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Madagascar does not have native wild felid species; however, distinct populations of free-ranging “forest cats” of unknown species are known throughout the island, including at Ankarafantsika National Park, Bezà Mahafaly Special Reserve, Makira Natural Park and the Masoala peninsula. Malagasy “forest cats” are commonly considered invasive lemur predators and competitors with endemic carnivores as well as a nuisance exotic species that kill poultry. These cats may be descendants of African wildcats, European wildcats and/or domestic cats; however, no research on their genetic origin has been published. To determine their taxonomic status, genetic data from short tandem repeat markers was assessed for three wild-caught “forest cats” from the Bezà Mahafaly Special Reserve (BMSR) and 27 “forest cats” from Ankarafantsika National Park. Bayesian analyses comparing the Malagasy “forest cats” to approximately 1900 domestic and wildcat sub-species suggest the Malagasy cats are descendents of domestic cats from the Arabian Sea region, including the islands of Lamu and Pate, Dubai, Kuwait and Oman. Additional genetic influences may descend from India and Pakistan. Combined with cultural and historical information, these data suggest that these felid populations are likely descendents from cats that immigrated to the island on trade ships, particularly along early Arab trade routes.

Epiphytic lichen and bryophyte distribution and frequency were investigated on the trunks of 145 young oak trees throughout London and surrounding counties, and compared with pollution levels and bark pH. Sixty-four lichen and four bryophyte species were recorded. Three major zones were identified: (i) two central regions with a few lichens, bryophytes absent; (ii) a surrounding region with a more diverse flora including a high cover of nitrophyte lichens; and (iii) an outer region, characterised by species absent from central London, including acidophytes. Nineteen species were correlated with nitrogen oxides and 16 with bark pH, suggesting that transport-related pollution and bark acidity influence lichen and bryophyte distribution in London today. Lichens and bryophytes are responding to factors that influence human and environmental health in London. Biomonitoring therefore has a practical role to assess the effects of measures to improve London's air quality.

This paper is an extension of a talk given in December 1999 which discussed various options for reconfiguring magnets and power sources to convert the NLC to e-e- operation. At that time three different configurations were examined and a Directional Reversal model was recommended in order to avoid the difficulties of polarity reversal with permanent magnets anticipated in the main linac at that time. Since permanent magnets are no longer in the baseline, a Polarity Reversal scheme becomes more attractive.

The deaths of two Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in August 1996 led the United States Department of Agriculture to require the testing and treatment of elephants for tuberculosis. From August 1996 to September 1999. Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection was confirmed by culture in 12 of 118 elephants in six herds. Eight diagnoses were made antemortem on the basis of isolation of M. tuberculosis by culture of trunk wash samples; the remainder (including the initial two) were diagnosed postmortem. We present the case histories, epidemiologic characteristics, diagnostic test results, and therapeutic plans from these six herds. The intradermal tuberculin test, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay serology, the blood tuberculosis test, and nucleic acid amplification and culture are compared as methods to diagnose M. tuberculosis infection in elephants.

This paper discusses various options for reconfiguring magnets and power sources to convert the NLC to e-e- operation. Operational practicality of various scenarios and likely cost impacts lead to a conclusion that potential e-e- options must be planned into the initial engineering design.

The IEEE PES Community Solutions Initiative is dedicated to helping IEEE reach the Humanitarian Technology Challenge (HTC) -United Nations (UN) goal of achieving a major impact in global poverty reduction of which energy poverty is a major factor. The CSI vision emulates the goals of many like-minded groups of building bottom-up community prosperity through training and empowering local entrepreneurs to manage profitable businesses capable of growing to serve a million people in the first 5 years of operation. A successful business and technology model has been demonstrated at a seed funding level in Haiti and now is striving to attract further investment from both aid agencies and Social investment venture capitalists to expand marketing and production to full scale. The first initiative in Haiti is now three years old and new initiatives in Nigeria, Cameroon and South Sudan started in July 2012. In addition, CSI with a growing list of partners is dedicated to leveraging basic electricity to support a variety of uses including interconnectivity and interactive web-based affordable education at many levels in off-grid areas. Further incubation of technology, business and education models is also being pursued in collaboration with sustainable development NGOs committed to enabling the 1.4 billion at the economic Base of the Pyramid (BOP).

