1,849 research outputs found
Jury deliberation: An observation study.
In this article, the way that the jury works is considered from a
group-analytic perspective. Observational fieldwork of simulated
jury deliberations is presented. The data was gathered from a joint
funded Home Office and Law Commission project at the Socio-
Legal Studies Centre, Oxford in 1995. Inferences are drawn from the
observations and the unconscious group processes are considered.
The efficacy of the jury process is discussed
Quantification of bacterial indicators and zoonotic pathogens in dairy wastewater ponds
Zoonotic pathogens in land-applied dairy wastewaters are a potential health risk. The abundance and occurrence of 10 pathogens and 3 fecal indicators was determined by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) in 30 dairy wastewaters from southern Idaho. Samples tested positive for Campylobacter jejuni, stx1- and eaeA-positive Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Mycobacterium avium, and Salmonella enterica, with mean recoveries ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 genome copies per mL of wastewater. The most dominant organisms were C. jejuni and M. avium, being detected in up to 21 and 29 of 30 wastewater ponds, respectively. The qPCR detection limits for the putative pathogens in the wastewaters ranged from 16 cells mL for M. avium to 1,689 oocysts mL for Cryptosporidum. Cryptosporidium and Giardia spp., Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, and pathogenic Leptospira spp. were not detected by qPCR
Staphylococcus aureus nasal colonization in HIV-seropositive and HIV-seronegative drug users
Nasal colonization plays an important role in the pathogenesis of Staphylococcus aureus infections. To identify characteristics associated with colonization, we studied a cross-section of a well-described cohort of HIV-seropositive and -seronegative active and former drug users considered at risk for staphylococcal infections. Sixty percent of the 217 subjects were Hispanic, 36% were women, 25% actively used injection drugs, 23% actively used inhalational drugs, 23% received antibiotics, and 35% were HIV-seropositive. Forty-one percent of subjects had positive nasal cultures for S. aureus. The antibiotic susceptibility patterns were similar to the local hospital's outpatient isolates and no dominant strain was identified by arbitrarily primed polymerase chain reaction (AB-PCR). Variables significantly and independently associated with colonization included antibiotic use (odds ratio [OR] = 0.37; confidence interval [CI] = 0.18-0.77), active inhalational drug use within the HIV-seropositive population (OR = 2.36; CI = 1.10-5.10) and female gender (OR = 1.97; CI = 1.09-3.57). Characteristics not independently associated included injection drug use, HIV status, and CD4 count. The association with active inhalational drug use, a novel finding, may reflect alterations in the integrity of the nasal mucosa. The lack of association between HIV infection and S. aureus colonization, which is contrary to most previous studies, could be explained by our rigorous control for confounding variables or by a limited statistical power due to the sample sizes
Fast Searching in Packed Strings
Given strings and the (exact) string matching problem is to find all
positions of substrings in matching . The classical Knuth-Morris-Pratt
algorithm [SIAM J. Comput., 1977] solves the string matching problem in linear
time which is optimal if we can only read one character at the time. However,
most strings are stored in a computer in a packed representation with several
characters in a single word, giving us the opportunity to read multiple
characters simultaneously. In this paper we study the worst-case complexity of
string matching on strings given in packed representation. Let be
the lengths and , respectively, and let denote the size of the
alphabet. On a standard unit-cost word-RAM with logarithmic word size we
present an algorithm using time O\left(\frac{n}{\log_\sigma n} + m +
\occ\right). Here \occ is the number of occurrences of in . For this improves the bound of the Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm.
