How “True” is True Enough?

As a culture, Americans are obsessed with “truth,” or with the idea of truth. We are also prone to demanding tidy resolutions of complex matters. We vilify public figures that get caught lying while minimizing our own dishonesty. Our attachment to the notion of cultural binaries reveals our discomfort with continuums. This project is a collection of five essays which explore this contradiction: one critical essay and four creative works. The critical essay in the collection considers the subject of “truth” in memoir: how published memoirists have approached and resolved the matter of truth telling in their work; how they reconciled conflicts over content; how they honored the unspoken pact with the reader to deliver a true story taken from real events; how they demonstrated these responsibilities in the work they produced. Each of the four creative essays contains elements of memoir: each exposes commonly held binaries and the illusion of simple conclusions. “Caprice, in Triptych” is a lyric essay about the futility of standing in judgment of others; “On Lies, Liars and Lying” is a meditation on the nature of lying; “Pathos, Party of One?” ponders the human inclination toward self-deception; “The Race Card” considers this problematic, and increasingly ubiquitous, phrase

Intrauterine repair of gastroschisis in fetal rabbits

Objective: Infants with gastroschisis (GS) still face severe morbidity. Prenatal closure may prevent gastrointestinal organ damage, but intrauterine GS repair (GSR) has not been established yet. Methods: In New Zealand White rabbits we developed and compared GS versus GSR: creation of GS was achieved by hysterotomy, right-sided laparotomy of the fetus and pressure on the abdominal wall to provoke evisceration. GSR was accomplished by careful reposition of eviscerated organs and a running suture of the fetal abdominal wall. For study purposes, 18 animals were divided equally into 3 groups: GS, GS with GSR after 2 h, and unmanipulated controls (C). Vitality was assessed by echocardiography. After 5 h all animals were sacrificed. Results: GSR inflicted no increased mortality, because all fetuses survived GS or GS with GSR. All fetuses with GS demonstrated significant evisceration of abdominal organs. In contrast, the abdominal wall of the fetuses from GSR was intact. Conclusion:The present animal model demonstrated the technical feasibility and success of an intrauterine repair of GS for the first time. However, further long-term studies (leaving GS and GSR in utero for several days) will be necessary to compare survival rates and intestinal injury, motility or absorption. The clinical application of GSR in utero remains a vision so far. Copyright (C) 2003 S. Karger AG, Basel

High-density magnetomyography is superior to high-density surface electromyography for motor unit decomposition: a simulation study

Objective. Studying motor units is essential for understanding motor control, the detection of neuromuscular disorders and the control of human-machine interfaces. Individual motor unit firings are currently identified in vivo by decomposing electromyographic (EMG) signals. Due to our body’s properties and anatomy, individual motor units can only be separated to a limited extent with surface EMG. Unlike electrical signals, magnetic fields do not interact with human tissues. This physical property and the emerging technology of quantum sensors make magnetomyography (MMG) a highly promising methodology. However, the full potential of MMG to study neuromuscular physiology has not yet been explored. Approach. In this work, we perform in silico trials that combine a biophysical model of EMG and MMG with state-of-the-art algorithms for the decomposition of motor units. This allows the prediction of an upper-bound for the motor unit decomposition accuracy. Main results. It is shown that non-invasive high-density MMG data is superior over comparable high-density surface EMG data for the robust identification of the discharge patterns of individual motor units. Decomposing MMG instead of EMG increased the number of identifiable motor units by 76%. Notably, MMG exhibits a less pronounced bias to detect superficial motor units. Significance. The presented simulations provide insights into methods to study the neuromuscular system non-invasively and in vivo that would not be easily feasible by other means. Hence, this study provides guidance for the development of novel biomedical technologies

Landscape statistics of the low autocorrelated binary string problem

The statistical properties of the energy landscape of the low autocorrelated binary string problem (LABSP) are studied numerically and compared with those of several classic disordered models. Using two global measures of landscape structure which have been introduced in the Simulated Annealing literature, namely, depth and difficulty, we find that the landscape of LABSP, except perhaps for a very large degeneracy of the local minima energies, is qualitatively similar to some well-known landscapes such as that of the mean-field 2-spin glass model. Furthermore, we consider a mean-field approximation to the pure model proposed by Bouchaud and Mezard (1994, J. Physique I France 4 1109) and show both analytically and numerically that it describes extremely well the statistical properties of LABSP

The SVOM gamma-ray burst mission

We briefly present the science capabilities, the instruments, the operations, and the expected performance of the SVOM mission. SVOM (Space-based multiband astronomical Variable Objects Monitor) is a Chinese-French space mission dedicated to the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) in the next decade. The SVOM mission encompasses a satellite carrying four instruments to detect and localize the prompt GRB emission and measure the evolution of the afterglow in the visible band and in X-rays, a VHF communication system enabling the fast transmission of SVOM alerts to the ground, and a ground segment including a wide angle camera and two follow-up telescopes. The pointing strategy of the satellite has been optimized to favor the detection of GRBs located in the night hemisphere. This strategy enables the study of the optical emission in the first minutes after the GRB with robotic observatories and the early spectroscopy of the optical afterglow with large telescopes to measure the redshifts. The study of GRBs in the next decade will benefit from a number of large facilities in all wavelengths that will contribute to increase the scientific return of the mission. Finally, SVOM will operate in the era of the next generation of gravitational wave detectors, greatly contributing to searches for the electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational wave triggers at Xray and gamma-ray energies.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, published by PoS, proceedings of the conference Swift: 10 Years of Discovery, 2-5 December 2014, La Sapienza University, Rome, Ital

