The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence

The catastrophic impact of fishing pressure on species such as cod and herring is well documented. However, the antiquity of their intensive exploitation has not been established. Systematic catch statistics are only available for ca. 100 years, but large-scale fishing industries existed in medieval Europe and the expansion of cod fishing from the fourteenth century (first in Iceland, then in Newfoundland) played an important role in the European colonization of the Northwest Atlantic. History has demonstrated the scale of these late medieval and post-medieval fisheries, but only archaeology can illuminate earlier practices. Zooarchaeological evidence shows that the clearest changes in marine fishing in England between AD 600 and 1600 occurred rapidly around AD 1000 and involved large increases in catches of herring and cod. Surprisingly, this revolution predated the documented post-medieval expansion of England's sea fisheries and coincided with the Medieval Warm Period-when natural herring and cod productivity was probably low in the North Sea. This counterintuitive discovery can be explained by the concurrent rise of urbanism and human impacts on freshwater ecosystems. The search for 'pristine' baselines regarding marine ecosystems will thus need to employ medieval palaeoecological proxies in addition to recent fisheries data and early modern historical records

Jet Energy Density in Hadron-Hadron Collisions at High Energies

The average particle multiplicity density dN/deta is the dynamical quantity which reflects some regularities of particle production in low-pT range. The quantity is an important ingredient of z-scaling. Experimental results on charged particle density are available for pp, pA and AA collisions while experimental properties of the jet density are still an open question. The goal of this work is to find the variable which will reflect the main features of the jet production in low transverse energy range and play the role of the scale factor for the scaling function psi(z) and variable z in data z-presentation. The appropriate candidate is the variable we called "scaled jet energy density". Scaled jet energy density is the probability to have a jet with defined ET in defined xT and pseudorapidity regions. The PYTHIA6.2 Monte Carlo generator is used for calculation of scaled jet energy density in proton-proton collisions over a high energy range (sqrt s = 200-14000 GeV) and at eta = 0. The properties of the new variable are discussed and sensitivity to "physical scenarios" applied in the standard Monte Carlo generator is noted. The results of scaled jet energy density at LHC energies are presented and compared with predictions based on z-scaling.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, 8 figures, Presented at the XVII International Baldin Seminar on High Energy Physics Problems "Relativistic Nuclear Physics & Quantum Chromodynamics", Dubna, Russia, September 27 - October 2, 200

Microlens array production in a microtechnological dry etch and reflow process for display applications

The fabrication of arrays consisting of densely ordered circular convex microlenses with diameters of 126 μm made of quartz glass in a photoresist reflow and dry etch structure transition process is demonstrated. The rectangular lens arrays with dimensions of 6 mm x 9 mm were designed for focussing collimated light on the pixel center regions of a translucent interference display, which also was produced in microtechnological process steps. The lenses focus light on pixel centers and thus serve for increasing display brightness and contrast since incoming collimated light is partially blocked by opaque metallic ring contacts at the display pixel edges. The focal lengths of the lenses lie between 0.46 mm and 2.53 mm and were adjusted by varying ratio of the selective dry etch rate of photoresist and quartz glass. Due to volume shrinking and edge line pinning of the photoresist structures the lenses curvatures emerge hyperbolic, leading to improved focussing performance

Serotonin Mediated Cluster Headache, Trigeminal Neuralgia, Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia, and Superior Laryngeal Neuralgia with SAD Chronicity

Cluster headache is a rare and severe pain syndrome with elusive pathophysiology. Serotonin pathways within the brainstem may be implicated in cluster headache with seasonal affective disorder and a subset of cranial nerve neuralgias. We describe and chronicle a syndrome consisting of cluster headache, seasonal affective disorder, with associated trigeminal, glossopharyngeal, superior laryngeal neuralgias in an 11-year-old female. Pharmacologic interventions for this patient were examined in conjunction with current classification, location and function of serotonin receptors. Etiology is postulated as mixed cranial nerve excitation via endogenous 5-HT (agonist) activity of 5-HT 3 receptors within the nucleus tractus solitarius and trigeminal tract nucleus.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43959/1/10578_2004_Article_303073.pd

Effects of Repeated Intrathecal Triamcinolone-Acetonide Application on Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers of Axonal Damage and Glial Activity in Multiple Sclerosis Patients

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common inflammatory disease of the central nervous system in young adults. Over time, the disease progresses and, with accumulating disability, symptoms such as spasticity may occur. Although several treatment options are available, some patients may not respond to first-line therapeutics. However, some of these patients may benefit from intrathecally administered triamcinolone-acetonide (TCA), a derivative of glucocorticosteroids (GCS).GCSmay have neurotoxic effects, and cell apoptosis may occur. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of TCA on biomarkers in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) suggestive of neurodegeneration

Probability landscapes for integrative genomics

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The comprehension of the gene regulatory code in eukaryotes is one of the major challenges of systems biology, and is a requirement for the development of novel therapeutic strategies for multifactorial diseases. Its bi-fold degeneration precludes brute force and statistical approaches based on the genomic sequence alone. Rather, recursive integration of systematic, whole-genome experimental data with advanced statistical regulatory sequence predictions needs to be developed. Such experimental approaches as well as the prediction tools are only starting to become available and increasing numbers of genome sequences and empirical sequence annotations are under continual discovery-driven change. Furthermore, given the complexity of the question, a decade(s) long multi-laboratory effort needs to be envisioned. These constraints need to be considered in the creation of a framework that can pave a road to successful comprehension of the gene regulatory code.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We introduce here a concept for such a framework, based entirely on systematic annotation in terms of probability profiles of genomic sequence using any type of relevant experimental and theoretical information and subsequent cross-correlation analysis in hypothesis-driven model building and testing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Probability landscapes, which include as reference set the probabilistic representation of the genomic sequence, can be used efficiently to discover and analyze correlations amongst initially heterogeneous and un-relatable descriptions and genome-wide measurements. Furthermore, this structure is usable as a support for automatically generating and testing hypotheses for alternative gene regulatory grammars and the evaluation of those through statistical analysis of the high-dimensional correlations between genomic sequence, sequence annotations, and experimental data. Finally, this structure provides a concrete and tangible basis for attempting to formulate a mathematical description of gene regulation in eukaryotes on a genome-wide scale.</p