20GHz picosecond pulse generation by 1300nm mode-locked quantum dot master oscillator power amplifier

An integrated 1300 nm QD mode-locked narrow stripe MOPA is shown to generate 10.5 ps Fourier transform limited pulses at 20 GHz. The pulse train has an average power of 46.4 mW and peak powers exceeding 0.31 W

Non-critical waveguide alignment for vertically coupled microring using a mode-expanded bus architecture

Vertically coupled microrings in an all-pass filter configuration are fabricated with a range of waveguide misalignments deliberately introduced into the lithography masks to demonstrate noncritical fabrication requirements. The microrings have a mode-expanded bus design which allows a greatly reduced variation in power coupling coefficient-only 6% for fabrication misalignments as high as 1 mum. This represents a five-fold improvement in fabrication tolerance when compared with conventional design

Demonstration of a lossless monolithic 16x16 QW SOA switch

10Gb/s error-free operation of the first monolithic 16×16 quantum well semiconductor optical amplifier switch is demonstrated. The switch has a 2dB facet-to-facet gain and a minimum power penalty of 2.5dB

Super-alimentation of gilts during lactation

Sows attempt to meet the sudden and large metabolic demand of lactation by increasing their level of voluntary food intake. However, the voluntary food intake of most sows during lactation generally does not provide sufficient energy or protein to meet their requirements for maintenance and milk production. By providing multiparous sows with extra food during lactation (via a gastric cannula) they remained in an anabolic state, and both milk production and piglet growth were increased (Matzat et al., 1990). Do gilts respond in the same way as sows to extra food in lactation? Gilts are smaller than sows and would be expected to have a greater impetus for body growth because they have not reached their mature body size. If gilts are provided with extra food during lactation, they might partition more of it into body tissue and less into milk. Gilts, fitted with gastric cannulas, were used to test the hypothesis that they would respond differently from the sows of Matzat et al. (1990) to extra food in lactation

Non-Critical Waveguide Alignment for Vertically-Coupled Microring using a Mode-Expanded Bus Architecture

Vertically coupled microrings in an all-pass filter configuration are fabricated with a range of waveguide misalignments deliberately introduced into the lithography masks to demonstrate noncritical fabrication requirements. The microrings have a mode-expanded bus design which allows a greatly reduced variation in power coupling coefficient-only 6% for fabrication misalignments as high as 1 µm. This represents a five-fold improvement in fabrication tolerance when compared with conventional designs

Data mining with neural networks and support vector machines using the R/rminer tool

We present rminer, our open source library for the R tool that facilitates the use of data mining (DM) algorithms, such as neural Networks (NNs) and support vector machines (SVMs), in classification and regression tasks. Tutorial examples with real-world problems (i.e. satellite image analysis and prediction of car prices) were used to demonstrate the rminer capabilities and NN/SVM advantages. Additional experiments were also held to test the rminer predictive capabilities, revealing competitive performances.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) - PTDC/EIA/64541/200

Dietary lecithin improves the healthiness of pork

Dietary lecithin may provide health benefits to pork as well as improving its eating quality by reducing chewiness and hardness (D'Souza et al.., 2005). Human studies have shown lecithin supplementation can reduce cholesterol significantly (Spilburg et al., 2003) and we hypothesised that lecithin supplementation would have a similar effect in pigs. The use of lecithin supplementation to improve the 'healthiness' of pork or pork products, while also improving the tenderness of pork, could provide the pork industry with significant marketing opportunities. The aim of this experiment was to investigate the effect of lecithin supplementation on the fatty acid profile of pork and also on the plasma cholesterol of pigs

Transcendence over Diversity: black women in the academy

Universities, like many major public institutions have embraced the notion of ‘diversity’ virtually uncritically- it is seen as a moral ‘good in itself’. But what happens to those who come to represent ‘diversity’- the black and minority ethnic groups targeted to increase the institutions thirst for global markets and aversion to accusations of institutional racism? Drawing on existing literature which analyses the process of marginalization in higher education, this paper explores the individual costs to black and female academic staff regardless of the discourse on diversity. However despite the exclusion of staff, black and minority ethnic women are also entering higher education in relatively large numbers as students. Such ‘grassroots’ educational urgency transcends the dominant discourse on diversity and challenges presumptions inherent in top down initiatives such as ‘widening participation’. Such a collective movement from the bottom up shows the importance of understanding black female agency when unpacking the complex dynamics of gendered and racialised exclusion. Black women’s desire for education and learning makes possible a reclaiming of higher education from creeping instrumentalism and reinstates it as a radical site of resistance and refutation

Pellino-1 regulates the responses of the airway to viral infection

Exposure to respiratory pathogens is a leading cause of exacerbations of airway diseases such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Pellino-1 is an E3 ubiquitin ligase known to regulate virally-induced inflammation. We wished to determine the role of Pellino-1 in the host response to respiratory viruses in health and disease. Pellino-1 expression was examined in bronchial sections from patients with GOLD stage two COPD and healthy controls. Primary bronchial epithelial cells (PBECs) in which Pellino-1 expression had been knocked down were extracellularly challenged with the TLR3 agonist poly(I:C). C57BL/6 Peli1−/− mice and wild type littermates were subjected to intranasal infection with clinically-relevant respiratory viruses: rhinovirus (RV1B) and influenza A. We found that Pellino-1 is expressed in the airways of normal subjects and those with COPD, and that Pellino-1 regulates TLR3 signaling and responses to airways viruses. In particular we observed that knockout of Pellino-1 in the murine lung resulted in increased production of proinflammatory cytokines IL-6 and TNFα upon viral infection, accompanied by enhanced recruitment of immune cells to the airways, without any change in viral replication. Pellino-1 therefore regulates inflammatory airway responses without altering replication of respiratory viruses