Unique in focusing on both organic and inorganic materials from a system point of view, this text offers a complete overview of printed electronics integrated with classical silicon electronics. Following an introduction to the topic, the book discusses the materials and processes required for printed electronics, covering conducting, semiconducting and insulating materials, as well as various substrates, such as paper and plastics. Subsequent chapters describe the various building blocks for printed electronics, while the final part describes the resulting novel applications and technologies, including wearable electronics, RFID tags and flexible circuit boards. Suitable for a broad target group, both industrial and academic, ranging from mechanical engineers to ink developers, and from chemists to engineers.
The book generously covers a wide range of aspects and issues related to RFID systems, namely the design of RFID antennas, RFID readers and the variety of tags (e.g. UHF tags for sensing applications, surface acoustic wave RFID tags, smart RFID tags), complex RFID systems, security and privacy issues in RFID applications, as well as the selection of encryption algorithms. The book offers new insights, solutions and ideas for the design of efficient RFID architectures and applications. While not pretending to be comprehensive, its wide coverage may be appropriate not only for RFID novices but also for experienced technical professionals and RFID aficionados.
Unique in focusing on both organic and inorganic materials from a system point of view, this text offers a complete overview of printed electronics integrated with classical silicon electronics. Following an introduction to the topic, the book discusses the materials and processes required for printed electronics, covering conducting, semiconducting and insulating materials, as well as various substrates, such as paper and plastics. Subsequent chapters describe the various building blocks for printed electronics, while the final part describes the resulting novel applications and technologies, including wearable electronics, RFID tags and flexible circuit boards. Suitable for a broad target group, both industrial and academic, ranging from mechanical engineers to ink developers, and from chemists to engineers.
The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) is one of the most important endocrine (tissue-to-tissue), paracrine (cell-to-cell) and intracrine (intracellular/nuclear) humoral systems in the regulation of blood pressure, cardiovascular, and kidney function in health and disease. The RAS has remarkably evolved from the initial discovery of the rate-limiting enzyme renin to a complex biochemical and physiological cascade involving more than a dozen members. Currently, there are up to five axes or pathways identified in the RAS; each has its substrate, enzyme, effector peptide, receptor, and downstream signaling pathways. These include the renin/ACE/ANG II/AT1 receptor, the APA/ANG III/AT2 receptor, the ACE2/ANG (1-7)/Mas receptor, the prorenin/prorenin receptor (PRR), and the ANG IV/AT4 receptor (IRAP) pathways. Accordingly, the roles of the RAS have expanded well beyond the classic endocrine paradigm as a powerful vasoconstrictor, a potent aldosterone stimulator, or a sodium-retaining hormonal system. The goals of this article are to review and discuss the current insights into and new perspectives on the expression, localization, and novel actions of the RAS with a focus in the kidney. Special emphasis will be placed on recently discovered new members of the RAS derived from studies using innovative mutant rats or mice that either overexpress (knockin) or are deficient (knockout) of a particular substrate, enzyme, ANG peptide, or receptor. This new knowledge will help improve our understanding how each of these pathways act directly or indirectly to regulate blood pressure, cardiovascular and kidney function in physiology, and can be targeted to treat hypertension, cardiovascular and renal diseases.
Language is a symbolic system of meanings evoked by linguistic forms. The choice of forms in communication is non-arbitrary. Rather, speakers pick those forms whose meanings best convey their discourse intention. The meaning of the Mandarin ba-construction, argues Jing-Schmidt, is discourse dramaticity, a concept that includes high conceptual salience and subjectivity. The ba-construction and its "syntactic variations" are never interchangeable because contrast in their meanings determines difference in their functions. Quantitative analyses based on authentic data validate the postulation of discourse dramaticity. By taking discourse pragmatics seriously, the dramaticity hypothesis enables a unitary explanation that transcends sentence grammar. The diachronic treatment reveals the syntactic change of the ba-construction as an adaptive process of pragmatization, which raises the issue of linguistic evolution as a result of socio-cultural development. This book will be of particular value to readers interested in the interaction between grammar and pragmatics and to teachers confronting the controversy of the ba-construction in foreign language pedagogy.
The zheng zither is one of the most popular instruments in contemporary China. It is commonly regarded as a solo instrument with a continuous tradition dating back to ancient times. But in fact, much of its contemporary solo repertory is derived from several different regional folk ensemble repertories of the mid-twentieth century. Since the setting up of China’s modern conservatories, the zheng has been transformed within these new contexts of professional music-making. Over the course of the twentieth century, these regional folk repertories were brought into the performance traditions of modern regional zheng schools. From this basis, a large new zheng repertory was created by conservatory musicians, combining aspects of Western classical music with folk music materials. With the ’opening up’ of China’s economy since the 1980s, the zheng has been brought into the wider stage of international music-making which includes contemporary art music compositions by overseas based Chinese composers and commercial world music works by Western composers. Through a series of case studies, this book explores how the transformation of the Chinese zheng has constantly responded to its changing social context, critiquing the long-standing arguments concerning ’authenticity’ in the development of tradition. This work arises out of, and reflects on, the research methodologies known as performance as research. As an insider to the tradition, brought up within China’s zheng society, a trained and practising zheng performer, this study is largely drawn from the author's own experiences of practising and performing the music in question; her study also draws on fieldwork, as well as primary and secondary written sources in Chinese and English. This book is accompanied by downloadable resources which contain audio visual materials relating to the author's fieldwork and zheng performances by different zheng musicians.
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