Development of the Vibration Isolation System for the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device

This paper describes the development of the Vibration Isolation System for the Advanced Resistive Exercise Device from conceptual design to lessons learned. Maintaining a micro-g environment on the International Space Station requires that experiment racks and major vibration sources be isolated. The challenge in characterizing exercise loads and testing the system in the presence of gravity led to a decision to qualify the system by analysis. Available data suggests that the system is successful in attenuating loads, yet there has been a major component failure and several procedural issues during its 3 years of operational use

At the edge of intonation: the interplay of utterance-final F0 movements and voiceless fricative sounds

The paper is concerned with the 'edge of intonation' in a twofold sense. It focuses on utterance-final F0 movements and crosses the traditional segment-prosody divide by investigating the interplay of F0 and voiceless fricatives in speech production. An experiment was performed for German with four types of voiceless fricatives: /f/, /s/, /ʃ/ and /x/. They were elicited with scripted dialogues in the contexts of terminal falling statement and high rising question intonations. Acoustic analyses show that fricatives concluding the high rising question intonations had higher mean centres of gravity (CoGs), larger CoG ranges and higher noise energy levels than fricatives concluding the terminal falling statement intonations. The different spectral-energy patterns are suitable to induce percepts of a high 'aperiodic pitch' at the end of the questions and of a low 'aperiodic pitch' at the end of the statements. The results are discussed with regard to the possible existence of 'segmental intonation' and its implication for F0 truncation and the segment-prosody dichotomy, in which segments are the alleged troublemakers for the production and perception of intonation

From Teamchef Arminius to Hermann Junior: glocalised discourse about a national foundation myth

If for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the ‘Battle of the Teutoburg Forest’, fought in 9 CE between Roman armies and Germanic tribes, was predominantly a reference point for nationalist and chauvinist discourses in Germany, the first decade of the twenty-first century has seen attempts to link public remembrance with local/regional identities on the one hand and international/intercultural contact on the other. In the run up to and during the ‘anniversary year’ of 2009, German media, sports institutions and various other official institutions articulating tourist, economic and political interests attempted to create a new ‘glocalised’ version of the public memory of the Teutoburg battle. Combining methods of Cognitive Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, the paper analyses the narrative and argumentative topoi employed in this re-orientation of public memory, with a special emphasis on hybrid, post-national identity-construction. Das zweitausendjährige Gedenkjahr der „Schlacht im Teutoburger Wald“ im Jahr 2009 bot eine günstige Gelegenheit, die bis in die zweite Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts dominante Tradition nationalistisch–chauvinistischer Deutungen des Sieges von germanischen Stämmen über drei römische Legionen zu korrigieren und zu überwinden. Der Aufsatz analysiert mit Hilfe diskurslinguistischer Methoden die Anstrengungen regionaler Institutionen und Medien, die nationale Vereinnahmung des historischen Gedenkens kritisch zu thematisieren sowie neue, zum eine lokal situierte, zum andern international orientierte Identifikationsangebote anzubieten. Die Analyse zeigt, dass solche „de-nationalisierten“ Identifikationsangebote zwar teilweise auch früher verwendet wurden, aber heutzutage rekontextualisiert und auf innovative Weise in den Vordergrund gestellt werden

Coastal Marine Science for Law and Business Students: Preparing Law and Business Professionals to Make Informed Decisions About Coastal Issues

The rigors of employment-directed undergraduate education. and decreased emphasis on Liberal Arts studies occurring at some colleges and universities has left many graduates with a level of scientific understanding which is inadequate to make infonned choices about issues which effect the environment. To address this lack of scientific understanding. the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (Virginia) and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, with the Marshall-Wythe School of Law and the School of Business Administration of the College of William and Mary are developing a Coastal Ecosystem Science Program to teach future law and business professionals the basics of coastal marine science. The Program is being developed after front-end evaluation (telephone survey of law/business faculty members from schools, law and business graduate students and industry professionals from around the United States) which explored the need, successful format, length and other essential or logistical elements of program design. Formative evaluation will continue through student pre-, and post-, testing to evaluate content, information transfer and retention. This program teaches the basic principles of coastal. environmental science to all law and business students (not just those students with experience in environmental science). The goal of this program is to ensure that future lawyers and business leaders will be able to make informed decisions about issues which effect the coastal environment. The development of the program, initial survey and focus group results, essential elements of the program design, evaluation of pilot presentations and plans for pilot-year testing in schools across the country will be discussed

F1: An Eight Channel Time-to-Digital Converter Chip for High Rate Experiments

A new TDC chip has been developed for the COMPASS experiment at CERN. The resulting ASIC offers an unprecedented degree of flexibility and functionality. Its capability to handle highest hit and trigger input rates as well as its low power consumption makes it an ideal tool for future collider and fixed target experiments. First front-end boards equipped with the F1 chip have been used recently at testbeam experiments at CERN. A functional description and specification for this new TDC chip is presented.A new TDC chip has been developed for the COMPASS experiment at CERN. The resulting ASIC offers an unprecedented degree of flexibility and functionality. Its capability to handle highest hit and trigger input rates as well as its low power consumption makes it an ideal tool for future collider and fixed target experiments. First front-end boards equipped with the F1 chip have been used recently at testbeam experiments at CERN. A functional description and specification for this new TDC chip is presented

The time course of auditory and language-specific mechanisms in compensation for sibilant assimilation

