Degree spectra for transcendence in fields

We show that for both the unary relation of transcendence and the finitary relation of algebraic independence on a field, the degree spectra of these relations may consist of any single computably enumerable Turing degree, or of those c.e. degrees above an arbitrary fixed $\Delta^0_2$ degree. In other cases, these spectra may be characterized by the ability to enumerate an arbitrary $\Sigma^0_2$ set. This is the first proof that a computable field can fail to have a computable copy with a computable transcendence basis

Fundamental Limits of "Ankylography" due to Dimensional Deficiency

Single-shot diffractive imaging of truly 3D structures suffers from a dimensional deficiency and does not scale. The applicability of "ankylography" is limited to objects that are small-sized in at least one dimension or that are essentially 2D otherwise.Comment: 2 pages, no figur

Classification of multiple time signals using localized frequency characteristics applied to industrial process monitoring

A general framework for regression modeling using localized frequency characteristics of explanatory variables is proposed. This novel framework can be used in any application where the aim is to model an evolving process sequentially based on multiple time series data. Furthermore, this framework allows time series to be transformed and combined to simultaneously boost important characteristics and reduce noise. A wavelet transform is used to isolate key frequency structure and perform data reduction. The method is highly adaptive, since wavelets are effective at extracting localized information from noisy data. This adaptivity allows rapid identification of changes in the evolving process. Finally, a regression model uses functions of the wavelet coefficients to classify the evolving process into one of a set of states which can then be used for automatic monitoring of the system. As motivation and illustration, industrial process monitoring using electrical tomography measurements is considered. This technique provides useful data without intruding into the industrial process. Statistics derived from the wavelet transform of the tomographic data can be enormously helpful in monitoring and controlling the process. The predictive power of the proposed approach is explored using real and simulated tomographic data. In both cases, the resulting models successfully classify different flow regimes and hence provide the basis for reliable online monitoring and control of industrial processes

The identification in adult bone marrow of pluripotent and restricted stem cells of the myeloid and lymphoid systems

The precise relationship between the stem cells for the lymphoid system and those for the blood-forming system is unclear. While it is generally assumed that the hemopoietic stem cell, the spleen colony-forming unit (CFU-S), is also the stem cell for the lymphoid system, there is little evidence for this hypothesis. To investigate the stem cells in these two systems, we irradiated bone marrow cells to induce unique chromosome aberrations in the stem cell population and injected them at limiting dilution into stem cell-deficient recipients. Several months (between 3 and 11) were allowed for the injected cells to repopulate the hemopoietic system. At that time, the bone marrow, spleen, and thymus were examined for a high frequency of cells having the same unique chromosome aberration. The presence of such markers shows that the marker was induced in a cell with extensive proliferative capacity, i.e., a stem cell. In addition, the splenic lymphocytes were stimulated with phytohemagglutinin (PHA) or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to search for unique chromosomes in dividing T and B cells, respectively. Finally, bone marrow cells were injected into secondary irradiated recipients to determine if the marker occurred in CFU-S and to determine whether or not the same tissue distributions of marked cells could be propogated by bone marrow cells in a second recipient. After examination of 28 primary recipients, it was possible to identify three unique patterns of stem cell regeneration. In one set of mice, a unique chromosome marker was observed in CFU-S and in PHA- and LPS-stimulated cultures. These mice provide direct evidence for a pluripotent stem cell in bone marrow. In addition, two restricted stem cells were identified by this analysis. In three recipients, abnormal karyotypes were found only in myeloid cells and not in B and T lymphocytes. These mice presumably received a marked stem cell restricted to differentiate only into myeloid progeny. In three other recipients, chromosome aberrations were found only in PHA-stimulated cells; CFU-S and cells from LPS cultures did not have cells with the unique chromosome. This pattern suggests that bone marrow contains cells committed to differentiation only into T lymphocytes. For each of the three types of stem cells, secondary recipients had the same cellular distribution of marked cells as the primary recipients. This observation provides further evidence that unique markers can be induced in both pluripotent and restricted stem cells

Shaping digital library content

This article explores issues related to the selection and purchase of digital content, both from vendors and creation in house, and the degree to which standard collection management principles apply

Offshore oil & gas installations in the Arctic: responding to uncertainty through science and law

The Arctic Ocean’s physical environments and ecosystems are some of the most fragile and least well understood on Earth. They are characterised by extreme light and dark cycles, shortened food chains, and slow ecosystem recovery from disturbance. The Arctic seabed also holds promise of lucrative oil and gas resources, whose future exploitation could have substantial environmental impacts. Arctic jurisdictions must weigh environmental conservation and global agreements to reduce carbon emissions against the social implications and potential economic gain of offshore oil and gas projects in the Arctic, and must do so in the face of substantial scientific uncertainty around the impacts of climate and environmental change in the Arctic. We know, however, that major projects such as oil and gas projects have the potential to lead to transboundary environmental harm. We have some understanding of how any pollution may be carried by sea ice or on the ocean currents which flow around the Arctic Ocean. Even so, we have little understanding of how such pollutants might affect the Arctic ecosystem. Substantial gaps remain in scientific understanding of Arctic ecosystem functioning, particularly as it changes rapidly with the advent of climate change. These gaps in scientific understanding raise legal questions about how, for example, the law’s obligation not to cause significant transboundary environmental harm applies in the Arctic. In particular one may ask what actions are required by a state to show that they have acted with due diligence. Is it sufficient, for example, to show that they have complied with existing international treaties? This paper draws out key legal and scientific issues on which greater understanding is required. In essence it presents a roadmap for further research and negotiation

