Future challenges and recommendations

Rapid advances in information technology and telecommunications, and in particular mobile and wireless communications, converge towards the emergence of a new type of “infostructure” that has the potential of supporting a large spectrum of advanced services for healthcare and health. Currently the ICT community produces a great effort to drill down from the vision and the promises of wireless and mobile technologies and provide practical application solutions. Research and development include data gathering and omni-directional transfer of vital information, integration of human machine interface technology into handheld devices and personal applications, security and interoperability of date and integration with hospital legacy systems and electronic patient record. The ongoing evolution of wireless technology and mobile device capabilities is changing the way healthcare providers interact with information technologies. The growth and acceptance of mobile information technology at the point of care, coupled with the promise and convenience of data on demand, creates opportunities for enhanced patient care and safety. The developments presented in this section demonstrate clearly the innovation aspects and trends towards user oriented applications

Soil moisture causes dynamic adjustments to root reinforcement that reduce slope stability

In steep soil-mantled landscapes, the initiation of shallow landslides is strongly controlled by the distribution of vegetation, whose roots reinforce the soil. The magnitude of root reinforcement depends on the number, diameter distribution, orientation and the mechanical properties of roots that cross potential failure planes. Understanding how these properties vary in space and time in forests remains a significant challenge. Here we test the hypothesis that spatio-temporal variations in root reinforcement along a hillslope occur as a function of topographic soil moisture gradients. To test this hypothesis we compared root reinforcement measurements from relatively dry, divergent noses to relatively wet, convergent hollows in the southern Appalachian Mountains, North Carolina, USA. Our initial results showed that root reinforcement decreased in areas of higher soil moisture because the tensile strength of roots decreased. A post-hoc laboratory experiment further demonstrated that root tensile strength decreased as root moisture content increased. This effect is consistent with other experiments on stem woods showing that increased water content in the cell wall decreases tensile strength. Our experimental data demonstrated that roots can adjust to changes in the external root moisture conditions within hours, suggesting that root moisture content will change over the timescale of large storm events (hours-days). We assessed the effects of the dynamic changes in root tensile strength to the magnitude of apparent cohesion within the infinite slope stability model. Slopes can be considerably less stable when precipitation-driven increases in saturated soil depth both increase pore pressures and decrease root reinforcement. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Partial CMB maps: bias removal and optimal binning of the angular power spectrum

We present a semi-analytical method to investigate the systematic effects and statistical uncertainties of the calculated angular power spectrum when incomplete spherical maps are used. The computed power spectrum suffers in particular a loss of angular frequency resolution, which can be written as \delta_l ~ \pi/\gamma_max, where \gamma_max is the effective maximum extent of the partial spherical maps. We propose a correction algorithm to reduce systematic effects on the estimated C_l, as obtained from the partial map projection on the spherical harmonic Ylm(l,m) basis. We have derived near optimal bands and weighting functions in l-space for power spectrum calculation using small maps, and a correction algorithm for partially masked spherical maps that contain information on the angular correlations on all scales.Comment: 11 page

Melting of Discrete Vortices via Quantum Fluctuations

We consider nonlinear boson states with a nontrivial phase structure in the three-site Bose-Hubbard ring, {\em quantum discrete vortices} (or {\em q-vortices}), and study their "melting" under the action of quantum fluctuations. We calculate the spatial correlations in the ground states to show the superfluid-insulator crossover and analyze the fidelity between the exact and variational ground states to explore the validity of the classical analysis. We examine the phase coherence and the effect of quantum fluctuations on q-vortices and reveal that the breakdown of these coherent structures through quantum fluctuations accompanies the superfluid-insulator crossover.Comment: Revised version, 4 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Multi-component gap solitons in spinor Bose-Einstein condensates

We model the nonlinear behaviour of spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) with repulsive spin-independent interactions and either ferromagnetic or anti-ferromagnetic (polar) spin-dependent interactions, loaded into a one-dimensional optical lattice potential. We show that both types of BECs exhibit dynamical instabilities and may form spatially localized multi-component structures. The localized states of the spinor matter waves take the form of vector gap solitons and self-trapped waves that exist only within gaps of the linear Bloch-wave band-gap spectrum. Of special interest are the nonlinear localized states that do not exhibit a common spatial density profile shared by all condensate components, and consequently cannot be described by the single mode approximation (SMA), frequently employed within the framework of the mean-field treatment. We show that the non-SMA states can exhibits Josephson-like internal oscillations and self-magnetisation, i.e. intrinsic precession of the local spin. Finally, we demonstrate that non-stationary states of a spinor BEC in a lattice exhibit coherent undamped spin-mixing dynamics, and that their controlled conversion into a stationary state can be achieved by the application of an external magnetic field.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