Peptides and proteins with molecular weights of ca 20 000 have been mass measured with accuracies of ±0.5 Da using electrospray ionization interfaced to a double-focusing magnetic sector mass spectrometer. Factors affecting mass measurement accuracy such as resolution, peak profiles, calibration, data processing, and mass calculations are discussed.

The deaths of two Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) in August 1996 led the United States Department of Agriculture to require the testing and treatment of elephants for tuberculosis. From August 1996 to September 1999. Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection was confirmed by culture in 12 of 118 elephants in six herds. Eight diagnoses were made antemortem on the basis of isolation of M. tuberculosis by culture of trunk wash samples; the remainder (including the initial two) were diagnosed postmortem. We present the case histories, epidemiologic characteristics, diagnostic test results, and therapeutic plans from these six herds. The intradermal tuberculin test, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay serology, the blood tuberculosis test, and nucleic acid amplification and culture are compared as methods to diagnose M. tuberculosis infection in elephants.

Human immunodeficiency virus and feline immunodeficiency virus are both lentiviruses that cause immunosuppressive disease. Similarities between these diseases have promoted the study of feline immunodeficiency virus as a model for human immunodeficiency virus. Not only have lentiviruses been found in domestic cats but they have been found in nondomestic felids as well. Florida panthers, African lions, and other nondomestic felids have been found to have antibodies directed against lentiviruses and each nondomestic cat has antibodies to a virus that is specific for that species. The phylogenetic relationships of these lentiviruses have been studied and mapped using nucleic acid sequencing technology. Phylogenetic mapping has been an important step for future development of vaccines and antiviral therapy.

Following the spill of bunker oil from the M/V Cosco Busan into San Francisco Bay, California on 7 November 2007, we evaluated the foraging characteristics, survival and movements of surf scoters (Melanitta perspicillata) that had been rehabilitated following formal rehabilitation protocols through the use of intracoelomic implants of radio transmitters and aerial/land based tracking. We compared these behavioral attributes of oiled surf scoters to surf scoters that were not oiled, but instead captured and released or put through the same rehabilitation procedure (thus separating the rehabilitation/captivity effects from the oiling). Initial behavioral observations have shown that mean home range size was greatest for unrehabilitated birds, and oiled birds were observed closer to shore than either the un-oiled rehabilitated or control group. Survival was also seen to differ among treatment groups and over encounter occasions, with cumulative winter survival estimates being lowest for oiled birds ...

The SLD Detector will contain five major electronics subsystems: Vertex, Drift, Liquid Argon Calorimeter, Cerenkov Ring Imaging, and Warm Iron Calorimeter. To implement the approximately 170,000 channels of electronics, extensive miniaturization and heavy use of multiplexing techniques are required. Design criteria for each subsystem, overall system architecture, and the R & D program are described.

Drift chamber and pulse-height readout systems are being developed for use in a new large scale detector at the SPEAR colliding beam facility. The systems are based upon 32 channels of sample-and-hold together with an analog multiplexer in a single-width CAMAC module. The modules within each crate are scanned by an autonomous controller containing a single ADC and memory plus arithmetic capability for offset, gain and linearity corrections. The drift chamber module has a facility for extracting hit wire information for use in trigger decision circuitry.

In the past few years, several significant new technologies related to electronics design, fabrication and testing, appear to have reached a level of maturity which makes them ripe for exploitation by high energy physics laboratories. This paper will review recent developments and trends, and will draw particularly from some examples at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. Cost benefits as well as difficulties of implementing new technologies into relatively small laboratories will be examined.

This paper primarily focuses on developments which are needed to make FASTBUS a viable option for future experiments and control systems. The basic tools available or under development are discussed.

FASTBUS is a new laboratory standard data bus intended for use in experimental data acquisition and control. The development of FASTBUS began with a feasibility study in 1976 and is presently at the development prototyping stage. The principal aims of the standard are to provide a factor of ten or more improvement in speed of data transfers over present systems, as well as to provide an architecture for systems containing multiple processors. Developmental prototypes now in progress include crates, backplanes, cooling devices, power supplies, test and diagnostic modules, and user modules. A sizeable software development effort is also underway. Several experiments have made commitments to use FASTBUS. A review of current work and potential applications is given.

