Our understanding of the chronology of human evolution relies on the " molecular clock " provided by the steady accumulation of substitutions on an evolutionary lineage. This understanding has been called into question by recent analyses of human pedigrees, suggesting that mutations accrue more slowly than previously believed. Translating mutation rates estimated from pedigrees into substitutio...

Exponentially growing routing tables create the need for increasingly storage-efficient lookup schemes that do not compromise on lookup performance and update rates. This paper evaluates the mechanisms that determine the storage efficiency of state-of-the-art IP lookup schemes. A novel scheme named BARTS (Balanced Routing Table Search) is proposed for searching large routing tables in wide embe...

[1] We develop a 1-D steady state photochemical model of the modern Martian atmosphere and apply it to possible Martian atmospheres present and past. A unique feature of our model is that the major current sink of oxygen is dry deposition (surface reactions) of highly reactive, oxidized molecules (chiefly H2O2), rather than oxygen escape to space. Another difference is that we allow hydrogen to...

When attacked by a predator, fish respond with a sudden fast-start motion away from the threat. Although this anaerobically-powered swimming necessitates a recovery phase which is fueled aerobically, little is known about links between escape performance and aerobic traits such as aerobic scope (AS) or recovery time after exhaustive exercise. Slower recovery ability or a reduced AS could make s...

Feeding on the blood of vertebrates is a risky task for haematophagous insects and it can be reasonably assumed that it should also be costly in terms of energetic expenditure. Blood circulates inside vessels and it must be pumped through narrow tubular stylets to be ingested. We analysed the respiratory pattern and the energetic cost of taking a blood meal in Rhodnius prolixus using flow-throu...

To support real-time applications, for instance Voice-over-IP, network infrastructure has to provide high bandwidth as well as short endto-end latency. To cope with both, network processors (NP) are selected. Current NP support transmission rates of OC-48. However, due to sequential packet layer processing, processing delay is not optimized. To solve this problem, speculative packet processing ...

Seals may delay costly physiological processes (e.g. digestion) that are incompatible with the physiological adjustments to diving until after periods of active foraging. We present unusual profiles of metabolic rate (MR) in grey seals measured during long-term simulation of foraging trips (4–5 days) that provide evidence for this. We measured extremely high MRs (up to almost seven times the ba...

Extensive calculations of the atomic data required for the spectral modelling of the K-shell photoabsorption of oxygen ions have been carried out in a multi-code approach. The present level energies and wavelengths for the highly ionized species (electron occupancies 2 ≤ N ≤ 4) are accurate to within 0.5 eV and 0. 02Å, respectively. For N > 4, lack of measurements, wide experimental scatter, an...

Reliable estimates of the rate at which DNA accumulates mutations (the substitution rate) are crucial for our understanding of the evolution and past demography of virtually any species. In humans, there are considerable uncertainties around these rates, with substantial variation among recent published estimates. Substitution rates have traditionally been estimated by associating dated events ...

Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) interfaces will provide the future of safe driving. Implemented along V2I (Vehicle to Interface) setups, a driver will be more aware of their surroundings and traffic will be less of a hazard. Companies such as Google are trying to make cars that drive themselves through external sensors and internal maps. The security issues in V2V communication are vast and still bein...