Letter to Jane Claire Dirks Acknowledging Smithsonian Specimen Contributions

Many of the specimens collected by Jane Claire Dirks (later Jane Claire Dirks-Edmunds) went on to become part of her colleagues\u27 collections. In this letter, Paul Bartsch, Curator of the the Divisions of Mollusks and Cenozoic Invertebrates at the Smithsonian Institution, thanks Dirks for shells she sent to the museum

Balancing China. Bertelsmann Asia Policy Brief 03.05.2019

The looming superpower rivalry between the US and China has massive implications for Germany and its European partners. While Donald Trump is forcing Europeans to think outside the transatlantic box, it is Xi Jinping who is posing more fundamental challenges. Time to balance China’s i

Status of the CALICE DAQ system

A data acquisition (DAQ) system is described which will be used for the next generation of prototype calorimeters using particle flow algorithms for the International Linear Collider (ILC). The design is sufficiently generic and scalable such that it should have numerous applications either for ILC detectors or elsewhere within high energy physics in general. The DAQ system will be implemented using FPGAs and built using off-the-shelf components and networking hardware with programmable FPGAs. The software for the DAQ system is based on an existing framework, DOOCS, which is a server/client object-oriented system. The design philosophy, current status of the project and its aims are presented in this report.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, for the LCWS08 conference proceeding

Multi-bubble nodal solutions for slightly subcritical elliptic problems in domains with symmetries

We study the existence of sign-changing solutions with multiple bubbles to the slightly subcritical problem -\Delta u=|u|^{2^*-2-\e}u \hbox{in}\Omega, \quad u=0 \hbox{on}\partial \Omega, where $\Omega$ is a smooth bounded domain in $\R^N$, $N\geq 3$, $2^*=\frac{2N}{N-2}$ and \e>0 is a small parameter. In particular we prove that if $\Omega$ is convex and satisfies a certain symmetry, then a nodal four-bubble solution exists with two positive and two negative bubbles

Phase-space geometry of the generalized Langevin equation

The generalized Langevin equation is widely used to model the influence of a heat bath upon a reactive system. This equation will here be studied from a geometric point of view. A dynamical phase space that represents all possible states of the system will be constructed, the generalized Langevin equation will be formally rewritten as a pair of coupled ordinary differential equations, and the fundamental geometric structures in phase space will be described. It will be shown that the phase space itself and its geometric structure depend critically on the preparation of the system: A system that is assumed to have been in existence for ever has a larger phase space with a simpler structure than a system that is prepared at a finite time. These differences persist even in the long-time limit, where one might expect the details of preparation to become irrelevant

Occipital nerve stimulation for headache disorders

Occipital nerve stimulation (ONS) was originally described in the treatment of occipital neuralgia. However, the spectrum of possible indications has expanded in recent years to include primary headache disorders, such as migraine and cluster headaches. Retrospective and some prospective studies have yielded encouraging results, and evidence from controlled clinical trials is emerging, offering hope for refractory headache patients. In this article we discuss the scientific rationale to use ONS to treat headache disorders, with emphasis on the trigeminocervical complex. ONS is far from a standardized technique at the moment and the recent literature on the topic is reviewed, both with respect to the procedure and its possible complications. An important way to move forward in the scientific evaluation of ONS to treat refractory headache is the clinical phenotyping of patients to identify patients groups with the highest likelihood to respond to this modality of treatment. This requires multidisciplinary assessment of patients. The development of ONS as a new treatment for refractory headache offers an exciting prospect to treat our most disabled headache patients. Data from ongoing controlled trials will undoubtedly shed new light on some of the unresolved questions