Wide Range Thin-FIlm Ceramic Metal-Alloy Thermometers with Low Magnetoresistance

Many thermal measurements in high magnetic fields require thermometers that are sensitive over a wide temperature range, are low mass, have a rapid thermal response, and have a minimal, easily correctable magnetoresistance. Here we report the development of a new granular-metal oxide ceramic composite (cermet) for this purpose formed by co-sputtering of the metallic alloy nichrome Ni$_{0.8}$Cr$_{0.2}$ and the insulator silcon dioxide SiO$_2$. The resulting thin films are sensitive enough to be used from room temperature down to below 100 mK in magnetic fields up to at least 35 tesla

Kentucky Law Survey: Criminal Procedure

Significant criminal procedure decisions of the Kentucky appellate courts for the period July 1, 1982 to July 1, 1983, have been selected for discussion in this Survey. Included in this survey is an extensive discussion of selected cases in the areas of warrants, competency of counsel, pretrial discovery of witness statements, venue, belated attacks on criminal convictions, and the right to talk to an attorney before taking a breathalyzer test

On the pathwidth of almost semicomplete digraphs

We call a digraph {\em $h$-semicomplete} if each vertex of the digraph has at most $h$ non-neighbors, where a non-neighbor of a vertex $v$ is a vertex $u \neq v$ such that there is no edge between $u$ and $v$ in either direction. This notion generalizes that of semicomplete digraphs which are $0$-semicomplete and tournaments which are semicomplete and have no anti-parallel pairs of edges. Our results in this paper are as follows. (1) We give an algorithm which, given an $h$-semicomplete digraph $G$ on $n$ vertices and a positive integer $k$, in $(h + 2k + 1)^{2k} n^{O(1)}$ time either constructs a path-decomposition of $G$ of width at most $k$ or concludes correctly that the pathwidth of $G$ is larger than $k$. (2) We show that there is a function $f(k, h)$ such that every $h$-semicomplete digraph of pathwidth at least $f(k, h)$ has a semicomplete subgraph of pathwidth at least $k$. One consequence of these results is that the problem of deciding if a fixed digraph $H$ is topologically contained in a given $h$-semicomplete digraph $G$ admits a polynomial-time algorithm for fixed $h$.Comment: 33pages, a shorter version to appear in ESA 201

Wide Range Thin-Film Ceramic Metal-Alloy Thermometers with Low Magnetoresistance

Many thermal measurements in high magnetic fields require thermometers that are sensitive over a wide temperature range, are low mass, have a rapid thermal response, and have a minimal, easily correctable magnetoresistance. Here we report the development of a new granular-metal oxide ceramic composite (cermet) for this purpose formed by co-sputtering of the metallic alloy nichrome Ni0.8Cr0.2 and the insulator silcon dioxide SiO2. The resulting thin films are sensitive enough to be used from room temperature down to below 100 mK in magnetic fields up to at least 35 tesla

Maximum Edge-Disjoint Paths in kk-sums of Graphs

We consider the approximability of the maximum edge-disjoint paths problem (MEDP) in undirected graphs, and in particular, the integrality gap of the natural multicommodity flow based relaxation for it. The integrality gap is known to be $\Omega(\sqrt{n})$ even for planar graphs due to a simple topological obstruction and a major focus, following earlier work, has been understanding the gap if some constant congestion is allowed. In this context, it is natural to ask for which classes of graphs does a constant-factor constant-congestion property hold. It is easy to deduce that for given constant bounds on the approximation and congestion, the class of "nice" graphs is nor-closed. Is the converse true? Does every proper minor-closed family of graphs exhibit a constant factor, constant congestion bound relative to the LP relaxation? We conjecture that the answer is yes. One stumbling block has been that such bounds were not known for bounded treewidth graphs (or even treewidth 3). In this paper we give a polytime algorithm which takes a fractional routing solution in a graph of bounded treewidth and is able to integrally route a constant fraction of the LP solution's value. Note that we do not incur any edge congestion. Previously this was not known even for series parallel graphs which have treewidth 2. The algorithm is based on a more general argument that applies to $k$-sums of graphs in some graph family, as long as the graph family has a constant factor, constant congestion bound. We then use this to show that such bounds hold for the class of $k$-sums of bounded genus graphs

