Variable order integrators for the numerical solution of ordinary differential equations

Series of computer subroutines integrates systems of ordinary differential equations and is used for numerical quadrature

Multi-dimensional real Fourier transform

Four subroutines compute one-dimensional and multi-dimensional Fourier transforms for real data, multi-dimensional complex Fourier transforms, and multi-dimensional sine, cosine and sine-cosine transforms. Subroutines use Cooley-Tukey fast Fourier transform. In all but one-dimensional case, transforms are calculated in up to six dimensions

High precision U-PB geochronology and implications for the tectonic evolution of the Superior Province

The underlying mechanisms of Archean tectonics and the degree to which modern plate tectonic models are applicable early in Earth's history continue to be a subject of considerable debate. A precise knowledge of the timing of geological events is of the utmost importance in studying this problem. The high precision U-Pb method has been applied in recent years to rock units in many areas of the Superior Province. Most of these data have precisions of about + or - 2-3 Ma. The resulting detailed chronologies of local igneous development and the regional age relationships furnish tight constraints on any Archean tectonic model. Superior province terrains can be classified into 3 types: (1) low grade areas dominated by meta-volcanic rocks (greenstone belts); (2) high grade, largely metaplutonic areas with abundant orthogneiss and foliated to massive I-type granitoid bodies; and (3) high grade areas with abundant metasediments, paragneiss and S-type plutons. Most of the U-Pb age determinations have been done on type 1 terrains with very few having been done in type 3 terrains. A compilation of over 120 ages indicates that the major part of igneous activity took place in the period 2760-2670 Ma, known as the Kenoran event. This event was ubiquitous throughout the Superior Province

U-Pb isotopic results for single shocked and polycrystalline zircons record 550-65.5-Ma ages for a K-T target site and 2700-1850-Ma ages for the Sudbury impact event

The refractory mineral zircon develops distinct morphological features during shock metamorphism and retains these features under conditions that would anneal them in other minerals. In addition, weakly shocked zircon grains give primary ages for the impact site, while highly reconstituted (polycrystalline) single grains give ages that approach the age of the impact event. Data for a series of originally coeval grains will define a mixing line that gives both of these ages providing that no subsequent geological disturbances have overprinted the isotopic systematics. In this study, we have shown that the three zircon grain types described by Bohor, from both K-T distal ejecta (Fireball layer, Raton Basin, Colorado) and the Onaping Formation, represent a progressive increase in impact-related morphological change that coincides with a progressive increase in isotopic resetting in zircons from the ejecta and basement rocks. Unshocked grains are least affected by isotopic resetting while polycrystalline grains are most affected. U-Pb isotopic results for 12 of 14 single zircon grains from the Fireball layer plot on or close to a line recording a primary age of 550 +/- 10 Ma and a secondary age of 65.5 +/- 3 Ma. Data for the least and most shocked grains plot closest to the primary and secondary ages respectively. The two other grains each give ages between 300 and 350 Ma. This implies that the target ejecta was dominated by 550-Ma rocks and that the recrystallization features of the zircon were superimposed during the impact event at 65.5 Ma. A predominant age of 550 Ma for zircons from the Fireball layer provides an excellent opportunity to identify the impact site and to test the hypothesis that multiple impacts occurred at this time. A volcanic origin for the Fireball layer is ruled out by shock-related morphological changes in zircon and the fact that the least shocked grains are old. Basement Levack gneisses north of the Sudbury structure have a primary age of 2711 Ma. Data for three single zircons from this rock, which record a progressive increase in shock features, are displaced 24, 36, and 45 percent along a Pb-loss line toward the 1850 +/- 1 Ma minimum age for the impact as defined by the age of the norite. Southeast of the structure three shocked grains from the Murray granite record a primary age of 2468 Ma and are displaced 24, 41, and 56 percent toward the 1853 +/- 4 Ma even as defined by coexisting titanite

Basic linear algebra subprograms for FORTRAN usage

A package of 38 low level subprograms for many of the basic operations of numerical linear algebra is presented. The package is intended to be used with FORTRAN. The operations in the package are dot products, elementary vector operations, Givens transformations, vector copy and swap, vector norms, vector scaling, and the indices of components of largest magnitude. The subprograms and a test driver are available in portable FORTRAN. Versions of the subprograms are also provided in assembly language for the IBM 360/67, the CDC 6600 and CDC 7600, and the Univac 1108

Measurement of the Dielectric Strength of Titanium Dioxide Ceramics

Titanium dioxide ceramics (TiO2) are candidate materials for high energy density pulsed power devices. Experiments to quantify the dielectric strength of TiO2 have been performed on a limited number of unoptimized samples. A high voltage test set was constructed to test the titanium dioxide. All samples had a relative dielectric constant of 100, all samples were of 3 mm nominal thickness, and all tests were performed in water dielectric to reduce the effect of the triple point field enhancement at the electrode edge. Both single layer and laminated samples were tested and the breakdown field strengths were recorded. Voltage risetimes varied slightly around 400 ns depending upon the size of the test sample area. Areas varied from \u3c 0.2 cm^2 to \u3e 100 cm^2. Both single layer and laminated material showed a strong area effect where the dielectric strength dropped off as area to the -0.17 and -0.1 power respectively. Effective areas of the electrodes were calculated using a field solver program. Breakdown field strengths varied from 469 kV/cm to 124 kV/cm in the single layer specimens, and from 556 kV/cm to 261 kV/cm in the laminates over an increasing area range. Energy density calculations for the material show that at areas of approximately 100 cm^2 the laminates can store nearly 3 times more energy than single layers

