Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS) Antenna and Propagation Research in The Netherlands

Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS) propagation can be used to realize radio communication without the need for an intermediate network. NVIS uses the ionosphere as a reflector to cover a large area (200 × 200 km) around the transmitter, on frequencies ranging from 3 to 10 MHz. NVIS is therefore used for telecommunication in areas that lack a telecommunication infrastructure, or in areas where the existing infrastructure is destroyed by a large scale disaster, such as the 2005 flooding of New Orleans. We will give an overview of the NVIS research performed in The Netherlands

Runaway Events Dominate the Heavy Tail of Citation Distributions

Statistical distributions with heavy tails are ubiquitous in natural and social phenomena. Since the entries in heavy tail have disproportional significance, the knowledge of its exact shape is very important. Citations of scientific papers form one of the best-known heavy tail distributions. Even in this case there is a considerable debate whether citation distribution follows the log-normal or power-law fit. The goal of our study is to solve this debate by measuring citation distribution for a very large and homogeneous data. We measured citation distribution for 418,438 Physics papers published in 1980-1989 and cited by 2008. While the log-normal fit deviates too strong from the data, the discrete power-law function with the exponent $\gamma=3.15$ does better and fits 99.955% of the data. However, the extreme tail of the distribution deviates upward even from the power-law fit and exhibits a dramatic "runaway" behavior. The onset of the runaway regime is revealed macroscopically as the paper garners 1000-1500 citations, however the microscopic measurements of autocorrelation in citation rates are able to predict this behavior in advance.Comment: 6 pages, 5 Figure

Estimating life expectancy and years of life lost for autistic people in the UK: a matched cohort study

Background Previous research has shown that people who have been diagnosed autistic are more likely to die prematurely than the general population. However, statistics on premature mortality in autistic people have often been misinterpreted. In this study we aimed to estimate the life expectancy and years of life lost experienced by autistic people living in the UK. Methods We studied people in the IQVIA Medical Research Database with an autism diagnosis between January 1, 1989 and January 16, 2019. For each participant diagnosed autistic, we included ten comparison participants without an autism diagnosis, matched by age, sex, and primary care practice. We calculated age- and sex-standardised mortality ratios comparing people diagnosed autistic to the reference group. We used Poisson regression to estimate age-specific mortality rates, and life tables to estimate life expectancy at age 18 and years of life lost. We analysed the data separately by sex, and for people with and without a record of intellectual disability. We discuss the findings in the light of the prevalence of recorded diagnosis of autism in primary care compared to community estimates. Findings From a cohort of nearly 10 million people, we identified 17,130 participants diagnosed autistic without an intellectual disability (matched with 171,300 comparison participants), and 6450 participants diagnosed autistic with an intellectual disability (matched with 64,500 comparison participants). The apparent estimates indicated that people diagnosed with autism but not intellectual disability had 1.71 (95% CI: 1.39–2.11) times the mortality rate of people without these diagnoses. People diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability had 2.83 (95% CI: 2.33–3.43) times the mortality rate of people without these diagnoses. Likewise, the apparent reduction in life expectancy for people diagnosed with autism but not intellectual disability was 6.14 years (95% CI: 2.84–9.07) for men and 6.45 years (95% CI: 1.37–11.58 years) for women. The apparent reduction in life expectancy for people diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability was 7.28 years (95% CI: 3.78–10.27) for men and 14.59 years (95% CI: 9.45–19.02 years) for women. However, these findings are likely to be subject to exposure misclassification biases: very few autistic adults and older-adults have been diagnosed, meaning that we could only study a fraction of the total autistic population. Those who have been diagnosed may well be those with greater support needs and more co-occurring health conditions than autistic people on average. Interpretation The findings indicate that there is a group of autistic people who experience premature mortality, which is of significant concern. There is an urgent need for investigation into the reasons behind this. However, our estimates suggest that the widely reported statistic that autistic people live 16-years less on average is likely incorrect. Nine out of 10 autistic people may have been undiagnosed across the time-period studied. Hence, the results of our study do not generalise to all autistic people. Diagnosed autistic adults, and particularly older adults, are likely those with greater-than-average support needs. Therefore, we may have over-estimated the reduction in life expectancy experienced by autistic people on average. The larger reduction in life expectancy for women diagnosed with autism and intellectual disability vs. men may in part reflect disproportionate underdiagnosis of autism and/or intellectual disability in women

A developmental analysis of communication between mothers and infants with Down's syndrome

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68850/2/10.1177_027112148300300110.pd

H1N1 hemagglutinin-specific HLA-DQ6-restricted CD4+ T cells can be readily detected in narcolepsy type 1 patients and healthy controls

Following the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, an increased risk of narcolepsy type 1 was observed. Homology between an H1N1 hemagglutinin and two hypocretin sequences has been reported. T cell reactivity to these peptides was assessed in 81 narcolepsy type 1 patients and 19 HLA-DQ6-matched healthy controls. HLA-DQ6-restricted H1N1 hemagglutinin-specific T cell responses were detected in 28.4% of patients and 15.8% of controls. Despite structural homology between HLA-DQ6-hypocretin and -H1N1 peptide complexes, T cell cross-reactivity was not detected. These results indicate that it is unlikely that cross-reactivity between H1N1 hemagglutinin and hypocretin peptides presented by HLA-DQ6 is involved in the development of narcolepsy

Determination of alphaS from Hadronic Event Shapes in e+e- Annihilation at 192 < sqrt(s) < 208 GeV

Results are presented from a study of the structure of high energy hadronic events recorded by the L3 detector at sqrt(s)>192 GeV. The distributions of several event shape variables are compared to resummed O(alphaS^2) QCD calculations. We determine the strong coupling constant at three average centre-of-mass energies: 194.4, 200.2 and 206.2 GeV. These measurements, combined with previous L3 measurements at lower energies, demonstrate the running of alphaS as expected in QCD and yield alphaS(mZ) = 0.1227 +- 0.0012 +- 0.0058, where the first uncertainty is experimental and the second is theoretical

Measurement of W Polarisation at LEP

The three different helicity states of W bosons produced in the reaction e+ e- -> W+ W- -> l nu q q~ at LEP are studied using leptonic and hadronic W decays. Data at centre-of-mass energies \sqrt s = 183-209 GeV are used to measure the polarisation of W bosons, and its dependence on the W boson production angle. The fraction of longitudinally polarised W bosons is measured to be 0.218 \pm 0.027 \pm 0.016 where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic, in agreement with the Standard Model expectation