Création automatique de classes de signatures manuscrites pour l'authentification en ligne

International audienceNous nous intéressons dans ce papier à l'optimisation d'un système d'authentification par signature manuscrite. Celui-ci est basé sur une approche Coarse To Fine et utilise l'algorithme Dynamic Time Warping ainsi qu'un seuil de décision global pour accepter ou rejeter un signataire. L'optimisation proposée réside dans l'utilisation d'un algorithme de classification non supervisée afin de déterminer automatiquement des classes de signatures. Pour chacune des classes, un seuil de décision spécifique est établi. Dans ces travaux, nous nous sommes plus particulièrement attaché à étudier l'impact de la classification sur les performance. Les résultats expérimentaux sur la base SVC montrent que l'on peut améliorer les performances en diminuant le taux d'erreur égale de 14,4%. Cependant la sensibilité de la classification est très grande et la notion de classe unique pour un signataire semble trop restrictive

Patterns and predictors of antimicrobial resistance among Staphylococcus spp. from canine clinical cases presented at a veterinary academic hospital in South Africa

Background Antimicrobial resistance in staphylococci, often associated with treatment failure, is increasingly reported in veterinary medicine. The aim of this study was to investigate patterns and predictors of antimicrobial resistance among Staphylococcus spp. isolates from canine samples submitted to the bacteriology laboratory at the University of Pretoria academic veterinary hospital between 2007 and 2012. Retrospective data of 334 Staphylococcus isolates were used to calculate the proportion of samples resistant to 15 antimicrobial agents. The Cochran-Armitage trend test was used to investigate temporal trends and logistic regression models were used to investigate predictors of antimicrobial resistance in Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus pseudintermedius. Results Results show that 98.2% (55/56) of the S. aureus isolates were resistant to at least one drug while 42.9% were multidrug resistant. Seventy-seven percent (214/278) of the S. pseudintermedius isolates were resistant to at least one drug and 25.9% (72/278) were multidrug resistant. Resistance to lincospectin was more common among S. aureus(64.3%) than S. pseudintermedius (38.9%). Similarly, resistance to clindamycin was higher in S. aureus (51.8%) than S. pseudintermedius (31.7%) isolates. There was a significant (p = 0.005) increase in S. aureus resistance to enrofloxacin over the study period. Similarly, S. pseudintermedius exhibited significant increasing temporal trend in resistance to trimethoprim-sulphamethoxazole (p = 0.004), clindamycin (p = 0.022) and orbifloxacin (p = 0.042). However, there was a significant decreasing temporal trend in the proportion of isolates resistant to doxycycline (p = 0.041), tylosin (p = 0.008), kanamycin (p = 0.017) and amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (p = 0.032). Conclusions High levels of multidrug resistance and the increasing levels of resistance to sulphonamides, lincosamides and fluoroquinolones among Staphylococcus spp. isolates in this study are concerning. Future studies will need to investigate local drivers of antimicrobial resistance to better guide control efforts to address the problem

Using a systematic, multi-criteria decision support framework to evaluate sustainable drainage designs

Open Access journalCopyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.12th International Conference on Computing and Control for the Water Industry, CCWI2013The conventional drainage design approach does not address sustainability issues. Moving forward, an alternative approach using green infrastructures is recommended. In addition to flow and flood management provided by the conventional methods, green infrastructures can bring multiple benefits such as increased amenity value and groundwater recharge. Unlike the traditional practice, the new approach lacks supporting technical references and software. Stakeholders are discouraged by the uncertainty of performance and costs associated with green infrastructures. We aim to bridge this knowledge gap by providing a systematic decision support framework. This paper provides an overview of the evaluation framework with some application examples