The day of the week when you were born in 700 ms: Calendar computation in an autistic savant.

Some individuals are able to determine the weekday of a given date in a few seconds (finding for instance that June 12, 1900, was a Tuesday). This ability has fascinated scientists for many years because it is predominantly observed in people with limited intelligence and may appear very early in life. Exceptional visual memory, exceptional concentration abilities, or privileged access to lower levels of information not normally available through introspection have been advanced to explain such phenomena. In the present article, the authors show that a simple cognitive model can explain all aspects of the performance of Donny, a young autistic savant who is possibly the fastest and most accurate calendar prodigy ever described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Synthesis and thermal stability of ball-milled and melt-quenched amorphous and nanostructured Al-Ni-Nd-Co alloys

In this work the Al₈₅Ni₉Nd₄Co₂ alloy was used as a starting point for examining the possibility of forming bulk glassy Al-based materials by combining rapid quenching and ball milling techniques. Fine glassy powders were obtained by ball milling melt-spun amorphous ribbons using a severe cryogenic processing regime. The thermal stability data of the powders as obtained by constant-rate heating and isothermal DSC experiments together with viscosity measurements are discussed with respect to feasible consolidation conditions. The powder compaction was done by two methods (uni-axial hot pressing and extrusion) at 513 K for up to 15 min. Only the uni-axial hot pressing led to bulk Al₈₅Ni₉Nd₄Co₂ samples with similar glassy structure and Vickers microhardness values comparable to those of the initial melt-spun ribbons.     

The Metaflow architecture

The Metaflow architecture, a unified approach to maximizing the performance of superscalar microprocessors, is introduced. The Metaflow architecture exploits inherent instruction-level parallelism in conventional sequential programs by hardware means, without relying on optimizing compilers. It is based on a unified structure, the DRIS (deferred-scheduling, register-renaming instruction shelf), that manages out-of-order execution and most of the attendant problems. Coupling the DRIS with a speculative-execution mechanism that avoids conditional branch stalls results in performance limited only be inherent instruction-level parallelism and available execution resources. Although presented in the context of superscalar machines, the technique is equally applicable to a superpipelined implementation. Lightning, the first implementation of the Metaflow architecture, which executes the Sparc RISC instruction set is described     

The High Field Project at Dresden/Rossendorf: A Pulsed 100 T/10 ms Laboratory at an Infrared Free-Electron-Laser Facility

This article describes the project to build a pulsed magnetic field user laboratory at the Forschungszentrum Rossendorf near Dresden. Using a 50 MJ/24 kV capacitor bank, pulsed fields and rise times of 100 T/10 ms, 70 T/100 ms, and 60 T/1 s should be achieved. The laboratory will be built next to a free-electron-laser-facility for the middle and far infrared (5 to 150 µm, 2 ps, cw). We describe the work which has been performed until now to start the construction of the laboratory in 2003: coil concepts and computer simulations, materials development for the high field coils, and design of the capacitor bank modules. In addition, a pilot laboratory has been set up where fields up to 62 T/15 ms have been obtained with a 1 MJ/10 kV capacitor module. It is used to gain experience in the operation of such a facility and to test various parts of it. In this test laboratory special devices have been developed for measurements of magnetization and magnetoresistance, and have been successfully used to investigate various materials including semiconductors and Heavy Fermion compounds. In particular, metamagnetic transitions in intermetallic compounds and the irreversibility field of a high-T _c superconductor have been determined. Shubnikov–de Haas oscillations have been observed in the semimetallic compound CeBiPt. Resistance relaxation has been observed to start less than 1second after the field pulse. It could be shown for the first time that nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is detectable in pulsed fields.     

Impact-induced delayed detonation in an energetic material debris bubble formed at an air gap

A planar model of a rocket motor has been developed that allows reaction in a central bore perforated by a projectile to be viewed with high-speed photography. Earlier work with this model showed that a “bubble” of propellant debris forms in the air gap between energetic material layers (bore region) as a result of projectile penetration of one of the layers. Ignition of the bubble occurs upon impact with the second layer, followed by a reaction ranging from mild burning to delayed delonation, depending on the width of the air gap, properties of the energetic material, and degree of confinement. The present paper presents the results of experimental and hydrocode studies to characterize the latter (delayed detonation) reaction. Results show that reaction initiates in the frontal portion of the bubble wall through mechanical (impact) shock. It then propagates backward through the bubble wall towards the first layer which then detonates. Detonation of the second layer occurs sympathetically. The reaction is bounded by a lower velocity limit and confined within a range of air gaps that increases with impact velocity. The upper-air-gap limit roughly coincides with the maximum expansion distance for the bubble before breakup, while the lower limit represents the minimum (threshold) damage level for detonation.     

