Integrated optical directional coupler biosensor

We present measurements on biomolecular binding reactions, using a new type of integrated optical biosensor based on a planar directional coupler structure. The device is fabricated by Ag+-Na+ ion-exchange in glass and definition of the sensing region is achieved by use of transparent fluoropolymer isolation layers formed by thermal evaporation. The suitability of the sensor for application to the detection of environmental pollutants is considered

Changes in wave climate over the northwest European shelf seas during the last 12,000 years

Because of the depth attenuation of wave orbital velocity, wave-induced bed shear stress is much more sensitive to changes in total water depth than tidal-induced bed shear stress. The ratio between wave- and tidal-induced bed shear stress in many shelf sea regions has varied considerably over the recent geological past because of combined eustatic changes in sea level and isostatic adjustment. In order to capture the high-frequency nature of wind events, a two-dimensional spectral wave model is here applied at high temporal resolution to time slices from 12 ka BP to present using paleobathymetries of the NW European shelf seas. By contrasting paleowave climates and bed shear stress distributions with present-day conditions, the model results demonstrate that, in regions of the shelf seas that remained wet continuously over the last 12,000 years, annual root-mean-square (rms) and peak wave heights increased from 12 ka BP to present. This increase in wave height was accompanied by a large reduction in the annual rms wave- induced bed shear stress, primarily caused by a reduction in the magnitude of wave orbital velocity penetrating to the bed for increasing relative sea level. In regions of the shelf seas which remained wet over the last 12,000 years, the annual mean ratio of wave- to (M-2) tidal-induced bed shear stress decreased from 1 (at 12 ka BP) to its present-day value of 0.5. Therefore compared to present- day conditions, waves had a more important contribution to large-scale sediment transport processes in the Celtic Sea and the northwestern North Sea at 12 ka BP

Analysis of scanner data for crop inventories

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Cosmology, Oscillating Physics and Oscilllating Biology

According to recent reports there is an excess correlation and an apparent regularity in the galaxy one-dimensional polar distribution with a characteristic scale of 128 $h^{-1}$ Mpc. This aparent spatial periodicity can be naturally explained by a time oscillation of the gravitational constant $G$. On the other hand, periodic growth features of bivalve and coral fossiles appear to show a periodic component in the time dependence of the number of days per year. In this letter we show that a time oscillating gravitational constant with similar period and amplitude can explain such a feature.Comment: 9 pages. latex using revtex. This revised version is supposed to be free of e-mail nois

Modelling of self-aligned total internal reflection waveguide mirrors: an interlaboratory comparison

Results of modelling of light propagation in 45° self-aligned total internal reflection rib waveguide mirrors on InP substrate are compared. Six laboratories participated in the comparison with the following six modelling methods: the standard fast-Fourier-transform beam propagation method (BPM), the standard finite-difference (FD) BPM using the Crank-Nicholson scheme (two laboratories), the FD-BPM with the correction for the slowly varying envelope approximation, the method of lines, the eigenmode expansion and propagation method, and a simple method based on the field overlap. All the laboratories used the effective-index method to reduce the three-dimensional problem to two dimensions. The differences among the results obtained by different methods are briefly discussed and qualitatively compared to measured values

Content and Quality of Motor Initiatives in the Support of People With Profound Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities

Motor activation is rarely integrated into the support of people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD), which might be the result of the limited evidence‐based knowledge in this field. Practitioners have recently been developing several motor initiatives for people with PIMD, but it remains unclear about what core elements the motor initiatives actually consist of and to what level of quality it is implemented in practice. This study aims to offer an overview and analysis of the content and quality of motor initiatives actually in use for people with PIMD. Motor initiatives were explored by asking practitioners to complete an online inventory form. Documents, expert knowledge, and observations were used to collect data about the characteristics of the motor initiatives. The quality of the motor initiatives which met our eligibility criteria, was analyzed on the basis of the level of evidence for their effectiveness. The inventory yielded 118 motor initiatives of which 17 met the eligibility criteria. We identified four motor initiatives reflecting an approach to motorically activate people with PIMD within various activities, three including power‐assisted exercises, three with aquatic exercises, two frameworks which integrated motor activities into their daily programs, two methods which included small‐scale activities, two rhythmic movement therapies, and one program including gross motor activities. We found limited indications for descriptive evidence from 17 initiatives, limited or no indications for theoretical evidence from 12 and five initiatives respectively, and none of the initiatives provided a causal level of evidence for effectiveness. A wide variety of motor initiatives is used in current practice to activate persons with PIMD, although their effectiveness is actually unproven. Science and practice should cooperate to develop an evidence‐based understanding to ensure more evidence‐based support for the motor activation of people with PIMD in the future

