Is the Shroud of Turin in Relation to the Old Jerusalem Historical Earthquake?

Phillips and Hedges suggested, in the scientific magazine Nature (1989), that neutron radiation could be liable of a wrong radiocarbon dating, while proton radiation could be responsible of the Shroud body image formation. On the other hand, no plausible physical reason has been proposed so far to explain the radiation source origin, and its effects on the linen fibres. However, some recent studies, carried out by the first author and his Team at the Laboratory of Fracture Mechanics of the Politecnico di Torino, found that it is possible to generate neutron emissions from very brittle rock specimens in compression through piezonuclear fission reactions. Analogously, neutron flux increments, in correspondence to seismic activity, should be a result of the same reactions. A group of Russian scientists measured a neutron flux exceeding the background level by three orders of magnitude in correspondence to rather appreciable earthquakes (4th degree in Richter Scale). The authors consider the possibility that neutron emissions by earthquakes could have induced the image formation on Shroud linen fibres, trough thermal neutron capture by Nitrogen nuclei, and provided a wrong radiocarbon dating due to an increment in C(14,6)content. Let us consider that, although the calculated integral flux of 10^13 neutrons per square centimetre is 10 times greater than the cancer therapy dose, nevertheless it is100 times smaller than the lethal dose.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

Low complexity DSP for high speed optical access networking

A novel low-cost and energy-efficient approach for reaching 40 Gb/s signals is proposed for cost-sensitive optical access networks. Our proposed design is constituted of an innovative low-complex high-performance digital signal processing (DSP) architecture for pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4), reuses existing commercial cost-effective 10-G components and eliminates the need of a power-hungry radio frequency (RF) component in the transmitter. Using a multi-functional 17-tap reconfigurable adaptive Volterra-based nonlinear equalizer with noise suppression, significant improvement in receiver optical power sensitivity is achieved. Results show that over 30 km of single-mode fiber (SMF) a link power budget of 33 dB is feasible at a bit-error-rate (BER) threshold of 10−3.</jats:p

Experiences and attitudes of Dutch rheumatologists and oncologists with regard to their patients’ health-related Internet use

The objective of this study is to explore the experiences and attitudes of rheumatologists and oncologists with regard to their patients’ health-related Internet use. In addition, we explored how often physicians referred their patients to health-related Internet sites. We sent a questionnaire to all the rheumatologists and oncologists in the Netherlands. The questionnaire included questions concerning demographics, experiences with patients’ health-related Internet use, referral behavior, and attitudes to the consequences of patients’ health-related Internet use (for patients themselves, the physician-patient relationship and the health care). The response rate was 46% (N = 238). Of these respondents, 134 practiced as a rheumatologist and 104 as an oncologist. Almost all physicians encountered their patients raising information from the Internet during a consultation. They were not, however, confronted with their patients’ health-related Internet use on a daily basis. Physicians had a moderately positive attitude towards the consequences of patients’ health-related Internet use, the physician-patient relationship and the health care. Oncologists were significantly less positive than rheumatologists about the consequences of health-related Internet use. Most of the physicians had never (32%) or only sometimes (42%) referred a patient to a health-related Internet site. Most physicians (53%) found it difficult to stay up-to-date with reliable Internet sites for patients. Physicians are moderately positive about their patients’ health-related Internet use but only seldom refer them to relevant sites. Offering an up-to-date site with accredited websites for patients might help physicians refer their patients

Functional plasticity in the respiratory drive to thoracic motoneurons in the segment above a chronic lateral spinal cord lesion

A previous neurophysiological investigation demonstrated an increase in functional projections of expiratory bulbospinal neurons (EBSNs) in the segment above a chronic lateral thoracic spinal cord lesion which severed their axons. We have now investigated how this plasticity might be manifested in thoracic motoneurons, by measuring their respiratory drive and the connections to them from individual EBSNs. In anesthetized cats, simultaneous recordings were made intracellularly from motoneurons in the segment above a left-side chronic (16 week) lesion of the spinal cord in the rostral part of T8, T9 or T10 and extracellularly from EBSNs in the right caudal medulla, antidromically excited from just above the lesion, but not from below. Spike-triggered averaging was used to measure the connections between pairs of EBSNs and motoneurons. Connections were found to have a very similar distribution to normal and were, if anything (non-significantly), weaker than normal, being present for 42/158 pairs, vs. 55/154 pairs in controls. The expiratory drive in expiratory motoneurons appeared stronger than in controls, but again not significantly so. Thus we conclude that new connections made by the EBSNs following these lesions were made to neurons other than alpha-motoneurons. However, a previously unidentified form of functional plasticity was seen, in that there was a significant increase in the excitation of motoneurons during post-inspiration, being manifest either in increased incidence of expiratory-decrementing respiratory drive potentials, or in an increased amplitude of the post-inspiratory depolarizing phase in inspiratory motoneurons. We suggest that this component arose from spinal cord interneurons

