Diagnostic Tool

As more and more businesses move online, research into the determinants and measurement of online service quality has become a research imperative (Zeithaml et al., 2000; Bitner, Parasuraman et al., 2005). Notwithstanding, research in this area is still in its infancy and much of the existing research is largely anecdotal, centering on consumer perceptions and ignoring the business customer perspective.

This study focuses on intervention processes that support sustainable agriculture. It argues that we know very little about how to intervene for sustainable agriculture, particularly for those areas where the Green Revolution has passed almost unnoticed and where degradation of natural resources is the normal practices, rather than the exception. As sustainability is a constructed, contextual and complicated concept, it is far from clear what sustainability is, how it comes about, and what it is actually for, although it has been at the top of the agenda for nearly a decade. No substantial biological or socialinstitutional breakthroughs or innovations have yet emerged, despite the considerable efforts that have been devoted so far to sustainable agriculture. Impressively, the word "sustainability" is such a powerful symbol that the very thought of an unsustainable agriculture immediately conjures up images of massive human deprivation and suffering and, ultimately, mass st...

We present multiwavelength observations of a large-amplitude oscillation of a polar crown filament on 15 October 2002. The oscillation occurred during the slow rise (about 1 km/s) of the filament. It completed three cycles before sudden acceleration and eruption. The oscillation and following eruption were clearly seen in observations recorded by the Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope onboard SOHO. The oscillation was seen only in a part of the filament, and it appears to be a standing oscillation rather than a propagating wave. The period of oscillation was about two hours and did not change significantly during the oscillation. We also identified the oscillation as a "winking filament" in the H-alpha images taken by the Flare Monitoring Telescope, and as a spatial displacement in 17 GHz microwave images from Nobeyama Radio Heliograph (NoRH). The filament oscillation seems to be triggered by magnetic reconnection between a filament barb and nearby emerging magnetic flu...

Quasi-isentropic compression experiments (ICE) of monocrystalline copper and nanocrystalline nickel and nickel-tungsten were carried out. The ICE process allows higher pressures to be accessed while minimizing the associated temperature rise. Monocrystalline copper was subjected to pressures between 18 GPa and 52 GPa, and the deformation substructure was studies via transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Current experimental evidence suggests a deformation substructure that transitions from slip to twinning, where twinning occurs at the higher pressures (52 GPa), and heavily dislocated laths and dislocation cells take place at the intermediate and lower pressures. Evidence of stacking faults at the intermediate pressures was also found. The Preston-Tonks-Wallace constitutive description was used to model both quasi- isentropic and shock compression experiments and predict the pressure at which the slip-twinning transition occurs in both cases. Nanocrystalline nickel and nickel-tung...

In this report we provide normative data for the Penn Inventory for posttraumatic stress disorder for men and women who were referred to a specialist outpatient clinic following a range of traumatic events. Data are provided from clinical assessment of 80 ...

A broad-range bacterial PCR targeting rRNA genes (rDNAs) was used to directly analyze 536 clinical samples obtained from 459 hospitalized patients during a 4-year study period. The molecular diagnosis based on DNA sequencing of the PCR product was compared to that obtained by bacterial culture. The bacteriological diagnosis was concordant for 447 (83%) specimens. Broad-range rDNA PCR was the only method that yielded an etiologic diagnosis for 11 (2.4%) of 459 patients. Compared to culture and clinical assessment, the sensitivity of the PCR method combined with sequencing was 74.2%, and the specificity was between 98.7 and 99.6%. At present, the described molecular approach proved superior to bacterial culture in two clinical situations: infections caused by bacteria with unusual growth requirements and specimens taken during antimicrobial treatment of the patient.

This paper presents a harmonic component monitoring technique to study the aging of toughened glass insulators. Harmonic analysis theories and the principles of statistical analysis are applied in this finding. Both new and aged insulators are tested for harmonic components with a ...

We examine numerically the three-way relationships among structure, Laplacian spectra, and frequency synchronization dynamics on complex networks. We study the effects of clustering, degree distribution, and a particular type of coupling asymmetry (input normalization), all of which are known to have effects on the synchronizability of oscillator networks. We find that these topological factors produce marked signatures in the Laplacian eigenvalue distribution and in the localization properties of individual eigenvectors. Using a set of coordinates based on the Laplacian eigenvectors as a diagnostic tool for synchronization dynamics, we find that the process of frequency synchronization can be visualized as a series of quasi-independent transitions involving different normal modes. Particular features of the partially synchronized state can be understood in terms of the behavior of particular modes or groups of modes. For example, there are important partially synchronized states in...

Chemiluminescence (CL) - self emitted radiation from electronically excited molecules - is seen as an attractive option for combustion diagnostics. A successful implementation of CL as a diagnostics tool requires reliable knowledge on the relation between chemiluminescence and heat release. We present results from a numerical study using a detailed kinetic mechanism, for CH4-oxidation (1), incorporating the OH*, CH*, and

BACKGROUND: Fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) cytology has been a highly effective methodology for tissue diagnosis and for various ancillary studies including molecular tests. In addition to other benefits, FNAB predominantly retrieves the diagnostic loosely cohesive cells in the lesion as compared to the adjacent supporting stroma with relatively higher cohesiveness. However, FNAB procedure performed with currently available resources is