Induced Parametrisation and its Applications in Geometric Computation

The paper describes a concept of induced rational parametrisation for curves. Parametrisations of curves are defined in terms of rational parametrisations of simpler or `primitive' curves. The technique has applications in computer graphics and geometric modeling. A range of examples is given

Pennsylvania Folklife Vol. 43, No. 2

• The America\u27s Industrial Heritage Project: A Model for Cultural Tourism • The Harmonists are Waiting for You • The Quest for Authenticity in Tourism and Folklife Studies • Tourism and the Old Order Amish • The Log Cabin: Notes on its Structure and Dissemination • On the Making of Die Union Choral Harmonie (1833): Evidence from Henry C. Eyer\u27s Working Papers • In Memoriam: Paul R. Wieand, a True Artisthttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/pafolklifemag/1139/thumbnail.jp

Matching functions for heavy particles

We introduce matching functions as a means of summing heavy-quark logarithms to any order. Our analysis is based on Witten's approach, where heavy quarks are decoupled one at a time in a mass-independent renormalization scheme. The outcome is a generalization of the matching conditions of Bernreuther and Wetzel: we show how to derive closed formulas for summed logarithms to any order, and present explicit expressions for leading order and next-to-leading order contributions. The decoupling of heavy quarks in theories lacking asymptotic freedom is also considered.Comment: Revised version to be published in Physical Review D; added section with application to decoupling of heavy particles in non-asymptotically free theorie

Determinants for receiving acupuncture for LBP and associated treatments: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Acupuncture is a frequently used but controversial adjunct to the treatment of chronic low back pain (LBP). Acupuncture is now considered to be effective for chronic LBP and health care systems are pressured to make a decision whether or not acupuncture should be covered. It has been suggested that providing such services might reduce the use of other health care services. Therefore, we explored factors associated with acupuncture treatment for LBP and the relation of acupuncture with other health care services. METHODS: This is a post hoc analysis of a longitudinal prospective cohort study. General practitioners (GPs) recruited consecutive adult patients with LBP. Data on physical function, subjective mood and utilization of health care services was collected at the first consultation and at follow-up telephone interviews for a period of twelve months. RESULTS: A total of 179 (13 %) out of 1,345 patients received acupuncture treatment. The majority of those (59 %) had chronic LBP. Women and elderly patients were more likely to be given acupuncture. Additional determinants of acupuncture therapy were low functional capacity and chronicity of pain. Chronic (vs. acute) back pain OR 1.6 (CL 1.4–2.9) was the only significant disease-related factor associated with the treatment. The strongest predictors for receiving acupuncture were consultation with a GP who offers acupuncture OR 3.5 (CL 2.9–4.1) and consultation with a specialist OR 2.1 (CL 1.9–2.3). After adjustment for patient characteristics, acupuncture remained associated with higher consultation rates and an increased use of other health care services like physiotherapy. CONCLUSION: Receiving acupuncture for LBP depends mostly on the availability of the treatment. It is associated with increased use of other health services even after adjustment for patient characteristics. In our study, we found that receiving acupuncture does not offset the use of other health care resources. A significant proportion of patients who received did not meet the so far only known selection criterion (chonicity). Acupuncture therapy might be a reflection of helplessness in both patients and health care providers

HiTSEE KNIME: a visualization tool for hit selection and analysis in high-throughput screening experiments for the KNIME platform

We present HiTSEE (High-Throughput Screening Exploration Environment), a visualization tool for the analysis of large chemical screens used to examine biochemical processes. The tool supports the investigation of structure-activity relationships (SAR analysis) and, through a flexible interaction mechanism, the navigation of large chemical spaces. Our approach is based on the projection of one or a few molecules of interest and the expansion around their neighborhood and allows for the exploration of large chemical libraries without the need to create an all encompassing overview of the whole library. We describe the requirements we collected during our collaboration with biologists and chemists, the design rationale behind the tool, and two case studies on different datasets. The described integration (HiTSEE KNIME) into the KNIME platform allows additional flexibility in adopting our approach to a wide range of different biochemical problems and enables other research groups to use HiTSEE

The Astropy Problem

The Astropy Project (http://astropy.org) is, in its own words, "a community effort to develop a single core package for Astronomy in Python and foster interoperability between Python astronomy packages." For five years this project has been managed, written, and operated as a grassroots, self-organized, almost entirely volunteer effort while the software is used by the majority of the astronomical community. Despite this, the project has always been and remains to this day effectively unfunded. Further, contributors receive little or no formal recognition for creating and supporting what is now critical software. This paper explores the problem in detail, outlines possible solutions to correct this, and presents a few suggestions on how to address the sustainability of general purpose astronomical software

