Alien Registration- Bernard, Anna (Lewiston, Androscoggin County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/30217/thumbnail.jp

A split-and-perturb decomposition of number-conserving cellular automata

This paper concerns $d$-dimensional cellular automata with the von Neumann neighborhood that conserve the sum of the states of all their cells. These automata, called number-conserving or density-conserving cellular automata, are of particular interest to mathematicians, computer scientists and physicists, as they can serve as models of physical phenomena obeying some conservation law. We propose a new approach to study such cellular automata that works in any dimension $d$ and for any set of states $Q$. Essentially, the local rule of a cellular automaton is decomposed into two parts: a split function and a perturbation. This decomposition is unique and, moreover, the set of all possible split functions has a very simple structure, while the set of all perturbations forms a linear space and is therefore very easy to describe in terms of its basis. We show how this approach allows to find all number-conserving cellular automata in many cases of $d$ and $Q$. In particular, we find all three-dimensional number-conserving CAs with three states, which until now was beyond the capabilities of computers

Optimizing the Chiral Properties of Lattice Fermions

We describe a way to optimize the chiral behavior of Wilson-type lattice fermion actions by studying the low energy real eigenmodes of the Dirac operator. We find a candidate action, the clover action with fat links with a tuned clover term. The action shows good scaling behavior at Wilson gauge coupling beta=5.7.Comment: LATTICE98(improvement

Site-specific organic and conventional crop yields in a long-term farming systems comparison in sub-humid central Kenya

Organic farming is increasingly being taken up by farmers and agricultural development agencies in tropics. This is in a bid to improve world food security and rural livelihoods in a sustainable way. Long-term field trial that compares organic and conventional systems was set up in sub-humid central Kenya since 2006 to provide a scientific basis for organic agriculture in the region. The project seeks to gather data on how organic farming affects: yield and yield stability; stability of the agro-ecological system; and natural and economic resource efficiency. The experiments were set up at two sites namely Chuka and Thika. Both sites are at an altitude of 1500m asl. While Chuka lies in a high potential area with 2000 mm of rainfall and good soil phosphorus availability, Thika has fair yield potential, 1000 mm rainfall and low phosphorus availability. Crop rotations include maize, beans and vegetables.” The trials compares organic and conventional systems at two input levels, namely subsistence and commercial levels, resulting in four treatments: Conventional high input, organic high input, conventional low input and organic low input. In Chuka, organic yields were on average the same as conventional yields. On the low potential site of Thika, organic yields reached an average 55% of the conventional yields. Organic yields on the low input level were on average 13% lower than conventional yields on the low input level. On the high input level, organic yields were on average 26% lower than conventional yields. Organic maize yields achieved on average 77% of conventional maize yields, whereas organic brassica yields were 66% lower than conventional brassica yields. No significant difference was observed between mean organic and conventional legume crop yields. Our results suggest that: on high potential site of Chuka, organic crops can be grown without yield reduction; on low potential site of Thika, especially if low nutrient availability coincide with low rainfall, considerable yield reductions must be expected in organic systems in the transition phase; low input systems are less sensitive to conversion to organic agriculture than high input systems and relative yield levels in organic systems vary between crops