Ice-sheet configuration in the CMIP5/PMIP3 Last Glacial Maximum experiments

We describe the creation of a data set describing changes related to the presence of ice sheets, including ice-sheet extent and height, ice-shelf extent, and the distribution and elevation of ice-free land at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), which were used in LGM experiments conducted as part of the fifth phase of the Coupled Modelling Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) and the third phase of the Palaeoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project (PMIP3). The CMIP5/PMIP3 data sets were created from reconstructions made by three different groups, which were all obtained using a model-inversion approach but differ in the assumptions used in the modelling and in the type of data used as constraints. The ice-sheet extent in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) does not vary substantially between the three individual data sources. The difference in the topography of the NH ice sheets is also moderate, and smaller than the differences between these reconstructions (and the resultant composite reconstruction) and ice-sheet reconstructions used in previous generations of PMIP. Only two of the individual reconstructions provide information for Antarctica. The discrepancy between these two reconstructions is larger than the difference for the NH ice sheets, although still less than the difference between the composite reconstruction and previous PMIP ice-sheet reconstructions. Although largely confined to the ice-covered regions, differences between the climate response to the individual LGM reconstructions extend over the North Atlantic Ocean and Northern Hemisphere continents, partly through atmospheric stationary waves. Differences between the climate response to the CMIP5/PMIP3 composite and any individual ice-sheet reconstruction are smaller than those between the CMIP5/PMIP3 composite and the ice sheet used in the last phase of PMIP (PMIP2)

Icebergs in the North Atlantic: Modelling circulation changes and glacio-marine deposition

In order to investigate meltwater events in the North Atlantic, a simple iceberg generation, drift, and melting routine was implemented in a high-resolution OGCM. Starting from the modelled last glacial state, every 25th day cylindrical model icebergs 300 meters high were released at 32 specific points along the coasts. Icebergs launched at the Barents Shelf margin spread a light meltwater lid over the Norwegian and Greenland Seas, shutting down the deep convection and the anti-clockwise circulation in this area. Due to the constraining ocean circulation, the icebergs produce a tongue of relatively cold and fresh water extending eastward from Hudson Strait that must develop at this location, regardless of iceberg origin. From the total amount of freshwater inferred by the icebergs, the thickness of the deposited IRD could be calculated in dependance of iceberg sediment concentration. In this way, typical extent and thickness of Heinrich layers could be reproduced, running the model for 250 years of steady state with constant iceberg meltwater inflow

The Red Sea, Coastal Landscapes, and Hominin Dispersals

This chapter provides a critical assessment of environment, landscape and resources in the Red Sea region over the past five million years in relation to archaeological evidence of hominin settlement, and of current hypotheses about the role of the region as a pathway or obstacle to population dispersals between Africa and Asia and the possible significance of coastal colonization. The discussion assesses the impact of factors such as topography and the distribution of resources on land and on the seacoast, taking account of geographical variation and changes in geology, sea levels and palaeoclimate. The merits of northern and southern routes of movement at either end of the Red Sea are compared. All the evidence indicates that there has been no land connection at the southern end since the beginning of the Pliocene period, but that short sea crossings would have been possible at lowest sea-level stands with little or no technical aids. More important than the possibilities of crossing the southern channel is the nature of the resources available in the adjacent coastal zones. There were many climatic episodes wetter than today, and during these periods water draining from the Arabian escarpment provided productive conditions for large mammals and human populations in coastal regions and eastwards into the desert. During drier episodes the coastal region would have provided important refugia both in upland areas and on the emerged shelves exposed by lowered sea level, especially in the southern sector and on both sides of the Red Sea. Marine resources may have offered an added advantage in coastal areas, but evidence for their exploitation is very limited, and their role has been over-exaggerated in hypotheses of coastal colonization