Reconstruction of eolian bed forms and paleocurrents from cross-bedded strata at Victoria Crater, Meridiani Planum, Mars

Outcrop exposures imaged by the Opportunity rover at Victoria Crater, a 750 m diameter crater in Meridiani Planum, are used to delineate sedimentary structures and further develop a dune-interdune depositional model for the region. The stratigraphy at Victoria Crater, observed during Opportunity's partial traverse of its rim, includes the best examples of meter-scale eolian cross bedding observed on Mars to date. The Cape St. Mary promontory, located at the southern end of the rim traverse, is characterized by meter-scale sets of trough cross bedding, suggesting northward migrating sinuous-crested bed forms. Cape St. Vincent, which is located at the opposite end of the traverse, shows tabular-planar stratification indicative of climbing bed forms with meter- to decameter-scale dune heights migrating southward. Promontories located between Cape St. Mary and Cape St. Vincent contain superposed stratigraphic units with northward and southward dipping beds separated by outcrop-scale bounding surfaces. These bounding surfaces are interpreted to be either reactivation and/or superposition surfaces in a complex erg sea. Any depositional model used to explain the bedding must conform to reversing northward and southward paleomigration directions and include multiple scales of bed forms. In addition to stratified outcrop, a bright diagenetic band is observed to overprint bedding and to lie on an equipotential parallel to the preimpact surface. Meter-scale cross bedding at Victoria Crater is similar to terrestrial eolian deposits and is interpreted as a dry dune field, comparable to Jurassic age eolian deposits in the western United States

Thermal and Dynamical Equilibrium in Two-Component Star Clusters

We present the results of Monte Carlo simulations for the dynamical evolution of star clusters containing two stellar populations with individual masses m1 and m2 > m1, and total masses M1 and M2 < M1. We use both King and Plummer model initial conditions and we perform simulations for a wide range of individual and total mass ratios, m2/m1 and M2/M1. We ignore the effects of binaries, stellar evolution, and the galactic tidal field. The simulations use N = 10^5 stars and follow the evolution of the clusters until core collapse. We find that the departure from energy equipartition in the core follows approximately the theoretical predictions of Spitzer (1969) and Lightman & Fall (1978), and we suggest a more exact condition that is based on our results. We find good agreement with previous results obtained by other methods regarding several important features of the evolution, including the pre-collapse distribution of heavier stars, the time scale on which equipartition is approached, and the extent to which core collapse is accelerated by a small subpopulation of heavier stars. We briefly discuss the possible implications of our results for the dynamical evolution of primordial black holes and neutron stars in globular clusters.Comment: 31 pages, including 13 figures, to appear in Ap

Using airborne LiDAR Survey to explore historic-era archaeological landscapes of Montserrat in the eastern Caribbean

This article describes what appears to be the first archaeological application of airborne LiDAR survey to historic-era landscapes in the Caribbean archipelago, on the island of Montserrat. LiDAR is proving invaluable in extending the reach of traditional pedestrian survey into less favorable areas, such as those covered by dense neotropical forest and by ashfall from the past two decades of active eruptions by the Soufrière Hills volcano, and to sites in localities that are inaccessible on account of volcanic dangers. Emphasis is placed on two aspects of the research: first, the importance of ongoing, real-time interaction between the LiDAR analyst and the archaeological team in the field; and second, the advantages of exploiting the full potential of the three-dimensional LiDAR point cloud data for purposes of the visualization of archaeological sites and features

Omega-3 Fatty Acid, Selenium, and Mercury Content of Aquaculture Products in Hawaii

The purpose of this study was to gather baseline data on the fatty acid profile and selenium and mercury concentration of aquaculture products in Hawaii

Fluctuation Analysis of Human Electroencephalogram

The scaling behaviors of the human electroencephalogram (EEG) time series are studied using detrended fluctuation analysis. Two scaling regions are found in nearly every channel for all subjects examined. The scatter plot of the scaling exponents for all channels (up to 129) reveals the complicated structure of a subject's brain activity. Moment analyses are performed to extract the gross features of all the scaling exponents, and another universal scaling behavior is identified. A one-parameter description is found to characterize the fluctuation properties of the nonlinear behaviors of the brain dynamics.Comment: 4 pages in RevTeX + 6 figures in ep

Patient Controlled, Privacy Preserving IoT Healthcare Data Sharing Framework

Healthcare data personally collected by individuals with wearable devices have become important sources of information for healthcare professionals and medical research worldwide. User-Generated Data (UGD) offers unique and sometimes fine-grained insight into the lived experiences and medical conditions of patients. The sensitive subject-matter of medical data can facilitate the exploitation and/or control of victims. Data collection in medical research therefore restricts access control over participant-data to the researchers. Therefore, cultivating trust with prospective participants concerned about the security of their medical data presents formidable challenges. Anonymization can allay such concerns, but at the cost of information loss. Moreover, such techniques cannot necessarily be applied on real-time streaming health data. In this paper, we aim to analyze the technical requirements to enable individuals to share their real-time wearable healthcare data with researchers without compromising privacy. An extension for delay-free anonymization techniques for real-time streaming health data is also proposed

A Minimal Model of Signaling Network Elucidates Cell-to-Cell Stochastic Variability in Apoptosis

Signaling networks are designed to sense an environmental stimulus and adapt to it. We propose and study a minimal model of signaling network that can sense and respond to external stimuli of varying strength in an adaptive manner. The structure of this minimal network is derived based on some simple assumptions on its differential response to external stimuli. We employ stochastic differential equations and probability distributions obtained from stochastic simulations to characterize differential signaling response in our minimal network model. We show that the proposed minimal signaling network displays two distinct types of response as the strength of the stimulus is decreased. The signaling network has a deterministic part that undergoes rapid activation by a strong stimulus in which case cell-to-cell fluctuations can be ignored. As the strength of the stimulus decreases, the stochastic part of the network begins dominating the signaling response where slow activation is observed with characteristic large cell-to-cell stochastic variability. Interestingly, this proposed stochastic signaling network can capture some of the essential signaling behaviors of a complex apoptotic cell death signaling network that has been studied through experiments and large-scale computer simulations. Thus we claim that the proposed signaling network is an appropriate minimal model of apoptosis signaling. Elucidating the fundamental design principles of complex cellular signaling pathways such as apoptosis signaling remains a challenging task. We demonstrate how our proposed minimal model can help elucidate the effect of a specific apoptotic inhibitor Bcl-2 on apoptotic signaling in a cell-type independent manner. We also discuss the implications of our study in elucidating the adaptive strategy of cell death signaling pathways.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

A Comparison of quality of life outcomes following different techniques of mastoid surgery

- Background: Mastoid surgery carried out to treat chronic otitis media (COM) can lead to an improvement in objective and subjective measures post-operatively. This study aims to look at the subjective change in quality of life using the Glasgow Benefit Inventory relative to the type of mastoid surgery undertaken. - Method: A retrospective multi-centre postal questionnaire survey of 157 patients who underwent mastoid surgery from 2008-2012. - Results: 83 questionnaire responses were received from patients having the surgery at 3 different hospitals (a response rate of 53%). 57% of patients had a Glasgow benefit Score of 0 indicating no change in quality of life post-operatively. 35% scored +50 indicating a significant improvement. The only significant difference found was that women fare worse after surgery than men. - Conclusions: The choice of mastoid surgery technique should be determined by clinical need and surgeon preference. There is no improvement in quality of life for most patients