Pin&Play: the surface as network medium

Integrating appliances in the home through a wired network often proves to be impractical: routing cables is usually difficult, changing the network structure afterward even more so, and portable devices can only be connected at fixed connection points. Wireless networks are not the answer either: batteries have to be regularly replaced or changed, and what they add to the device's size and weight might be disproportionate for smaller appliances. In Pin&Play, we explore a design space in between typical wired and wireless networks, investigating the use of surfaces to network objects that are attached to it. This article gives an overview of the network model, and describes functioning prototypes that were built as a proof of concept.     

The effect of a split in WAIS-R VIQ and PIQ scores on patients with cognitive impairment and psychiatric illness

To determine the most effective treatment for acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans, several clinical trials were undertaken in recent years to evaluate whether a 2-week course of ceftriaxone would be superior to oral antibiotics. Of the 46 patients suffering from acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans, 14 were treated with ceftriaxone 2g for 15 days. The remaining patients received either oral penicillin V 1.5 million IU t.i.d. or doxycycline 100 mg b.i.d. for 20 to 30 days. Patients were followed up for at least 1 year. Of the 14 ceftriaxone-treated patients four showed incomplete regression of the inflammatory skin changes after 6 to 12 months. Two out of five patients who were monitored for Borrelia burgdorferi DNA excretion were still positive after 12 months as compared to none of six patients who were treated orally for 20-30 days. Six out of 11 patients treated orally for only 20 days needed retreatment after 6 months because of continuing skin manifestations, neuropathy or arthralgia. A 30-day duration of treatment with oral antibiotics and not the chosen antibiotic is crucial for curing acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans. The duration of treatment with ceftriaxone needed for eradication of Borrelia in acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans has yet to be determined in future studies.     

Localization of interferon-gamma and Ia-antigen in T cell line-mediated experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis

This study reports the cellular localization of interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) and MHC class II antigen (Ia) in the spinal cord of rats with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis induced by adoptive transfer of myelin basic protein-specific T cells. Numerous IFN-gamma-positive cells, stained with two different monoclonal antibodies against IFN-gamma, were present from days 3 to 7 after cell transfer. Their number was greatly reduced on day 10. A subpopulation of T cells was IFN-gamma positive. Moreover, a large number of ED1-positive macrophages contained IFN-gamma immunoreactivity. The transient presence of immune cells containing IFN-gamma immunoreactivity in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis suggests a pathogenic role of this cytokine in immune-mediated demyelination of the central nervous system.     

Estimates of the dollar value of employee output in utility analyses: An empirical test of two theories.

Examined distributions of estimates of the dollar value of performance in studies employing the method of F. L. Schmidt et al (1979) for estimating the standard deviation of job performance (SDy) and found evidence that (1) the mean 50th percentile estimate is biased downward, (2) estimates of SDy appear to be a constant percentage of the 50th percentile estimate, and (3) estimates of SDy as a percentage of the 50th percentile value (SDp) are quite similar to empirical SDp values based on actual employee output. These findings suggest that the downward bias in the mean estimate of the 50th percentile causes the mean estimates of SDy to be similarly biased downward, but does not bias the estimates of SDp. Finally, an objective method for estimating the value of average employee output is described. The product of this value and the mean supervisory estimate of SDp yields an unbiased estimate of SDy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

N.m.r. study of the ferroelectric phase transition in a 7030mol% copolymer of vinylidene fluoride (VF2) and trifluoroethylene (TrFE)

Nuclear magnetic resonance (n.m.r.) studies of ¹⁹F nuclei in a $\text{70}\text{30}\text{mol}\text{\%}$ random copolymer of vinylidene fluoride and trifluoroethylene were performed at 9.14 MHz and 20.0 MHz. The free induction decays (FIDs) were analysed in terms of two T₂ components attributed to the amorphous and crystalline portions of the polymer. The changes in crystallinity as well as the effects of the ferroelectric transition were observed during cycles of heating and cooling between 20°C and 140°C. The crystalline component of the FID lengthens by a factor of 2 at 100°C on heating and decreases by this factor at 60°C on cooling, thus exhibiting the thermal hysteresis of this ferroelectric transition. The spin-lattice relaxation was also investigated. From measurements at 9.14 MHz the observed longitudinal relaxation time T₁ appears to be dominated by the dynamics of the amorphous phase and exhibits no anomaly through the phase transition. However, from measurements at 20 MHz, well defined minima of T₁ were observed, which are associated with the ferroelectric transition (especially after repeated annealing of the samples). Results are discussed in terms of the crystalline phase structure, which appears dynamically disordered above the ferroelectric phase transition. An analogy is considered with the plastic phase transitions encountered in molecular crystals.     

Parallel Pattern-Based Systems for Computational Biology: A Case Study

Computational biology research is now faced with the burgeoning number of genome data. The rigorous postprocessing of this data requires an increased role for high-performance computing (HPC). Because the development of HPC applications for computational biology problems is much more complex than the corresponding sequential applications, existing traditional programming techniques have demonstrated their inadequacy. Many high level programming techniques, such as skeleton and pattern-based programming, have therefore been designed to provide users new ways to get HPC applications without much effort. However, most of them remain absent from the mainstream practice for computational biology. In this paper, we present a new parallel pattern-based system prototype for computational biology. The underlying programming techniques are based on generic programming, a programming technique suited for the generic representation of abstract concepts. This allows the system to be built in a generic way at application level and, thus, provides good extensibility and flexibility. We show how this system can be used to develop HPC applications for popular computational biology algorithms and lead to significant runtime savings on distributed memory architectures.