The Administration of Senior Design Projects in a Distance Learning Environment

A method for administering a senior level capstone design course in Electrical Engineering Technology in a distance learning environment is described. Several avenues are explored that help the students successfully conceive, develop, and present their design projects from off- campus locations that are consistent with the requirements placed upon their on-campus peers. Several problems that are unique to offering a senior project course in a distance learning environment are explored and solutions are described

A Presynaptic Kainate Receptor Is Involved in Regulating the Dynamic Properties of Thalamocortical Synapses during Development

AbstractPrevious studies have shown that pharmacological activation of presynaptic kainate receptors at glutamatergic synapses facilitates or depresses transmission in a dose-dependent manner. However, the only synaptically activated kainate autoreceptor described to date is facilitatory. Here, we describe a kainate autoreceptor that depresses synaptic transmission. This autoreceptor is present at developing thalamocortical synapses in the barrel cortex, specifically regulates transmission at frequencies corresponding to those observed in vivo during whisker activation, and is developmentally down regulated during the first postnatal week. This receptor may, therefore, limit the transfer of high-frequency activity to the developing cortex, the loss of which mechanism may be important for the maturation of sensory processing

Assessment of Equipment Maintenance Practices for Effective Electric Power Distribution in Adamawa State

The main purpose of this study was to assess equipment maintenance practices for effective electric power distribution in Adamawa State by Yola Electricity Distribution Company. Three research questions and three null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was 69 consisting of 46 technicians and 23 supervisors in Yola Electricity Distribution Company. The whole population was used for the study. The instrument for data collection was a structured questionnaire developed by the researchers titled “Assessment of Equipment Maintenance Practices for Effective Electric Power Distribution Questionnaire (AEMPELPDQ)”. The instrument was validated by three experts and a reliability of 0.89 was obtained using Cronbach Alpha reliability method. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The finding of the study revealed that Yola Electricity Distribution Company adopts monthly routine maintenance on 18 out of the 31 items listed equipment while quarterly routine maintenance is carried out on 11 of the 31 items. Weekly maintenance is adopted for only two (2) of the equipment; Out of the 31 items listed, 22 of the items are semi-annually maintained; while eight (8) of the items are annually maintained and only one (1) of the equipment (distribution board) is weekly maintained. Based on the findings, YEDC should ensure adequate inspection and supervision of equipment to prevent unwarranted breakdown that may affect effective distribution of electrical power; YEDC should ensure at least monthly routine maintenance is carried out on the equipment available to ensure effective usage

A quantitative model of normal Caenorhabditis elegans embryogenesis and its disruption after stress

AbstractThe invariant lineage of Caenorhabditis elegans has powerful potential for quantifying developmental variability in normal and stressed embryos. Previous studies of division timing by automated lineage tracing suggested that variability in cell cycle timing is low in younger embryos, but manual lineage tracing of specific lineages suggested that variability may increase for later divisions. We developed improved automated lineage tracing methods that allowroutine lineage tracing through the last round of embryonic cell divisions and we applied these methods to trace the lineage of 18 wild-type embryos. Cell cycle lengths, division axes and cell positions are remarkably consistent among these embryos at all stages, with only slight increase in variability later in development. The resulting quantitative 4-dimensional model of embryogenesis provides a powerful reference dataset to identify defects in mutants or in embryos that have experienced environmental perturbations. We also traced the lineages of embryos imaged at higher temperatures to quantify the decay in developmental robustness under temperature stress. Developmental variability increases modestly at 25°C compared with 22°C and dramatically at 26°C, and we identify homeotic transformations in a subset of embryos grown at 26°C. The deep lineage tracing methods provide a powerful tool for analysis of normal development, gene expression and mutants and we provide a graphical user interface to allow other researchers to explore the average behavior of arbitrary cells in a reference embryo

A Grand Unification of Quantum Algorithms

Quantum algorithms offer significant speedups over their classical counterparts for a variety of problems. The strongest arguments for this advantage are borne by algorithms for quantum search, quantum phase estimation, and Hamiltonian simulation, which appear as subroutines for large families of composite quantum algorithms. A number of these quantum algorithms were recently tied together by a novel technique known as the quantum singular value transformation (QSVT), which enables one to perform a polynomial transformation of the singular values of a linear operator embedded in a unitary matrix. In the seminal GSLW'19 paper on QSVT [Gily\'en, Su, Low, and Wiebe, ACM STOC 2019], many algorithms are encompassed, including amplitude amplification, methods for the quantum linear systems problem, and quantum simulation. Here, we provide a pedagogical tutorial through these developments, first illustrating how quantum signal processing may be generalized to the quantum eigenvalue transform, from which QSVT naturally emerges. Paralleling GSLW'19, we then employ QSVT to construct intuitive quantum algorithms for search, phase estimation, and Hamiltonian simulation, and also showcase algorithms for the eigenvalue threshold problem and matrix inversion. This overview illustrates how QSVT is a single framework comprising the three major quantum algorithms, thus suggesting a grand unification of quantum algorithms