About low field memory and negative magnetization in semiconductors and polymers

Ginzburg-Landau bulk magnetization of itinerant electrons can provide a negative effective field in the Weiss model by coupling to localized magnetic moments. The coupling enforces remnant magnetization, which can be negative or positive depending on the sample magnetic history. Stable magnetic susceptibility of coupled nonequilibrium subsystems with magnetization reversal is always positive. Gauss-scale fields could be expected for switching between negative and positive remnant moments in semiconductors with coupling at ambient temperatures. Negative magnetization in ultra-high conducting polymers is also discussed within the developed framework.Comment: 8 pages, no figure

Estimation of the Potential Detection of Diatom Assemblages Based on Ocean Color Radiance Anomalies in the North Sea

Over the past years, a large number of new approaches in the domain of ocean-color have been developed, leading to a variety of innovative descriptors for phytoplankton communities. One of these methods, named PHYSAT, currently allows for the qualitative detection of five main phytoplankton groups from ocean-color measurements. Even though PHYSAT products are widely used in various applications and projects, the approach is limited by the fact it identifies only dominant phytoplankton groups. This current limitation is due to the use of biomarker pigment ratios for establishing empirical relationships between in-situ information and specific ocean-color radiance anomalies in open ocean waters. However, theoretical explanations of PHYSAT suggests that it could be possible to detect more than dominance cases but move more toward phytoplanktonic assemblage detection. Thus, to evaluate the potential of PHYSAT for the detection of phytoplankton assemblages, we took advantage of the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey, collected in both the English Channel and the North Sea. The available CPR dataset contains information on diatom abundance in two large areas of the North Sea for the period 1998-2010. Using this unique dataset, recurrent diatom assemblages were retrieved based on classification of CPR samples. Six diatom assemblages were identified in-situ, each having indicators taxa or species. Once this first step was completed, the in-situ analysis was used to empirically associate the diatom assemblages with specific PHYSAT spectral anomalies. This step was facilitated by the use of previous classifications of regional radiance anomalies in terms of shape and amplitude, coupled with phenological tools. Through a matchup exercise, three CPR assemblages were associated with specific radiance anomalies. The maps of detection of these specific radiances anomalies are in close agreement with current in-situ ecological knowledge

Authoring Multi-Actor Behaviors in Crowds With Diverse Personalities

Multi-actor simulation is critical to cinematic content creation, disaster and security simulation, and interactive entertainment. A key challenge is providing an appropriate interface for authoring high-fidelity virtual actors with featurerich control mechanisms capable of complex interactions with the environment and other actors. In this chapter, we present work that addresses the problem of behavior authoring at three levels: Individual and group interactions are conducted in an event-centric manner using parameterized behavior trees, social crowd dynamics are captured using the OCEAN personality model, and a centralized automated planner is used to enforce global narrative constraints on the scale of the entire simulation. We demonstrate the benefits and limitations of each of these approaches and propose the need for a single unifying construct capable of authoring functional, purposeful, autonomous actors which conform to a global narrative in an interactive simulation

Medication Complications in Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation.

The need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) therapy is a marker of disease severity for which multiple medications are required. The therapy causes physiologic changes that impact drug pharmacokinetics. These changes can lead to exposure-driven decreases in efficacy or increased incidence of side effects. The pharmacokinetic changes are drug specific and largely undefined for most drugs. We review available drug dosing data and provide guidance for use in the ECMO patient population

A simple and efficient GIS tool for volume calculations of submarine landslides

A numeric tool is presented for calculating volumes of topographic voids such as slump scars of landslides, canyons or craters (negative/concave morphology), or alternatively, bumps and hills (positive/convex morphology) by means of digital elevation models embedded within a geographical information system (GIS). In this study, it has been used to calculate landslide volumes. The basic idea is that a (singular) event (landslide, meteorite impact, volcanic eruption) has disturbed an intact surface such that it is still possible to distinguish between the former (undisturbed) landscape and the disturbance (crater, slide scar, debris avalanche). In such cases, it is possible to reconstruct the paleo-surface and to calculate the volume difference between both surfaces, thereby approximating the volume gain or loss caused by the event. I tested the approach using synthetically generated land surfaces that were created on the basis of Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data. Also, I show the application to two real cases, (1) the calculation of the volume of the Masaya Slide, a submarine landslide on the Pacific continental slope of Nicaragua, and (2) the calculation of the void of a segment of the Fish River Canyon, Namibia. The tool is provided as a script file for the free GIS GRASS. It performs with little effort, and offers a range of interpolation parameters. Testing with different sets of interpolation parameters results in a small range of uncertainty. This tool should prove useful in surface studies not exclusively on earth

Dairy consumption and cardiometabolic diseases: systematic review and updated meta-analyses of prospective cohort studies

Purpose of Review Dairy products contain both beneficial and harmful nutrients in relation to cardiometabolic diseases. Here, we provide the latest scientific evidence regarding the relationship between dairy products and cardiometabolic diseases by reviewing the literature and updating meta-analyses of observational studies. Recent Findings We updated our previous meta-analyses of cohort studies on type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease (CHD), and stroke with nine studies and confirmed previous results. Total dairy and low-fat dairy (per 200 g/d) were inversely associated with a 3–4% lower risk of diabetes. Yogurt was non-linearly inversely associatedwith diabetes (RR = 0.86, 95%CI: 0.83–0.90 at 80 g/ d). Total dairy and milk were not associated with CHD (RR~1.0). An increment of 200 g of daily milk intake was associated with an 8% lower risk of stroke. Summary The latest scientific evidence confirmed neutral or beneficial associations between dairy products and risk of cardiometabolic diseases

Systematically missing confounders in individual participant data meta-analysis of observational cohort studies.

One difficulty in performing meta-analyses of observational cohort studies is that the availability of confounders may vary between cohorts, so that some cohorts provide fully adjusted analyses while others only provide partially adjusted analyses. Commonly, analyses of the association between an exposure and disease either are restricted to cohorts with full confounder information, or use all cohorts but do not fully adjust for confounding. We propose using a bivariate random-effects meta-analysis model to use information from all available cohorts while still adjusting for all the potential confounders. Our method uses both the fully adjusted and the partially adjusted estimated effects in the cohorts with full confounder information, together with an estimate of their within-cohort correlation. The method is applied to estimate the association between fibrinogen level and coronary heart disease incidence using data from 154,012 participants in 31 cohort

New results on solar neutrino fluxes from 192 days of Borexino data

We report the direct measurement of the ^7Be solar neutrino signal rate performed with the Borexino detector at the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso. The interaction rate of the 0.862 MeV ^7Be neutrinos is 49+-3(stat)+-4(syst) counts/(day * 100ton). The hypothesis of no oscillation for ^7Be solar neutrinos is inconsistent with our measurement at the 4sigma level. Our result is the first direct measurement of the survival probability for solar nu_e in the transition region between matter-enhanced and vacuum-driven oscillations. The measurement improves the experimental determination of the flux of ^7Be, pp, and CNO solar nu_e, and the limit on the magnetic moment of neutrinos