Using a Grid-Enabled Wireless Sensor Network for Flood Management

Flooding is becoming an increasing problem. As a result there is a need to deploy more sophisticated sensor networks to detect and react to flooding. This paper outlines a demonstration that illustrates our proposed solution to this problem involving embedded wireless hardware, component based middleware and overlay networks

Revealing New Physical Structures in the Supernova Remnant N63A through Chandra Imaging Spectroscopy

We present Chandra X-ray observations of the supernova remnant (SNR) N63A in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). N63A, one of the brightest LMC remnants, is embedded in an H II region and probably associated with an OB association. The optical remnant consists of three lobes of emission contained within the approximately three times larger X-ray remnant. Our Chandra data reveal a number of new physical structures in N63A. The most striking of these are the several ``crescent''-shaped structures located beyond the main shell that resemble similar features seen in the Vela SNR. In Vela, these have been interpreted as arising from high speed clumps of supernova ejecta interacting with the ambient medium. Another distinct feature of the remnant is a roughly triangular ``hole'' in the X-ray emission near the location of the optical lobes and the brightest radio emission. X-ray spectral analysis shows that this deficit of emission is a result of absorption by an intervening dense cloud with a mass of ~450 M_sun that is currently being engulfed by the remnant's blast wave. We also find that the rim of the remnant, as well as the crescent-shaped features, have considerably softer X-ray spectra than the interior. Limits on hard X-ray emission rule out a young, energetic pulsar in N63A, but the presence of an older or less active one, powering a wind nebula with a luminosity less than ~4e10^34 erg/s, is allowed.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures (2 color), accepted for publication in Ap

The twisted fourth moment of the Riemann zeta function

We compute the asymptotics of the fourth moment of the Riemann zeta function times an arbitrary Dirichlet polynomial of length $T^{{1/11} - \epsilon}$Comment: 28 pages. v2: added reference

Sanitizing the fortress: protection of ant brood and nest material by worker antibiotics

Social groups are at particular risk for parasite infection, which is heightened in eusocial insects by the low genetic diversity of individuals within a colony. To combat this, adult ants have evolved a suite of defenses to protect each other, including the production of antimicrobial secretions. However, it is the brood in a colony that are most vulnerable to parasites because their individual defenses are limited, and the nest material in which ants live is also likely to be prone to colonization by potential parasites. Here, we investigate in two ant species whether adult workers use their antimicrobial secretions not only to protect each other but also to sanitize the vulnerable brood and nest material. We find that, in both leaf-cutting ants and weaver ants, the survival of the brood was reduced and the sporulation of parasitic fungi from them increased, when the workers nursing them lacked functional antimicrobial-producing glands. This was the case for both larvae that were experimentally treated with a fungal parasite (Metarhizium) and control larvae which developed infections of an opportunistic fungal parasite (Aspergillus). Similarly, fungi were more likely to grow on the nest material of both ant species if the glands of attending workers were blocked. The results show that the defense of brood and sanitization of nest material are important functions of the antimicrobial secretions of adult ants and that ubiquitous, opportunistic fungi may be a more important driver of the evolution of these defenses than rarer, specialist parasites

Patterns of interdivision time correlations reveal hidden cell cycle factors

The time taken for cells to complete a round of cell division is a stochastic process controlled, in part, by intracellular factors. These factors can be inherited across cellular generations which gives rise to, often non-intuitive, correlation patterns in cell cycle timing between cells of different family relationships on lineage trees. Here, we formulate a framework of hidden inherited factors affecting the cell cycle that unifies known cell cycle control models and reveals three distinct interdivision time correlation patterns: aperiodic, alternator and oscillator. We use Bayesian inference with single-cell datasets of cell division in bacteria, mammalian and cancer cells, to identify the inheritance motifs that underlie these datasets. From our inference, we find that interdivision time correlation patterns do not identify a single cell cycle model but generally admit a broad posterior distribution of possible mechanisms. Despite this unidentifiability, we observe that the inferred patterns reveal interpretable inheritance dynamics and hidden rhythmicity of cell cycle factors. This reveals that cell cycle factors are commonly driven by circadian rhythms, but their period may differ in cancer. Our quantitative analysis thus reveals that correlation patterns are an emergent phenomenon that impact cell proliferation and these patterns may be altered in disease

An anthropomorphic soft skeleton hand exploiting conditional models for piano playing.

The development of robotic manipulators and hands that show dexterity, adaptability, and subtle behavior comparable to human hands is an unsolved research challenge. In this article, we considered the passive dynamics of mechanically complex systems, such as a skeleton hand, as an approach to improving adaptability, dexterity, and richness of behavioral diversity of such robotic manipulators. With the use of state-of-the-art multimaterial three-dimensional printing technologies, it is possible to design and construct complex passive structures, namely, a complex anthropomorphic skeleton hand that shows anisotropic mechanical stiffness. We introduce a concept, termed the "conditional model," that exploits the anisotropic stiffness of complex soft-rigid hybrid systems. In this approach, the physical configuration, environment conditions, and conditional actuation (applied actuation) resulted in an observable conditional model, allowing joint actuation through passivity-based dynamic interactions. The conditional model approach allowed the physical configuration and actuation to be altered, enabling a single skeleton hand to perform three different phrases of piano music with varying styles and forms and facilitating improved dynamic behaviors and interactions with the piano over those achievable with a rigid end effector