Simulation of the White Dwarf -- White Dwarf galactic background in the LISA data

LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) is a proposed space mission, which will use coherent laser beams exchanged between three remote spacecraft to detect and study low-frequency cosmic gravitational radiation. In the low-part of its frequency band, the LISA strain sensitivity will be dominated by the incoherent superposition of hundreds of millions of gravitational wave signals radiated by inspiraling white-dwarf binaries present in our own galaxy. In order to estimate the magnitude of the LISA response to this background, we have simulated a synthesized population that recently appeared in the literature. We find the amplitude of the galactic white-dwarf binary background in the LISA data to be modulated in time, reaching a minimum equal to about twice that of the LISA noise for a period of about two months around the time when the Sun-LISA direction is roughly oriented towards the Autumn equinox. Since the galactic white-dwarfs background will be observed by LISA not as a stationary but rather as a cyclostationary random process with a period of one year, we summarize the theory of cyclostationary random processes and present the corresponding generalized spectral method needed to characterize such process. We find that, by measuring the generalized spectral components of the white-dwarf background, LISA will be able to infer properties of the distribution of the white-dwarfs binary systems present in our Galaxy.Comment: 14 pages and 6 figures. Submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravity (Proceedings of GWDAW9

Novel self-assembled morphologies from isotropic interactions

We present results from particle simulations with isotropic medium range interactions in two dimensions. At low temperature novel types of aggregated structures appear. We show that these structures can be explained by spontaneous symmetry breaking in analytic solutions to an adaptation of the spherical spin model. We predict the critical particle number where the symmetry breaking occurs and show that the resulting phase diagram agrees well with results from particle simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Pluripolarity of Graphs of Denjoy Quasianalytic Functions of Several Variables

In this paper we prove pluripolarity of graphs of Denjoy quasianalytic functions of several variables on the spanning se

Use of bromodeoxyuridine immunocapture to identify psychrotolerant phenanthrene-degrading bacteria in phenanthrene-enriched polluted Baltic Sea sediments

The aim of this study was to enrich and identify psychrotolerant phenanthrenedegrading bacteria from polluted Baltic Sea sediments. Polyaromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-contaminated sediments were spiked with phenanthrene and incubated for 2 months in the presence of bromodeoxyuridine that is incorporated into the DNA of replicating cells. The bromodeoxyuridine-incorporated DNA was extracted by immunocapture and analyzed by terminal-restriction fragment length polymorphism and 16S rRNA gene cloning and sequencing to identify bacterial populations that were growing. In addition, degradation genes were quantified in the bromodeoxyuridine-incorporated DNA by real-time PCR. Phenanthrene concentrations decreased after 2 months of incubation in the phenanthrene-enriched sediments and this reduction correlated to increases in copy numbers of xylE and phnAc dioxygenase genes. Representatives of Exiguobacterium, Schewanella,Methylomonas, Pseudomonas, Bacteroides and an uncultured Deltaproteobacterium and a Gammaproteobacterium dominated the growing community in the phenanthrene spiked sediments. Isolates that were closely related to three of these bacteria (two pseudomonads and an Exiguobacterium sp.) could reduce phenanthrene concentrations in pure cultures and they all harbored phnAc dioxygenase genes. These results confirm that this combination of culture-based and molecular approaches was useful for identification of actively growing bacterial species with a high potential for phenanthrene degradation

Spontal-N: A Corpus of Interactional Spoken Norwegian

Spontal-N is a corpus of spontaneous, interactional Norwegian. To our knowledge, it is the first corpus of Norwegian in which the majority of speakers have spent significant parts of their lives in Sweden, and in which the recorded speech displays varying degrees of interference from Swedish. The corpus consists of studio quality audio- and video-recordings of four 30-minute free conversations between acquaintances, and a manual orthographic transcription of the entire material. On basis of the orthographic transcriptions, we automatically annotated approximately 50 percent of the material on the phoneme level, by means of a forced alignment between the acoustic signal and pronunciations listed in a dictionary. Approximately seven percent of the automatic transcription was manually corrected. Taking the manual correction as a gold standard, we evaluated several sources of pronunciation variants for the automatic transcription. Spontal-N is intended as a general purpose speech resource that is also suitable for investigating phonetic detail

