The 21st century sees significant breakthroughs in fabricating micro devices in the quest of miniaturising. Most micro parts have been manufactured in the range of less than 1mm. However, they are built based on material that is process dependant, resulting in monolithic parts. For example the Integrated Circuits, Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) are silicon based, and on their own do not...

Modeling and Performance Evaluation for Automated Material Handling Systems in a 300" Foundry Fab Han-Pang Huang*, Chun-Tsong Wag* * Robotics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering National Taiwan University, Taipei, 10674 Taiwan Email: [email protected] TELEAX: (+886-2) 2363-3875 * Professor and correspondence addressee **Graduate student Abstract In this paper, a modeling meth...

I would like to thank Yumiko Saga, who is leaving the team of handling Editors of Mechanisms of Development, and its sister journal, Gene Expression Patterns, for all her excellent work for the journals. I am delighted to announce that two new handling Editors have joined the team, who further broaden its expertise: Mary Dickinson and Fumio Matsuzaki. Mary is at the Department of Molecular Phys...

In Washington State, health care workers have the highest rate of compensable back injuries. Washington Hospital Services, a self-insured workers' compensation program, implemented a zero lift program in 31 of its 38 hospitals. Zero lift was defined as replacing manual lifting, transferring, and re-positioning of patients with mechanical lifting or use of other patient assist devices. This prog...

As the clinical laboratory advances toward total automation, the marketplace is now demanding more-efficient sample-handling systems. These demands have arisen over a relatively short period of time, in part because of heightened concern over laboratory safety and the resulting manpower shortages. Adding sample-handling capabilities to existing instrumentation is often a challenge, because usua...

Purpose: Mechanical loading is said to be an important factor in the development of low back pain (LBP). One of the main concerns in manual material handling (MMH) tasks is lifting loads, as this activity is present in most jobs. Despite the controversy about their effectiveness, belts are used in industry as either protective or assistive devices in manual load handling. The present inve...

Impaired Ca(2+) handling is one of the main characteristics in heart failure patients. Recently, we reported abnormal expressions of Ca(2+)-handling proteins in isoproterenol (ISO)-induced hypertrophied rat hearts. On the other hand, Na(+)/H(+) exchanger (NHE)-1 inhibitor has been demonstrated to exert beneficial effects in ischemic-reperfusion injury and in the development of cardiac remodelin...

Postharvest quality in stone fruits is ultimately defined in terms of consumer satisfaction, and includes appearance, texture and flavor, and nutritional value and safety. These result from all decisions and practices beginning with site and cultivar selection, and extending through cultural practices and all stages of postharvest handling. The development of high quality fruit is influenced by...

This study aims at the testing of various low-k insulators deposited at temperatures below approximately 160 C for possible application in temperature-limited copper interconnects (e.g., in plastic electronics). Various polymers were tested such as the well-known poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), a Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane (POSS) based copolymer partially fluorinated (POSS-F) and th...

a cross-sectional study to determine whether occupational exposure to antineoplastic drugs can cause hematologic changes was performed. blood samples were collected from a group of 24 hematology/oncology nurses who were exposed to antineoplastic drugs during a mean preiod of 5.5 years (standard error =1.1). the control group, matched by sex, and age, consisted of 18 nurses, worked on other sect...