Materials selection in mechanical design

A novel materials-selection procedure has been developed and implemented in software. The procedure makes use of Materials Selection Charts: a new way of displaying material property data; and performance indices: combinations of material properties which govern performance. Optimization methods are employed for simultaneous selection of both material and shape.

Detecting positive darwinian selection in brain-expressed genes during human evolution

To understand the genetic basis that underlies the phenotypic divergence between human and non-human primates, we screened a total of 7176 protein-coding genes expressed in the human brain and compared them with the chimpanzee orthologs to identity genes

Design-phase-specific selection of user research methods

For increasing the usability of a medical device the usability engineering standards IEC 60601-1-6 and IEC 62366 suggest incorporating user information in the design and development process. However, practice shows that integrating user information and the related investigation of users, called user research, is difficult in the field of medical devices. In particular, identifying the most appropriate user research methods is a difficult process. This difficulty results from the complexity of the medical device industry, especially with respect to regulations and standards, the characteristics of this market and the broad range of potential user research methods available from various research disciplines. Against this background, this study aimed at guiding designers and engineers in selecting effective user research methods according to their stage in the design process. Two approaches are described which reduce the complexity of method selection by summarizing the high number of methods into homogenous method classes. These approaches are closely connected to the medical device industry characteristic design phases and therefore provide the possibility of selecting design-phase- specific user research methods. In the first approach potential user research methods are classified after their characteristics in the design process. The second approach suggests a method summarization according to their similarity in the data collection techniques and provides an additional linkage to design phase characteristics. Both approaches have been tested in practice and the results show that both approaches facilitate user research method selection. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.

Selection of freshwater pearl mussel species for mantle transplantation in Bangladesh

Allograft mantle transplantations were studied in six species of freshwater mussels~ Lamellidens marginalis, L. corrianus~ L. jenkinsianus_, L. phenchooganjensis~ Parreysia corrugata and P. favidens by transplanting foreign mantle tissue into the mantle tissue of a host mussel. After three months of rearing, maximum survivability and pearl formation were observed in L. marginalis and L. jenkinsianus followed by L. corrianus and L. phenchooganjensis. Very poor results were observed in case of Parreysia corrugata and P. favidens. In addition to the natural pearl producing capacity of individual species, survivability and pearl production were related to the size of the mussel species. L. marginalis has been identified as the best species for mantle transplantation in Bangladesh.

Corpus design for a unit selection TtS system with application to Bulgarian

In this paper we present the process of designing an efficient speech corpus for the first unit selection speech synthesis system for Bulgarian, along with some significant preliminary results regarding the quality of the resulted system. As the initial corpus is a crucial factor for the quality delivered by the Text-to-Speech system, special effort has been given in designing a complete and efficient corpus for use in a unit selection TTS system. The targeted domain of the TTS system and hence that of the corpus is the news reports, and although it is a restricted one, it is characterized by an unlimited vocabulary. The paper focuses on issues regarding the design of an optimal corpus for such a framework and the ideas on which our approach was based on. A novel multi-stage approach is presented, with special attention given to language and speaker dependent issues, as they affect the entire process. The paper concludes with the presentation of our results and the evaluation experiments, which provide clear evidence of the quality level achieved. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.

On the selection of effective impulse frequencies for specific movements of fish in an electrical field

In order to determine effective pulse limits for Salmo irideus, Cyprinus carpio, Gasterosteus aculeatus, Tinca tinca, Salmo fario and ldus melanotus in impulse D. C. for galvanotaxis and galvanonarcosis, studies were carried out with rectangular and square impulses. The narcotizing pulse limits remained constant for each variety in an impulse D. C. of specific wave form. The anodic effect of fishes was better in square wave form and varied with the variation of temperature of surrounding medium. S. fario reacted better when placed parallel to the lines of electrical force. Transversal escape movement occured when the axis of fish body was at right angles to the direction of current.

Evidence of positive selection acting at the human dopamine receptor D4 gene locus

Associations have been reported of the seven-repeat (7R) allele of the human dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene with both attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and the personality trait of novelty seeking. This polymorphism occurs in a 48-bp tandem repea