The loss of auditory hair cells triggers repair responses within the population of nonsensory supporting cells. When hair cells are irreversibly lost from the mammalian cochlea, supporting cells expand to fill the resulting lesions in the sensory epithelium, an initial repair process that is dependent on gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC). In the chicken cochlea (the basilar papi...

In advanced very-large-scale integration (VLSI) circuits, the planarity of each metal layer and interlayer dielectric (ILD) is essential to avoid significant yield losses. The primary technique used to attain high levels of planarity is chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP). Several studies of CMP process impact on electrical parameters [1] and planarity [2] are available. In order to reduce the ...

Figure 2: Confinements. An scanning electron microscope image of (2 μm)3 boxes etched out of thermally grown silicon oxide. These boxes are filled with liquid helium creating an extremely well defined array of uniform confinements. Figure 1: Confinement Cell. A diagram (not to scale) of a cell used to confine liquid helium. This consists of an array of (2 μm)3 boxes etched in a thermally grown ...

We provide an extension of the perfect sampling algorithm of Fill (1998) to general chains, and describe how use of bounding processes can ease computational burden. Along the way, we unearth a simple connection between the Coupling From The Past (CFTP) algorithm originated by Propp and Wilson (1996) and our extension of Fill's algorithm.

We introduce coupling from the past, a recently developed method for exact sampling from a given distribution. Focus is on rigour and thorough proofs. We stay on an elementary level which requires little or no prior knowledge from probability theory. This should fill an obvious gap between innumerable intuitive and incomplete reviews, and few precise derivations on an abstract level.