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Agonists and antagonists of the canonical Wnt signaling pathway are modulators of pathological aspects of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Their activity is primarily modifying bone loss and bone formation, as shown in animal models of RA. More recently, modulation of Wnt signaling by the antagonist Sclerostin has also been shown to influence soft-tissue-associated inflammatory aspects of the disease pointing towards a role of Wnt signaling in soft-tissue inflammation as well. Yet, nothing is known experimentally about the role of Wnt ligands in RA. Here we provide evidence that altering Wnt signaling at the level of a ligand affects all aspects of the rheumatoid arthritic disease. WNT9a levels are increased in the pannus tissue of RA patients, and stimulation of synovial fibroblasts (SFB) with tumor necrosis factor (TNF) leads to increased transcription of Wnt9a. Loss of Wnt9a in a chronic TNF-dependent RA mouse model results in an aggravation of disease progression with enhanced pannus formation and joint destruction. Yet, loss of its activity in the acute K/BxN serum-transfer induced arthritis (STIA) mouse model, which is independent of TNF signaling, has no effect on disease severity or progression. Thus, suggesting a specific role for WNT9a in TNF-triggered RA. In synovial fibroblasts, WNT9a can activate the canonical Wnt/β-catenin pathway, but it can also activate P38- and downregulate NFκB signaling. Based on in vitro data, we propose that loss of Wnt9a creates a slight proinflammatory and procatabolic environment that boosts the TNF-mediated inflammatory response.

Ulcera duodeni werden am haufigsten durch eine Helicobacter-pylori-Infektion ausgelost, gefolgt von nichtsteroidalen Antirheumatika und einer Minderdurchblutung der Schleimhaut. Die posttransplantationslymphoproliferative Erkrankung (PTLD) kommt bei etwa 1–6,3 % der Patienten nach einer Herztransplantation unter immunsuppressiver Therapie vor. Bis zu 25 % der Falle der PTLD haben eine gastrointestinale Beteiligung. Aufgrund eines breiten Spektrums klinischer Symptome und pathologischer Entitaten kann die Diagnosestellung eine Herausforderung sein. Wir berichten uber einen 55-jahrigen Patienten nach einer Herztransplantation vor 12 Jahren unter Tacrolimus, der sich mit rezidivierenden Blutungen aus einem Ulcus duodeni vorstellte. Immunhistologisch zeigte sich erst im weiteren Verlauf eine seltene Epstein-Barr-Virus(EBV)-assoziierte polymorphe PTLD. Selten war die erste Manifestation einer PTLD nur ein isoliertes Ulkus im Bereich des Bulbus duodeni. Der Verlauf war progredient, von einem Zufallsbefund mit einer transfusionspflichtigen Anamie bis zur gedeckten Perforation verging nur ein Monat. Wiederholte endoskopische Interventionen waren erfolglos. Trotz chirurgischer Ubernahung des Ulkus verstarb der Patient im Rahmen eines Multiorganversagens. Retrospektiv ware eine Reduktion der Immunsuppression eine Erfolg versprechende Therapieoption bei polymorpher PTLD gewesen.

In 2012, Bruce Springsteen delivered the keynote address at the South By Southwest Music Conference and Festival. His task was daunting: reconnect authenticity to a traditional approach to creating art. By bringing together ideas on authenticity, creativity, and culture, Springsteen’s talk joins a lineage of essays that defend poetry, creativity, and culture, including famous works by William Wordsworth and T.S. Eliot. In this article, I connect Springsteen’s ideas to the “folk process,” which leads to considering Wordsworth’s ideas on the voice of the common citizen and Eliot’s ideas on historical tradition. In the end, I consider Springsteen’s legacy as cultural ambassador for the arts.