Sulphate-controlled Diversity of Subterranean Microbial Communities over Depth in Deep Groundwater with Opposing Gradients of Sulphate and Methane

The groundwater system in Olkiluoto, Finland, is stratified with a mixing layer at a depth of approximately 300m between sulphate-rich, methane-poor and sulphate-poor, methane-rich groundwaters. New sequence library data obtained by 454 pyrotag sequencing of the v4v6 16S rDNA region indicated that sulphate-reducing bacteria (SRB) dominated the mixing layer while SRB could not be detected in the deep sulphate-poor groundwater samples. With the indispensable support of the sequence data, it could be demonstrated that sulphate was the only component needed to trigger a very large community transition in deep sulphate-poor, methane-rich groundwater from a non-sulphate-reducing community comprising Hydrogenophaga, Pseudomonas, Thiobacillus, Fusibacter, and Lutibacter to a sulphate-reducing community with Desulfobacula, Desulfovibrio, Desufobulbaceae, Desulfobacterium, Desulfosporosinus, and Desulfotignum. Experiments with biofilms and planktonic microorganisms in flow cells under in situ conditions confirmed that adding sulphate to the sulphate-poor groundwater generated growth of cultivable SRB and detectable SRB-related sequences. It was also found that the 16S rDNA diversity of the biofilms was conserved over 103 d and that there was great similarity in diversity between the microorganisms in the biofilms and in the flowing groundwater. This work demonstrates that the presence/absence of only one geochemical parameter, i.e., sulphate, in the groundwater significantly influenced the diversity of the investigated subterranean microbial community

Risk of adverse events in patients prescribed long‐term opioids: a cohort study in the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink

Background Long‐term opioid prescribing for musculoskeletal pain is controversial due to uncertainty regarding effectiveness and safety. This study examined the risks of a range of adverse events in a large cohort of patients prescribed long‐term opioids using the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Methods Patients with musculoskeletal conditions starting a new long‐term opioid episode (defined as ≥3 opioid prescriptions within 90 days) between 2002 and 2012 were included. Primary outcomes: major trauma and intentional overdose (any). Secondary outcomes: addiction (any), falls, accidental poisoning, attempted suicide/self‐harm, gastrointestinal pathology and bleeding, and iron deficiency anaemia. “Control” outcomes (unrelated to opioid use): incident eczema and psoriasis. Results A total of 98,140 new long‐term opioids users (median age 61, 41% male) were followed for (median) 3.4 years. Major trauma risk increased from 285 per 10,000 person‐years without long‐term opioids to 369/10,000 for a long‐term opioid episode (<20 mg MED), 382/10,000 (20–50 mg MED), and 424/10,000 (≥50 mg MED). Adjusted hazard ratios were 1.09 (95% CI; 1.04, 1.14 for <20 mg MED vs. not being in an episode of long‐term prescribing), 1.24 (95% CI; 1.16, 1.32: 20–50 mg MED) and 1.34 (95% CI; 1.20, 1.50: ≥50 mg MED). Significant dose‐dependent increases in the risk of overdose (any type), addiction, falls, accidental poisoning, gastrointestinal pathology, and iron deficiency anaemia were also found. Conclusions Patients prescribed long‐term opioids are vulnerable to dose‐dependent serious adverse events. Opioid prescribing should be reviewed before long‐term use becomes established, and periodically thereafter to ensure that patients are not being exposed to increased risk of harm, which is not balanced by therapeutic benefit. Significance Long‐term opioid use is associated with serious adverse events such as major trauma, addiction and overdose. The risk increases with higher opioid doses. Opioid prescribing should be reviewed before long‐term use becomes established, and periodically thereafter to assess ongoing effectiveness