Foraminifera and palaeoenvironment of elevated Late Pleistocene sands, White Rock Point, southeastern Tasmania

A well-preserved foraminiferal fauna similar to that living in nearby Ralphs Bay in southeastern Tasmania is documented from raised shallow-water sediment of 130-119 Ka age (Late Pleistocene; Marine Isotope Stage 5e) at about 24m above modern sea level on White Rock Point

Age and palaeoenvironment of Pliocene sediments, Cameron Inlet Formation, eastern Flinders Island, Tasmania: implications for southeastern Australian biostratigraphy

A previously unrecorded thin unit of very Early Pliocene calcareous sediments of the Cameron Inlet Formation from two auger holes in central Flinders Island, Tasmania, has yielded a very diverse fauna of benthic Foraminifera and enough planktonic forms to allow fine correlation with international biostratigraphic standards (N19, approximately 5.3–4.4 Ma, or Lower Opoitian in New Zealand terminology). Ostracods are also recorded. It is older than an earlier recorded sample from North Patriarch Drain a few kilometres away. It lies within the Kalimnan of southeastern Australian stage nomenclature and probably equivalent to 1985 Molluscan Assemblage XVI. The sediments and faunas accumulated in very shallow, fully marine conditions, initially with some possible estuarine aspect that faded with time. The fauna is of well-known species, dominated by Parredicta kalimnensis (Parr, 1939). Other abundant and diverse forms are elphidiids and cibicidids. Agglutinated forms are almost absent and miliolids are diverse but minor components. The fauna includes a new polymorphinid genus and species that will be described elsewhere. The samples contain a bewildering array of unilocular forms. Water temperature appears to have been about 12°C. The Kalimnan Stage may encompass the entire Pliocene and two substages may be identifiable

Design and performance of a multicentre, randomized controlled trial of teleconsulting.

We have designed and performed a multicentre, randomized controlled trial of teleconsulting. The trial investigated the effectiveness and cost implications in rural and inner-city settings of using videoconferencing as an alternative to general practitioner referral to a hospital specialist. The participating general practitioners referred a total of 3170 patients who satisfied the entry criteria. Of these, 1040 (33%) failed to provide consent or otherwise refused to participate in the trial. Of the patients recruited to the trial, a total of 1902 (91%) completed and returned the baseline questionnaire. Although the trial was successful in recruiting sufficient patients and in obtaining high questionnaire response rates, the findings will require careful interpretation to take account of the limits which the protocol placed on the ability of general practitioners to select patients for referral

Parameterized lower bound and NP-completeness of some HH-free Edge Deletion problems

For a graph $H$, the $H$-free Edge Deletion problem asks whether there exist at most $k$ edges whose deletion from the input graph $G$ results in a graph without any induced copy of $H$. We prove that $H$-free Edge Deletion is NP-complete if $H$ is a graph with at least two edges and $H$ has a component with maximum number of vertices which is a tree or a regular graph. Furthermore, we obtain that these NP-complete problems cannot be solved in parameterized subexponential time, i.e., in time $2^{o(k)}\cdot |G|^{O(1)}$, unless Exponential Time Hypothesis fails.Comment: 15 pages, COCOA 15 accepted pape

Statistical Evaluation of NDE Reliability in the Aerospace Industry

The goal of this paper is to review the statistical methods used in the aerospace industries to evaluate NDE reliability. The techniques presented are consistent with the damage tolerant design and structural maintenance philosophies of the aerospace industry. The first part of this paper establishes the evaluation criteria and discusses the history of NDE reliability evaluations. The second part describes the state-of-the-art analysis methods through examples from the retirement for cause (RFC) inspection system evaluation. The last part of the paper discusses some techniques used to rate operator performance and deal with false calls

Neural superposition and oscillations in the eye of the blowfly

Neural superposition in the eye of the blowfly Calliphora erythrocephala was investigated by stimulating single photoreceptors using corneal neutralization through water immersion. Responses in Large Monopolar Cells (LMCs) in the lamina were measured, while stimulating one or more of the six photoreceptors connected to the LMC. Responses to flashes of low light intensity on individual photoreceptors add approximately linearly at the LMC. Higher intensity light flashes produce a maximum LMC response to illumination of single photoreceptors which is about half the maximum response to simultaneous illumination of the six connecting photoreceptors. This observation indicates that a saturation can occur at a stage of synaptic transmission which precedes the change in the post-synaptic membrane potential. Stimulation of single photoreceptors yields high frequency oscillations (about 200 Hz) in the LMC potential, much larger in amplitude than produced by simultaneous stimulation of the six photoreceptors connected to the LMC. It is discussed that these oscillations also arise from a mechanism that precedes the change in the postsynaptic membrane potential.

The central image of a gravitationally lensed quasar

A galaxy can act as a gravitational lens, producing multiple images of a background object. Theory predicts there should be an odd number of images but, paradoxically, almost all observed lenses have 2 or 4 images. The missing image should be faint and appear near the galaxy's center. These ``central images'' have long been sought as probes of galactic cores too distant to resolve with ordinary observations. There are five candidates, but in one case the third image is not necessarily a central image, and in the others, the central component might be a foreground source rather than a lensed image. Here we report the most secure identification of a central image, based on radio observations of PMN J1632-0033, one of the latter candidates. Lens models incorporating the central image show that the mass of the lens galaxy's central black hole is less than 2 x 10^8 M_sun, and the galaxy's surface density at the location of the central image is more than 20,000 M_sun per square parsec, in agreement with expectations based on observations of galaxies hundreds of times closer to the Earth.Comment: Nature, in press [7 pp, 2 figs]. Standard media embargo applies before publicatio

Perigraft air is not always pathological: a case report

© 2007 Ball et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Parameterized vertex deletion problems for hereditary graph classes with a block property

For a class of graphs P, the Bounded P-Block Vertex Deletion problem asks, given a graph G on n vertices and positive integers k and d, whether there is a set S of at most k vertices such that each block of G − S has at most d vertices and is in P. We show that when P satisfies a natural hereditary property and is recognizable in polynomial time, Bounded P-Block Vertex Deletion can be solved in time 2O(k log d)nO(1), and this running time cannot be improved to 2o(k log d)nO(1), in general, unless the Exponential Time Hypothesis fails. On the other hand, if P consists of only complete graphs, or only K1,K2, and cycle graphs, then Bounded P-Block Vertex Deletion admits a cknO(1)-time algorithm for some constant c independent of d. We also show that Bounded P-Block Vertex Deletion admits a kernel with O(k2d7) vertices. © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2016