Models of spoken-word recognition differ on whether compensation for assimilation is language-specific or depends on general auditory processing. English and French participants were taught words that began or ended with the sibilants /s/ and /∫/. Both languages exhibit some assimilation in sibilant sequences (e.g., /s/ becomes like [∫] in dress shop and classe chargée), but they differ in the strength and predominance of anticipatory versus carryover assimilation. After training, participants were presented with novel words embedded in sentences, some of which contained an assimilatory context either preceding or following. A continuum of target sounds ranging from [s] to [∫] was spliced into the novel words, representing a range of possible assimilation strengths. Listeners' perceptions were examined using a visual-world eyetracking paradigm in which the listener clicked on pictures matching the novel words. We found two distinct language-general context effects: a contrastive effect when the assimilating context preceded the target, and flattening of the sibilant categorization function (increased ambiguity) when the assimilating context followed. Furthermore, we found that English but not French listeners were able to resolve the ambiguity created by the following assimilatory context, consistent with their greater experience with assimilation in this context. The combination of these mechanisms allows listeners to deal flexibly with variability in speech forms

LEDAkem: a post-quantum key encapsulation mechanism based on QC-LDPC codes

This work presents a new code-based key encapsulation mechanism (KEM) called LEDAkem. It is built on the Niederreiter cryptosystem and relies on quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check codes as secret codes, providing high decoding speeds and compact keypairs. LEDAkem uses ephemeral keys to foil known statistical attacks, and takes advantage of a new decoding algorithm that provides faster decoding than the classical bit-flipping decoder commonly adopted in this kind of systems. The main attacks against LEDAkem are investigated, taking into account quantum speedups. Some instances of LEDAkem are designed to achieve different security levels against classical and quantum computers. Some performance figures obtained through an efficient C99 implementation of LEDAkem are provided.Comment: 21 pages, 3 table

Recent Innovations & Daily Problems. A new prosthesis in inguinal hernia repair:preliminary results of a pilot study.

Introduction: Elective surgery for inguinal hernia is affected by very low mortality « 1 per 10000 operation); in contrast, when surgery is carried out for complicated inguinal hernia, risks of postoperative complication are higher. TAPP is a world-wide accepted surgical practice in the treatment of elective bilateral or recurrent inguinal hernia, above all in young patients. Few exploratory studies were published on laparoscopic approach in the treatment of urgent complicated inguinal hernia. Aim of this study was to analyze feasibility (operative time, conversion rate), safety (postoperative morbidity, length of hospital stay) and quality of life (acute and chronic pain, return to work) of trans-abdominal pre-peritoneal laparoscopic hernia repair in acute incarcerated inguinal hernia. Rationale of laparoscopic trans-abdominal approach is the easier hernia reduction under vision and a better exploration of the abdominal cavity. Methods: from September 2012 to September 2013, 15 consecutive patients admitted in emergency at the Division of General Surgery of University "Sapienza", Polo Pontino, for acute incarcerated inguinal hernia were submitted to TAPP using 3 trocars (1 of 10 mm and 2 of 5mm) and polyester prosthesis fixed by fibrin glue. Exclusion criteria for laparoscopic approach were age III, previous abdominal surgery, signs of strangulated hernia. All of them were evaluated for operative time, conversion rate, postoperative morbidity, organ resection or other surgery required. All patients were scored for pain by Visual Analogic Scale (VAS) during postoperative in hospital stay at 7 days, 1,6 and 12 months after surgery. Results: median follow-up was 16 months and 12 as minimum. In all cases reduction of hernia was always possible and none conversion to open surgery was recorded, median operative time was 89 minutes (55-137 as range), omental resection was carried out in one patient (6,6%), no other organ resections needed, whereas contralateral hernia was diagnosed and repaired at the same time in 4 patients (26,6%). No major complications were observed, median blood loss was 100 ml, minor morbidity was contained to 18% represented by fever and wound infection of surgical umbilical scar. Median in hospital stay was 1,5 days with 1-5 days as range. Postoperative median acute pain, measured by visual analogic scale (VAS), was 2 (range:0-4), none patient referred any pain during follow-up. Median time of return to work was 6,5 days, ranged between 3 to 15 days. Patients' compliance to treatment and to follow-up was complete as well their satisfaction. Conclusions: In centres skilled for laparoscopy in emergency, TAPP could be considered a feasible and safe technique. In well-selected patients (especially if emolled in controlled clinical trial) TAPP could represent an alternative surgical approach for complicated incarcerated inguinal hernia to conventional open surgery even in urgency. The main advantages of laparoscopic approach are the ability to perform surgical hernia reduction under vision, a better exploration and evaluation of abdominal cavity and diagnosis and treatment of eventual contralateral defect of wall, otherwise often missed. Finally, the good control of acute and chronic pain, faster return to normal activity and work, better aesthetic results contributed to total satisfaction and compliance of the patients

Deciphering interplay between Salmonella invasion effectors

Bacterial pathogens have evolved a specialized type III secretion system (T3SS) to translocate virulence effector proteins directly into eukaryotic target cells. Salmonellae deploy effectors that trigger localized actin reorganization to force their own entry into non-phagocytic host cells. Six effectors (SipC, SipA, SopE/2, SopB, SptP) can individually manipulate actin dynamics at the plasma membrane, which acts as a ‘signaling hub’ during Salmonella invasion. The extent of crosstalk between these spatially coincident effectors remains unknown. Here we describe trans and cis binary entry effector interplay (BENEFIT) screens that systematically examine functional associations between effectors following their delivery into the host cell. The results reveal extensive ordered synergistic and antagonistic relationships and their relative potency, and illuminate an unexpectedly sophisticated signaling network evolved through longstanding pathogen–host interaction