We present the first-ever commercially available microcontroller families built with innovative split-gate based NOR flash memory that uses silicon nanocrystals as the storage medium. The 32-bit mixed-signal low-power Kinetis microcontroller families have nanocrystal based flash memories (referred to as TFS for `Thin Film Storage') with a wide range of array sizes from 32KB to 1MB. In addition, the unique capability of TFS has enabled inclusion of fully configurable embedded EEPROM functionality called `FlexMemory', which also manages wear leveling for high endurance. The TFS memory has been optimized to deliver read access time of <;30ns, fast source-side injection programming (10-20μs), fast tunnel erase into the gate (1-20ms), robust high temperature data retention before and after cycling, endurance of at least 10K cycles for flash and effective endurance up to 10M cycles in the EEPROM mode. In addition, the microcontroller core, analog and flash modules have been developed to deliver performance, reliability, and low-power operations across a temperature range of -40C to 105C and full operation down to 1.7V from a single power supply.

The promise of personalised e-learning on demand has continued to be an objective of much of the research in this area for the past decade. Considerable effort has been devoted to the development of interoperable learning materials and the standards to support them. During this time technology has evolved strongly with the advent of the internet and the World Wide Web. Centralised systems have been replaced by client-server systems and the evolution continues towards the introduction of distributed systems based on interacting web-services. Standards for learning materials have barely kept pace with the rate of change in the underlying technology. This paper addresses, in a non-technical way, the challenges to e-learning standards and practices that should be considered if we are to realise the dual objectives of personalised learning in distributed and collaborative environments in the workplace and at home.

This index covers all technical items - papers, correspondence, reviews, etc. - that appeared in this periodical during the year, and items from previous years that were commented upon or corrected in this year. Departments and other items may also be covered if they have been judged to have archival value. The Author Index contains the primary entry for each item, listed under the first author's name. The primary entry includes the coauthors' names, the title of the paper or other item, and its location, specified by the publication abbreviation, year, month, and inclusive pagination. The Subject Index contains entries describing the item under all appropriate subject headings, plus the first author's name, the publication abbreviation, month, and year, and inclusive pages. Note that the item title is found only under the primary entry in the Author Index.

At a cellular level, cardiac pacemaking, which sets the rate and rhythm of the heartbeat, is produced by the slow membrane depolarization that occurs between action potentials. Several ionic currents could account for this pacemaker potential, but their relative prominence is controversial, and it is not known which ones actually play a pacemaking role in vivo. To correlate currents in individual heart cells with the rhythmic properties of the intact heart, we have examined slow mo (smo), a recessive mutation we discovered in the zebrafish Danio rerio. This mutation causes a reduced heart rate in the embryo, a property we can quantitate because the embryo is transparent. We developed methods for culture of cardiocytes from zebrafish embryos and found that, even in culture, cells from smo continue to beat relatively slowly. By patch-clamp analysis, we discovered that a large repertoire of cardiac currents noted in other species are present in these cultured cells, including sodium, T-type, and L-type calcium and several potassium currents, all of which appear normal in the mutant. The only abnormality appears to be in a hyperpolarization-activated inward current with the properties of Ih, a current described previously in the nervous system, pacemaker, and other cardiac tissue. smo cardiomyocytes have a reduction in Ih that appears to result from severe diminution of one kinetic component of the Ih current. This provides strong evidence that Ih is an important contributor to the pacemaking behavior of the intact heart.

The paper is motivated by the need to provide hardware support for model-based vision. We propose a dedicated parallel VLSI architecture for low-level image processing for model based vision. The proposed architecture will permit concurrent processing of multiple images and concurrent computations on each image. Each dedicated VLSI processor is composed of an algorithm processor and an input/output processor. Our design approach facilitates expansion of the system so that more processors can be rapidly incorporated in future. The approach is illustrated by means of a feature evaluator design

A detailed process-orientated psychological model of electronics engineers in the early stages of the design of products is derived and then is used as the basis for the design and implementation of a computer-based intelligent Engineers' Design Assistant (EDA) so that the psychological model underpins both the functional repertoire of the EDA and its methods of interaction with users. The work focusses on the early stages of the design of electronic artifacts. In this phase the designer works from an outline specification of function, through various levels of abstract expression of subfunctions, including mathematical expressions and functional block diagrams, to a circuit diagram of the required electronics components

An active site mutant bovine prothrombin cDNA (Ser528----Ala) has been constructed, subcloned, and expressed in Chinese hamster ovary cells. The recombinant mutant prothrombin, expressed at the level of 1.5-2.0 micrograms/ml of cell medium, was fully carboxylated (9.9 +/- 0.4 mol of gamma-carboxyglutamic acid/mol of prothrombin). The mutant prothrombin could be activated to thrombin by Taipan snake venom and activated to meizothrombin by ecarin in a manner comparable to native bovine prothrombin or recombinant wild-type bovine prothrombin. The mutant meizothrombin thus formed was stable and did not autolyze. The initial rate of cleavage of mutant prothrombin catalyzed by the full prothrombinase was only 28% of the rate of cleavage of native prothrombin, while recombinant wild-type prothrombin was cleaved at the same rate as the native molecule. The mutant thrombin, obtained from the mutant prothrombin in situ by prothrombinase or Taipan snake venom activation, showed no enzymatic activity toward either fibrinogen or a synthetic chromogenic substrate, D-phenylalanyl-L-pipecolyl-L-arginine-p-nitroanilide dihydrochloride (S2238). The mutant thrombin also bound dansylarginine-N-(3-ethyl-1,5-pentanediyl)amide, a specific fluorescent inhibitor of the thrombin active site, with a weaker binding affinity (kd = 5.4 x 10(-8) M) than did native thrombin (kd = 1.7 x 10(-8) M). These results indicate that the mutant recombinant prothrombin described here is a useful tool for the study of meizothrombin or thrombin without the complications arising from the proteolytic activities of these molecules. Study of the activation of this mutant has already revealed a functional link between the site of initial cleavage by the prothrombinase and the conformation at the nascent active site of prothrombin.