Validation of MIPAS HNO3 operational data

Nitric acid (HNO3) is one of the key products that are operationally retrieved by the European Space Agency (ESA) from the emission spectra measured by the Michelson Interferometer for Passive Atmospheric Sounding (MIPAS) onboard ENVISAT. The product version 4.61/4.62 for the observation period between July 2002 and March 2004 is validated by comparisons with a number of independent observations from ground-based stations, aircraft/balloon campaigns, and satellites. Individual HNO3 profiles of the ESA MIPAS level-2 product show good agreement with those of MIPAS-B and MIPAS-STR (the balloon and aircraft version of MIPAS, respectively), and the balloon-borne infrared spectrometers MkIV and SPIRALE, mostly matching the reference data within the combined instrument error bars. In most cases differences between the correlative measurement pairs are less than 1 ppbv (5-10%) throughout the entire altitude range up to about 38 km (similar to 6 hPa), and below 0.5 ppbv (15-20% or more) above 30 km (similar to 17 hPa). However, differences up to 4 ppbv compared to MkIV have been found at high latitudes in December 2002 in the presence of polar stratospheric clouds. The degree of consistency is further largely affected by the temporal and spatial coincidence, and differences of 2 ppbv may be observed between 22 and 26 km (similar to 50 and 30 hPa) at high latitudes near the vortex boundary, due to large horizontal inhomogeneity of HNO3. Similar features are also observed in the mean differences of the MIPAS ESA HNO3 VMRs with respect to the ground-based FTIR measurements at five stations, aircraft-based SAFIRE-A and ASUR, and the balloon campaign IBEX. The mean relative differences between the MIPAS and FTIR HNO3 partial columns are within +/- 2%, comparable to the MIPAS systematic error of similar to 2%. For the vertical profiles, the biases between the MIPAS and FTIR data are generally below 10% in the altitudes of 10 to 30 km. The MIPAS and SAFIRE HNO3 data generally match within their total error bars for the mid and high latitude flights, despite the larger atmospheric inhomogeneities that characterize the measurement scenario at higher latitudes. The MIPAS and ASUR comparison reveals generally good agreements better than 10-13% at 20-34 km. The MIPAS and IBEX measurements agree reasonably well (mean relative differences within +/- 15%) between 17 and 32 km. Statistical comparisons of the MIPAS profiles correlated with those of Odin/SMR, ILAS-II, and ACE-FTS generally show good consistency. The mean differences averaged over individual latitude bands or all bands are within the combined instrument errors, and generally within 1, 0.5, and 0.3 ppbv between 10 and 40 km (similar to 260 and 4.5 hPa) for Odin/SMR, ILAS-II, and ACE-FTS, respectively. The standard deviations of the differences are between 1 to 2 ppbv. The standard deviations for the satellite comparisons and for almost all other comparisons are generally larger than the estimated measurement uncertainty. This is associated with the temporal and spatial coincidence error and the horizontal smoothing error which are not taken into account in our error budget. Both errors become large when the spatial variability of the target molecule is high.Peer reviewe

Humic acid interferes with species recognition in zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Springer for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Chemical Ecology 33 (2007): 2090-2096, doi:10.1007/s10886-007-9377-z.Few studies have addressed how chemosensation may be impaired by chemical alterations of the environment and anthropogenic disturbance. Humic acid (HA) is a pervasive, naturally occurring organic derivative found in aquatic and terrestrial environments; human activity, however, can lead to elevated levels of HA. Recent studies suggest that environments that contain high levels of HA may hinder chemical communication. We tested the ability of adult zebrafish (Danio rerio) to discriminate between conspecific and heterospecific urinary chemical cues found in the presence and absence of HA. We show that high humic acid levels (200 mg/l) can impair the ability to differentiate conspecifics from heterospecifics. We also found that zebrafish prefer untreated water over HA-treated water. These findings suggest that, in addition to human-produced synthetic compounds, changes in the abundance of naturally occurring substances may also negatively impact natural behaviors in aquatic species by disturbing the sensory environment

Search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu channel in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

A search for the standard model Higgs boson in the H to ZZ to 2l 2nu decay channel, where l = e or mu, in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is presented. The data were collected at the LHC, with the CMS detector, and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 inverse femtobarns. No significant excess is observed above the background expectation, and upper limits are set on the Higgs boson production cross section. The presence of the standard model Higgs boson with a mass in the 270-440 GeV range is excluded at 95% confidence level.Comment: Submitted to JHE