Anamnese und klinischer Befund: Ein 70-jahriger Patient wurde zur Abklarung von Hamoptysen unter oraler Antikoagulation stationar aufgenommen. An Vorerkrankungen bestand eine chronisch obstruktive Lungenerkrankung (COPD) im GOLD-Stadium D mit einer Heimsauerstofftherapie; vor 6 Jahren war eine Tracheotomie wegen einer Langzeitbeatmung (uber 898 Stunden) erfolgt. Daneben war eine periphere arterielle Verschlusskrankheit (pAVK) mit Bypass und wiederholten Thrombektomien infolge rezidivierender Bypassverschlusse trotz effizienter Antikoagulation bekannt. Der Patient hatte alle kardiovaskularen Risikofaktoren. Untersuchungen: Der klinische Verdacht auf ein Bronchialkarzinom wurde computertomographisch bestatigt. Bronchoskopisch wurde im linken Oberlappenbereich eine etwa 2 cm grose Raumforderung biopsiert. Nebenbefundlich fand sich eine erythematose, blutig tingierte Lasion von etwa 7 mm an der Tracheotomienarbe, die zangenbioptisch abgetragen wurde. Diagnose, Therapie und Verlauf: Die aus der Bronchoskopie gewonnenen Biopsien ergaben ein Adenokarzinom im linken Oberlappen und ein onkozytares Adenom der Trachea – ein auserst seltenes benignes Adenom. Das Staging ergab cT1b cN0 cM0 G2 IASLC Ia. In Zusammenschau der gesamten Konstellation des Patienten bestand keine Operabilitat. Es wurde gemas interdisziplinarer Tumorkonferenz ein individualisiertes Vorgehen mit einer kurativ intendierten Strahlentherapie des Adenokarzinoms beschlossen. Neben dem einzuhaltenden Ziel-INR von 2 soll eine endoskopische Kontrolle des bioptisch abgetragenen onkozytaren Adenoms der Trachea nach einem Jahr stattfinden. Folgerung: Das Onkozytom ist ein sehr seltenes (tracheales) Adenom, das im vorgestellten Fall neben dem Bronchialkarzinom die Hamoptysen verursacht hat. Als Genese kann eine reaktive bzw. hyperplastische Antwort nach Tracheotomie vor 6 Jahren vermutet werden. Aufgrund des moglichen infiltrativen Wachstums ist allgemein eine Resektion die Therapie der Wahl. Aber die Entscheidung zur Behandlung richtet sich immer nach dem individuellen Nutzen.

This study asks: what counts as writing in a Web 2.0 environment? How do the vocabularies, functionalities, and organizing structures of Web 2.0 environments impact our understanding of what writing is in these spaces and how that writing is performed? Results suggest that we, as scholars and teachers, need to pay more attention to, first, the interactivity that is embedded in and afforded by Web 2.0 applications and, second, the processes that are invisible to the composer. Successful compositional engagement with Web 2.0 applications requires an evolving interactive set of practices similar to those practiced by gamers, comics, and electronic literature authors and readers. What we learn about these practices has the potential to transform the way we understand writing and the teaching of writing within and outside of a Web 2.0 ecosystem.

How do we know when an educational organization, process, or courseware tool is innovative? How do we define the processes that encourage change or the ways in which faculty develop new courseware innovations? The terms innovation, change, and development have been overused in so many contexts that they now seem to have lost their meanings. A review of the literature on innovation and educational change offered no agreed up definitions or models. Prior studies that have considered innovations in educational technology have focused on the innovations themselves or the potential barriers to faculty adoptions of externally developed innovations. In this study of an educational technology services program that provides competitive grants for faculty-developed technology courseware projects at a large state research university, I shifted the focus to consider: what current and future higher education faculty consider to be an innovative courseware project, and how they conceive of processes for developing such innovations. Results suggested that when it is not reduced to a rhetorical device in a marketing campaign or department instructional technology vision plan, innovation that is defined locally by a community of practice can effectively transform teaching, learning, and the organizations that support these activities.

It has become clear that psychosocial factors play an integral role in health, particularly in influencing the progression and severity of disease. Scientists have begun to identify these factors in order to uncover methods to control them and so affect the course of an illness. Some of these studies have led to the hypothesis that the presence of an animal companion is one such psychosocial factor.

The problem of traffic engineered routing subject to deterministic QoS constraints with a minimum cost objective is considered. A novel blend of generic service curves as abstraction of network links of the associated network calculus under min-plus algebra and of existing heuristics for the restricted shortest path problem, is presented as a generic approach applicable in arbitrary network infrastructures. In particular, we define load-dependent link cost and present in pseudo-code notation the details of the different steps of the developed algorithm, which comprises of a pre-computation and an on-demand phase. A tabu-search is deployed as a local search heuristic to exploit the neighborhood of a pre-computed minimum weight path. The presented approach provides a generic technical solution for minimum-cost routing subject to deterministic QoS constraints, which includes only a reasonably limited number of tuning knobs and thus facilitates the network operator to concentrate on the rather economical task of link cost definition.