Examination of the cut-off scores determined by the Ages and Stages Questionnaire in a population-based sample of 6 month-old Norwegian infants

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Few population-based samples have previously published performance on the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ), a recommended screening tool to detect infant developmental delay. The aim of the study was to investigate performance on the ASQ in a population-based sample of 6-month-old infants.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this population-based questionnaire study from Oslo, Norway, the 30 item ASQ 6 month Questionnaire (N = 1053) were included, however without the pictograms, and compared to the Norwegian reference sample (N.ref) (N = 169) and to US cut-off values. Exclusion criteria were maternal non-Scandinavian ethnicity, infant age < 5.0 or > 7.0 months (corrected age), twins, and birth weight < 2.5 kg. Cut-off = 2.5 percentile (equivalent to mean minus 2 standard deviations). Pearson's Chi square and Mann-Whitney U were used to compare items and areas, respectively, with N.ref.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The reported ASQ scores were lower on all but one of the 10 significantly different items, and in all areas except Personal social, compared to the N.ref sample. The estimated cut-off values for suspected developmental delay (Communication 25, Gross motor 15, Fine motor 18, Problem solving 25 and Personal social 20) were lower than the recommended American (US) values in all areas, and lower than the Norwegian values in two areas. Scores indicating need for further assessment were reached by 13.8% or 20.5% of the infants (missing items scored according to the US or the Norwegian manual), and by 33.8% or 30.3% of the infants using the recommended US or the Norwegian cut-off values, in this population-based sample. The Fine motor area demonstrated a large variability depending on the different cut-off and scoring possibilities. Both among the items excluding pictograms and the items that do not have pictograms, approximately every third item differed significantly compared to the N.ref sample.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The psychomotor developmental scores were lower than in the reference samples in this study of ASQ 6 month Questionnaire; to our knowledge the first study to be both representative and comparatively large. Approximately every third child with birth weight above 2.5 kg, received scores suggesting further assessment using recommended ASQ cut-off scores.</p

Protective Effect of Hainosankyuto, a Traditional Japanese Medicine, on Streptococcus pyogenes Infection in Murine Model

BACKGROUND: Streptococcus pyogenes (S. pyogenes) causes various serious diseases including necrotizing fasciitis and streptococcal toxic shock syndrome. One serious problem observed recently with S. pyogenes therapy is attenuation of the antibiotic effect, especially penicillin treatment failure and macrolide resistance. Hainosankyuto, a traditional Japanese medicine based on ancient Chinese medicine, has been used for treatment of infectious purulent diseases in Japan. In this study, we investigated the protective and therapeutic efficacy of Hainosankyuto against S. pyogenes-skin infection. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A broth microdilution method revealed that Hainosankyuto did not show a direct anti-bacterial effect against S. pyogenes. Force-feeding Hainosankyuto to infected mice for 4 consecutive days increased the survival rate and reduced the size of local skin lesions compared with mice fed PBS. Although we did not find the significant recovery of survival rate in Hainosankyuto administration only after S. pyogenes infection, the sizes of ulcer lesion were significant smaller after Hainosankyuto administration compared with mice fed PBS. No difference was observed in the anti-bacterial effect of Hainosankyuto between macrolide-susceptible and -resistant strains. Blood bactericidal assay showed that the survival rate of S. pyogenes using the blood from Hainosankyuto-treated mice was lower than that using the blood from untreated mice. We also found increased levels of IL-12, IFN-γ and a decreased level of TNF-α in the serum of S. pyogenes-infected mice treated with Hainosankyuto. Mouse peritoneal macrophage from Hainosankyuto-treated mice had significant phagocytic activity and increased mRNA levels of IL-12, IFN-γ and decreased mRNA level of TNF-α compared with control macrophage. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Hainosankyuto increased survival rate after S. pyogenes infection and up-regulated both blood bactericidal activity and macrophage phagocytic activity through modulation of inflammatory cytokines. Our data also suggest Hainosankyuto may be useful for the treatment of S. pyogenes infection more prophylactically than therapeutically

Controlling spins in adsorbed molecules by a chemical switch

The development of chemical systems with switchable molecular spins could lead to the architecture of materials with controllable magnetic or spintronic properties. Here, we present conclusive evidence that the spin of an organometallic molecule coupled to a ferromagnetic substrate can be switched between magnetic off and on states by a chemical stimulus. This is achieved by nitric oxide (NO) functioning as an axial ligand of cobalt(II)tetraphenylporphyrin (CoTPP) ferromagnetically coupled to nickel thin-film (Ni(001)). On NO addition, the coordination sphere of Co2+ is modified and a NO–CoTPP nitrosyl complex is formed, which corresponds to an off state of the Co spin. Thermal dissociation of NO from the nitrosyl complex restores the on state of the Co spin. The NO-induced reversible off–on switching of surface-adsorbed molecular spins observed here is attributed to a spin trans effect