PRESENCE AND PREVALENCE OF BD (BATRACHOCHYTRIUM DENDROBATIDIS) IN CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIAN WOODLAND VERNAL POOLS

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), a virulent chytrid fungus responsible for dramatic amphibian declines, has been detected in the northwestern and southeastern regions of Pennsylvania. However, little environmental Bd testing has been performed in central Pennsylvania, particularly in the unique and speciose habitats of woodland vernal pools. Our study included sampling in four vernal pools over a period of three months during amphibian breeding periods. Skin swabs were taken from three caudate and two anuran species, during the course of late winter and spring migrations (n = 143). Low Bd zoospore equivalent loads were detected in only a few individuals, in three of the five species but in all four vernal pools sampled. No significant trends were seen between zoospore loads and ambient temperature or migration timing across the species sampled

Belief heterogeneity and survival in incomplete markets

In complete markets economies (Sandroni [16]), or in economies with Pareto optimal outcomes (Blume and Easley [10]), the market selection hypothesis holds, as long as traders have identical discount factors. Traders who survive must have beliefs that merge with the truth. We show that in incomplete markets, regardless of traders’ discount factors, the market selects for a range of beliefs, at least some of which do not merge with the truth. We also show that impatient traders with incorrect beliefs can survive and that these incorrect beliefs impact prices. These beliefs may be chosen so that they are far from the truth

Genetic algorithms applied to phasor estimation and frequency tracking in PMU development

a b s t r a c t This paper presents an efficient intelligent tool applied to phasor measurements and frequency tracking of fundamental components for PMU application. The estimation task is modeled as an optimization problem in order to use genetic algorithms to search for optimal solutions. Very promising results are presented. This approach is compared to traditional methods considering the IEEE C37.118 standard and the results show that this intelligent tool offers better performance, especially during transient events, considering traditional methods. The proposed approach is implemented in hardware using FPGAs to take advantage of the intrinsic parallelism of genetic algorithms, making it applicable to realtime estimations

Soft X-ray harmonic comb from relativistic electron spikes

We demonstrate a new high-order harmonic generation mechanism reaching the `water window' spectral region in experiments with multi-terawatt femtosecond lasers irradiating gas jets. A few hundred harmonic orders are resolved, giving uJ/sr pulses. Harmonics are collectively emitted by an oscillating electron spike formed at the joint of the boundaries of a cavity and bow wave created by a relativistically self-focusing laser in underdense plasma. The spike sharpness and stability are explained by catastrophe theory. The mechanism is corroborated by particle-in-cell simulations

National Research and Education Networks to Support Telemedicine and Telehealth

National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) worldwide are expanding capacities, including collaboration amongst teams of health scientists to create academic telehealth communities that bridge science, technology, innovation, education, assistance, and federal health authorities to discuss, seek funding and work together. The World Health Organisation promotes Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as a goal for equitable access to health services without pushing people to poverty. UHC has been adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as one of the health targets under Goal 3 on health. Using information and communication technologies to bring healthcare to people in remote areas and to those who need health services most is one of the objectives of UHC. RUTE is the Brazilian Telemedicine University Network programme, coordinated by the NREN RNP (Rede Nacional de Ensino e Pesquisa) . In September 2015 RUTE launched its 118th Telemedicine Unit, all of them located in university and teaching hospitals all over the 27 Brazilian states. Fifty-five special interest groups (SIGs) in health specialties operate over the collaborative network model with 2 to 3 scientific videoconferenced sessions every day, amongst 150 participating institutions. Last year the programme published its second book on its impact in the Brazilian Telehealth initiative as well as in Latin America. As quoted in the foreword: “It is an example of what a country can and has done and what lessons the world can learn from them.” This paper provides insight regarding the development and evaluation of the programme and may provide thoughts and even guidance to policy makers

Laser pulse propagation and enhanced energy coupling to fast electrons in dense plasma gradients

Laser energy absorption to fast electrons during the interaction of an ultra-intense (1020 W/cm2), picosecond laser pulse with a solid is investigated, experimentally and numerically, as a function of the plasma density scale length at the irradiated surface. It is shown that there is an optimum density gradient for efficient energy coupling to electrons and that this arises due to strong self-focusing and channeling driving energy absorption over an extended length in the preformed plasma. At longer density gradients the laser laments, resulting in significantly lower overall energy coupling. As the scale length is further increased, a transition to a second laser energy absorption process is observed experimentally via multiple diagnostics. The results demonstrate that it is possible to significantly enhance laser energy absorption and coupling to fast electrons by dynamically controlling the plasma density gradient