Elucidating recent history by tracing genetic affinity of three 16th century miners from Sweden.

Objectives: Sala Silver Mine in central Sweden was an important manufacturer of silver from at least the 16th till the early 20th century, with production peaking in the 16th, mid 17th and 19th centuries. The job opportunities offered by the mine attracted people to the area resulting in the development of a small township with an associated cemetery in the vicinity of the mining center. People affiliated to the mine were buried on the cemetery for around 150 years. Written sources reveal that common criminal convicts from Sweden-Finland and war prisoners from the numerous wars fought by Sweden during the time were exploited in the mine, and some of them were likely buried on the cemetery. The cemetery has been excavated on several occasions and the recovered human remains were divided into two different groups based on burial custom, demography and biochemical results. One group was believed to contain war prisoners; the aim of this study was to produce and interpret genomic data from these individuals to test if their genetic ancestry is consistent with the hypothesis that they were non-locals. Materials: Teeth from seven different individuals were sampled for dentine. Results: Three of the analyzed teeth contained sufficient amounts of endogenous human DNA for the generation of genomic sequence data to a coverage of 0.04, 0.19 and 0.83, respectively. Discussion: The results show that despite seeming heterogeneity the three individuals grouped within the range of genetic variation of modern and contemporary Swedes, yielding no statistical support to the hypothesis that they were foreign captives. However, due to the lack of contemporary or modern Danish genomic data we cannot refute these individuals originated in Denmark which was suggested as one of possible sources of the 17th century Swedish prisoners of war

Casimir micro-sphere diclusters and three-body effects in fluids

Our previous article [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 060401 (2010)] predicted that Casimir forces induced by the material-dispersion properties of certain dielectrics can give rise to stable configurations of objects. This phenomenon was illustrated via a dicluster configuration of non-touching objects consisting of two spheres immersed in a fluid and suspended against gravity above a plate. Here, we examine these predictions from the perspective of a practical experiment and consider the influence of non-additive, three-body, and nonzero-temperature effects on the stability of the two spheres. We conclude that the presence of Brownian motion reduces the set of experimentally realizable silicon/teflon spherical diclusters to those consisting of layered micro-spheres, such as the hollow- core (spherical shells) considered here.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure

LAPW frozen-phonon calculation, shell model lattice dynamics and specific-heat measurement of SnO

An ab-initio Linear Augmented Plane-Wave (LAPW) calculation of the zone-centered phonon frequencies of SnO has been performed. E$_g$ symmetry has been ascribed to the mode observed at 113 cm$^{-1}$ in Raman measurements, discarding a previous B$_{1g}$ assignement. The other phonon modes measured by Raman spectroscopy are also well reproduced. A new shell-model has also been developed, that gives good agreement of the zone-centered frequencies compared to the measured data and the LAPW results. Specific heat measurements have been performed between 5 K and 110 K. Computation of the specific heat and the M\"{o}ssbauer recoilless fraction with the improved shell-model shows a good agreement with the experimental data as a function of temperature.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure. to appear in Phys. Rev. B (November 1999

Vitamin food fortification today

Historically, food fortification has served as a tool to address population-wide nutrient deficiencies such as rickets by vitamin D fortified milk. This article discusses the different policy strategies to be used today. Mandatory or voluntary fortification and fortified foods, which the consumer needs, also have to comply with nutritional, regulatory, food safety and technical issues. The ‘worldwide map of vitamin fortification’ is analysed, including differences between develop and developing countries. The vitamins, folate and vitamin D, are taken as practical examples in the review of the beneficial effect of different strategies on public health. The importance of the risk–benefit aspect, as well as how to identify the risk groups, and the food vehicles for fortification is discussed

Corrosion resistance of anodic layers grown on 304L stainless steel at different anodizing times and stirring speeds

Different chemical and physical treatments have been used to improve the properties and functionalities of steels. Anodizing is one of the most promising treatments, due to its versatility and easy industrial implementation. It allows the growth of nanoestructured oxide films with interesting properties able to be employed in different industrial sectors. The present work studies the influence of the anodizing time (15, 30, 45 and 60 min), as well as the stirring speed (0, 200, 400, and 600 rpm), on the morphology and the corrosion resistance of the anodic layers grown in 304L stainless steel. The anodic layers were characterized morphologically, compositionally, and electrochemically, in order to determine the influence of the anodization parameters on their corrosion behavior in a 0.6 mol L-1 NaCl solution. The results show that at 45 and 60 min anodizing times, the formation of two microstructures is favored, associated with the collapse of the nanoporous structures at the metal-oxide interphace. However, both the stirring speed and the anodizing time have a negligeable effect on the corrosion behavior of the anodized 304L SS samples, since their electrochemical values are similar to those of the non-anodized ones

Solving Fuzzy Job-Shop Scheduling Problems with a Multiobjective Optimizer

International audienceIn real-world manufacturing environments, it is common to face a job-shop scheduling problem (JSP) with uncertainty. Among different sources of uncertainty, processing times uncertainty is the most common. In this paper, we investigate the use of a multiobjective genetic algorithm to address JSPs with uncertain durations. Uncertain durations in a JSP are expressed by means of triangular fuzzy numbers (TFNs). Instead of using expected values as in other work, we consider all vertices of the TFN representing the overall completion time. As a consequence, the proposed approach tries to obtain a schedule that optimizes the three component scheduling problems (corresponding to the lowest, most probable, and largest durations) all at the same time. In order to verify the quality of solutions found by the proposed approach, an experimental study was carried out across different benchmark instances. In all experiments, comparisons with previous approaches that are based on a single-objective genetic algorithm were also performed

A manifesto for future generation cloud computing: research directions for the next decade

The Cloud computing paradigm has revolutionised the computer science horizon during the past decade and has enabled the emergence of computing as the fifth utility. It has captured significant attention of academia, industries, and government bodies. Now, it has emerged as the backbone of modern economy by offering subscription-based services anytime, anywhere following a pay-as-you-go model. This has instigated (1) shorter establishment times for start-ups, (2) creation of scalable global enterprise applications, (3) better cost-to-value associativity for scientific and high performance computing applications, and (4) different invocation/execution models for pervasive and ubiquitous applications. The recent technological developments and paradigms such as serverless computing, software-defined networking, Internet of Things, and processing at network edge are creating new opportunities for Cloud computing. However, they are also posing several new challenges and creating the need for new approaches and research strategies, as well as the re-evaluation of the models that were developed to address issues such as scalability, elasticity, reliability, security, sustainability, and application models. The proposed manifesto addresses them by identifying the major open challenges in Cloud computing, emerging trends, and impact areas. It then offers research directions for the next decade, thus helping in the realisation of Future Generation Cloud Computing