Any errors in a linearization system for power amplifiers will affect linearization results. In this paper the effect of the demodulator errors on a few adaptive predistortion techniques is studied. The investigations are focused on the complex gain predistorter and the mapping predistorter. The analyses and simulations show that in the complex gain predistorter only a DC offset will affect the adjacent channel interference (ACI). Gain imbalance and phase imbalance of the demodulator have no effect on the ACI in the complex gain predistorter system. In the mapping predistorter system, although the predistorter was also misadjusted because of errors, the ACI will not be deteriorated. But due to these errors, linear distortions will emerge in both systems and bit error rate (BER) of both systems will be degraded. The conclusions obtained in this paper can be used to guide the predistorter design. According to these guidelines the design process can be simplified and the ACI can be improved.

New microwave circuits for voltage standard application containing 256 shunted bicrystal junctions were designed and investigated. The series array follows a meander line, which prevents the uniform distribution of microwave current along the array. To overcome this drawback, we are placing the meander parallel to a coplanar waveguide line. This provides parallel feeding of microwave power to series connected junctions. A circuit divided in 8 sub-arrays represents a seven-bit digital-to-analog converter. At a frequency f=27332 MHz and for a constant power each of the segments of the array demonstrated the first current step at 78 K.

This paper summarizes recent results of our work toward a voltage standard based on a high-temperature superconducting (HTS) Josephson junction array. The concept of a programmable HTS voltage standard and technological aspects of its fabrication are discussed. New circuits providing uniform microwave current distribution along the HTS array are described.

With the aging of the population, the medical and social costs of skeletal fragility leading to fractures will cause an immense burden on society unless effective prophylactic and therapeutic regimens can be developed. Exercise is suggested as a possible regimen against involutional bone loss. The purpose of the present meta-analysis is to address a quantitative review of the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and nonrandomized controlled trials (CTs) on the effects of exercise training programs on bone mass, measured as bone mineral density (BMD) or bone mineral content (BMC), of the lumbar spine (LS) and the femoral neck (FN) in pre- and postmenopausal women. The literature from 1966 through December 1996 was searched for published RCTs and CTs. Study treatment effect is defined as the difference between percentage change in bone mass per year in the training group and the control group. Overall treatment effects (OTs) with the 95% confidence intervals of these study treatment effects were calculated using inverse-variance weighting. Of the 62 articles identified, 25 met the inclusion criteria and were maintained for further analyses. The weighted OTs for the RCTs showed very consistently that the exercise training programs prevented or reversed almost 1% of bone loss per year in both LS and FN for both pre- and postmenopausal women. The two OTs that could be calculated for strength training programs did not reach significance. The OTs for the CTs were almost twice as high as those for the RCTs, which gives an indication of the confounding introduced by the nonrandom allocation of the subjects to groups.

The generalized exponential matrix technique in the spectral domain is used in conjunction with Galerkin's approach to examine the dispersion characteristics of bilateral coplanar waveguide and periodic microstrip line in bianisotropic superstrate-substrate structures possessing different constitutive features, and the mathematical treatment in this study accounts for very generalized bianisotropic linear media characterized by four independent 3 x 3 constitutive tensors but within the confines of a realizable physical range. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the combined effects of magnetoelectric cross coupling on the propagation constant of dominant mode, and some unique dispersion phenomena are illustrated and discussed.

A new calibration technique for application to near-field probes has been developed. For this, a simple electric coaxial near-field probe for application in the 0.05-20-GHz band has been developed, theoretically analyzed, and calibrated using a known field. By using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, this field probe is theoretically analyzed to determine its most sensitive probe segment. Taking the amplitude of the normal electric field at this segment as a known field, the probe is calibrated by defining a performance factor (PF), which is the ratio of the known field amplitude to the probe signal amplitude. Comparing the calculated results with measured results, the agreement is good. Additionally, the measurements are experimentally characterized with respect to the influence of the distance between the probe and the device-under-test (DUT), the influence of the input signal on the probe, and the spatial resolution. Two measurement examples are demonstrated, which investigate the mode and field distribution within passive coplanar microwave components.

