Legislative Reapportionment—The Scope of Federal Judicial Relief

The problem to track time-varying properties of a signal is studied. The somewhat contradictory notion of “time-varying spectrum” and how to estimate the “current” spectrum in an on-line fashion is discussed. The traditional concepts and relations between time- and frequency resolution are crucial for this problem. An adaptive estimation algorithm is used to estimate the parameters of a time-varying autoregressive model of the signal. It is shown how this algorithm can be equipped with a feature such that the time-frequency resolution trade-off favors quick detection of changes at higher frequencies and has slower adaptation at lower frequencies. This should be an attractive feature and similar to, for example, what wavelet transform techniques achieve for the same problem

Detection of suPAR in the Saliva of Healthy Young Adults: Comparison with Plasma Levels

The soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) has been detected in blood, plasma, serum, urine, ovarian cystic fluid, and cerebrospinal fluid. Elevated suPAR levels in plasma have been associated with negative outcomes in various diseases, such as bacteremia, sepsis, SIRS, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and tuberculosis. The primary aim of this study was to investigate whether suPAR can be detected in saliva from healthy individuals and thus, if saliva suPAR can be related to plasma suPAR, CRP, BMI, or gender. Blood and unstimulated whole saliva was collected from 20 healthy individuals (10 female and 10 male, median age of 28 years; range 21–41). CRP and suPAR were measured with ELISA in saliva and serum/plasma. suPAR was detected in all saliva samples in the 5.2–28.1 ng/mL range, with a median value of 17.1 ng/mL. Saliva suPAR was significantly higher (P < 0.001) but not correlated to plasma suPAR in healthy young adults with normal plasma suPAR levels. suPAR and CRP levels were correlated in blood but not in saliva. No correlation was found between BMI, age, or gender and suPAR in saliva

(Di)lepton physics with ALICE

Physics perspectives with(di)lepton measurements with the ALICE detector at the LHC are reviewed. Special emphasis is placed on heavy flavor physics.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, 18th International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions : Quark Matter 2005, Budapest, Hongrie, Ao\^{u}t 2005, submitted to Nuclear Physic

The Marginal Enumeration Bayesian Cramer-Rao Bound for Jump Markov Systems

A marginal version of the enumeration Bayesian Cramer-Rao Bound (EBCRB) for jump Markov systems is proposed. It is shown that the proposed bound is at least as tight as EBCRB and the improvement stems from better handling of the nonlinearities. The new bound is illustrated to yield tighter results than BCRB and EBCRB on a benchmark example

Bioaccessibility, bioavailability and toxicity of commercially relevant iron- and chromium-based particles: in vitro studies with an inhalation perspective

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Production of ferrochromium alloys (FeCr), master alloys for stainless steel manufacture, involves casting and crushing processes where particles inevitably become airborne and potentially inhaled. The aim of this study was to assess potential health hazards induced by inhalation of different well-characterized iron- and chromium-based particles, i.e. ferrochromium (FeCr), ferrosiliconchromium (FeSiCr), stainless steel (316L), iron (Fe), chromium (Cr), and chromium(III)oxide (Cr₂O₃), in different size fractions using in vitro methods. This was done by assessing the extent and speciation of released metals in synthetic biological medium and by analyzing particle reactivity and toxicity towards cultured human lung cells (A549).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The amount of released metals normalized to the particle surface area increased with decreasing particle size for all alloy particles, whereas the opposite situation was valid for particles of the pure metals. These effects were evident in artificial lysosomal fluid (ALF) of pH 4.5 containing complexing agents, but not in neutral or weakly alkaline biological media. Chromium, iron and nickel were released to very low extent from all alloy particles, and from particles of Cr due to the presence of a Cr(III)-rich protective surface oxide. Released elements were neither proportional to the bulk nor to the surface composition after the investigated 168 hours of exposure. Due to a surface oxide with less protective properties, significantly more iron was released from pure iron particles compared with the alloys. Cr was predominantly released as Cr(III) from all particles investigated and was strongly complexed by organic species of ALF. Cr₂O₃particles showed hemolytic activity, but none of the alloy particles did. Fine-sized particles of stainless steel caused however DNA damage, measured with the comet assay after 4 h exposure. None of the particles revealed any significant cytotoxicity in terms of cell death after 24 h exposure.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is evident that particle and alloy characteristics such as particle size and surface composition are important aspects to consider when assessing particle toxicity and metal release from alloy particles compared to pure metal particles. Generated results clearly elucidate that neither the low released concentrations of metals primarily as a result of protective and poorly soluble surface oxides, nor non-bioavailable chromium complexes, nor the particles themselves of occupational relevance induced significant acute toxic response, with exception of DNA damage from stainless steel.</p

Neutral Pion Distributions in PHENIX at RHIC

Transverse momentum spectra for identified $\pi^0$'s in the range 1 GeV/c $< p_T <$ 4 GeV/c have been measured by the PHENIX experiment in Au-Au collisions at $\sqrt{s}=130$ GeV. The spectra from peripheral nuclear collisions are consistent with the simple expectation of scaling the spectra from p+p collisions by the average number of nucleon-nucleon binary collisions. The spectra from central collisions and the ratio of central/peripheral spectra are significantly suppressed when compared to point-like scaling.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Evaluation of the Mineral Concentration in Beef from Polish Native Cattle

Inflammation has been proposed to play a role in the generation of depressive symptoms. Previously, we demonstrated that patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) have increased plasma levels of the soluble form of the urokinase receptor (suPAR), a marker for low-grade inflammation. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that acute exercise would induce inflammatory response characterized by increased suPAR and elucidate whether patients with MDD display altered levels of suPAR in response to acute exercise. A total of 17 patients with MDD and 17 controls were subjected to an exercise challenge. Plasma suPAR (P-suPAR) was analyzed before, during, and after exercise. There was a significantly higher baseline P-suPAR in the patients with MDD, and the dynamic changes of P-suPAR during the exercise were significantly lower in the patients with MDD, compared with the controls. This study supports the hypothesis that an activation of systemic inflammatory processes, measured as elevated P-suPAR, is involved in the pathophysiology of depression. The study concludes that P-suPAR is influenced by acute exercise, most likely due to release from activated neutrophils

Сравнительный анализ и перспективы применения современных электромеханических преобразователей в высокочастотных автономных электрогидравлических вибраторах

Представлена система критериев оценки быстродействия электромеханических преобразователей (ЭМП) электрогидравлических вибраторов (ЭГВ), проведен сравнительный анализ быстродействия современных ЭМП и оценена перспектива их применения для создания высокочастотных автономных ЭГВ с максимальной рабочей частотой в два и более раз превышающей существующую. Определены направления дальнейшей работы для достижения ЭМП требуемых параметров быстродействия.The system of criteria of evaluating the speed of response of electromechanical converters of electro hydraulic vibrators is presented , a comparative analysis of the speed of response of present day electromechanical converters is conducted and the prospects for their application for designing high frequency self-contained electro hydraulic vibrators with maximum operating frequency twice or more times higher than currently available are evaluated. Main lines of further work for obtaining required speed of response of electromechanical converters are specified