The ECLAIRs micro-satellite mission for gamma-ray burst multi-wavelength observations

Gamma-ray bursts (GRB), at least those with a duration longer than a few seconds are the most energetic events in the Universe and occur at cosmological distances. The ECLAIRs micro-satellite, to be launched in 2009, will provide multi-wavelength observations of GRB, to study their astrophysics and to use them as cosmological probes. Furthermore in 2009 ECLAIRs is expected to be the only space borne instrument capable of providing a GRB trigger in near real-time with sufficient localization accuracy for GRB follow-up observations with the powerful ground based spectroscopic telescopes available by then. A "Phase A study" of the ECLAIRs project has recently been launched by the French Space Agency CNES, aiming at a detailed mission design and selection for flight in 2006. The ECLAIRs mission is based on a CNES micro-satellite of the "Myriade" family and dedicated ground-based optical telescopes. The satellite payload combines a 2 sr field-of-view coded aperture mask gamma-camera using 6400 CdTe pixels for GRB detection and localization with 10 arcmin precision in the 4 to 50 keV energy band, together with a soft X-ray camera for onboard position refinement to 1 arcmin. The ground-based optical robotic telescopes will detect the GRB prompt/early afterglow emission and localize the event to arcsec accuracy, for spectroscopic follow-up observations.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, proceedings of the conference "New Developments in Photodetection", Beaune (France), June 25005. Submitted to NIM-A (Elsevier Science

Absence of lattice strain anomalies at the electronic topological transition in zinc at high pressure

High pressure structural distortions of the hexagonal close packed (hcp) element zinc have been a subject of controversy. Earlier experimental results and theory showed a large anomaly in lattice strain with compression in zinc at about 10 GPa which was explained theoretically by a change in Fermi surface topology. Later hydrostatic experiments showed no such anomaly, resulting in a discrepancy between theory and experiment. We have computed the compression and lattice strain of hcp zinc over a wide range of compressions using the linearized augmented plane wave (LAPW) method paying special attention to k-point convergence. We find that the behavior of the lattice strain is strongly dependent on k-point sampling, and with large k-point sets the previously computed anomaly in lattice parameters under compression disappears, in agreement with recent experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, Phys. Rev. B (in press

Similarities between structural distortions under pressure and chemical doping in superconducting BaFe2As2

The discovery of a new family of high Tc materials, the iron arsenides (FeAs), has led to a resurgence of interest in superconductivity. Several important traits of these materials are now apparent, for example, layers of iron tetrahedrally coordinated by arsenic are crucial structural ingredients. It is also now well established that the parent non-superconducting phases are itinerant magnets, and that superconductivity can be induced by either chemical substitution or application of pressure, in sharp contrast to the cuprate family of materials. The structure and properties of chemically substituted samples are known to be intimately linked, however, remarkably little is known about this relationship when high pressure is used to induce superconductivity in undoped compounds. Here we show that the key structural features in BaFe2As2, namely suppression of the tetragonal to orthorhombic phase transition and reduction in the As-Fe-As bond angle and Fe-Fe distance, show the same behavior under pressure as found in chemically substituted samples. Using experimentally derived structural data, we show that the electronic structure evolves similarly in both cases. These results suggest that modification of the Fermi surface by structural distortions is more important than charge doping for inducing superconductivity in BaFe2As2

Rapid detection of human blood in triatomines (kissing bugs) utilizing a lateral flow immunochromatographic assay - A pilot study

BACKGROUND DNA- and proteomics-based techniques are currently used to identify a triatomine human blood meal. These methods are time consuming, require access to laboratories with sophisticated equipment, and trained personnel. OBJECTIVES We tested a rapid and specific immunochromatographic assay (that detects human blood in forensic samples) to determine if human blood was present in triatomines and their fecal excreta. METHODS We fed Triatoma rubida human blood (positive control) or mouse blood (negative control) and performed the assay on the abdominal contents and fecal excreta. Triatomine field specimens collected in and around human habitations and excreta were also tested. FINDINGS The assay was positive in triatomines fed human blood (N = 5/5) and fecal excreta from bugs known to have ingested human blood (N = 5/5). Bugs feeding on mice (N = 15/15) and their fecal excreta (N = 8/8) were negative for human blood. Human blood was detected in 47% (N = 23/49) triatomines, representing six different species, collected in the field. MAIN CONCLUSIONS The pilot study shows that this rapid and specific test may have applications in triatomine research. Further study is needed to determine the sensitivity of this assay compared to other well-established techniques, such as DNA- and proteomics-based methodologies and the assay's application in the field.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]