There are currently more than 40 million people over the age of 65 in the United States. Many of these Older Adults find it difficult to leave home for a variety of health and psychological reasons including multiple and complex chronic conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, pain, depression, cognitive and mobility impairments or lack of caregiver support. Where do these patients receive theirhealth careand inwhat settingmakes themost sense for these frail individuals? What happens when a patient is unable to get into a traditional office practice for routine medical care and follow-up? Multiple studies suggest they end up in the ER or hospitalized for conditions that could have been prevented with earlier diagnosis and treatment. Many receive futile care that is not in-line with their values or consistent with the trajectory of their decline because of the absence of a health caredirective. One current National health care focus is on developing ways to prevent avoidable hospital readmissions as well as associated costs not only in dollars and cents but in the human burden of suffering that accompanies frequent hospitalizations and ER visits. Atul Gawande, in his January 24, 2011 New Yorker article “The Hot spotters” discusses the savings to be had while providing excellence in Primary Care by concentrating on the sickest, highest cost users of health care. those who are most often homebound and currently receiving their “primary care” in the ER and hospital settings. For all of these reasons, House Calls are a rapidly growing arena for Nurse Practitioner involvement. Whether it’s running an independent House Calls Primary Care Practice full time, or whether it’s scheduling a few visits to homebound patients from a regular clinic or office practice, these visits to Older Adults in their home settings are a valuable benefit to our communities that will extend the spectrum of health care services and improve access to care for frail Older Adults. This venue for NP practice providing longitudinal care in the home setting is also rewarding and multi-dimensional. Given our

The behavior of nonlinear TE-waves guided by asymmetrical dielectric slab waveguides, having a generalized nonlinear substrate with a permittivity of the form /spl epsiv//spl sim/|E/spl I.oarr/|/sup /spl delta//, is analyzed. Using an analytical solution for the electromagnetic fields in this nonlinear media, the dispersion relations, electric field profiles, and cutoff frequencies are illustrated and discussed. >

A method, based on the mode matching technique, to study various resonant modes of a multicomposite, multilayered cylindrical dielectric resonator is presented. Dielectric sphere and cone resonators placed in practical environments are investigated. The calculated resonant frequencies show very good agreement compared with the numerical results of the finite difference method for the spherical resonator and with the measured values for the conical resonator, respectively. Experimental investigations show that the conical resonator can be coupled to a circular microstrip line, which has small size at high frequencies and may be integrated together with an oscillator. >

A novel and systematic method is presented for the complete determination of dyadic spectral Green's functions directly from Maxwell's equations. With the use of generalized scalarizations developed in this paper, four general and concise expressions for the spectral Green's functions for one-dimensionally inhomogeneous multilayer structures, excited by three-dimensional electric and magnetic current sources, are given in terms of modal amplitudes together with appropriate explicit singular terms at the source region. It is shown that Maxwell's equations in spectral-domain can be reduced, by using dyadic spectral eigenfunctions, to two sets of z-dependent inhomogeneous transmission-line equations for the modal amplitudes. One set of the transmission-line equations are due to the transverse current sources and the other set due to the vertical current sources. Utilizing these equations, network schematizations of the excitation, transmission and reflection processes of three-dimensional electromagnetic waves in one-dimensionally inhomogeneous multilayer structures are achieved in a full-wave manner. The determination of the spectral Green's functions becomes so simple that it is accomplished by the investigation of voltages and currents on the derived equivalent circuits. Examples of singleand multilayer structures are used to validate the general expressions and the equivalent circuits. >

The antitumour activity of docetaxel was investigated in patients with advanced malignant melanoma. Docetaxel, 100 mg/m 2 , intravenous, over 60 min, was administered every 3 weeks. Response evaluation was performed after two cycles. No prophylactic treatment with steroids or antihistamines was given. 38 patients were included, 36 were eligible and evaluable for toxicity and 30 patients were evaluable for response. The main haematological toxicity was neutropenia [17 patients with common toxicity criteria (CTC) grade 4 and 11 CTC grade 3] with nadir after 5–8 days and rapid recovery. The most frequent non-haematological toxicity was generalised alopecia (83% of the patients). Asthenia, malaise and fatigue were also seen in 58%. Skin toxicity was also frequent. Hypersensitivity reactions (erythematous rash, urticaria, blood pressure changes and tachycardia), seen in 42% of the patients, were mild to moderate. Oedema was registered in one fifth of the patients and developed after four or more treatment cycles. The overall response rate in the evaluable patients was 17% (five partial responders). We conclude that docetaxel has activity in advanced malignant melanoma.

