POVIJESNI PREGLED PERORALNE PRIMJENE NEOBRAĐENOG JANTARA

The organic mineraloid gemstone, amber, a fossilized resin collected from Eocene deposits laid down around 44 million years old on the Baltic coast, has been an important geopharmaceutical in the western materia medica since classical times. Once rendered into powdered form, it could be delivered into the body using a wide range of vehicles including lozenges, pills, tablets, troches, electuaries, solutions and lohochs (lick-pots), and with toast and poached eggs. Acting either alone or in combination with a wide range of botanical, zoological and other geological ingredients, it was employed in the treatment of a huge range of diseases. Most prominent among these were various vascular disorders (e.g. haemoptysis, haemorrhage, excessive menstrual bleeding), problems with the urogenital system (e.g. tendency towards miscarriage, impotence, venereal diseases, strangury, dysuria and bladder stones) and alimentary conditions, particularly dysentery. A variety of infectious diseases, including plague, gonorrhoea, measles and fevers could be targeted with amber-containing preparations, as could epilepsy, melancholy and the ravages of old age. Rather more unusual applications included its use in the treatment of impotence, halitosis, drunkenness and a weak back.Dragi kamen, mineraloid organskog porijekla, jantar, fosilizirani ostatak 44 milijuna godina starih eocenskih naslaga s baltičke obale, bio je važan lijek mineralnog porijekla u zapadnjačkoj materii medici još od antike. U jednom trenutku pretvoren u prašak, mogao je biti unesen u tijelo koristeći široku lepezu sredstava uključujući pastile, pilule, tablete, dražeje, tekućine i lizalice, s prepečencem i prženim jajima. Djelujući zasebno ili u kombinaciji sa širokim spektrom botaničkih, zooloških i drugih mineralnih sastojaka, korišten je u liječenju velikog broja bolesti. Najistaknutije među njima bile su vaskularne bolesti (npr. hemoptiza, hemoragija, ekscesivno vaskularno krvarenje), problemi urogenitalnog sustava (npr. sklonost pobačaju, impotencija, spolne bolesti, strangurije, dizurije i kamenci u mokraćnom mjehuru) i probavne smetnje, osobito dizenterija. Raznolike zarazne bolesti uključujući kugu, gonoreju, ospice i vrućice, mogu biti tretirane preparatima koji sadrže jantar kao što to može biti i padavica, melankolija i staračka iscrpljenost Nešto neuobičajenija primjena bila je pri liječenju impotencije, neugodnog zadaha, pijanosti i križoboljama

Assessing Alternatives for Directional Detection of a WIMP Halo

The future of direct terrestrial WIMP detection lies on two fronts: new, much larger low background detectors sensitive to energy deposition, and detectors with directional sensitivity. The former can large range of WIMP parameter space using well tested technology while the latter may be necessary if one is to disentangle particle physics parameters from astrophysical halo parameters. Because directional detectors will be quite difficult to construct it is worthwhile exploring in advance generally which experimental features will yield the greatest benefits at the lowest costs. We examine the sensitivity of directional detectors with varying angular tracking resolution with and without the ability to distinguish forward versus backward recoils, and compare these to the sensitivity of a detector where the track is projected onto a two-dimensional plane. The latter detector regardless of where it is placed on the Earth, can be oriented to produce a significantly better discrimination signal than a 3D detector without this capability, and with sensitivity within a factor of 2 of a full 3D tracking detector. Required event rates to distinguish signals from backgrounds for a simple isothermal halo range from the low teens in the best case to many thousands in the worst.Comment: 4 pages, including 2 figues and 2 tables, submitted to PR

Bad semidefinite programs: they all look the same

Conic linear programs, among them semidefinite programs, often behave pathologically: the optimal values of the primal and dual programs may differ, and may not be attained. We present a novel analysis of these pathological behaviors. We call a conic linear system $Ax <= b$ {\em badly behaved} if the value of $\sup { | A x <= b }$ is finite but the dual program has no solution with the same value for {\em some} $c.$ We describe simple and intuitive geometric characterizations of badly behaved conic linear systems. Our main motivation is the striking similarity of badly behaved semidefinite systems in the literature; we characterize such systems by certain {\em excluded matrices}, which are easy to spot in all published examples. We show how to transform semidefinite systems into a canonical form, which allows us to easily verify whether they are badly behaved. We prove several other structural results about badly behaved semidefinite systems; for example, we show that they are in $NP \cap co-NP$ in the real number model of computing. As a byproduct, we prove that all linear maps that act on symmetric matrices can be brought into a canonical form; this canonical form allows us to easily check whether the image of the semidefinite cone under the given linear map is closed.Comment: For some reason, the intended changes between versions 4 and 5 did not take effect, so versions 4 and 5 are the same. So version 6 is the final version. The only difference between version 4 and version 6 is that 2 typos were fixed: in the last displayed formula on page 6, "7" was replaced by "1"; and in the 4th displayed formula on page 12 "A_1 - A_2 - A_3" was replaced by "A_3 - A_2 - A_1

