Nanoscale superlattice-like (SLL) dielectric was employed to reduce the power consumption of the Phase-change random access memory (PCRAM) cells. In this study, we have simulated and found that the cells with the SLL dielectric have a higher peak temperature compared to that of the cells with the SiO2 dielectric after constant pulse activation, due to the interface scattering mechanism. Scaling of the SLL dielectric has resulted in higher peak temperatures, which can be even higher after material/structural modifications. Furthermore, the SLL dielectric has good material properties that enable the cells to have high endurance. This shows the effectiveness of the SLL dielectric for advanced memory applications.

Trypanosoma cruzi is the protozoan agent of Chagas disease, and the most important parasitic disease in Latin America. Protozoa of the genus Leishmania are global agents of visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis, fatal and disfiguring diseases. In the 1970s multilocus enzyme electrophoresis demonstrated that T. cruzi is a heterogeneous complex. Six zymodemes were described, corresponding with currently recognized lineages, TcI and TcIIa-e – now defined by multiple genetic markers. Molecular epidemiology has substantially resolved the phylogeography and ecological niches of the T. cruzi lineages. Genetic hybridization has fundamentally influenced T. cruzi evolution and epidemiology of Chagas disease. Genetic exchange of T. cruzi in vitro involves fusion of diploids and genome erosion, producing aneuploid hybrids. Transgenic fluorescent clones are new tools to elucidate molecular genetics and phenotypic variation. We speculate that pericardial sequestration plays a role in pathogenesis. Multilocus sequence typing, microsatellites and, ultimately, comparative genomics are improving understanding of T. cruzi population genetics. Similarly, in Leishmania, genetic groups have been defined, including epidemiologically important hybrids; genetic exchange can occur in the sand fly vector. We describe the profound impact of this parallel research on genetic diversity of T. cruzi and Leishmania, in the context of epidemiology, taxonomy and disease control.

An investigation has been made of the deposition in open country of a coarse aerosol released from an aircraft flying at approximately 30 feet. A constant drop spectrum was used, with a mass median diameter of approximately 80 microns.

It is shown that the rate at which the aerosol deposits is greatly affected by the degree of atmospheric turbulence, a practical measure of which is described. The rate of deposition is approximately inversely proportional to the time interval elapsing between production of the aerosol and deposition, except for deposits laid down near the line of emission.

Droplets less than 10 microns in diameter are not deposited appreciably within any useful time interval, and it would be most uneconomical to attempt to produce deposits upon the ground by using drop spectra consisting mainly of such small droplets.

The solution used was a 10 per cent. w/v solution of technical DDT in a solvent consisting of 1 part of Shell Power Kerosene to 1 part of Shell Diesoline. Evaporation of the volatile constituents takes place very rapidly during the first few seconds after production of the droplets, and deposits formed immediately beneath the aircraft track have lost 50 per cent of their initial volume. Solvent losses increase significantly with time, but so slowly that for most practical purposes the solution strength of the ground deposit is very nearly constant for all important sampling points.

In the North Block at Chungai, comprising about 11 sq. miles of thorn savannah and thicket in Central Province, Tanganyika, an Auster J5G aircraft was used between July 1959 and March 1960 to apply a 2·5 per cent. solution of dieldrin in oil at the rate of 0·125 gal. per acre in an attempt to eradicate Glossina morsitans Westw. and G. pallidipes Aust. Eight applications were made at approximately four-weekly intervals. Swath width was 55 yd., and the aircraft emitted the insecticide as a coarse aerosol of volume median diameter 50–60μ as it flew in both directions over the block.

The operation suffered delays, and three applications were incomplete to varying degrees. Kills of G. morsitans per application appeared to be 85 per cent. or higher, but the final reduction of 99·5 per cent. could theoretically have been attained with consecutive mortalities of only 65 per cent. It is suggested that this discrepancy may be due to the higher lethal dose required by pregnant females. G. pallidipes was also reduced by 99·5 per cent. Numbers of fly were reduced sufficiently for large-scale settlement with cattle, which should complete the work of exterminating the fly.