In late 1975 the US NIM Committee initiated a study group, known as the Advanced System Study Group, to review the future data acquisition modular interface requirements for high energy physics. The final report1 of this group recommended the development of a new standard system, now known as "FAST-BUS," which would have as principal features improved speed by a factor of 10 over CAMAC; more generalized architecture to accommodate distributed parallel processing and fast pre-processing; special scan modes of particular use in high energy particle detection systems; and standardized bus structures and mechanics. This paper is a brief summary of current activity.

Describes the basic IEEE specifications of CAMAC, acquaints practising system engineers with its basic principles and applications, and gives insight into how this standard can benefit the digital engineering community.

The FASTBUS project is an interlaboratory effort to develop a next generation laboratory standard data bus. The principal design goals are high speed (

An NMOS device has been developed which provides high speed analog signal storage and readout for time expansion of transient signals. This device takes advantage of HMOS-1 VLSI technology to implement an array of 256 storage cells. Sequential samples of an input waveform can be taken every 5 ns while providing an effective sampling aperture time of less than 1 ns. The design signal-to-noise ratio is 1 part in 2000. Digital control circuitry is provided on the chip for controlling the read-in and read-out processes. A reference circuit is incorporated in the chip for first order compensation of leakage drifts, sampling pedestals, and temperature effects.

Progress has been made toward developing a special TTL hybrid integrated circuit for proportional wire chambers. Two manufacturers, Fairchild and Texas Instruments, both appear close to completing a satisfactory circuit. Deliveries of hybrid prototypes will require probably 6 to 8 weeks after final approval of the breadboards.

From the performance data measured, it appears that the SH0997 and SH1153 prototypes come very close to meeting all the significant points of the joint Laboratory specification. The major exception noted, that of non-ideal matching of thresholds, appears to be a question of procedure and not a fundamental limitation. This is reinforced by the fact that Fairchild is maintaining the 1 mV minimum sensitivity specification. Similarly, the problem of the fast OR width and the Read gate error appear easily soluble. The operation of the SH11153 appears to meet all significant specifications. In both units, all signals are exceptionally clean and inter-channel crosstalk appears insignificant for either polarity of overdrive. With the corrections noted, it appears that future units should meet or exceed all the major points of the joint Laboratory specifications for proportional wire chamber integrated circuits.

For the past 4 years, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) has conducted a program for training unskilled personnel into technical fields at the technician level. In common with many such programs, the SLAC effort is divided into two parts: 1) on-the-job practical experience, and 2) correlated academic studies. The SLAC approach to the second part, academic studies, is somewhat unique. SLAC has entered into an arrangement with the local community colleges whereby the courses taken by the students are those which lead toward an AA degree at those colleges. Courses are taught at SLAC by professional employees who have been accredited in the State Junior College system. The courses follow the outline and standards set up by the particular department within the community college itself. Thus the student learns not only those subjects of interest to SLAC, but those which will satisfy the college technical program requirements for an AA degree. The practical aspects of this program, along with some of the history and results, are discussed.

The subject of Continuing Professional Education has received much attention recently, largely because of the current crisis in engineering unemployment. IEEE local and national management, in response to IEEE member interest, is searching for methods of implementing meaningful continuing education programs in a variety of practical situations. This paper attempts to identify some of the basic problems of engineering obsolescence, and to visualize the role of continuing engineering education as a countermeasure. It is suggested that IEEE members and local chapters themselves have an important role to fill in continuing education. A particular proposal for a program for Nuclear Science is described.

An economical 8-channel sample-and-hold unit, serially addressable with multiplexed output, is described. The unit accepts clipped inputs of 5 nsec (nominal) FWHM; the positive overshoot of the clipped pulse is rejected. The outputs are held to ± 1 mV for ? 1 msec, and are linear to ±1% from 30 mV to 1 V. The output sensitivity is 10 mV per picocoulomb of input charge.

The new FASTBUS standard has been designed to provide a framework for distributed processing in both experimental data acquisition and accelerator control. The features of FASTBUS which support distributed control are a priority arbitration scheme which allows intercrate as well as intracrate message flow between processors and slave devices; and a high bandwidth to permit efficient sharing of the data paths by high-speed devices. Sophisticated diagnostic aids permit system-wide error checking and/or correction. Software has been developed for large distributed systems. This consists of a system data base description, and initialization algorithms to allocate address space and establish preferred message routes. A diagnostics package is also being developed, based on an independent Ethernet-like serial link. The paper describes available hardware and software, on-going developments, and current applications.