NEW DATA ON THE EARLY JURASSIC BIODIVERSITY OF THE LOMBARDY BASIN (SOUTHERN ALPS, ITALY) AND THE EARLIEST RECORD SPHENODUS (CHONDRICHTHYES, NEOSELACHII)

At the beginning of the Jurassic, the initial stages of the rifting that preceded the opening of the Alpine Tethys led to the establishment of the Lombardy basin, characterized by a shallow water marine palaeoenvironment inhabited by highly diversified ecological communities. Macrofossil records from the whole Lower Jurassic succession of Lombardy are currently mostly confined to invertebrates. The earliest occurrence of marine vertebrates is from the Sinemurian Moltrasio Limestone of Osteno (Varese), subsequent to the Triassic/Jurassic boundary (TJB) post-crisis recovery. Here, we describe material from the Roncola section (Roncola San Bernardo, Bergamo) of the Sedrina Limestone (upper Hettangian), consisting of a dense accumulation of crinoid skeletal remains belonging to Balanocrinus ticinensis Hess, 2006. Among them are three isolated neoselachian teeth assigned to the genus Sphenodus Agassiz, 1843. This new discovery is significant and extends our knowledge of the biodiversity of the Lombardy basin Jurassic, mainly because these dental remains represent the earliest vertebrate macrofossils ever documented from this area after the Triassic/Jurassic boundary. Sphenodus (which ranges from the Sinemurian to the Danian) is a fairly ubiquitous Sinemurian neoselachian shark but this new record moves its First Appearance Datum (FAD) back to the Hettangian stage

Mobile Phone Faraday Cage

A Faraday cage is an interesting physics phenomena where an electromagnetic wave can be excluded from a volume of space by enclosure with an electrically conducting material. The practical application of this in the classroom is to block the signal to a mobile phone by enclosing it in a metal can! The background of the physics behind this is described in some detail followed by a explanation of some demonstrations and experiments which I have used

A MODEL OF SWIMMING ECONOMY DURING INCREMENTAL EXERCISE

The responses of swimming economy (distance stroke-' (DPS) and stroke rate (SR)) to incremental exercise were examined in 20 highly trained competitive swimmers to derive parameter estimates to model swimming economy during incremental exercise. As the swimmer's velocity increased, DPS was first steady at a maximal value, and then decreased linearly beyond a breakpoint. Conversely, we observed a constant linear increase in SR that did not exhibit a breakpoint or steady state. We defined the maximal DPS as DPS max (m' stroke-'),t he breakpoint as DPSthrehold(m' stroke-'),and the linear decrease as DPSd,, (m' stroke-'velocity-').These results were incorporated into a two segment linear fit of the individual responses. The SR response was described by a regression line and was defined as SR,,, (strokes°min&#713;1'~velocity&#713;1)

The occurrence of the extinct shark genus Sphenodus in the Jurassic of Sicily

During the systematic revision of some historical collections containing Mesozoic ammonites, housed at the "G.G. Gemmellaro" Geological Museum of the Palermo University, a fossil shark’s tooth has been discovered. This specimen, indicated as Lamna in the original catalogue, can be attributed to the genus Sphenodus, an extinct cosmopolitan shark ranging from Lower Jurassic rocks to the Paleocene. The specimen is part of the Mariano Gemmellaro Collection which mainly consists of Middle-Upper Jurassic ammonites coming from Tardàra Mountain, between Menfi and Sambuca di Sicilia (Agrigento Province, Southwestern Sicily). Some of the ammonite specimens were listed, but not illustrated, by M. Gemmellaro in a note of 1919. The succession described in this area consists (from bottom to the top) of Lower Jurassic shallow-water carbonates followed by condensed ammonitic limestones of “Rosso ammonitico-type” (Middle-Late Jurassic in age), Calpionellid limestones (Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous) and cherty calcilutites of Scaglia-type (Upper Cretaceous-Eocene). Since the exact stratigraphic level from which the shark tooth comes is not recorded, a thin section was made of the rock matrix surrounding the tooth. The sedimentological and paleontological analysis of the thin section has highlighted the presence of a microfacies characteristic of the Upper Jurassic condensed deposits of Rosso ammonitico-type, data that fits very well with the geology of the Tardàra area. The study of the Tardàra shark’s tooth has provided both the stimulus and opportunity to undertake a taxonomic review of the Jurassic specimens of Sphenodus collected from a range of Sicilian localities (Gemmellaro G.G., 1871; Seguenza G., 1887; Di Stefano & Cortese, 1891; Seguenza L., 1900; De Gregorio A., 1922) that, to date, have not been re-examined in the light of more recent scholarship. In particular, the specimens described and illustrated by G.G. Gemmellaro (1871), and stored in his eponymous museum, have been revised with the aim of providing a contribution to our knowledge of the genus Sphenodus in the Sicilian Mesozoic successions