This paper describes an architecture that provides support for quality of service (QoS) in open systems. The Quartz QoS architecture aims to avoid the dependency on specific platforms that limits the application of most existing QoS architectures in open, heterogeneous and distributed systems. Quartz adopts a flexible and extensible platform-independent design that allows its internal component...

In this paper, we propose a new multivariate signature scheme named MI-T-HFE as a competitor of QUARTZ. The core map of MI-T-HFE is of an HFEv type but more importantly has a specially designed trapdoor. This special trapdoor makes MI-T-HFE have several attractive advantages over QUARTZ. First of all, the core map and the public map of MI-T-HFE are both surjective. This surjectivity property is...

The stress configuration and tectonic analysis of the Pan – African orogeny is drawn from the Igarra schist belt, southwestern Nigeria. The analysis of conjugate shear fractures of the schist belt indicates that two distinct compressive events (NE – SW and E – W) occurred in this Pan – African mobile zone. The palaeostress systems reveal a clockwise rotation of compressional axis from D1 (NE – ...

BACKGROUND Determination of quartz by Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR) is not specific: the obtained results are influenced by matrix components, some of which cause spectral interference. The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of dust components responsible for spectral interference with quartz on the results of its determinations, and to develop methods to minimize the ...

AIMS To reanalyse exposure-response data from a Scottish colliery to gain a more detailed knowledge of the relations between exposure to quartz and risks of silicosis in coal miners, and hence inform the debate on an appropriate occupational standard for respirable quartz. METHODS Detailed data on working times at different quartz concentrations were combined to produce exposure profiles for ...

We present thermodynamic estimates of pressures, temperatures, and volatile activities in vailably deformed, gabbroic to granitic, Cretaceous (115-100 Ma) batholithic and framework rocks of the Tehachapi Mountains, southernmost Sierra Nevada, California. A1 contents of hornblende in granitoids imply igneous emplacement at --8 kbar in the southernmost Tehachapi Mountains, with lower pressures (3...

The copper–gold ores of the Moonta mineral field, in the eastern part of the Archaean–Mesoproterozoic Gawler Craton, South Australia, are vein deposits occupying fractures and shear zones within the Palaeoproterozoic Moonta Porphyry. The veins show a spatial relationship with Mesoproterozoic granites, equivalents of the Hiltaba Suite granites that are widespread in the Gawler Craton. The ores w...

A further comparison of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) standard quartz, A9950 (Sikron F600), and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Standard Reference Material (SRM) 1878, standard respirable alpha-quartz, has been carried out for the four principal diffraction peaks. In the earlier comparison by Jeyaratnam and Nagar (1993, Ann Occup Hyg; 37: 167-79), the standards...

The X-ray diffraction method and the phosphoric acid method are widely used to determine the fraction of free silica (mainly quartz and other silica polymorphs) in respirable dust sampled in working environments in Japan. In this study, we clarified the size effect of quartz dust for the X-ray diffraction method and the phosphoric acid method using size controlled quartz samples. The quartz sam...