An analytical method is presented for the evaluation of mutual coupling between slot-coupled microstrip patches in a finite array. The approach is a combination of the equivalence principle and the reciprocity theorem and uses the spectral domain Green's functions for a dielectric slab in a moment method solution for the unknown patch and slot current distribution. The excitation mechanism of the patches is taken into account by introducing an N-port equivalent network, and the impedance matrix of an array of N-element slot-coupled patches is evaluated directly from its network voltage and current matrices of order N/sup 2/. As examples, the mutual impedances and scattering coefficients for two-, four-, and eight-element arrays are evaluated. Results are compared with measured data. >

A novel dielectric resonator-the dielectric ring-gap resonator- is introduced and analyzed. The resonant frequency and unloaded Q factor of the fundamental quasi-TE/sub 011/ mode have been calculated by a numerical field analysis and an appropriate equivalent circuit. The characteristics of the fundamental quasi-TE/sub 011/ mode in the dielectric ring-gap resonator have been experimentally investigated. New coupling techniques to couple the dielectric ring-gap resonator to, e.g., a microstrip line on a thin substrate, using the electric fringing field near the gap edges have been experimentally investigated. >

Single and coupled periodically inhomogeneous microstrip lines have been analyzed using a hybrid mode spectral domain field analysis. The field computation method will be explained principally, the convergence of the method and the numerical effort will be critically discussed. Applications of the theoretical results have been applied to the design of microstrip- and waveguide filters, to antennas and to the design of a Podell-coupler with equalized even and odd mode phase velocities and a high directivity. Measurements are compared to the theoretical results.

A hybrid mode field analysis for a finline loaded with a ferrite- and additionally a dielectric speciem is presented. Using this theory the power density distribution of forward and backward waves is calculated and demonstrated. The results are used to design a finline isolator for the 28.5 GHz range with a bandwidth of 2 GHz, an insertion loss smaller than 1.2 dB and an isolation higher than 39 dB.

Using the techniques described in this paper it is possible to calculate the physical modes of a conductor over a wide frequency range quickly even for dispersive area. An estimation of the wave number against the frequency is essential. A set of initial, frequency dependent, linear equations extracted from finite differences is constructed, simplified for better performance and solved for a few frequencies. By means of these supporting points it is possible to compute all other frequencies in between very fast

In light of enormous licensing cots for spectral resources, strict and tight QoS requirements apply in the wired infrastructure of mobile data networks in order to consume as much of the end-to-end QoS budget as possible on expensive radio links. Anticipating almost infinite wired capacity at negligible cost, the problem of cost effective resource management in the wired network infrastructure is often disregarded. Nevertheless, as long as the cost gain due to sophisticated resource management exceeds cost for additional capacity, it is worth to address this issue. Our work aims at tracking the aspect of appropriate dimensioning of traffic engineered paths subject to minimizing the consumed resources under the constraint of providing deterministic QoS guarantees. In particular, we propose a novel application of fuzzy logic control in order to dynamically adjust the resources assigned to one path to variations of traffic traversing that path. We design the required fuzzy sets and the according rule base of the controller and evaluate its asymptotic stability and performance. As controller input measurements of the traffic variation shall be averaged over a variable size window. We design a second fuzzy logic controller in order to adapt this averaging window, such that significant traffic variations are captured while the measurement overhead during periods of nearly time invariant traffic characteristics is reduced.

Ultrasound attenuation and relative backscatter changes of liver tissue induced by Carbon Tetrachloride (CCl/sub 4/) administration were investigated in a rat model. Young male Wistar rats (approx. 200 g) were treated with a weekly oral dose of CCl/sub 4/ over a period of 11 weeks. This treatment first leads to a fatty liver which then develops into liver cirrhosis. After excision b-mode scans of the livers were performed with a 9 MHz single element transducer. The attenuation values were calculated for selected frequencies within the transducer bandwidth by two different approaches. The averaged frequency dependent relative backscatter values were estimated after compensation for the attenuation in the acoustic path. For both methods a slight decrease (10 %) of the attenuation and a slight increase (15 %) in the relative backscatter were observed as a function of administration time. These changes are similar to the progression of the relevant blood parameters.

A simple wide band equivalent circuit for the surface impedance of conducting sheets is introduced into the three dimensional Yee (1966) FDTD scheme. The model is based on the plane skin effect, thus the frequency dependence of losses and of the inner inductivity is included. Stability considerations are presented as well as numerical results for the attenuation coefficient of microstrip and coplanar waveguides in comparison to reference data.

