A new genus of predatory midge in the \u3ci\u3eMonohelea\u3c/i\u3e complex from Eocene Baltic amber (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae)

Monogedania, a new fossil monotypic genus of predatory midge (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) is described from Eocene Baltic amber and its position within the Monohelea complex is discussed. We dis­covered that the membranous portion of the aedeagus is extended in Monogedania clunipes (Loew), new combination, which suggests that the aedeagus of some extinct predatory midges can be penis-like. The Eocene Monohelea baltica Szadziewski, is transferred to the genus Schizohelea Kieffer, new combination, and, the previously unknown female is described, and key characters are included in color photographs of its entire habitus, head, distal hind tarsomeres and claws. The Monohelea complex is a world-wide group of predatory midges that includes six genera in the tribe Cerato­pogonini (Wirth and Grogan 1988). Their larvae are aquatic or semiaquatic in mainly small bodies of water and prey on aquatic larvae of a variety of insects. Adult females in this tribe are predators of mostly small nematocer­ous flies. This complex includes 232 extant species (Borkent and Dominiak 2020). Biting midges of this complex are rare in ambers worldwide (Szadziewski 2018). There are only two named species in the genus Monohelea Kieffer from Eocene Baltic amber (Szadziewski 1988). However, an enigmatic specimen of the genus Austrohelea Wirth and Grogan (sex unknown, no description or illustration) was reported by Schmidt et al. (2018) from Oligocene/Miocene amber of New Zealand; and a species from Eocene Australian (Anglesea) amber of an unde­termined genus (Peñalver et al. 2021) may belong to this complex. It is worth noting that in Upper Cretaceous Canadian and Siberian ambers there are species in the fossil genus Peronehelea Borkent (Borkent 1995), that resemble species in the Monohelea complex. Females of Peronehelea have enlarged hind legs and hind claws, how­ever, males in this genus have abdominal tergite 9 with distinct apicolateral processes which are absent or greatly reduced in males of the Monohelea complex. Females of Peronehelea have enlarged hind legs and hind claws, however, males in this genus have abdominal tergite 9 with distinct apicolateral processes which are absent or greatly reduced in males of the Monohelea complex (Szadziewski 1996). Two species from Eocene Baltic amber assigned to Monohelea by Szadziewski (1988) do not entirely resemble any of the genera in the revised Monohelea complex proposed by Wirth and Grogan (1988). Herein, we transfer these two extinct species from Monohelea, to Schizohelea Kieffer (Kieffer 1917), and, the new genus Monogedania, that we describe and illustrate

dbar-equations, integrable deformations of quasiconformal mappings and Whitham hierarchy

It is shown that the dispersionless scalar integrable hierarchies and, in general, the universal Whitham hierarchy are nothing but classes of integrable deformations of quasiconformal mappings on the plane. Examples of deformations of quasiconformal mappings associated with explicit solutions of the dispersionless KP hierarchy are presented.Comment: 13 pages, LaTe

A Method to Extract Potentials from the Temperature Dependence of Langmuir Constants for Clathrate-Hydrates

It is shown that the temperature dependence of Langmuir constants contains all the information needed to determine spherically averaged intermolecular potentials. An analytical ``inversion'' method based on the standard statistical model of van der Waals and Platteeuw is presented which extracts cell potentials directly from experimental data. The method is applied to ethane and cyclopropane clathrate-hydrates, and the resulting potentials are much simpler and more meaningful than those obtained by the usual method of numerical fitting with Kihara potentials.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figures, to appear in Physica

Learning Behavior of Memristor-Based Neuromorphic Circuits in the Presence of Radiation

In this paper, a feed-forward spiking neural network with memristive synapses is designed to learn a spatio-temporal pattern representing the 25-pixel character ‘B’ by separating correlated and uncorrelated afferents. The network uses spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) learning behavior, which is implemented using biphasic neuron spikes. A TiO2 memristor non-linear drift model is used to simulate synaptic behavior in the neuromorphic circuit. The network uses a many-to-one topology with 25 pre-synaptic neurons (afferent) each connected to a memristive synapse and one post-synaptic neuron. The memristor model is modified to include the experimentally observed effect of state-altering radiation. During the learning process, irradiation of the memristors alters their conductance state, and the effect on circuit learning behavior is determined. Radiation is observed to generally increase the synaptic weight of the memristive devices, making the network connections more conductive and less stable. However, the network appears to relearn the pattern when radiation ceases but does take longer to resolve the correlation and pattern. Network recovery time is proportional to flux, intensity, and duration of the radiation. Further, at lower but continuous radiation exposure, (flux 1x1010 cm−2 s−1 and below), the circuit resolves the pattern successfully for up to 100 s

Solid-Phase Synthesis of Arylpiperazine Derivatives and Implementation of the Distributed Drug Discovery (D3) Project in the Search for CNS Agents

We have successfully implemented the concept of Distributed Drug Discovery (D3) in the search for CNS agents. Herein, we demonstrate, for the first time, student engagement from different sites around the globe in the development of new biologically active compounds. As an outcome we have synthesized a 24-membered library of arylpiperazine derivatives targeted to 5-HT1A and 5-HT2A receptors. The synthesis was simultaneously performed on BAL-MBHA-PS resin in Poland and the United States, and on BAL-PS-SynPhase Lanterns in France. The D3 project strategy opens the possibility of obtaining potent 5-HT1A/5-HT2A agents in a distributed fashion. While the biological testing is still centralized, this combination of distributed synthesis with screening will enable a D3 network of students world-wide to participate, as part of their education, in the synthesis and testing of this class of biologically active compounds

General Spectral Flow Formula for Fixed Maximal Domain

We consider a continuous curve of linear elliptic formally self-adjoint differential operators of first order with smooth coefficients over a compact Riemannian manifold with boundary together with a continuous curve of global elliptic boundary value problems. We express the spectral flow of the resulting continuous family of (unbounded) self-adjoint Fredholm operators in terms of the Maslov index of two related curves of Lagrangian spaces. One curve is given by the varying domains, the other by the Cauchy data spaces. We provide rigorous definitions of the underlying concepts of spectral theory and symplectic analysis and give a full (and surprisingly short) proof of our General Spectral Flow Formula for the case of fixed maximal domain. As a side result, we establish local stability of weak inner unique continuation property (UCP) and explain its role for parameter dependent spectral theory.Comment: 22 page

The stability for the Cauchy problem for elliptic equations

We discuss the ill-posed Cauchy problem for elliptic equations, which is pervasive in inverse boundary value problems modeled by elliptic equations. We provide essentially optimal stability results, in wide generality and under substantially minimal assumptions. As a general scheme in our arguments, we show that all such stability results can be derived by the use of a single building brick, the three-spheres inequality.Comment: 57 pages, review articl

Literacy disparities in patient access and health-related use of Internet and mobile technologies

Age and race-related disparities in technology use have been well documented, but less is known about how health literacy influences technology access and use