The experiment is compared with that of the previous year in the same block, using γBHC, which reduced fly catches by less than 50 per cent. It is concluded that a combination of reduced swath width, greater volume dosage, more lethal insecticide and smaller lethal drop, together with improved flying technique and the more reliable performance of the disseminating equipment, was responsible for the improved result. It is thought that without delays, interruptions, incomplete applications and reinfestation, even better results would be obtained.

This was the cheapest and one of the most successful aerial operations carried out against savannah tsetse. Costs actually over the ground were £301 per sq. mile; incidental costs due to the locality of operations were £66 per sq. mile. There is little chance of reducing the costs of flying directly, but economies are possible by the use of other insecticides or, more probably, by more efficient dispensing equipment.

We address two points. First, one must explain how different, rare mutations ultimately lead to common psychopathological conditions. The developmental instability model offers one solution. Second, Keller & Miller (K&M) perhaps miss the major processes other than variation fueled by rare deleterious mutations that account for interesting genetic variation in psychopathology, particularly when single alleles have non-negligible effects: Red Queen processes.

The linear stability of boundary-layer flow over compliant or flexible surfaces has been studied by Carpenter & Garrad (1985), Yeo (1988) and others on the assumption of local flow parallelism. This assumption is valid at large Reynolds numbers. Non-parallel effects due to growth of the boundary layer gain in significance and importance as one gets to lower Reynolds number. This is especially so for a compliant surface, which can sustain a variety of wall-related instabilities in addition to the Tollmien—Schlichting instabilities (TSI) that are found over rigid surfaces. The present paper investigates the influence of boundary-layer non-parallelism on the TSI and wall-related travelling-wave flutter (TWF) on compliant layers. Corrections to the growth rate of locally parallel theory for boundary-layer non-parallelism are obtained through a multiple-scale analysis. The results indicate that flow non-parallelism has an overall destabilizing influence on the TSI and TWF. Flow non-parallelism is also found to have a very strong destabilizing effect on the branch of TWF that stretches to low Reynolds number. The results obtained have important implications for the design and use of compliant layers at low Reynolds numbers.

Because otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) are transmitted from the cochlea to the ear canal via the middle ear, the transmission properties of the middle ear directly influence OAEs’ characteristics. In general, middle-ear effusion (MEE) reduces measured emission amplitudes and sometimes eliminates the response entirely. The purpose of this study was to establish the relationship between the conduction of the middle ear and OAEs’ properties and to elucidate the effect of middle-ear effusion on detecting OAEs’. Spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAEs), transiently evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAEs) and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) were recorded from 44 normal ears and 32 ears with middle-ear effusion. DPOAEs were collected in two basic forms consisting of distortion product audiograms (DP grams) and input-output (I-O) functions, elicited by two primary tones F1 and F2 and varying geometric mean frequencies between 1–6 kHz. The results of air and bone conduction hearing levels in pure tone audiogram were also analysed. In 21 ears out of 32 otitis media with effusion (OME) ears, SOAEs were absent. In the 28 ears with middle-ear effusion, the response and wave reproducibility were diminished, and in the 17 ears with middle-ear effusion, the DP gram was diminished or eliminated. In particular, I-O function curves at 3 kH and 4 kHz were diminished by the primary tones of 45 and 55 dB under the condition of MEE. The SOAEs, TEOAEs and DPOAEs (DP gram and I-O function curve) are highly reliable and useful tests for monitoring changes in middle-ear condition in children with OME and in predicting the course of OME.

We investigated the electrical characteristics of the MOSCAP structures with W/WNx/poly Si1−xGex gates stack using C-V and I-V. The low frequency C-V measurements demonstrated that the flat band voltage of the W/WNx /poly Si0.4Ge0.6 stack was lower than that of W/ WNx /poly Si0.2Ge0.8 stack by 0.3V, and showed less gate-poly-depletion-effect than that of W/ WNx /poly- Si0.2Ge0.8 gates due to the increase of dopant activation rate with the increase of Ge content in the poly Si1−xGex films. As Ge content in poly Si1−xGex increased, the leakage current level increased a little due to the increase of direct tunneling and QBD became higher due to the lower boron penetration.

