Corn Header Attachment

This invention relates to a corn header attachment. More particularly, it relates to an attachment for a grain combine for mechanically harvesting corn

Within-Home versus Between-Home Variability of House Dust Endotoxin in a Birth Cohort

Endotoxin exposure has been proposed as an environmental determinant of allergen responses in children. To better understand the implications of using a single measurement of house dust endotoxin to characterize exposure in the first year of life, we evaluated room-specific within-home and between-home variability in dust endotoxin obtained from 470 households in Boston, Massachusetts. Homes were sampled up to two times over 5–11 months. We analyzed 1,287 dust samples from the kitchen, family room, and baby’s bedroom for endotoxin. We fit a mixed-effects model to estimate mean levels and the variation of endotoxin between homes, between rooms, and between sampling times. Endotoxin ranged from 2 to 1,945 units per milligram of dust. Levels were highest during summer and lowest in the winter. Mean endotoxin levels varied significantly from room to room. Cross-sectionally, endotoxin was moderately correlated between family room and bedroom floor (r = 0.30), between family room and kitchen (r = 0.32), and between kitchen and bedroom (r = 0.42). Adjusting for season, the correlation of endotoxin levels within homes over time was 0.65 for both the bedroom and kitchen and 0.54 for the family room. The temporal within-home variance of endotoxin was lowest for bedroom floor samples and highest for kitchen samples. Between-home variance was lowest in the family room and highest for kitchen samples. Adjusting for season, within-home variation was less than between-home variation for all three rooms. These results suggest that room-to-room and home-to-home differences in endotoxin influence the total variability more than factors affecting endotoxin levels within a room over time

Rich state, poor state, red state, blue state: What's the matter with Connecticut?

For decades, the Democrats have been viewed as the party of the poor, with the Republicans representing the rich. Recent presidential elections, however, have shown a reverse pattern, with Democrats performing well in the richer blue states in the northeast and coasts, and Republicans dominating in the red states in the middle of the country and the south. Through multilevel modeling of individual-level survey data and county- and state-level demographic and electoral data, we reconcile these patterns. Furthermore, we find that income matters more in red America than in blue America. In poor states, rich people are much more likely than poor people to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, but in rich states (such as Connecticut), income has a very low correlation with vote preference

Gauged linear sigma model and pion-pion scattering

A simple gauged linear sigma model with several parameters to take the symmetry breaking and the mass differences between the vector meson and the axial vector meson into account is considered here as a possibly useful template for the role of a light scalar in QCD as well as for (at a different scale) an effective Higgs sector for some recently proposed walking technicolor models. An analytic procedure is first developed for relating the Lagrangian parameters to four well established (in the QCD application) experimental inputs. One simple equation distinguishes three different cases:1. QCD with axial vector particle heavier than vector particle, 2. possible technicolor model with vector particle heavier than the axial vector one, 3. the unphysical QCD case where both the KSRF and Weinberg relations hold. The model is applied to the s-wave pion-pion scattering in QCD. Both the near threshold region and (with an assumed unitarization) theglobal region up to about 800 MeV are considered. It is noted that there is a little tension between the choice of bare sigma mass parameter for describing these two regions. If a reasonable globa fit is made, there is some loss of precision in the near threshold region.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figure

Quantum protocols for anonymous voting and surveying

We describe quantum protocols for voting and surveying. A key feature of our schemes is the use of entangled states to ensure that the votes are anonymous and to allow the votes to be tallied. The entanglement is distributed over separated sites; the physical inaccessibility of any one site is sufficient to guarantee the anonymity of the votes. The security of these protocols with respect to various kinds of attack is discussed. We also discuss classical schemes and show that our quantum voting protocol represents a N-fold reduction in computational complexity, where N is the number of voters.Comment: 8 pages. V2 includes the modifications made for the published versio

A first-principles comparison of the electronic properties of MgC_{y}Ni_{3} and ZnC_{y}Ni_{3} alloys

First-principles, density-functional-based electronic structure calculations are employed to study the changes in the electronic properties of ZnC_{y}Ni_{3} and MgC_{y}Ni_{3} using the Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker coherent-potential approximation method in the atomic sphere approximation (KKR-ASA CPA). As a function of decreasing C at%, we find a steady decrease in the lattice constant and bulk modulus in either alloys. However, the pressure derivative of the bulk modulus displays an opposite trend. Following the Debye model, which relates the pressure derivative of the bulk modulus with the average phonon frequency of the crystal, it can thus be argued that ZnCNi_{3} and its disordered alloys posses a different phonon spectra in comparison to its MgCNi_{3} counterparts. This is further justified by the marked similarity we find in the electronic structure properties such as the variation in the density of states and the Hopfield parameters calculated for these alloys. The effects on the equation of state parameters and the density of states at the Fermi energy, for partial replacement of Mg by Zn are also discussed.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figure

