The AF structure of non commutative toroidal Z/4Z orbifolds

For any irrational theta and rational number p/q such that q|qtheta-p|<1, a projection e of trace q|qtheta-p| is constructed in the the irrational rotation algebra A_theta that is invariant under the Fourier transform. (The latter is the order four automorphism U mapped to V, V mapped to U^{-1}, where U, V are the canonical unitaries generating A_theta.) Further, the projection e is approximately central, the cut down algebra eA_theta e contains a Fourier invariant q x q matrix algebra whose unit is e, and the cut downs eUe, eVe are approximately inside the matrix algebra. (In particular, there are Fourier invariant projections of trace k|qtheta-p| for k=1,...,q.) It is also shown that for all theta the crossed product A_theta rtimes Z_4 satisfies the Universal Coefficient Theorem. (Z_4 := Z/4Z.) As a consequence, using the Classification Theorem of G. Elliott and G. Gong for AH-algebras, a theorem of M. Rieffel, and by recent results of H. Lin, we show that A_theta rtimes Z_4 is an AF-algebra for all irrational theta in a dense G_delta.Comment: 35 page

What is a robot companion - friend, assistant or butler?

The study presented in this paper explored people's perceptions and attitudes towards the idea of a future robot companion for the home. A human-centred approach was adopted using questionnaires and human-robot interaction trials to derive data from 28 adults. Results indicated that a large proportion of participants were in favour of a robot companion and saw the potential role as being an assistant, machine or servant. Few wanted a robot companion to be a friend. Household tasks were preferred to child/animal care tasks. Humanlike communication was desirable for a robot companion, whereas humanlike behaviour and appearance were less essential. Results are discussed in relation to future research directions for the development of robot companions

A Profile of Smoking and Health in Wales

No abstract available

Effect of Irrigation and Fertilization on Selected Physical and Mechanical Properties of Loblolly Pine (Pinus Taeda)

A study of the interacting effects of irrigating and fertilizing a loblolly pine plantation showed that soil moisture and ammonium nitrate fertilizer significantly affected fiber stress at proportional limit and modulii of rupture and elasticity. The effects of irrigation and fertilization on work to proportional limit were not significant and work to maximum load was affected only by irrigation. The percentage of latewood in the annual rings was found to range from 36 for wood grown on medium wet, heavily fertilized (100 lbs/acre) plots to 57 for wood grown on nonirrigated, heavily fertilized plots. The best growth rate (6.8 rings/inch) was obtained for wood taken either from the south sides of trees grown on the wettest and medium-wet plots, or from the north side of trees grown on the medium-dry plot. The strongest and stiffest wood was taken from trees grown on unirrigated plots that had received 100 pounds of ammonium nitrate per acre.There was a positive linear correlation between percent of latewood and specific gravity, growth rate, bending strength, and stiffness. There was a similar relationship between specific gravity and the bending strength and stiffness of wood.Maintaining soil moisture in the range of 30 to 60% of field capacity and providing a moderate amount (50 lbs/acre) of nitrate fertilizer are recommended for increasing the bending strength and stiffness of loblolly pine. Such a silvicultural practice would accelerate the growth of poles of superior strength and stiffness or pulpwood of higher fiber yield. The cost of such practices was not included in the study

Wavenet based low rate speech coding

Traditional parametric coding of speech facilitates low rate but provides poor reconstruction quality because of the inadequacy of the model used. We describe how a WaveNet generative speech model can be used to generate high quality speech from the bit stream of a standard parametric coder operating at 2.4 kb/s. We compare this parametric coder with a waveform coder based on the same generative model and show that approximating the signal waveform incurs a large rate penalty. Our experiments confirm the high performance of the WaveNet based coder and show that the speech produced by the system is able to additionally perform implicit bandwidth extension and does not significantly impair recognition of the original speaker for the human listener, even when that speaker has not been used during the training of the generative model.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Peripheral volume measurements as indices of peripheral circulatory factors in the cardiovascular orthostatic response

Peripheral volume measurements as indices of circulatory factors in cardiovascular orthostatic respons

Gut immune dysfunction through impaired innate pattern recognition receptor expression and gut microbiota dysbiosis in chronic SIV infection.

HIV targets the gut mucosa early in infection, causing immune and epithelial barrier dysfunction and disease progression. However, gut mucosal sensing and innate immune signaling through mucosal pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) during HIV infection and disease progression are not well defined. Using the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV)-infected rhesus macaque model of AIDS, we found a robust increase in PRRs and inflammatory cytokine gene expression during the acute SIV infection in both peripheral blood and gut mucosa, coinciding with viral replication. PRR expression remained elevated in peripheral blood following the transition to chronic SIV infection. In contrast, massive dampening of PRR expression was detected in the gut mucosa, despite the presence of detectable viral loads. Exceptionally, expression of Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) and TLR8 was downmodulated and diverged from expression patterns for most other TLRs in the gut. Decreased mucosal PRR expression was associated with increased abundance of several pathogenic bacterial taxa, including Pasteurellaceae members, Aggregatibacter and Actinobacillus, and Mycoplasmataceae family. Early antiretroviral therapy led to viral suppression but only partial maintenance of gut PRRs and cytokine gene expression. In summary, SIV infection dampens mucosal innate immunity through PRR dysregulation and may promote immune activation, gut microbiota changes, and ineffective viral clearance