Prototyping

Prototypingis the process of quickly putting together a working model (a prototype) in order to test various aspects of a design, illustrate ideas or features and gather early user feedback. Prototyping is often treated as an integral part of the system design process, where it is believed to reduce project risk and cost. Often one or more prototypes are made in a process of iterative and incremental development where each prototype is influenced by the performance of previous designs, in this way problems or deficiencies in design can be corrected. When the prototype is sufficiently refined and meets the functionality, robustness, manufacturability and other design goals, the product is ready for production.

Polymerase chain reaction

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a technique widely used in molecular biology. It derives its name from one of its key components, a DNA polymerase used to amplify (i.e., replicate) a piece of DNA by in vitro enzymatic replication. As PCR progresses, the DNA thus generated is itself used as template for replication. This sets in motion a chain reaction in which the DNA template is exponentially amplified. With PCR it is possible to amplify a single or few copies of a piece of DNA across several orders of magnitude, generating millions or more copies of the DNA piece. PCR can be performed without restrictions on the form of DNA, and it can be extensively modified to perform a wide array of genetic manipulations.

Almost all PCR applications employ a heat-stable DNA polymerase, such as Taq polymerase. This DNA polymerase enzymatically assembles a new DNA strand from DNA building blocks, the nucleotides, using single-stranded DNA as template and DNA oligonucleotides (also called DNA primers) required for initiation of DNA synthesis. The vast majority of PCR methods use thermal cycling, i.e., alternately heating and cooling the PCR sample to a defined series of temperature steps. These different temperature steps are necessary to bring about physical separation of the strands in a DNA double helix (DNA melting), and permit DNA synthesis by the DNA polymerase to selectively amplify the target DNA. The power and selectivity of PCR are primarily due to selecting primers that are highly complementary to the DNA region targeted for amplification, and to the thermal cycling conditions used.

IP Multimedia Subsystem

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is an architectural framework for delivering internet protocol (IP) multimedia to mobile users. It was originally designed by the wireless standards body 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), and is part of the vision for evolving mobile networks beyond GSM. Its original formulation (3GPP R5) represented an approach to delivering "Internet services" over GPRS. This vision was later updated by 3GPP, 3GPP2 and TISPAN by requiring support of networks other than GPRS, such as Wireless LAN, CDMA2000 and fixed line.

To ease the integration with the Internet, IMS as far as possible uses IETF (i.e. Internet) protocols such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). According to the 3GPP, IMS is not intended to standardise applications itself but to aid the access of multimedia and voice applications across wireless and wireline terminals, i.e. aid a form of fixed mobile convergence (FMC). This is done by having a horizontal control layer that isolates the access network from the service layer. Services need not have their own control functions, as the control layer is a common horizontal layer.

Fueling of nuclear reactors

The amount of energy in the reservoir of nuclear fuel is frequently expressed in terms of "full-power days," which is the number of 24-hour periods (days) a reactor is scheduled for operation at full power output for the generation of heat energy. The number of full-power days in a reactor's operating cycle (between refueling outage times) is related to the amount of fissile uranium-235 (U-235) contained in the fuel assemblies at the beginning of the cycle. A higher percentage of U-235 in the core at the beginning of a cycle will permit the reactor to be run for a greater number of full-power days.

At the end of the operating cycle, the fuel in some of the assemblies is "spent," and is discharged and replaced with new (fresh) fuel assemblies. Although in practice, it is the buildup of reaction poisons in nuclear fuel that determines the lifetime of nuclear fuel in a reactor; long before all possible fissions have taken place, the buildup of long-lived neutron absorbing fission products damps out the chain reaction. The fraction of the reactor's fuel core replaced during refueling is typically one-fourth for a boiling-water reactor and one-third for a pressurized-water reactor.