High quality Ga-face and N-face AlGaN/GaN based heterostructures have been grown by plasma induced molecular beam epitaxy. By using Ga-face material we are able to fabricate conventional heterojunction field effect transistors. Because the N-face material confines electrons at a different heterojunction, the resulting transistors are called inverted. The Ga-face structures use a high temperature AlN nucleation layer to establish the polarity. Structures from these materials, relying only on polarization induced interface charge effects to create the two-dimensional electron gases, are used to confirm the polarity of the material as well as test the electrical properties of the layers. The resulting sheet concentrations of the two dimensional electron gases agree very well with the piezoelectric theory for this materials system. Hall mobilities of the two-dimensional gases for the N-face structures are as high as 1150 cm2/Vs and 3440 cm2/Vs for 300 K and 77 K respectively, while the Ga–face structures yield room temperature mobilities of 1190 cm2/Vs. Both structures were then fabricated into transistors and characterized. The inverted transistors, which were fabricated from the N-face material, yielded a maximum transconductance of 130 mS/mm and a current density of 905 mA/mm. Microwave measurements gave an ft of 7 GHz and an fmax of 12 GHz for a gate length of 1 µm. The normal transistors, fabricated from the Ga-face material, produced a maximum transconductance of 247 mS/mm and a current density of 938 mA/mm. Microwave measurements gave an ft of 50 GHz and an fmax of 97 GHz for a gate length of 0.25 µm. This shows that using plasma induced molecular beam epitaxy N-face and Ga(Al)-face AlGaN/GaN heterostructures can be grown with structural and electrical properties very suitable for high power field effect transistors.

High quality Ga-face and N-face AlGaN/GaN based heterostructures have been grown by plasma induced molecular beam epitaxy. By using Ga-face material we are able to fabricate conventional heterojunction field effect transistors. Because the N-face material confines electrons at a different heterojunction, the resulting transistors are called inverted. The Ga-face structures use a high temperature AIN nucleation layer to establish the polarity. Structures from these materials, relying only on polarization induced interface charge effects to create the two-dimensional electron gases, are used to confirm the polarity of the material as well as test the electrical properties of the layers. The resulting sheet concentrations of the two dimensional electron gases agree very well with the piezoelectric theory for this materials system. Hall mobilities of the two-dimensional gases for the N-face structures are as high as 1150 cm2/Vs and 3440 cm2/Vs for 300 K and 77 K respectively, while the Ga-face structures yield room temperature mobilities of 1190 cm2/Vs. Both structures were then fabricated into transistors and characterized. The inverted transistors, which were fabricated from the N-face material, yielded a maximum transconductance of 130 mS/mm and a current density of 905 mA/mm. Microwave measurements gave an ft of 7 GHz and an fmax of 12 GHz for a gate length of 1 μm. The normal transistors, fabricated from the Ga-face material, produced a maximum transconductance of 247 mS/mm and a current density of 938 mA/mm. Microwave measurements gave an ft of 50 GHz and an fmax of 97 GHz for a gate length of 0.25 μm. This shows that using plasma induced molecular beam epitaxy N-face and Ga(A1)-face AlGaN/GaN heterostructures can be grown with structural and electrical properties very suitable for high power field effect transistors.

The valence subband structures, density-of-states, and optical gain of (0001) wurtzite (WZ) InxGa1-xN/GaN quantum wells (QWs) are studied using a numerical approach without analytical approximations. We used the effective-mass parameters of GaN and InN derived using the Empirical Pseudopotential Method. By varying the well width and mole fraction of In in the well material, the effects of quantum confinement and compressive strain are studied. A narrower well width and a higher In mole fraction in the well lead to TE enhancement and TM suppression of the optical gain. From the relationship between the optical gain and the radiative current density, we obtain the transparent current density for a single QW to be 200 A/cm2. Further, we analyze the InxGa1-xN/GaN/AlGaN separate confinement heterostructure multiple-QW laser structure. It is shown that a suitable combination of well width and number of QWs should be selected in optimizing the threshold current density in such MQW lasers