Autoxidation of ubiquinol-6 is independent of superoxide dismutase

Ubiquinone (Q) is an essential, lipid soluble, redox component of the mitochondrial respiratory chain. Much evidence suggests that ubiquinol (QH2) functions as an effective antioxidant in a number of membrane and biological systems by preventing peroxidative damage to lipids. It has been proposed that superoxide dismutase (SOD) may protect QH2 form autoxidation by acting either directly as a superoxide-semiquinone oxidoreductase or indirectly by scavenging superoxide. In this study, such an interaction between QH2 and SOD was tested by monitoring the fluorescence of cis-parinaric acid (cPN) incorporated phosphatidylcholine (PC) liposomes. Q6H2 was found to prevent both fluorescence decay and generation of lipid peroxides (LOOH) when peroxidation was initiated by the lipid-soluble azo initiator DAMP, dimethyl 2,2'-azobis (2-methylpropionate), while Q6 or SOD alone had no inhibitory effect. Addition of either SOD or catalase to Q6H2-containing liposomes had little effect on the rate of peroxidation even when incubated in 100% O2. Hence, the autoxidation of QH2 is a competing reaction that reduces the effectiveness of QH2 as an antioxidant and was not slowed by either SOD or catalase. The in vivo interaction of SOD and QH2 was also tested by employing yeast mutant strains harboring deletions in either CuZnSOD and/or MnSOD. The sod mutant yeast strains contained the same percent Q6H2 per cell as wild-type cells. These results indicate that the autoxidation of QH2 is independent of SOD.     

What is health promotion?

With change abounding in Canada's health care system, nurses must redefine their roles. One role is in health promotion, a field where nurses have created a unique identity for themselves. But before advocating, the concept must be fully understood.     

Flexible speech translation systems

Speech translation research has made significant progress over the years with many high-visibility efforts showing that translation of spontaneously spoken speech from and to diverse languages is possible and applicable in a variety of domains. As language and domains continue to expand, practical concerns such as portability and reconfigurability of speech come into play: system maintenance becomes a key issue and data is never sufficient to cover the changing domains over varying languages. In this paper, we discuss strategies to overcome the limits of today's speech translation systems. In the first part, we describe our layered system architecture that allows for easy component integration, resource sharing across components, comparison of alternative approaches, and the migration toward hybrid desktop/PDA or stand-alone PDA systems. In the second part, we show how flexibility and reconfigurability is implemented by more radically relying on learning approaches and use our English-Thai two-way speech translation system as a concrete example.     

Prototype implementation of an assembly system for tissue engineered constructs

In the course of the research described in this paper a prototype assembly system for the automated fabrication of customized, biodegradable bone implants for tissue engineering applications has been developed. This work is part of a collaborative effort between the Handling Laboratory (hLab) of Fachhochschule Vorarlberg and the Bone Tissue Engineering Center (BETC) of Carnegie Mellon University. Bone implants are built up using thin layers of highly porous, biodegradable polymer scaffold materials. These layers can be seeded with cells prior to assembly. The main focus of this work is robotic handling of the prefabricated polymer layers. Additional components that are addressed include the cutting of contoured polymer layers from sheetstock and the assembly of the 21/2 dimensional layers to form 3D bone implants. Cutting tests have been performed to assess different cutting technologies. Assembly tests with mechanical connectors and fibrin adhesive have also been conducted. These components are integrated within a robot cell to demonstrate overall system feasibility.     

Long-term effect of perinatal and postnatal asphyxia on developing human auditory brainstem responses: peripheral hearing loss

Peripheral hearing was assessed by examining brainstem auditory evoked responses (BAER) in children who suffered perinatal or postnatal asphyxia, particularly in those with residual neurodevelopmental deficits, to investigate the long-term effect of asphyxia on the developing auditory sensitivity. The BAER data were collected at least 6 months after the episode of asphyxia. Of the children who suffered perinatal asphyxia, hearing loss was found more frequently in those who exhibited residual neurodevelopmental deficits (17.1%) than in those who did not (6.3%), but this difference did not reach statistical significance. This implied that the long-term effect of perinatal asphyxia on the peripheral auditory system and its effect on the central nervous system may be relatively discrete or not closely correlated. The occurrence of hearing loss did not appear to be closely related to the degree of perinatal asphyxia, although hearing loss occurred more frequently in the children after severe asphyxia compared to those after mild asphyxia. There was no evidence for permanent hearing loss in the children who survived severe, prolonged postnatal asphyxia and exhibited residual neurodevelopmental deficits. These findings suggest that a critical period of particular sensitivity to the effect of hypoxia may exist during the development of the human peripheral auditory system. This period may range from some time prenatally to some time shortly after birth, probably the third postnatal month. After that, hypoxia is unlikely to lead to permanent hearing loss.