Furthermore, if our algorithm is optimal since any
algorithm must spend at least \Omega(\frac{(n+m)\log
\sigma}{\log n} + \occ) = \Omega(\frac{n}{\log_\sigma n} + \occ) time to
read the input and report all occurrences. The result is obtained by a novel
automaton construction based on the Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm combined with
a new compact representation of subautomata allowing an optimal
tabulation-based simulation.Comment: To appear in Journal of Discrete Algorithms. Special Issue on CPM
200
Interferon-λ restricts West Nile virus neuroinvasion by tightening the blood-brain barrier
Although interferon-λ [also known as type III interferon or interleukin-28 (IL-28)/IL-29] restricts infection by several viruses, its inhibitory mechanism has remained uncertain. We used recombinant interferon-λ and mice lacking the interferon-λ receptor (IFNLR1) to evaluate the effect of interferon-λ on infection with West Nile virus, an encephalitic flavivirus. Cell culture studies in mouse keratinocytes and dendritic cells showed no direct antiviral effect of exogenous interferon-λ, even though expression of interferon-stimulated genes was induced. We observed no differences in West Nile virus burden between wild-type and Ifnlr1-/- mice in the draining lymph nodes, spleen, or blood. We detected increased West Nile virus infection in the brain and spinal cord of Ifnlr1-/- mice, yet this was not associated with a direct antiviral effect in mouse neurons. Instead, we observed an increase in blood-brain barrier permeability in Ifnlr1-/- mice. Treatment of mice with pegylated interferon-λ2 resulted in decreased blood-brain barrier permeability, reduced West Nile virus infection in the brain without affecting viremia, and improved survival against lethal virus challenge. An in vitro model of the blood-brain barrier showed that interferon-λ signaling in mouse brain microvascular endothelial cells increased transendothelial electrical resistance, decreased virus movement across the barrier, and modulated tight junction protein localization in a protein synthesis- and signal transducer and activator of transcription 1 (STAT1)-independent manner. Our data establish an indirect antiviral function of interferon-λ in which noncanonical signaling through IFNLR1 tightens the blood-brain barrier and restricts viral neuroinvasion and pathogenesis
Mandelbrot set in coupled logistic maps and in an electronic experiment
We suggest an approach to constructing physical systems with dynamical
characteristics of the complex analytic iterative maps. The idea follows from a
simple notion that the complex quadratic map by a variable change may be
transformed into a set of two identical real one-dimensional quadratic maps
with a particular coupling. Hence, dynamical behavior of similar nature may
occur in coupled dissipative nonlinear systems, which relate to the Feigenbaum
universality class. To substantiate the feasibility of this concept, we
consider an electronic system, which exhibits dynamical phenomena intrinsic to
complex analytic maps. Experimental results are presented, providing the
Mandelbrot set in the parameter plane of this physical system.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Исторический роман о Максиме Греке и его место в творчестве Мицоса Александропулоса
Целью статьи является анализ творчества Мицоса Александропулоса (Αλεξανδρόπουλος Μήτσος, 1924-
2008) в контексте развития современного греческого исторического романа (на примере романа «Сцены из
жизни Максима Грека» («Σκηνές από το βίο του Μάξιμου του Γραικού», 1967-1969))
Investigation of the ferromagnetic transition in the correlated 4d perovskites SrRuRhO
The solid-solution SrRuRhO () is a
variable-electron-configuration system forming in the nearly-cubic-perovskite
basis, ranging from the ferromagnetic 4 to the enhanced paramagnetic
4. Polycrystalline single-phase samples were obtained over the whole
composition range by a high-pressure-heating technique, followed by
measurements of magnetic susceptibility, magnetization, specific heat,
thermopower, and electrical resistivity. The ferromagnetic order in long range
is gradually suppressed by the Rh substitution and vanishes at .
The electronic term of specific-heat shows unusual behavior near the critical
Rh concentration; the feature does not match even qualitatively with what was
reported for the related perovskites (Sr,Ca)RuO. Furthermore, another
anomaly in the specific heat was observed at .Comment: Accepted for publication in PR
Dynamical parton distributions of the nucleon and very small-x physics
Utilizing recent DIS measurements (F_{2,L}) and data on dilepton and
high-E_{T} jet production we determine the dynamical parton distributions of
the nucleon generated radiatively from valence-like positive input
distributions at optimally chosen low resolution scales. These are compared
with `standard' distributions generated from positive input distributions at
some fixed and higher resolution scale. It is shown that up to the next to
leading order NLO(\bar{MS}, DIS) of perturbative QCD considered in this paper,
the uncertainties of the dynamical distributions are, as expected, smaller than
those of their standard counterparts. This holds true in particular in the
presently unexplored extremely small-x region relevant for evaluating ultrahigh
energy cross sections in astrophysical applications. It is noted that our new
dynamical distributions are compatible, within the presently determined
uncertainties, with previously determined dynamical parton distributions.Comment: 21 pages, 2 tables, 16 figures, v2: added Ref.[60], replaced Fig.
Magneto-Transport Properties of Doped RuSrGdCuO
RuSrGdCuO, in which magnetic order and superconductivity coexist
with , is a complex material which poses new and
important questions to our understanding of the interplay between magnetic and
superconducting (SC) order. Resistivity, Hall effect and thermopower
measurements on sintered ceramic RuSrGdCuO are presented, together
with results on a broad range of substituted analogues. The Hall effect and
thermopower both show anomalous decreases below which may be
explained within a simple two-band model by a transition from localized to more
itinerant behavior in the RuO layer at .Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. B., correspondence to
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