Distribution and Concentration of Canadian Livestock

Livestock Production/Industries,

Automated patient monitoring system

Radio-linked patient monitoring system collects several channels of physiological data from as many as 64 hospital patients and transmits the data in digital form to a central control station. The system consists of a central control station and battery-operated patient units comprising small strap-on electronics packages

Snapshot spectrally encoded fluorescence imaging through a fiber bundle

Fiber optic endomicroscopy is a valuable tool for clinical diagnostics and animal studies because it can capture images of tissue in vivo with subcellular resolution. Current configurations for endomicroscopes have either limited spatial resolution or require a scanning mechanism at the distal end of the fiber, which can slow imaging speed and increase the probe size. We present a novel configuration that provides high contrast 350 × 350 pixel images at 7.2 frames per second, without the need for mechanical scanning at the proximal or distal end of the fiber. The proofof- concept benchtop system is tested in fluorescence mode and can resolve 1.5 μm features of a high resolution 1951 USAF target

A Dirichlet form approach to MCMC optimal scaling

This paper shows how the theory of Dirichlet forms can be used to deliver proofs of optimal scaling results for Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms (specifically, Metropolis–Hastings random walk samplers) under regularity conditions which are substantially weaker than those required by the original approach (based on the use of infinitesimal generators). The Dirichlet form methods have the added advantage of providing an explicit construction of the underlying infinite-dimensional context. In particular, this enables us directly to establish weak convergence to the relevant infinite-dimensional distributions

Planetary rover technology development requirements

Planetary surface (including lunar) mobility and sampling capability is required to support proposed future National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) solar system exploration missions. The NASA Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology (OAST) is addressing some of these technology needs in its base research and development program, the Civil Space Technology Initiative (CSTI) and a new technology initiative entitled Pathfinder. The Pathfinder Planetary Rover (PPR) and Sample Acquisition, Analysis and Preservation (SAAP) programs will develop and validate the technologies needed to enable both robotic and piloted rovers on various planetary surfaces. The technology requirements for a planetary roving vehicle and the development plans of the PPR and SAAP programs are discussed

Response of PPR soils to changing groundwater and salinity: a microcosm study of greenhouse gas emissions

Non-Peer Reviewe

An Efficient Mechanism for Cross-border Support of Renewable Electricity in the European Union

The ability to exchange renewable electricity (RES-e) capacity between EU member states improves the welfare of all member states since potentials and demands for RES-e capacity vary across the EU. This notion is reflected in the promotion of so-called cooperation mechanisms by the European Commission. The existing mechanisms appear, unfortunately, to be insufficient to facilitate an efficient level of trade in capacity across the EU; only a small quantity of energy is expected to be subject to cooperation mechanisms (Klessmann et al. 2010). In order to address these challenges, in this paper we propose a new mechanism for cross-border support of renewable electricity in EU. The guiding idea is that the cross-border mechanism allocates new RES-e generating capacity across EU Member States to where it is most valuable. This can, but need not, coincide with the most cost efficient allocation. The mechanism consists of two main elements. Firstly, a cross-border impact matrix that indicates the spill-over of benefits between member states induced from the power injection of additional RES-e generating capacity. Secondly, an EU wide auction in which member states and generators of RES-e bid prices indicating their willingness to pay for additional RES-e generating capacity. Then for given parameters the auctioneer selects the set of bids that maximizes an EU-wide surplus. We find that the mechanism leads to a decentralized optimization of RES-e support in the EU, by matching high willingness to pay of member states with low cost potentials of RES-e generation, but only if the benefits of RES-e are actually delivered for the member state paying for it. Moreover, the mechanism offers the potential to significantly reduce the barriers of the current cooperation mechanism, such as transaction costs or uncertainty about costs and benefits

The impact of short rotation willow on soil nutrients in riparian zones of the prairie pothole region

Non-Peer Reviewe

Testing the role of dopamine in olfactory sensitivity and learning in the entorhinal cortex

Dopaminergic innervation of the entorhinal cortex may contribute to the integration and encoding of sensory information. The primary olfactory cortex (piriform cortex) projects to the superficial layers of the entorhinal cortex, and converging dopaminergic inputs from the ventral tegmental area may modulate processes in the entorhinal cortex related to the salience of olfactory stimuli. In the current study, food-restricted rats were trained to dig in cups filled with scented sand and to discriminate between two different odours to obtain a buried food-reward which was always associated with one odour (CS+). Upon reaching criterion performance on this task, animals underwent sham surgery or 6-hydroxydopamine lesions of the entorhinal cortex. After retraining on the original discrimination rule, olfactory sensitivity was tested using cups containing decreasing amounts of the original CS+ odour. Animals showed graded decrements in response accuracy as the concentration of odorant was reduced, but no significant differences were observed between control and lesioned animals. In addition, lesioned animals did not differ in their ability to learn to perform the discrimination task with a new odour pair at low concentrations, and did not show differences in their ability to respond accurately to either the initial or novel odour pair after a delay of two weeks. These findings show that scented sand can be used as an effective stimulus to assess the sensitivity to olfactory stimuli in the rat, but do not provide evidence for deficits in olfactory sensitivity or memory performance in animals with 6-OHDA lesions of the entorhinal cortex

Real-time video mosaicing with a high-resolution microendoscope

Microendoscopes allow clinicians to view subcellular features in vivo and in real-time, but their field-of-view is inherently limited by the small size of the probe's distal end. Video mosaicing has emerged as an effective technique to increase the acquired image size. Current implementations are performed post-procedure, which removes the benefits of live imaging. In this manuscript we present an algorithm for real-time video mosaicing using a low-cost high-resolution microendoscope. We present algorithm execution times and show image results obtained from in vivo tissue