Asymfast, a method for convolving maps with asymmetric main beams

We describe a fast and accurate method to perform the convolution of a sky map with a general asymmetric main beam along any given scanning strategy. The method is based on the decomposition of the beam as a sum of circular functions, here Gaussians. It can be easily implemented and is much faster than pixel-by-pixel convolution. In addition, Asymfast can be used to estimate the effective circularized beam transfer functions of CMB instruments with non-symmetric main beam. This is shown using realistic simulations and by comparison to analytical approximations which are available for Gaussian elliptical beams. Finally, the application of this technique to Archeops data is also described. Although developped within the framework of Cosmic Microwave Background observations, our method can be applied to other areas of astrophysics.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, Phys. Rev. D, in pres

Orientation actuelle des études de linguistique historique, et spécialement de philologie celtique, dans les pays de langue allemande

Avant d’entrer de plain-pied dans cet exposé, nous donnerons quelques explications sur ce qu’on entend par « les pays de langue allemande », puis sur les différents sens que l’on donne au mot « philologie ». Les différentes acceptions du terme en langue allemande sont au nombre de trois, et ces trois catégories structureront la communication. Le premier désigne la philologie au sens large, en tant que recherche scientifique et historique de l’ensemble de la culture verbale d’une ethnie. Deuxièmement, le sens restreint qu’on prête au terme : la méthode qui consiste à corriger des textes anciens. Le dernier sens concerne les disciplines universitaires comme sujet d’enseignement et de recherche (« Philologie Classique », par exemple).Before getting down to the nitty-gritty of the presentation, we will first explain what is meant by ‘German-speaking countries’, and then look at the different meanings given to the word ‘philology’. There are three different meanings of the term in German, and these three categories will structure the paper. The first refers to philology in the broad sense, as scientific and historical research into the entire verbal culture of an ethnic group. Secondly, the narrower sense given to the term: the method of correcting ancient texts. The last meaning concerns university disciplines as a subject for teaching and research (« Classical Philology », for example)

Effects of No-Tillage Production Practices on Crop Yields as Influenced by Crop and Growing Environment Factors

This paper evaluated differences between yields of no-tillage compared to conventional or reduced tillage and their associated downside risk. Six crops were evaluated along with how those yields and risks differed by various environmental factors such geographic location, precipitation, soil type and how long the practice had been used.no-tillage, conservation, conventional tillage, downside-risk, yield, Agribusiness, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty,

Maximum likelihood, parametric component separation and CMB B-mode detection in suborbital experiments

We investigate the performance of the parametric Maximum Likelihood component separation method in the context of the CMB B-mode signal detection and its characterization by small-scale CMB suborbital experiments. We consider high-resolution (FWHM=8') balloon-borne and ground-based observatories mapping low dust-contrast sky areas of 400 and 1000 square degrees, in three frequency channels, 150, 250, 410 GHz, and 90, 150, 220 GHz, with sensitivity of order 1 to 10 micro-K per beam-size pixel. These are chosen to be representative of some of the proposed, next-generation, bolometric experiments. We study the residual foreground contributions left in the recovered CMB maps in the pixel and harmonic domain and discuss their impact on a determination of the tensor-to-scalar ratio, r. In particular, we find that the residuals derived from the simulated data of the considered balloon-borne observatories are sufficiently low not to be relevant for the B-mode science. However, the ground-based observatories are in need of some external information to permit satisfactory cleaning. We find that if such information is indeed available in the latter case, both the ground-based and balloon-borne experiments can detect the values of r as low as ~0.04 at 95% confidence level. The contribution of the foreground residuals to these limits is found to be then subdominant and these are driven by the statistical uncertainty due to CMB, including E-to-B leakage, and noise. We emphasize that reaching such levels will require a sufficient control of the level of systematic effects present in the data.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, 6 table