Dynamics of DNA replication loops reveal temporal control of lagging-strand synthesis

In all organisms, the protein machinery responsible for the replication of DNA, the replisome, is faced with a directionality problem. The antiparallel nature of duplex DNA permits the leading-strand polymerase to advance in a continuous fashion, but forces the lagging-strand polymerase to synthesize in the opposite direction. By extending RNA primers, the lagging-strand polymerase restarts at short intervals and produces Okazaki fragments. At least in prokaryotic systems, this directionality problem is solved by the formation of a loop in the lagging strand of the replication fork to reorient the lagging-strand DNA polymerase so that it advances in parallel with the leading-strand polymerase. The replication loop grows and shrinks during each cycle of Okazaki fragment synthesis. Here we use single-molecule techniques to visualize, in real time, the formation and release of replication loops by individual replisomes of bacteriophage T7 supporting coordinated DNA replication. Analysis of the distributions of loop sizes and lag times between loops reveals that initiation of primer synthesis and the completion of an Okazaki fragment each serve as a trigger for loop release. The presence of two triggers may represent a fail-safe mechanism ensuring the timely reset of the replisome after the synthesis of every Okazaki fragment.

Pattern and Outcome of Chest Injuries at Bugando Medical Centre in Northwestern Tanzania.

Chest injuries constitute a continuing challenge to the trauma or general surgeon practicing in developing countries. This study was conducted to outline the etiological spectrum, injury patterns and short term outcome of these injuries in our setting. This was a prospective study involving chest injury patients admitted to Bugando Medical Centre over a six-month period from November 2009 to April 2010 inclusive. A total of 150 chest injury patients were studied. Males outnumbered females by a ratio of 3.8:1. Their ages ranged from 1 to 80 years (mean = 32.17 years). The majority of patients (72.7%) sustained blunt injuries. Road traffic crush was the most common cause of injuries affecting 50.7% of patients. Chest wall wounds, hemothorax and rib fractures were the most common type of injuries accounting for 30.0%, 21.3% and 20.7% respectively. Associated injuries were noted in 56.0% of patients and head/neck (33.3%) and musculoskeletal regions (26.7%) were commonly affected. The majority of patients (55.3%) were treated successfully with non-operative approach. Underwater seal drainage was performed in 39 patients (19.3%). One patient (0.7%) underwent thoracotomy due to hemopericardium. Thirty nine patients (26.0%) had complications of which wound sepsis (14.7%) and complications of long bone fractures (12.0%) were the most common complications. The mean LOS was 13.17 days and mortality rate was 3.3%. Using multivariate logistic regression analysis, associated injuries, the type of injury, trauma scores (ISS, RTS and PTS) were found to be significant predictors of the LOS (P < 0.001), whereas mortality was significantly associated with pre-morbid illness, associated injuries, trauma scores (ISS, RTS and PTS), the need for ICU admission and the presence of complications (P < 0.001). Chest injuries resulting from RTCs remain a major public health problem in this part of Tanzania. Urgent preventive measures targeting at reducing the occurrence of RTCs is necessary to reduce the incidence of chest injuries in this region

Hemispherical power asymmetry: parameter estimation from CMB WMAP5 data

We reexamine the evidence of the hemispherical power asymmetry, detected in the CMB WMAP data using a new method. At first, we analyze the hemispherical variance ratios and compare these with simulated distributions. Secondly, working within a previously-proposed CMB bipolar modulation model, we constrain model parameters: the amplitude and the orientation of the modulation field as a function of various multipole bins. Finally, we select three ranges of multipoles leading to the most anomalous signals, and we process corresponding 100 Gaussian, random field (GRF) simulations, treated as observational data, to further test the statistical significance and robustness of the hemispherical power asymmetry. For our analysis we use the Internally-Linearly-Coadded (ILC) full sky map, and KQ75 cut-sky V channel, foregrounds reduced map of the WMAP five year data (V5). We constrain the modulation parameters using a generic maximum a posteriori method. In particular, we find differences in hemispherical power distribution, which when described in terms of a model with bipolar modulation field, exclude the field amplitude value of the isotropic model A=0 at confidence level of ~99.5% (~99.4%) in the multipole range l=[7,19] (l=[7,79]) in the V5 data, and at the confidence level ~99.9% in the multipole range l=[7,39] in the ILC5 data, with the best fit (modal PDF) values in these particular multipole ranges of A=0.21 (A=0.21) and A=0.15 respectively. However, we also point out that similar or larger significances (in terms of rejecting the isotropic model), and large best-fit modulation amplitudes are obtained in GRF simulations as well, which reduces the overall significance of the CMB power asymmetry down to only about 94% (95%) in the V5 data, in the range l=[7,19] (l=[7,79]).Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures; few typos corrected; published in JCA