Efficient Mixing at low Reynolds numbers using polymer additives

Mixing in fluids is a rapidly developing field of fluid mechanics \cite{Sreen,Shr,War}, being an important industrial and environmental problem. The mixing of liquids at low Reynolds numbers is usually quite weak in simple flows, and it requires special devices to be efficient. Recently, the problem of mixing was solved analytically for a simple case of random flow, known as the Batchelor regime \cite{Bat,Kraich,Fal,Sig,Fouxon}. Here we demonstrate experimentally that very viscous liquids at low Reynolds number, $Re$. Here we show that very viscous liquids containing a small amount of high molecular weight polymers can be mixed quite efficiently at very low Reynolds numbers, for a simple flow in a curved channel. A polymer concentration of only 0.001% suffices. The presence of the polymers leads to an elastic instability \cite{LMS} and to irregular flow \cite{Ours}, with velocity spectra corresponding to the Batchelor regime \cite{Bat,Kraich,Fal,Sig,Fouxon}. Our detailed observations of the mixing in this regime enable us to confirm sevearl important theoretical predictions: the probability distributions of the concentration exhibit exponential tails \cite{Fal,Fouxon}, moments of the distribution decay exponentially along the flow \cite{Fouxon}, and the spatial correlation function of concentration decays logarithmically.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Encapsulation and sedimentation of nanomaterials through complex coacervation

Altres ajuts: the ICN2 is funded by the CERCA programme/Generalitat de Catalunya.Hypothesis: Nanoparticles removal from seawage water is a health and environmental challenge, due to the increasing use of these materials of excellent colloidal stability. Herein we hypothesize to reach this objective through complex coacervation, a straightforward, low-cost process, normally accomplished with non-toxic and biodegradable macromolecules. Highly dense polymer-rich colloidal droplets (the coacervates) obtained from a reversible charge-driven phase separation, entrap suspended nanomaterials, allowing their settling and potential recovery. Experiments: In this work we apply this process to highly stable aqueous colloidal dispersions of different surface charge, size, type and state (solid or liquid). We systematically investigate the effects of the biopolymers excess and the nanomaterials concentration and charge on the encapsulation and sedimentation efficiency and rate. This strategy is also applied to real laboratory water-based wastes. Findings: Long-lasting colloidal suspensions are succesfully destabilized through coacervate formation, which ensures high nanomaterials encapsulation efficiencies (~85%), payloads and highly tranparent supernatants (%T ~90%), within two hours. Lower polymer excess induces faster clearance and less sediments, while preserving effective nanomaterials removal. Preliminary experiments also validate the method for the clearance of real water residuals, making complex coacervation a promising scalable, low-cost and ecofriendly alternative to concentrate, separate or recover suspended micro/nanomaterials from aqueous sludges

Power-law rheology in the bulk and at the interface: quasi-properties and fractional constitutive equations

Consumer products, such as foods, contain numerous polymeric and particulate additives that play critical roles in maintaining their stability, quality and function. The resulting materials exhibit complex bulk and interfacial rheological responses, and often display a distinctive power-law response under standard rheometric deformations. These power laws are not conveniently described using conventional rheological models, without the introduction of a large number of relaxation modes. We present a constitutive framework using fractional derivatives to model the power-law responses often observed experimentally. We first revisit the concept of quasi-properties and their connection to the fractional Maxwell model (FMM). Using Scott-Blair's original data, we demonstrate the ability of the FMM to capture the power-law response of ‘highly anomalous’ materials. We extend the FMM to describe the viscoelastic interfaces formed by bovine serum albumin and solutions of a common food stabilizer, Acacia gum. Fractional calculus allows us to model and compactly describe the measured frequency response of these interfaces in terms of their quasi-properties. Finally, we demonstrate the predictive ability of the FMM to quantitatively capture the behaviour of complex viscoelastic interfaces by combining the measured quasi-properties with the equation of motion for a complex fluid interface to describe the damped inertio-elastic oscillations that are observed experimentally.United States. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Microgravity Fluid Sciences (Code UG) for support of this research under grant no. NNX09AV99G

Absolute estimation of initial concentrations of amplicon in a real-time RT-PCR process

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Since real time PCR was first developed, several approaches to estimating the initial quantity of template in an RT-PCR reaction have been tried. While initially only the early thermal cycles corresponding to exponential duplication were used, lately there has been an effort to use all of the cycles in a PCR. The efforts have included both fitting empirical sigmoid curves and more elaborate mechanistic models that explore the chemical reactions taking place during each cycle. The more elaborate mechanistic models require many more parameters than can be fit from a single amplification, while the empirical models provide little insight and are difficult to tailor to specific reactants.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We directly estimate the initial amount of amplicon using a simplified mechanistic model based on chemical reactions in the annealing step of the PCR. The basic model includes the duplication of DNA with the digestion of Taqman probe and the re-annealing between previously synthesized DNA strands of opposite orientation. By modelling the amount of Taqman probe digested and matching that with the observed fluorescence, the conversion factor between the number of fluorescing dye molecules and observed fluorescent emission can be estimated, along with the absolute initial amount of amplicon and the rate parameter for re-annealing. The model is applied to several PCR reactions with known amounts of amplicon and is shown to work reasonably well. An expanded version of the model allows duplication of amplicon without release of fluorescent dye, by adding 1 more parameter to the model. The additional process is helpful in most cases where the initial primer concentration exceeds the initial probe concentration. Software for applying the algorithm to data may be downloaded at <url>http://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/software/pcranalyzer/</url></p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We present proof of the principle that a mechanistically based model can be fit to observations from a single PCR amplification. Initial amounts of amplicon are well estimated without using a standard solution. Using the ratio of the predicted initial amounts of amplicon from 2 PCRs is shown to work well even when the absolute amounts of amplicon are underestimated in the individual PCRs.</p