The Impacts Of The War On Terrorism On Maritime Shipping

The terrorist acts that destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon have, of course, changed much of the world in many ways since September 2001. Among those effects has been a pronounced and noticeable shift in airport and aircraft security.  Much less noticeable to most Americans has been the impact of added security and changed priorities on maritime transportation systems.  But maritime security actually has a far greater impact on commerce than does air security because most cargo moves worldwide via commercial ocean-going vessels.  Security requirements and wartime priorities are compelling the world’s governments to more closely monitor and inspect all vessels and cargo entering their nation’s ports.  The US Coast Guard’s inspections are forcing tremendous delays upon entering vessels.  The consequences of losing millions of dollars daily both for shipping companies and cargo interests create severe economic and logistical problems that impact all transportation modes.  The new US embargo on 24 small countries may force them into bankruptcy unless they comply with US requests to end terrorism.  These countries depend on exports and imports for a large portion of their GDP, which will be dramatically reduced unless they join the war against terrorism. This paper examines five impacts on the US and world shipping industry caused by the war on terrorism--those on:  1) vessel and port security; 2) transportation- and trade-related communications; 3) trade levels; 4) marine insurance; and 5) maritime and related freight rates.  Then the authors draw some conclusions regarding possibilities of reflagging of ships and effects on the status of the US merchant marine industry

Generation of continuous variable squeezing and entanglement of trapped ions in time-varying potentials

We investigate the generation of squeezing and entanglement for the motional degrees of freedom of ions in linear traps, confined by time-varying and oscillating potentials, comprised of an DC and an AC component. We show that high degrees of squeezing and entanglement can be obtained by controlling either the DC or the AC trapping component (or both), and by exploiting transient dynamics in regions where the ions' motion is unstable, without any added optical control. Furthermore, we investigate the time-scales over which the potentials should be switched in order for the manipulations to be most effective.Comment: 10 pages, submitted to Quantum Information Processing (special issue on Quantum Decoherence and Entanglement

Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Molecular Imaging of the Painful Knee

Chronic knee pain is a common condition. Causes of knee pain include trauma, inflammation, and degeneration, but in many patients the pathophysiology remains unknown. Recent developments in advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques and molecular imaging facilitate more in-depth research focused on the pathophysiology of chronic musculoskeletal pain and more specifically inflammation. The forthcoming new insights can help develop better targeted treatment, and some imaging techniques may even serve as imaging biomarkers for predicting and assessing treatment response in the future. This review highlights the latest developments in perfusion MRI, diffusion MRI, and molecular imaging with positron emission tomography/MRI and their application in the painful knee. The primary focus is synovial inflammation, also known as synovitis. Bone perfusion and bone metabolism are also addressed.</p

Advanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Molecular Imaging of the Painful Knee

Chronic knee pain is a common condition. Causes of knee pain include trauma, inflammation, and degeneration, but in many patients the pathophysiology remains unknown. Recent developments in advanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques and molecular imaging facilitate more in-depth research focused on the pathophysiology of chronic musculoskeletal pain and more specifically inflammation. The forthcoming new insights can help develop better targeted treatment, and some imaging techniques may even serve as imaging biomarkers for predicting and assessing treatment response in the future. This review highlights the latest developments in perfusion MRI, diffusion MRI, and molecular imaging with positron emission tomography/MRI and their application in the painful knee. The primary focus is synovial inflammation, also known as synovitis. Bone perfusion and bone metabolism are also addressed.</p

The α/β hydrolase fold

We have identified a new protein fold-the α/β hydrolase fold-that is common to several hydrolytic enzymes of widely differing phylogenetic origin and catalytic function. The core of each enzyme is similar: an α/β sheet, not barrel, of eight β-sheets connected by α-helices. These enzymes have diverged from a common ancestor so as to preserve the arrangement of the catalytic residues, not the binding site. They all have a catalytic triad, the elements of which are borne on loops which are the best-conserved structural features in the fold. Only the histidine in the nucleophile-histidine-acid catalytic triad is completely conserved, with the nucleophile and acid loops accommodating more than one type of amino acid. The unique topological and sequence arrangement of the triad residues produces a catalytic triad which is, in a sense, a mirror-image of the serine protease catalytic triad. There are now four groups of enzymes which contain catalytic triads and which are related by convergent evolution towards a stable, useful active site: the eukaryotic serine proteases, the cysteine proteases, subtilisins and the α/β hydrolase fold enzymes

Atmospheric electricity as a proxy for air quality:Relationship between potential gradient and pollutant gases in an urban environment

A relationship between Trace Gases (TG), NOx, SO2, O3, and the Atmospheric Electric Potential Gradient (PG), through Ion/Particulate Matter (PM) interaction, is established in the urban environment of the city of Lisbon (Portugal). Analysis was restricted to 1988–1990, when simultaneous measurements of PG and TG were taken. Reasonable linear relationships between PG and TG concentrations have been found. A formulation relating PG with TG concentrations allows the estimation of constants of proportionally between TG-PM to be ∼50 cm−3 ppb−1; which are similar to the values found in direct TG-PM measurements in UK cities, validating the present results

Multiple functional regression with both discrete and continuous covariates

International audienceIn this paper we present a nonparametric method for extending functional regression methodology to the situation where more than one functional covariate is used to predict a functional response. Borrowing the idea from Kadri et al. (2010a), the method, which support mixed discrete and continuous explanatory variables, is based on estimating a function-valued function in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces by virtue of positive operator-valued kernels