Redefining the performing arts archive

This paper investigates representations of performance and the role of the archive. Notions of record and archive are critically investigated, raising questions about applying traditional archival definitions to the performing arts. Defining the nature of performances is at the root of all difficulties regarding their representation. Performances are live events, so for many people the idea of recording them for posterity is inappropriate. The challenge of creating and curating representations of an ephemeral art form are explored and performance-specific concepts of record and archive are posited. An open model of archives, encouraging multiple representations and allowing for creative reuse and reinterpretation to keep the spirit of the performance alive, is envisaged as the future of the performing arts archive

Fiat Chrysler’s story shows that manufacturing can be viableand successful in mature western economies

Is there a future for industry in Europe and North America? Giorgio Barba Navaretti and Gianmarco Ottaviano use the example of the newly merged transatlantic car-maker Fiat Chrysler to debunk a number of myths about the nature of manufacturing and its viability in the mature economies of the West

Dietary Nitrate: Effects on the health of weaning pigs and Antimicrobial activity on seven probiotic Bifidobacterium spp. strains

The potential role of nitrite as an antimicrobial substance in the stomach may be of some importance in the ecology of the gastrointestinal tract and in host physiology. It has been shown that nitrite, under the acidic conditions of the stomach, may kill gut pathogens like Salmonella enteritidis, Escherichia coli, Salmonella typhimurium, and Yersinia enterocolitica, whereas acid alone has only a bacteriostatic effect. An in vivo study was conducted in order to assess the effects of dietary nitrate on microbiota and on the health of the gut (particularly in the stomach and small intestine). 96 weaning pigs were fed a diet containing high nitrate levels (15 mg and 150 mg) and then challenged with Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium. Differences in composition of the gut microbiota were assessed by analysing samples from the pigs: To date analysis of 48 pigs has been completed.. Preliminary results demonstrated no effect on the population densities of microbial groups either from the challenge or from nitrate intake. However, increasing the time from challenge decreased either the counts of LAB in the stomach and jejunum or of clostridia in the stomach. Bifidobacteria also decreased in the stomach contents as nitrate supplementation increased. Supplementing the feedstuff with high dietary nitrate intake and then challenging with Salmonella did not affect the gastric pH or the degree of ulceration in the pigs. The synergistic bactericidal effects of pH, nitrite and thiocyanate on seven probiotic Bifidobacterium spp. strains were also investigated in an in vitro study. The results of the in vitro study demonstrated that an inhibitory effect exists on the seven probiotic bifidobacteria investigated with an exposure longer than 2 hours and pH values < 5.0. Addition of thiocyanate also increased the susceptibility of the tested strains. In this in vitro study, the most resistant strains at all conditions were B. animalis subsp. lactis Ra 18 and P32 and B. choerinum Su 877, Su 837 and Su 891

Biomolecular electrostatics using a fast multipole BEM on up to 512 GPUs and a billion unknowns

We present teraflop-scale calculations of biomolecular electrostatics enabled by the combination of algorithmic and hardware acceleration. The algorithmic acceleration is achieved with the fast multipole method (FMM) in conjunction with a boundary element method (BEM) formulation of the continuum electrostatic model, as well as the BIBEE approximation to BEM. The hardware acceleration is achieved through graphics processors, GPUs. We demonstrate the power of our algorithms and software for the calculation of the electrostatic interactions between biological molecules in solution. The applications demonstrated include the electrostatics of protein--drug binding and several multi-million atom systems consisting of hundreds to thousands of copies of lysozyme molecules. The parallel scalability of the software was studied in a cluster at the Nagasaki Advanced Computing Center, using 128 nodes, each with 4 GPUs. Delicate tuning has resulted in strong scaling with parallel efficiency of 0.8 for 256 and 0.5 for 512 GPUs. The largest application run, with over 20 million atoms and one billion unknowns, required only one minute on 512 GPUs. We are currently adapting our BEM software to solve the linearized Poisson-Boltzmann equation for dilute ionic solutions, and it is also designed to be flexible enough to be extended for a variety of integral equation problems, ranging from Poisson problems to Helmholtz problems in electromagnetics and acoustics to high Reynolds number flow

The Spitzer Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud: Discovery of Embedded Protostars in the HII Region NGC 346

We use Spitzer Space Telescope observations from the Spitzer Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud (S3MC) to study the young stellar content of N66, the largest and brightest HII region in the SMC. In addition to large numbers of normal stars, we detect a significant population of bright, red infrared sources that we identify as likely to be young stellar objects (YSOs). We use spectral energy distribution (SED) fits to classify objects as ordinary (main sequence or red giant) stars, asymptotic giant branch stars, background galaxies, and YSOs. This represents the first large-scale attempt at blind source classification based on Spitzer SEDs in another galaxy. We firmly identify at least 61 YSOs, with another 50 probable YSOs; only one embedded protostar in the SMC was reported in the literature prior to the S3MC. We present color selection criteria that can be used to identify a relatively clean sample of YSOs with IRAC photometry. Our fitted SEDs indicate that the infrared-bright YSOs in N66 have stellar masses ranging from 2 Msun to 17 Msun, and that approximately half of the objects are Stage II protostars, with the remaining YSOs roughly evenly divided between Stage I and Stage III sources. We find evidence for primordial mass segregation in the HII region, with the most massive YSOs being preferentially closer to the center than lower-mass objects. Despite the low metallicity and dust content of the SMC, the observable properties of the YSOs appear consistent with those in the Milky Way. Although the YSOs are heavily concentrated within the optically bright central region of N66, there is ongoing star formation throughout the complex and we place a lower limit on the star formation rate of 3.2 x 10^-3 Msun/yr over the last ~1 Myr.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures (3 in color), 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap

A Source Identification Problem for the Electrical Activity of Brain During Hand Movement

A field source reconstruction of the dipoles modeling the activated area of the brain, while a subject performs the task of the voluntary motion of the hand, is solved. Experimental data resulting from fMRI are used for constraining the position of the equivalent dipole

Spanning Properties of Theta-Theta Graphs

We study the spanning properties of Theta-Theta graphs. Similar in spirit with the Yao-Yao graphs, Theta-Theta graphs partition the space around each vertex into a set of k cones, for some fixed integer k > 1, and select at most one edge per cone. The difference is in the way edges are selected. Yao-Yao graphs select an edge of minimum length, whereas Theta-Theta graphs select an edge of minimum orthogonal projection onto the cone bisector. It has been established that the Yao-Yao graphs with parameter k = 6k' have spanning ratio 11.67, for k' >= 6. In this paper we establish a first spanning ratio of $7.82$ for Theta-Theta graphs, for the same values of $k$. We also extend the class of Theta-Theta spanners with parameter 6k', and establish a spanning ratio of $16.76$ for k' >= 5. We surmise that these stronger results are mainly due to a tighter analysis in this paper, rather than Theta-Theta being superior to Yao-Yao as a spanner. We also show that the spanning ratio of Theta-Theta graphs decreases to 4.64 as k' increases to 8. These are the first results on the spanning properties of Theta-Theta graphs.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, 3 table