Infraspecific variability in the flavonoid composition of Artemisia vulgaris L.

Surface flavonoid profiles in forty populations of Artemisia vulgaris L. (Asteraceae) were analyzed. The major constituents observed in the leaf exudates were methylated flavonoid aglycones based mainly on quercetin. Three infraspecific flavonoid chemotypes were determined, the chrysosplenetin (quercetagetin 3,6,7,3’-tetramethyl ether) chemotype, the artemetin (quercetagetin 3,6,7,3’,4’-pentamethyl ether) chemotype and chemotype without these two compounds. Most of the populations corresponded to these chemotypes

A Dynamic Programming Solution to Bounded Dejittering Problems

We propose a dynamic programming solution to image dejittering problems with bounded displacements and obtain efficient algorithms for the removal of line jitter, line pixel jitter, and pixel jitter.Comment: The final publication is available at link.springer.co

Knowledge production in consulting teams

The central thesis of this paper is that the production of knowledge in consulting teams can neither be understood as the result of an internal interaction between clients and consultants decoupled from the wider socio-political environment nor as externally determined by socially constructed industry recipes or management fashions detached from the cognitive uniqueness of the client-consultant team. Instead, we argue that knowledge production in consulting teams is intrinsically linked to the institutional environment that not only provides resources such as funding, manpower, or legitimacy but also offers cognitive feedback through which knowledge production is influenced. By applying the theory of self-organization to the knowledge production in consulting teams, we explain how consulting teams are structured by the socio-cultural environment and are structuring this environment to continue their work. The consulting team's knowledge is shaped and influenced by cognitive feedback loops that involve external collective actors such as the client organization, practice groups of consulting firms, the academic/professional community, and the general public who essentially become co-producers of consulting knowledge. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd

Fast image reconstruction algorithms combining half-quadratic regularization and preconditioning

We focus on image deconvolution and image reconstruction problems where a sought image is recovered from degraded observed data. The solution is defined to be the minimizer of an objective function combining a data-fidelity term and an edge-preserving, convex regularization term. Our objective is to speed up the calculation of the solution in a wide range of situations. To this end, we propose a method applying pertinent preconditioning to an adapted half-quadratic equivalent form of the objective function. The optimal solution is then found using an alternating minimization (AM) scheme. We focus specifically on Huber regularization. We exhibit the possibility of getting very fast calculations while preserving the edges in the solution. Preliminary numerical results are reported to illustrate the effectiveness of our method.published_or_final_versio

Leonid flashers—meteoroid impacts on the Moon

We examine the conditions under which optical impact flashes might be observable on the Moon’s disk during the times of annual meteor shower activity. Our attention is primarily directed towards the Leonid shower given the high probability that it will undergo repeated outburst activity during the next several years. The Leonid stream to Moon encounter geometry is discussed, and we find that the best probable times to perform optical surveys will be in 1999 and 2002. We estimate that a one kilogram Leonid meteoroid might produce a magnitude-2 optical transient on the Moon’s disk

ONE-DAY TREATMENT OF SHIGELLOSIS WITH CIPROFLOXACINE

The considerable epidemic potential of Shigelloses in extreme situations determines their socio-medical significance and therapeutic challenge. In the First Infectious Clinic, Department of Infectious Diseases and Epidemiology, Medical University of Varna, 30 patients aged between 18 and 51 years were administered ciprofloxacine at a dose of 500 mg twice daily for one day only. Their mean hospital stay was 7,48 ± 1,27 days long. The control group consisted of 24 age-matched patients treated with other chemotherapeutic drugs for 3-5 days which mean hospitalization was 8,04 ± 2,99 days long. In 27 ciprofloxacine-treated patients the clinical healing occurred on the third hospital day. The febrility disappeared and the stools normalized. The pathological  admixtures of mucus and blood disappeared until the third day. The authors conclude that the one-day treatment of shigellosis with ciprofloxacine is safe and effective. The short duration of the therapy reduces the isolation period. No side effects are observed at all

Stability of minimizers of regularized least squares objective functions i: study of the local behaviour, tech

Abstract. Many estimation problems amount to minimizing an objective function composed of a quadratic data-fidelity term and a general regularization term. It is widely accepted that the minimizers obtained using nonsmooth and/or nonconvex regularization terms are frequently good estimates. However, very few facts are known on the ways to control properties of these minimizers. This work is dedicated to the stability of the minimizers of such nonsmooth and/or nonconvex objective functions. It consists of two parts: in this part, we focus on general local minimizers, whereas in a second part, we derive results on global minimizers. Here we demonstrate that the data domain contains an open, dense subset whose elements give rise to local and global minimizers which are necessarily strict. Moreover, we show that the relevant minimizers are stable under variations of the data

Client-consultant interaction: Capturing social practices of professional service production

Based on the investigation of seven consultancy projects within an international technical consulting firm, we identify three major practices that characterize client-consultant interaction - shaping impressions, problem-solving, and negotiating expectations - and discuss their respective characteristics, activities, and contingencies. Our discussion of these practices provides not only a more differentiated picture of client-consultant interaction but also uncovers the critical role that clients play in these practices. Crown Copyright © 2009