Funding the ‘Creative Documentary’: An art cinema of refugees

No abstract available

Abnormal distribution of CD8 subpopulation in B-chronic lymphocytic leukemia identified by flow cytometry

We studied the occurrence of T-cell subpopulations for patients with B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The CD8+ population was divided into CD8+ suppressor (CD8a+) and CD8+ cytotoxic (CD8b+) lymphocytes using difference in orthogonal light scattering.\ud \ud Average CD4+/CD8+ratios determined for all patients were decreased. For individual patients this sometimes was not true. In contrast CD4+/CD8a+ ratios were markedly increased in all individual patients. The CD8+ lymphocytes appeared to consist mainly of CD8b+lymphocytes. Moreover the CD8b+/CD8+ ratio correlated with clinical stage: untreated patients (stage 0 of Rai) have smaller CD8b+/CD8+ ratios than patients with advanced stages of Rai

Perception of breakfast ingestion enhances high intensity cycling performance

PURPOSE: To examine the effect on short duration, high intensity cycling time trial performance when a semi-solid breakfast containing carbohydrate or a taste and texture matched placebo is ingested 90 minutes pre-exercise compared to a water control. METHODS: Thirteen well trained cyclists (25 ± 8 years, 71.1 ± 5.9 kg, 1.76 ± 0.04 m, 383 ± 46 Wmax, VO2peak 4.42 ± 0.53 L·min-1) performed three experimental trials examining breakfast ingestion 90 minutes before a 10 minute steady state cycle (60% Wmax) and a ~20 minute time trial (to complete a workload target of 376 ± 36 kJ). Subjects consumed either water (WAT), a semi-solid carbohydrate breakfast (2 g carbohydrate·kg-1 body mass; CHO) or a taste and texture matched placebo (PLA). Blood lactate and glucose concentrations were measured periodically throughout the rest and exercise periods. RESULTS: The time trial was completed quicker in CHO (1120 ± 69 s; P=0.006) and PLA (1112 ± 50 s; P=0.030) compared to WAT (1146 ± 74 s). Ingestion of carbohydrate caused an increase in blood glucose concentration throughout the rest period in CHO (peak at 30 minutes rest: 7.37 ± 1.10 mmol·l-1; P<0.0001) before dropping below baseline levels after the steady state cycling. CONCLUSION: A short duration cycling time trial was completed quicker when subjects perceived that they consumed breakfast (PLA or CHO) 90 minutes prior to the start of exercise. The improvement in performance is likely attributable to a psychological rather than physiological effect

On the continuum limit for discrete NLS with long-range lattice interactions

We consider a general class of discrete nonlinear Schroedinger equations (DNLS) on the lattice $h \mathbb{Z}$ with mesh size $h>0$. In the continuum limit when $h \to 0$, we prove that the limiting dynamics are given by a nonlinear Schroedinger equation (NLS) on $\mathbb{R}$ with the fractional Laplacian $(-\Delta)^\alpha$ as dispersive symbol. In particular, we obtain that fractional powers $1/2 < \alpha < 1$ arise from long-range lattice interactions when passing to the continuum limit, whereas NLS with the non-fractional Laplacian $-\Delta$ describes the dispersion in the continuum limit for short-range lattice interactions (e.g., nearest-neighbor interactions). Our results rigorously justify certain NLS model equations with fractional Laplacians proposed in the physics literature. Moreover, the arguments given in our paper can be also applied to discuss the continuum limit for other lattice systems with long-range interactions.Comment: 26 pages; no figures. Some minor revisions. To appear in Comm. Math. Phy

Assessing the influence of pig slurry pH on the degradation of selected antibiotic compounds

