults with two important small RNAs unfolding experiments carried out by Bustamante group. Our results show that, in contrast to protein cases, using the single polymer elastic theory and the well-known RNA secondary structure free energy knowledge, we can successively simulate various behaviors of force unfolding RNAs under different experimental setups from equilibrium to far-from equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying a constant voltage with multiple sinusoidal frequencies in the range of 10 Hz to 500 KHz between a distal reference electrode and a scan probe placed on a region of interest, exit currents from an array of electrodes inside the probe kept at the ground potential are measured to form multi-frequency trans-admittance maps. Observing that frequency-difference trans-admittance maps reflect a complex conductivity distribution underneath the probe, we analyzed the relationship between the map and the complex conductivity and suggested a new anomaly detection algorithm providing its location and size. We describe experimental results of the new technique for possible clinical applications of breast cancer diagnosis. We found that an anomaly as small as 4mm diameter at the largest depth of 15mm can be detected from frequency-difference trans-admittance maps with one frequency below 500 Hz and the other greater than 50 KHz. The anomaly location including its transversal position in the probe plane and depth can be estimated directly from the multi-frequency trans-admittance map. However, estimation of the anomaly size needs a calibration to remove uncertainty of unknown scale factor. We suggest future works of more experimental studies using realistic breast phantoms and human subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract—We need to know a complex conductivity spectrum of an imaging object to interpret reconstructed difference images in Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT). Using a Bio-Impedance Spectroscopy (BIS) system, we measured complex conductivities of seven different materials including TX151, polyacrylamide, animal hide gelatin, agar, saline, cucumber and banana. Obtaining time- and frequency-difference images of a saline phantom containing a banana or TX151 object, we could correlate the images with measured complex conductivity spectra. We propose further imaging studies using different materials of known complex conductivity spectra to properly calibrate time- and frequency-difference images in EIT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe results of time- and frequency-difference imaging experiments using a 16-channel KHU Mark1 EIT system operating in the frequency range of 10 Hz to 500 kHz. As imaging objects, we used a saline tank including three objects of banana, cucumber, and Perspex. Reconstructed images showed frequency-dependent conductivity and permittivity changes of the objects. Following the tank experiment, we performed a difference imaging experiment of a canine thorax during controlled ventilation. For a human subject, we tried difference imaging of the thorax during normal ventilation and the abdomen after intake of conductive liquid. Nothing that both σ and ε affect real and imaginary parts of measured boundary voltages, we suggest future works of new methods to reconstruct and interpret reconstructed difference images of σ and ωε. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-channel multi-frequency electrical impedance tomography (EIT) system requires a careful calibration method to minimize systematic errors. We describe novel calibration methods for the recently developed KHU Mark1 EIT system. Current source calibration includes maximization of output resistance and minimization of output capacitance using multiple generalized impedance converters. Phase and gain calibrations are used for voltmeters. Phase calibration nulls out the total system phase shift in measured voltage data. Gain calibrators are performed in two steps of intra and interchannel calibrations. Intra-channel calibration for each voltmeter compensates frequency dependency of its voltage gain and also discrepancy between design gains and actual gains. Inter-channel calibration compensates channel-dependent voltage gains of all voltmeters. Using the calibration methods described in this paper, we could obtain 1 MΩ minimal output impedance of the current source in the frequency range of 10 Hz to 500 kHz. The reciprocity error of about 0.05% was achieved after intra- and inter-channel voltmeter calibrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) have the ability to self-replicate and differentiate into cells from all three embryonic germ layers, thereby holding great promise for tissue regeneration applications. However, controlling the differentiation of hESCs and obtaining homogenous differentiated cell populations still remain a challenge. We present a highly efficient and reproducible experimental system that mimics the three-dimensional (3-D) environment of in vivo chondrogenesis and that supports the directed differentiation of human embryoid body (EB)- derived cells toward the chondrogenic lineage under serum-free chondrogenic culture conditions in the presence of bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To deal with the problem of extracting rules from the information table, a new method was studied and proposed. First, define discernible vector and its addition rule by the indiscernible relation in rough set. Second, scan discernible vectors just only one time by the discernible vector addition rule in order to obtain the core attribute set and the important attributes. Then reduce attribute and attribute value by deleting redundant attributes and attribute values respectively. Finally, a concise rule set was obtained. The illustration and experiment results indicate that the method is effective and efficient for rule extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthetic lethality occurs when the combination of two mutations leads to an inviable organism. Screens for synthetic lethal genetic interactions have been used extensively to identify genes whose products buffer one another or impinge on the same essential pathway. For the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, we developed a method termed Synthetic Genetic Array (SGA) analysis, which offers an efficient approach for the systematic construction of double mutants and enables a global analysis of synthetic lethal genetic interactions. In a typical SGA screen, a query mutation is crossed to an ordered array of approx 5000 viable gene deletion mutants (representing ∼80% of all yeast genes) such that meiotic progeny harboring both mutations can be scored for fitness defects. This array-based approach automates yeast genetic analysis in general and can be easily adapted for a number of different screens, including genetic suppression, plasmid shuffling, dosage lethality, or suppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]