Metaproteomics for analysis of microbial function in the environment

This report briefly describes the approach of using proteomic analyses to examine protein expression directly from environmental samples (termed metaproteomics). This approach has potential for solving one of the major challenges facing microbial ecologists, by providing insight of microbial function directly within samples

Reconstructing diffusion fields sampled with a network of arbitrarily distributed sensors

Sensor networks are becoming increasingly prevalent for monitoring physical phenomena of interest. For such wireless sensor network applications, knowledge of node location is important. Although a uniform sensor distribution is common in the literature, it is normally difficult to achieve in reality. Thus we propose a robust algorithm for reconstructing two-dimensional diffusion fields, sampled with a network of arbitrarily placed sensors. The two-step method proposed here is based on source parameter estimation: in the first step, by properly combining the field sensed through well-chosen test functions, we show how Prony's method can reveal locations and intensities of the sources inducing the field. The second step then uses a modification of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality to estimate the activation time in the single source field. We combine these steps to give a multi-source field estimation algorithm and carry out extensive numerical simulations to evaluate its performance

Bromocriptine-associated ototoxicity

Three patients treated with bromocriptine for chronic hepatic encephalopathy showed audiometric evidence of bilateral sensori-neural hearing-loss. Audiometrically, the hearing improved in all three patients when the bromocriptine dosage was reduced, thus suggesting that this drug may produce a reversible ototoxicity

Endogenous mammalian lectin localized extracellularly in lung elastic fibers.

An affinity-purified antibody preparation raised against a beta-galactoside-binding lectin from bovine lung was used to localize a similar lectin in rat lung by immunofluorescence and by electron microscopy after on-grid staining visualized with colloidal gold conjugated second antibody. The endogenous mammalian lectin was found in smooth muscle cells and squamous alveolar epithelial (type I) cells and was concentrated extracellularly in elastic fibers of pulmonary parenchyma and blood vessels. The extracellular localization of this lectin suggests that it, like others, functions by interaction with extracellular glycoconjugates

Optical implementability of the two-dimensional Quantum Walk

We propose an optical cavity implementation of the two-dimensional coined quantum walk on the line. The implementation makes use of only classical resources, and is tunable in the sense that a large number of different unitary transformations can be implemented by tuning some parameters of the device.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure

Improving single-photon sources via linear optics and photodetection

Published versio

Atomic spin decoherence near conducting and superconducting films

Published versio

Clips: a capacity and lead time integrated procedure for scheduling.

We propose a general procedure to address real life job shop scheduling problems. The shop typically produces a variety of products, each with its own arrival stream, its own route through the shop and a given customer due date. The procedure first determines the manufacturing lot sizes for each product. The objective is to minimize the expected lead time and therefore we model the production environment as a queueing network. Given these lead times, release dates are set dynamically. This in turn creates a time window for every manufacturing order in which the various operations have to be sequenced. The sequencing logic is based on a Extended Shifting Bottleneck Procedure. These three major decisions are next incorporated into a four phase hierarchical operational implementation scheme. A small numerical example is used to illustrate the methodology. The final objective however is to develop a procedure that is useful for large, real life shops. We therefore report on a real life application.Model; Models; Applications; Product; Scheduling;