Helium mixtures in nanotube bundles

An analogue to Raoult's law is determined for the case of a 3He-4He mixture adsorbed in the interstitial channels of a bundle of carbon nanotubes. Unlike the case of He mixtures in other environments, the ratio of the partial pressures of the coexisting vapor is found to be a simple function of the ratio of concentrations within the nanotube bundle.Comment: 3 pages, no figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

First record of a settled stomatopod Platysquilla eusebia in the North Sea (Malacostraca: Stomatopoda)

This paper describes the discovery of a settled juvenile specimen of the stomatopod Platysquilla eusebia on the Dutch part of the Dogger Bank in the central North Sea.This is the northernmost record in Europe. The species is native to the Mediterranean and to the Atlantic coast from Portugal up to France. Further investigations have to show if the species already forms populations this far north. As the planktonic stages of P. eusebia have already been recorded in prior years, the establishment of the species should not be a problem, providing the circumstances are favourable

Prevalence of Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders in Children and Adolescents

Objectives To determine the prevalence of functional gastrointestinal (GI) disorders (FGIDs) in children and adolescents in a representative community sample of the US. Study design The study recruited a general population sample of mothers (n = 949) of children and adolescents aged 4-18 years. Child and adolescent GI symptoms were assessed using parental report through online questionnaires, including the Questionnaire on Pediatric Gastrointestinal Symptoms and the PedsQL4.0 Generic Core Scale. Parental GI symptoms, and demographic characteristics were also assessed. The data was used to determine prevalence of FGIDs. Results Using Rome III criteria by parental report, 23.1% of children and adolescents qualified for at least 1 FGID. Functional constipation and abdominal migraine were the most common FGIDs. All 10 child/adolescent FGIDs occurred, except rumination. Significant prevalence differences were not found between sexes, except in functional constipation, which was more prevalent in males than females (P = .022). There were no significant prevalence differences between racial or ethnic groups. Children who met criteria for an FGID had lower quality of life (median = 76.4) than children who did not (median = 89.6; P < .001). Children were more likely to qualify for a FGID if their parent also qualified for a FGID (P < .01). Conclusions FGIDs are common in children and adolescents in the US. There are no significant differences in FGIDs between sex, race, or ethnic groups, except in functional constipation. There is overlap between parental and child FGID symptoms. Children with a FGID report a lower quality of life than healthy children

Kwantitatieve bemonstering van benthos en bodem voorafgaand aan zandsuppleties bij Texel (nulmeting)

Dit rapport beschrijft een kwantitatieve inventarisatie (nulmeting) van de bodemfauna (benthos) en de bodemsamenstelling (sediment) nabij de noordwest punt van Texel, voorafgaand aan suppletiewerken van Rijkswaterstaat in 2009. Dit betreft een vooroeversuppletie van 1.300.000 kubieke meter zand bij de Eierlandse dam bij Texe

Detecting autoreactive B cells in the peripheral blood of people with type 1 diabetes using ELISpot

Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D) is an autoimmune disorder where T lymphocytes damage the islet beta cells but B lymphocytes also play an important role. Although changes in peripheral B cell phenotype have been observed, little is known about the B cells that secrete the autoantibodies. We developed a sensitive B cell enzyme-linked immunospot assay (ELISpot assay) to detect individual B cell antibody responses to glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) and islet antigen-2 (IA-2). We found that even healthy donors have B cells that secrete antibodies in response to GAD and IA-2 in the ELISpot. There was increased B cell reactivity to autoantigens in the peripheral blood of individuals with newly-diagnosed, but not long-standing, type 1 diabetes. However, no correlation with serum autoantibody levels was found, indicating that additional factors such as antigen affinity or exposure to antigens in vivo are required for antibody secretion, and that even healthy donors have potentially autoreactive B cells

The 13-C(p,d) Reaction at 120 MeV

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation Grant NSF PHY 87-1440

A progressive refinement approach for the visualisation of implicit surfaces

Visualising implicit surfaces with the ray casting method is a slow procedure. The design cycle of a new implicit surface is, therefore, fraught with long latency times as a user must wait for the surface to be rendered before being able to decide what changes should be introduced in the next iteration. In this paper, we present an attempt at reducing the design cycle of an implicit surface modeler by introducing a progressive refinement rendering approach to the visualisation of implicit surfaces. This progressive refinement renderer provides a quick previewing facility. It first displays a low quality estimate of what the final rendering is going to be and, as the computation progresses, increases the quality of this estimate at a steady rate. The progressive refinement algorithm is based on the adaptive subdivision of the viewing frustrum into smaller cells. An estimate for the variation of the implicit function inside each cell is obtained with an affine arithmetic range estimation technique. Overall, we show that our progressive refinement approach not only provides the user with visual feedback as the rendering advances but is also capable of completing the image faster than a conventional implicit surface rendering algorithm based on ray casting