Are Muslims the New Catholics? Europe’s Headscarf Laws in Comparative Historical Perspective

In this paper a biologically-inspired model for partly occluded patterns is proposed. The model is based on the hypothesis that in human visual system occluding patterns play a key role in recognition as well as in reconstructing internal representation for a pattern’s occluding parts. The proposed model is realized with a bidirectional hierarchical neural network. In this network top-down cues, generated by direct connections from the lower to higher levels of hierarchy, interact with the bottom-up information, generated from the un-occluded parts, to recognize occluded patterns. Moreover, positional cues of the occluded as well as occluding patterns, that are computed separately but in the same network, modulate the top-down and bottom-up processing to reconstruct the occluded patterns. Simulation results support the presented hypothesis as well as effectiveness of the model in providing a solution to recognition of occluded patterns. The behavior of the model is in accordance to the known human behavior on the occluded patterns

Range-only benthic Rover localization off the central California coast

Nowadays, the use of autonomous vehicles for ocean research has increased, since these vehicles have a better cost/performance ratio than crewed vessels or oceanographic ships. For example, autonomous surface vehicles can be used to localize underwater targets. This paper describes a mission to find a crawling robot - Benthic Rover - on the abyssal plain in the north eastern Pacific, using single-beacon localization from onboard a Wave Glider autonomous surface vehicle. While the Wave Glider is moving around the surface in the target zone, it takes ranges between the target and itself using acoustic modems. With these ranges it can compute the target location, as a Long Baseline (LBL) system. The benefit of this approach is the reduction of cost and complexity relative to deployment of a traditional shipboard LBL system. Additionally, this is a mobile system, and can cover long distances, and can geolocate multiple targets over a large area.Postprint (author's final draft

Range-only underwater target localization : error characterization

Locating a target from range measurements using only one mobile transducer has been increased over the last years. This method allows us to reduce the high costs of deployment and maintenance of traditional fixed systems on the seafloor such as Long Baseline. The range-only single-beacon is one of the new architectures developed using the new capabilities of modern acoustic underwater modems, which can be time synchronization, time stamp, and range measurements. This document presents a method to estimate the sources of error in this type of architecture so as to obtain a mathematical model which allows us to develop simulations and study the best localization algorithms. Different simulations and real field tests have been carried out in order to verify a good performance of the model proposed.Postprint (published version

Effect of Simulated Cracks on Lap Splice Strength of Reinforcing Bars

The effect of preexisting cracks, oriented in the plane of and parallel to the reinforcing steel, on the strength of No. 11-bar lap splices was investigated by testing six beams – three with a splice length of 79 in. and three with a splice length of 120 in. One of the beams with a 79-in. splice was cast monolithically and loaded monotonically to failure. To simulate the cracks, the other five beams were cast with a cold joint at the mid-height of the reinforcing steel. Two beams (one with a 79-in. splice and one with a 120-in. splice) with a cold joint were loaded monotonically to failure. The other three beams were preloaded to develop horizontal cracks in the face of the cold joint, unloaded and then loaded to failure; those beams developed horizontal cracks with widths of 20, 30 and 35 mils (0.02, 0.03, 0.035 in.) during the first cycle of loading and just prior to unloading. The nominal concrete compressive strength was 5000 psi. The methods described in this report provide a viable means of simulating a crack in the plane of flexural reinforcement. In the presence of a simulated crack in the plane of the reinforcing bars, the two specimens with lap-spliced No. 11 bars with a 79-in. splice length achieved bar stresses of 62 and 57 ksi. In the presence of a simulated crack in the plane of the reinforcing bars, the three specimens with lap-spliced No. 11 bars with a 120-in. splice length achieved bar stresses of 72, 67, and 69 ksi

Highly conductive Sb-doped layers in strained Si

The ability to create stable, highly conductive ultrashallow doped regions is a key requirement for future silicon-based devices. It is shown that biaxial tensile strain reduces the sheet resistance of highly doped n-type layers created by Sb or As implantation. The improvement is stronger with Sb, leading to a reversal in the relative doping efficiency of these n-type impurities. For Sb, the primary effect is a strong enhancement of activation as a function of tensile strain. At low processing temperatures, 0.7% strain more than doubles Sb activation, while enabling the formation of stable, ~10-nm-deep junctions. This makes Sb an interesting alternative to As for ultrashallow junctions in strain-engineered complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor device

