A Fair Allocation of County Cricket Opponents

Each team in the English County Cricket Championship plays against some other teams twice a year, and others only once. This paper describes a case study whose aim was to overcome this inherent unfairness by producing a four-year schedule of opponents which was as fair as possible, and could be easily seen to be fair, while still allowing for traditional rivalries. The schedule also needed to be satisfactory in regard to several other constraints and objectives. Various simple heuristics were used; these are described in some detail. Of particular interest is the effectiveness of a ‘local non-worsening’ approach when the objective is to find any feasible solution. This is equivalent to simulated annealing at a constant temperature of absolute zero.     

The sense of smell,its signalling pathways,and the dichotomy of cilia and microvilli in olfactory sensory cells

Smell is often regarded as an ancillary perception in primates, who seem so dominated by their sense of vision. In this paper, we will portray some aspects of the significance of olfaction to human life and speculate on what evolutionary factors contribute to keeping it alive. We then outline the functional architecture of olfactory sensory neurons and their signal transduction pathways, which are the primary detectors that render olfactory perception possible. Throughout the phylogenetic tree, olfactory neurons, at their apical tip, are either decorated with cilia or with microvilli. The significance of this dichotomy is unknown. It is generally assumed that mammalian olfactory neurons are of the ciliary type only. The existence of so-called olfactory microvillar cells in mammals, however, is well documented, but their nature remains unclear and their function orphaned. This paper discusses the possibility, that in the main olfactory epithelium of mammals ciliated and microvillar sensory cells exist concurrently. We review evidence related to this hypothesis and ask, what function olfactory microvillar cells might have and what signalling mechanisms they use.     

Temperature Dependence for Fluorescence of β-NADH in Glycerol/Water Solution and in Trehalose/Sucrose Glass

Fluorescence imaging of cells and tissue can be used to evaluate β-NADH redox and location. At low temperature, β-NADH fluorescence intensity increases and therefore sensitivity of imaging increases. In this paper, the temperature dependence of fluorescence was evaluated for β-NADH in glycerol/water solution and in trehalose/sucrose glass. The average fluorescence lifetime for NADH in glycerol/water is 0.66 ns, compared with 5.3 ns in trehalose/ sucrose at 20°C. Emission spectra were recorded from 290 to 12 K. The fluorescence of β-NADH in glycerol/water increases ∼16 fold and the emission shifts about 35 nm to the blue as temperature decreases. Much smaller change is seen for fluorescence of β-NADH in sugar glass. Below 77 K, the β-NADH spectral features did not change significantly with temperature change, and so no increase in sensitivity is obtained by going to very low temperatures. It is suggested that the sensitivity of β-NADH fluorescence is related to water relaxation around the excited state molecule. Differences in water in various tissues may contribute to β-NADH fluorescence changes when cells are altered.     

Subwavelength-resolution near-field Raman spectroscopy

The resolution capabilities of near-field Raman spectroscopy based on a giant enhancement of the electric field near a nanosized metal probe are studied. As a test sample, bundles of single-walled carbon nanotubes deposited on glass substrates are used. It is shown that this method ensures a subwavelength spatial resolution of about 50 nm and demonstrates a Raman scattering enhancement of the order of 10⁴.     

A convergent star product for linear Poisson structures

An explicit star product ⋆ _α ^Γ on the dual of a general Lie algebra equipped with the linear Poisson bracket is constructed. An equivalence operator between this star product and the Kontsevich star product in [K₁] is given and diverse properties of the star product ⋆ _α ^Γ are studied. It is also proved that the star product ⋆ _α ^Γ provides a convergent deformation quantization in the sense of Rieffel [R₁].     

Microporated PEG Spheres for Fluorescent Analyte Detection

Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogels have been used to encapsulate fluorescently labeled molecules in order to detect a variety of analytes. The hydrogels are designed with a mesh size that will retain the sensing elements while allowing for efficient diffusion of small analytes. Some sensing assays, however, require a conformational change or binding of large macromolecules, which may be sterically prohibited in a dense polymer matrix. A process of hydrogel microporation has been developed to create cavities within PEG microspheres to contain the assay components in solution. This arrangement provides improved motility for large sensing elements, while limiting leaching and increasing sensor lifetime. Three hydrogel compositions, 100% PEG, 50% PEG, and microporated 100% PEG, were used to create pH-sensitive microspheres that were tested for response time and stability. In order to assess motility, a second, more complex sensor, namely a FITC-dextran/TRITC-Con A glucose-specific assay was encapsulated within the microspheres.     

Evidence for a wide extra-astrocytic distribution of S100B in human brain

Background  

S100B is considered an astrocytic in-situ marker and protein levels in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) or serum are often used as biomarker for astrocytic damage or dysfunction. However, studies on S100B in the human brain are rare. Thus, the distribution of S100B was studied by immunohistochemistry in adult human brains to evaluate its cell-type specificity.     

10-GHz Optical Comb in L-Band Region With Brillouin/Erbium-Doped Fibre Laser

A multiwavelength Brillouin/erbium fibre laser (BEFL) which operates in the long wavelength (L-band) region is demonstrated for potential applications in an L-band wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) communication system. The laser configuration consists of a long erbium-doped fibre to enable L-band amplification where two 3-dB couplers take a portion of the generated BEFL signal and re-inject it into the single mode fibre to seed a cascaded BEFL line in the same direction as the first BEFL line. A stable and strong laser comb of up to five lines with 10-GHz spacing has been obtained with a Brillouin pump (BP) of 9.2 mW and a 980 nm pump of 92 mW. The BEFL has shown a broad tuning range with a tuning characteristic for line #1 which is flat over a range greater than 9.9 nm.     

Improved search for $B_{s}^{0} - \overline{B}_{s}^{0}$ oscillations

An improved search for B _s ⁰ oscillations is performed in the ALEPH data sample collected during the first phase of LEP, and reprocessed in 1998. Three analyses based on complementary event selections are presented. First, decays of B _s ⁰ mesons into hadronic flavour eigenstates are fully reconstructed. This selection yields a small sample of candidates with excellent decay length and momentum resolution and hi gh average B _s ⁰ purity. Semileptonic decays with a reconstructed D _s ^- meson provide a second sample with larger statistics, high average B _s ⁰ purity, but a poorer momentum and decay length resolution due to the partial decay reconstruction. Finally, semileptonic b-hadron decays are inclusively selected and yield the data sample with the highest sensitivity to B _s ⁰ oscillations, as the much higher statistics compensate for the low average B _s ⁰ purity and poorer time resolution. A lower limit is set atps^-1 at 95% C.L., significantly lower than the expected limit of 15.2 ps^-1. Received: 21 February 2003 / Published online: 11 June 2003