TIA-like presentations of cerebral amyloid angiopathy

Transient focal neurological episodes (TFNEs ) are transient ischemic attack (TIA)-like episodes that may occur in patients with cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). The duration of TFNEs is typically similar to TIAs with most symptoms resolving in minutes. Symptoms, similar to those of TIAs include sensory or visual disturbances, motor weakness and language impairment and there may be limb jerking or associated headache. TFNEs have a more gradual onset and tend to spread slowly to contiguous body parts like a migraine aura. TFNEs may occur repeatedly throughout the day and attacks may continue over several months. TFNEs are typically associated with focal cortical subarachnoid hemorrhage or with focal cortical superficial siderosis. They may also be seen in patients with CAA-related lobar hemorrhage, microhemorrhage or leukoencephalopathy. Migraine prophylactic agents such as verapamil and topiramate may be useful in stopping frequent recurrent TFNEs. TFNEs are an under-recognized cause of apparent TIAs. It is important to keep TFNEs in the differential diagnosis when a patient presents with a presumed TIA as thrombolysis or anticoagulation is relatively contraindicated in CAA. Gradient echo MRI should be performed to exclude microhemorrhages when TFNEs are suspected. Clinicians most frequently associate cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) with intracerebral hemorrhage or with a clinical picture of vascular cognitive impairment.1 There have however, been increasing clinical reports documenting that CAA may cause a variety of acute clinical neurological manifestations.2 Although these phenomena are superficially similar to TIAs and may be mistaken for them, they have clinical time profiles and progressions that can distinguish them from TIAs clinically. They appear to be caused by different manifestations of the complications of CAA and are now known as transient focal neurological episodes (TFNE).2,3 CAA frequency increases with age with approximately 50 % of individuals over the age of 75 being affected. The exact cause of CAA remains uncertain however increased production and/or decreased breakdown of amyloid proteins may have a role. CAA predominantly affects occipital regions of the brain followed by frontal and temporal areas. Cerebellar vessels are less commonly affected.3The Boston criteria is the current standard criteria for diagnosis of CAA. In this review, we attempt to classify and describe the different causes of TFNE’s in CAA.peer-reviewe

Conformal or Walking? Monte Carlo renormalization group studies of SU(3) gauge models with fundamental fermions

Strongly coupled gauge systems with many fermions are important in many phenomenological models. I use the 2-lattice matching Monte Carlo renormalization group method to study the fixed point structure and critical indexes of SU(3) gauge models with 8 and 12 flavors of fundamental fermions. With an improved renormalization group block transformation I am able to connect the perturbative and confining regimes of the N_f=8 flavor system, thus verifying its QCD-like nature. With N_f=12 flavors the data favor the existence of an infrared fixed point and conformal phase, though the results are also consistent with very slow walking. I measure the anomalous mass dimension in both systems at several gauge couplings and find that they are barely different from the free field value.Comment: 26 pages, 11 figure

Hydration of an amphiphilic excipient, Gelucire 44/14

The hydration behavior of an amphiphilic excipient, Gelucire 44/14, has been investigated. Two types of hydration processes were studied: one with increasing humidity to investigate the conditions during storage, and one with increasing water contents to study the behavior during dissolution. In addition, the main components of the excipient were investigated separately. These were polyethylene glycol (PEG), PEG monolaurate and PEG dilaurate (PEG esters), trilaurin (glyceride) and glycerol. The water uptake of Gelucire 44/14 at humidity ratios less than 60%RH was very low (about 1 wt%), which was attributed to the dissolution of the most hydrophilic component, glycerol. The water uptake increased substantially above 70%RH as PEG started to dissolve, followed by the PEG esters. It was concluded that each component equilibrates separately with the aqueous solution, which itself is in equilibrium with the humid air. Hence, a liquid phase can form between the crystals with a chemical potential decided by the humidity ratio. The water uptake of Gelucire 44/14 could be described as a sum of the uptake of the individual components, weighted according to their relative amounts in the mixture. Phase maps of the Gelucire 44/14 and its components at different water contents were constructed. Dry Gelucire 44/14 contains lamellar crystals of mainly PEG and PEG esters which melt at 44 ºC. The crystals do not swell at increasing humidity, but dissolve above 75%RH at a water content of 5 wt% in the excipient. At increasing water contents Gelucire 44/14 forms white gels composed of hexagonal and lamellar mesophases dispersed in a continuous liquid phase. These liquid crystalline phases dissolve at 35 ºC, i.e. below physiological temperatures. A dramatic viscosity maximum was observed in the lamellar region at 50 wt% water, which may be attributed to the formation of networks of PEG esters. The pure PEG esters were found to form cubic mesophases at 50 wt% water. The instruments used in this study were Dynamic Vapor Sorption (DVS), Thermal Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Small- and Wide Angle X-ray Scattering (SWAXS) and Optical Microscopy