Anchorage of High-Strength Reinforcing Bars with Standard Hooks - Initial Tests

The effects of embedment length, side cover, quantity of confining transverse reinforcement, location of hook (inside or outside the column core), concrete compressive strength, hooked bar size, and hook bend angle on anchorage capacity are investigated using the results of 329 tests of standard hooks loaded in tension. No. 5, 8, and 11 hooks were tested in beam-column joints with concrete compressive strengths ranging from 4,300 to 13,700 psi. The results of the tests are compared with the provisions in ACI 318-11, and equations to describe the anchorage strength of 90° hooks for hooks not confined by transverse reinforcement, hooks confined by two No. 3 ties, and hooks confined by No. 3 ties spaced at 3db are developed. Hooks cast inside the column core have greater ultimate anchorage force than those cast outside the column core, hook bend angle has a negligible effect on ultimate anchorage force, and ultimate anchorage force increases as the quantity of confining transverse reinforcement increases. For hooks not confined by transverse reinforcement, the anchorage capacity increases more rapidly than embedment length. For hooks confined by transverse reinforcement, small embedment lengths develop significant anchorage forces; increases in embedment length result in additional capacity, but anchorage capacity is less than proportional to embedment length. Comparisons to the provisions in ACI 318-11 show that the ultimate anchorage force of larger hooked bars and the effect of concrete compressive strength are overpredicted by the current design requirements. Analysis of 90° hooks cast inside the column core show that there is an increase in ultimate anchorage force with an increase in bar diameter; this effect increases as the quantity of confining transverse reinforcement increases within the range of values evaluated in this study. Ultimate anchorage force also increases with an increase in cover to the center of the bar for bars not confined by transverse reinforcement; this effect decreases as the quantity of transverse reinforcement increases and has no effect for bars confined by No. 3 ties spaced at 3db

The BAD protein integrates survival signaling by EGFR/MAPK and PI3K/Akt kinase pathways in PTEN-deficient tumor cells

SummaryTumor cells with mutated PTEN proliferate in an EGFR-independent manner. Induction of PTEN sensitizes cells to EGFR inhibition, and the combination causes synergistic apoptosis. Synergy is due to inhibition of two parallel pathways that phosphorylate the proapoptotic protein BAD at distinct sites. Serine 112 phosphorylation is EGFR/MEK/MAPK dependent, whereas serine 136 phosphorylation is PI3K/Akt dependent. Either phosphorylation is sufficient to sequester BAD to 14-3-3. BAD is released and apoptosis is induced only if both serines are dephosphorylated in response to inhibition of both pathways. Reduction of BAD expression by RNA interference prevents apoptosis in response to pathway inhibition. Thus, BAD integrates the antiapoptotic effects of both pathways. Combined inhibition of EGFR and PI3K signaling may be a useful therapeutic strategy

Auger Recombination in Semiconductor Quantum Wells

The principal mechanisms of Auger recombination of nonequilibrium carriers in semiconductor heterostructures with quantum wells are investigated. It is shown for the first time that there exist three fundamentally different Auger recombination mechanisms of (i) thresholdless, (ii) quasi-threshold, and (iii) threshold types. The rate of the thresholdless Auger process depends on temperature only slightly. The rate of the quasi-threshold Auger process depends on temperature exponentially. However, its threshold energy essentially varies with quantum well width and is close to zero for narrow quantum wells. It is shown that the thresholdless and the quasi-threshold Auger processes dominate in narrow quantum wells, while the threshold and the quasi-threshold processes prevail in wide quantum wells. The limiting case of a three-dimensional (3D)Auger process is reached for infinitely wide quantum wells. The critical quantum well width is found at which the quasi-threshold and threshold Auger processes merge into a single 3D Auger process. Also studied is phonon-assisted Auger recombination in quantum wells. It is shown that for narrow quantum wells the act of phonon emission becomes resonant, which in turn increases substantially the coefficient of phonon-assisted Auger recombination. Conditions are found under which the direct Auger process dominates over the phonon-assisted Auger recombination at various temperatures and quantum well widths.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figure

Dynamics of light propagation in spatiotemporal dielectric structures

Propagation, transmission and reflection properties of linearly polarized plane waves and arbitrarily short electromagnetic pulses in one-dimensional dispersionless dielectric media possessing an arbitrary space-time dependence of the refractive index are studied by using a two-component, highly symmetric version of Maxwell's equations. The use of any slow varying amplitude approximation is avoided. Transfer matrices of sharp nonstationary interfaces are calculated explicitly, together with the amplitudes of all secondary waves produced in the scattering. Time-varying multilayer structures and spatiotemporal lenses in various configurations are investigated analytically and numerically in a unified approach. Several new effects are reported, such as pulse compression, broadening and spectral manipulation of pulses by a spatiotemporal lens, and the closure of the forbidden frequency gaps with the subsequent opening of wavenumber bandgaps in a generalized Bragg reflector