Barbaetis: A New Genus of Eastern Nearctic Mayflies (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae)

The new genus Barbaetis Waltz and McCafferty, and new species Barbaetis benfieldi Kennedy are described from larvae collected from the New River, Virginia. Barbaetis is easily told from Baetis by the presence of procoxal osmobranchia. Cladistics of B. benfieldi, related Pseudocloeon species, and the lutheri and pavidus complexes of Baetis are presented and indicate the need for further taxonomic revision. The habitat of B. benfieldi is described in terms of several ecological parameters. The new species demonstrates a univoltine life history with postembryonic development restricted to a short springtime period

An Outlook for Basic Wood Anatomy Research

Consideration is given to the applications of scanning electron microscopy, X-ray densitometry, and ultraviolet microspectrophotometry to certain problems in wood anatomy. Several other problem areas are mentioned briefly, and specific studies of ray cells and reaction wood formation are highlighted

Shorting the Future: Capital Markets and the Launch of the British Electrical Industry, 1880-1892

Drawing on a comprehensive data set consisting of dividend payments, security prices, and stock exchange disclosures, this paper argues that, contrary to common interpretation, potentially damaging government regulations imposed in 1882 cannot explain the retarded development of the nascent British electrical industry in its first decade. Instead, as informed opinion at the time maintained, wildly inflated expectations had by the spring of 1882 driven the publicly-traded security prices of putative electrical enterprises to manifestly unsustainable levels. When initial demand and operating profits failed to meet these grossly extravagant expectations, ?irrational exuberance? quickly turned to equally undisciplined pessimism in a classic case of stock market boom and bust - with predictable consequences, most notably a collapse of subsequent investment and development at a time of great technological ferment, when durable early-mover advantages were being established among electrical manufacturers globally. This debilitating sequence of market boom and bust was further exacerbated by the fact that during the brief boom surprisingly little money was invested in the promising technologies that were available. Technological rather than regulatory risk was the dominant factor in the 1882 electrical debacle, with long lasting consequences

Stability, reliability and cross-mode correlations of tests in a recommended 8-minute performance assessment battery

A need exists for an automated performance test system to study drugs, agents, treatments, and stresses of interest to the aviation, space, and environmental medical community. The purpose of this present study is to evaluate tests for inclusion in the NASA-sponsored Automated Performance Test System (APTS). Twenty-one subjects were tested over 10 replications with tests previously identified as good candidates for repeated-measure research. The tests were concurrently administered in paper-and-pencil and microcomputer modes. Performance scores for the two modes were compared. Data from trials 1 to 10 were examined for indications of test stability and reliability. Nine of the ten APT system tests achieved stability. Reliabilities were generally high. Cross-correlation of microbased tests with traditional paper-and-pencil versions revealed similarity of content within tests in the different modes, and implied at least three cognition and two motor factors. This protable, inexpensive, rugged, computerized battery of tests is recommended for use in repeated-measures studies of environmental and drug effects on performance. Identification of other tests compatible with microcomputer testing and potentially capable of tapping previously unidentified factors is recommended. Documentation of APTS sensitivity to environmental agents is available for more than a dozen facilities and is reported briefly. Continuation of such validation remains critical in establishing the efficacy of APTS tests

System configuration and executive requirements specifications for reusable shuttle and space station/base

System configuration and executive requirements specifications for reusable shuttle and space station/bas

Particle Swarm Optimization and gravitational wave data analysis: Performance on a binary inspiral testbed

The detection and estimation of gravitational wave (GW) signals belonging to a parameterized family of waveforms requires, in general, the numerical maximization of a data-dependent function of the signal parameters. Due to noise in the data, the function to be maximized is often highly multi-modal with numerous local maxima. Searching for the global maximum then becomes computationally expensive, which in turn can limit the scientific scope of the search. Stochastic optimization is one possible approach to reducing computational costs in such applications. We report results from a first investigation of the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) method in this context. The method is applied to a testbed motivated by the problem of detection and estimation of a binary inspiral signal. Our results show that PSO works well in the presence of high multi-modality, making it a viable candidate method for further applications in GW data analysis.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Mapping food access and related risk factors in forecasting social disorder

Includes bibliographical references

A Fast Algorithm for Simulating the Chordal Schramm-Loewner Evolution

The Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE) can be simulated by dividing the time interval into N subintervals and approximating the random conformal map of the SLE by the composition of N random, but relatively simple, conformal maps. In the usual implementation the time required to compute a single point on the SLE curve is O(N). We give an algorithm for which the time to compute a single point is O(N^p) with p<1. Simulations with kappa=8/3 and kappa=6 both give a value of p of approximately 0.4.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures. Version 2 revisions: added a paragraph to introduction, added 5 references and corrected a few typo

Restricted dog leucocyte antigen (DLA) class II haplotypes and genotypes in Beagles

AbstractBeagles are commonly used in vaccine trials as part of the regulatory approval process. Genetic restriction within this breed and the impact this might have on vaccine responses are rarely considered. This study was designed to characterise diversity of dog leucocyte antigen (DLA) class II genes in a breeding colony of laboratory Beagles, whose offspring are used in vaccine studies. DLA haplotypes were determined by PCR and sequence-based typing from genomic DNA extracted from blood. Breeding colony Beagles had significantly different DLA haplotype frequencies in comparison with pet Beagles and both groups showed limited DLA diversity. Restricted DLA class II genetic variability within Beagles might result in selective antigen presentation and vaccine responses that are not necessarily representative of those seen in other dog breeds