Nonperturbative dynamics for abstract (p,q) string networks

We describe abstract (p,q) string networks which are the string networks of Sen without the information about their embedding in a background spacetime. The non-perturbative dynamical formulation invented for spin networks, in terms of causal evolution of dual triangulations, is applied to them. The formal transition amplitudes are sums over discrete causal histories that evolve (p,q) string networks. The dynamics depend on two free SL(2,Z) invariant functions which describe the amplitudes for the local evolution moves.Comment: Latex, 12 pages, epsfig, 7 figures, minor change

MiRNA-513a-5p inhibits progesterone receptor expression and constitutes a risk factor for breast cancer : The hOrmone and Diet in the ETiology of breast cancer prospective study

report was to investigate whether many years before the diagnosis of breast cancer miRNA expression is already disregulated. In order to test this hypothesis, we compared miRNAs extracted from leukocytes in healthy women who later developed breast cancer and in women who remain healthy during the whole 15-year follow-up time. Accordantly, we used a case-control study design nested in the hOrmone and Diet in the ETiology of breast cancer (ORDET) prospective cohort study addressing the possibility that miRNAs can serve as both early biomarkers and components of the hormonal etiological pathways leading to breast cancer development in premenopausal women. We compared leukocyte miRNA profiles of 191 incident premenopausal breast cancer cases and profiles of 191 women who remained healthy over a follow-up period of 20 years. The analysis identified 20 differentially expressed miRNAs in women candidate to develop breast cancer versus control women. The upregulated miRNAs, miR-513-a-5p, miR- 513b-5p and miR-513c-5p were among the most significantly deregulated miRNAs. In multivariate analysis, miR-513a-5p upregulation was directly and statistically significant associated with breast cancer risk (OR = 1.69; 95% CI 1.08-2.64; P = 0.0293). In addition, the upregulation of miR-513-a-5p displayed the strongest direct association with serum progesterone and testosterone levels. The experimental data corroborated the inhibitory function of miR-513a-5p on progesterone receptor expression confirming that progesterone receptor is a target of miR-513a-5p. The identification of upregulated miR-513a-5p with its oncogenic potential further validates the use of miRNAs as long-term biomarker of breast cancer risk

Comparative Methods for Gene Structure Prediction in Homologous Sequences

The increasing number of sequenced genomes motivates the use of evolutionary patterns to detect genes. We present a series of comparative methods for gene finding in homologous prokaryotic or eukaryotic sequences. Based on a model of legal genes and a similarity measure between genes, we find the pair of legal genes of maximum similarity. We develop methods based on genes models and alignment based similarity measures of increasing complexity, which take into account many details of real gene structures, e.g. the similarity of the proteins encoded by the exons. When using a similarity measure based on an exiting alignment, the methods run in linear time. When integrating the alignment and prediction process which allows for more fine grained similarity measures, the methods run in quadratic time. We evaluate the methods in a series of experiments on synthetic and real sequence data, which show that all methods are competitive but that taking the similarity of the encoded proteins into account really boost the performance

Between and within-herd variation in blood and milk biomarkers in Holstein cows in early lactation

Both blood- and milk-based biomarkers have been analysed for decades in research settings, although often only in one herd, and without focus on the variation in the biomarkers that are specifically related to herd or diet. Biomarkers can be used to detect physiological imbalance and disease risk and may have a role in precision livestock farming (PLF). For use in PLF, it is important to quantify normal variation in specific biomarkers and the source of this variation. The objective of this study was to estimate the between- and within-herd variation in a number of blood metabolites (β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), non-esterified fatty acids, glucose and serum IGF-1), milk metabolites (free glucose, glucose-6-phosphate, urea, isocitrate, BHB and uric acid), milk enzymes (lactate dehydrogenase and N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminidase (NAGase)) and composite indicators for metabolic imbalances (Physiological Imbalance-index and energy balance), to help facilitate their adoption within PLF. Blood and milk were sampled from 234 Holstein dairy cows from 6 experimental herds, each in a different European country, and offered a total of 10 different diets. Blood was sampled on 2 occasions at approximately 14 days-in-milk (DIM) and 35 DIM. Milk samples were collected twice weekly (in total 2750 samples) from DIM 1 to 50. Multilevel random regression models were used to estimate the variance components and to calculate the intraclass correlations (ICCs). The ICCs for the milk metabolites, when adjusted for parity and DIM at sampling, demonstrated that between 12% (glucose-6-phosphate) and 46% (urea) of the variation in the metabolites’ levels could be associated with the herd-diet combination. Intraclass Correlations related to the herd-diet combination were generally higher for blood metabolites, from 17% (cholesterol) to approximately 46% (BHB and urea). The high ICCs for urea suggest that this biomarker can be used for monitoring on herd level. The low variance within cow for NAGase indicates that few samples would be needed to describe the status and potentially a general reference value could be used. The low ICC for most of the biomarkers and larger within cow variation emphasises that multiple samples would be needed - most likely on the individual cows - for making the biomarkers useful for monitoring. The majority of biomarkers were influenced by parity and DIM which indicate that these should be accounted for if the biomarker should be used for monitoring