Veterinary medicines are routinely used in animal husbandry and the environment may consequently be exposed to them via manure applications. This presents potential environmental and societal risks such as toxicological effects to aquatic/terrestrial organisms and the spread of antimicrobial resistance. Regulatory studies that assess the degradability of veterinary antibiotics during manure storage currently permit the use of just one manure per animal type although we speculate that heterogenic properties such as pH could be driving significant variability within degradation rates. To bridge this knowledge gap and assess degradation variability with pH, laboratory degradation studies were performed on a broad range of antibiotics (ceftiofur, florfenicol, oxytetracycline, sulfamethoxazole and tylosin) at three different environmentally relevant pH levels (5.5, 7, and 8.5). The effect of pig slurry pH on degradation rates was found to be significant and compound specific. Usually, acidic slurries were found to inhibit degradation when compared to neutral pH, for florfenicol, tylosin, and ceftiofur; the associated changes in DT50 (half-life) values were 2–209 h, 35.28–234 h, and 0.98–2.13 h, respectively. In some circumstances alkaline slurries were observed to enhance the degradation rate when compared to those for neutral pH, for tylosin, the respective changes in DT50 values were from 3.52 to 35.28 h. Comparatively, the degradation of sulfamethoxazole was enhanced by acidic conditions compared to neutral (DT50 20.6–31.6 h). Tentative identification of unknown transformation products (TPs) was achieved for sulfamethoxazole and florfenicol for the first time in pig slurries. These results reveal the importance of considering slurry pH when assessing the degradation of antibiotic compounds, which has implications for the acidification of manures and the environmental risk assessment for veterinary medicines. Environmental relevance and significance: Given the significant effect of pig slurry pH on degradation rates, manure degradation studies need to be harmonised and standardized, taking into account the influence of pH

fMRI adaptation revisited

Adaptation has been widely used in functional magnetic imaging (fMRI) studies to infer neuronal response properties in human cortex. fMRI adaptation has been criticised because of the complex relationship between fMRI adaptation effects and the multiple neuronal effects that could underlie them. Many of the longstanding concerns about fMRI adaptation have received empirical support from neurophysiological studies over the last decade. We review these studies here, and also consider neuroimaging studies that have investigated how fMRI adaptation effects are influenced by high-level perceptual processes. The results of these studies further emphasize the need to interpret fMRI adaptation results with caution, but they also provide helpful guidance for more accurate interpretation and better experimental design. In addition, we argue that rather than being used as a proxy for measurements of neuronal stimulus selectivity, fMRI adaptation may be most useful for studying population-level adaptation effects across cortical processing hierarchies

The QUIET Instrument

The Q/U Imaging ExperimenT (QUIET) is designed to measure polarization in the Cosmic Microwave Background, targeting the imprint of inflationary gravitational waves at large angular scales (~ 1 degree). Between 2008 October and 2010 December, two independent receiver arrays were deployed sequentially on a 1.4 m side-fed Dragonian telescope. The polarimeters which form the focal planes use a highly compact design based on High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) that provides simultaneous measurements of the Stokes parameters Q, U, and I in a single module. The 17-element Q-band polarimeter array, with a central frequency of 43.1 GHz, has the best sensitivity (69 uK sqrt(s)) and the lowest instrumental systematic errors ever achieved in this band, contributing to the tensor-to-scalar ratio at r < 0.1. The 84-element W-band polarimeter array has a sensitivity of 87 uK sqrt(s) at a central frequency of 94.5 GHz. It has the lowest systematic errors to date, contributing at r < 0.01. The two arrays together cover multipoles in the range l= 25-975. These are the largest HEMT-based arrays deployed to date. This article describes the design, calibration, performance of, and sources of systematic error for the instrument

A novel multi-frequency technique for the detection of point sources in Cosmic Microwave Background maps

In this work we address the problem of simultaneous multi-frequency detection of extragalactic point sources in maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background. We apply a new linear filtering technique, the so called `matched matrix filters', that incorporates full spatial information, including the cross-correlation among channels, without making any a priori assumption about the spectral behaviour of the sources. A substantial reduction of the background is achieved thanks to the optimal combination of filtered maps. We describe in detail the new technique and we apply it to the detection/estimation of radio sources in realistic all-sky Planck simulations at 30, 44, 70 and 100 GHz. Then we compare the results with the mono-frequential approach based on the standard matched filter, in terms of reliability, completeness and flux accuracy of the resulting point source catalogs. The new filters outperform the standard matched filters for all these indexes at 30, 44 and 70 GHz, whereas at 100 GHz both kind of filters have a similar performance. We find a noticeable increment of the number of true detections for a fixed reliability level. In particular, for a 95% reliability we practically double the number of detections at 30, 44 and 70 GHz.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, submitted to MNRA