The authors deal with the characterization of uniaxially anisotropic substrates. The determination of permittivity tensors of anisotropic substrates for integrated circuits was performed on the basis of the measured phase constant of a single microstrip line at several frequencies by using an optimization routine and spectral-domain analysis. The investigations have shown that the dispersion characteristics of microstrip lines on isotropic and anisotropic substrate materials, respectively, differ in a manner which allows determination of the permittivity tensor of the substrate material. >

A brief summary is given of a new rigorous method to determine resonant frequencies and field distributions of all resonant modes in a multicomposite, multilayered cylindrical dielectric resonator used in an MMIC (monolithic microwave integrated circuit). This resonator consists of a number of concentric cylinders, which are arbitrarily layered in an axial direction. As examples, a dielectric sphere and a dielectric cone placed in a microwave integrated circuit (MIC) environment have been analyzed. The sphere and the cone were structurally approximated by bodies of resolution with a stepped cross section. The calculated resonant frequencies had an accuracy of >

Advances in computer-aided design of microwave integrated circuits are reported. In recent years coplanar integrated circuits have become more and more interesting especially for millimeter-wave applications. But the design of microwave and millimeter-wave coplanar circuits has been a difficult task because design tools for components were not available. The state of the art and the progress made in this area, especially in the author's research group, are discussed. It is shown that accurate models for single and coupled coplanar lines and for line discontinuities as well as for lumped elements are available. The application of these models to the design of microwave and millimeter-wave integrated circuits is demonstrated. >

The design and performance of single-device and balanced versions of (M)MIC (microwave and monolithic microwave integrated circuit) GaAs FET frequency doublers from 18 GHz to 36 GHz, fabricated in purely CPW techniques, are presented. Coplanar discontinuities which are usually neglected are taken into consideration in the analysis and design. Spiral inductors and their associated parasitic capacitances are used for impedance matching and phase shifting purposes. Simulation and measurement results are in good agreement. The investigated doublers have a minimum conversion loss of 7 dB. >

A full-wave method for the investigation of microstrip- and coplanar-structures including 3-D metallization structures is presented. The spectral domain analysis method was used to calculate the S-parameters of unshielded microwave components containing bond-wires and air-bridges. The general formulation and the method are described. The application of the theory is outlined by a comparison of measured and calculated results for a spiral inductor. >

Various types of air bridges within bends and T-junctions are innvestigated using an extension of the spectral domain analysis method for analyzing three-dimensional metallization structures. Generalized scattering parameters are calculated to compare the different bridge layouts. In order to check the accuracy of the algorithm, four coplanar T-junctions on a GaAs substrate containing three standard air bridges and one modified air bridge have been built and measured. For the even mode scattering parameters, a very good agreement over the whole frequency range, compared to the calculated results, is obtained. Various data for conversion from the even mode to the odd mode within these structures are also given. As a result of the investigations, some design ideas for coplanar waveguide (CPW) circuit designers are determined. Problems in coplanar measurements using probe tips are discussed. >

The time domain simulation results of a two-dimensional FDTD analysis of a planar waveguiding structure are normally analysed by Fourier transform. The introduced method of time series analysis to extract propagation and attenuation constants reduces the desired computation time drastically up to a factor 25. Additionally, a nonequidistant discretization can be used to reduce the number of points in the spatial grid. Therefore, it is possible to simulate, e.g. coplanar waveguide (CPW) structures with very thin conductors and small dimensions, as they are used in MMIC technology, The simulation results of several examples are compared with measurements and show good agreement. >

The analysis of a simple coplanar band-reject filter based on open-ended stubs using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is presented. The influence of bond wires for grounding the side conductors of the coplanar lines is investigated. A comparison of the results obtained with accurate measurements is shown, and good agreement is obtained. >

YBaCuO series arrays composed of 23 bicrystal grain boundary Josephson junctions incorporated into 2-arm logarithmic spiral antenna and coupled to a broadband quasi-optic lens system were applied for determination of frequencies above 100 GHz by comparing the DC voltages aroused over the array under MM-wave irradiation, with a solid-state reference cell. Full phase-lock of all junctions under some 0.1 mW incident power at frequency 146 GHz (presence of 23-fold Shapiro step) was obtained for a YSZ-substrate array at temperatures up to 68 K. We verified the precision of the proposed instrument by measuring time frequency drifts for both the 100 GHz Gunn diode oscillator and the 150 GHz backward-wave oscillator.