The increasing use of nanoparticles (NP) in commercial products requires elaborated techniques to detect NP in the tissue of exposed organisms. However, due to the low amount of material, the detection and exact localization of NP within tissue sections is demanding. In this respect, Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) and Ion Beam Microscopy (IBM) are promising techniques...

Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) is a powerful technique in the study of materials that demonstrate compositional changes as a function of depth from the surface. This is due to the high chemical sensitivity of SIMS (sensitive to ppb) and potential for high depth resolution. However, as a semi-quantitative technique, the application of SIMS to quantitative studies can be problematic witho...

This 19th century US gynaecologist still arouses controversy in the 21st century " PASS ME THE SIMS " is a request heard every day during gynaecological surgery and as often in outpatient practice. The Sims speculum has been a valuable gynaecological aid throughout the world since the first example was crudely fashioned from a pewter spoon in 1845 by James Marion Sims, a general practitioner in...

This paper is a preliminary description on an integrated benchmark suite for database systems, SIMS, which offers generic benchmarks and custom benchmarks to users in a unified interface. Currently SIMS supports three generic benchmarks (Wisconsin, BORD, and TPC-C) and four user-defined benchmarks. Any new custom benchmarks can be easily accommodated into SIMS. SIMS consists of four modules. Ea...

This article discusses some ideological issues related with the simulation of social systems in The Sims, proposing an interpretation of The Sims as an ideological game. This paper will focus on describing The Sims as a social simulator of a postcapitalist society: what The Sims proposes as an ideological game is a simulation of a specific set of values linked with a capitalist culture. Therefo...