BACKGROUND Neisseria meningitidis causes 500 000 cases of septicemia and meningitis worldwide annually, with approximately 200 cases in Canada each year. Previous studies describe a case-fatality rate of 5%-15% and up to 20% of survivors suffering from long-term disability. METHODS This study was performed in Canada between 2002 and 2011; the study area included >50% of the country's populati...

This paper announces results on the behavior of some important algebraic and topological invariants — Euler characteristic, arithmetic genus, and their intersection homology analogues; the signature, etc. — and their associated characteristic classes, under morphisms of projective algebraic varieties. The formulas obtained relate global invariants to singularities of general complex algebraic (...

Fuzzy trace theory explains why children do not have to use rules of logic or premise information to infer transitive relationships. Instead, memory of the premises and performance on transitivity tasks is explained by a verbatim ability and a gist ability. Until recently, the processes involved in transitive reasoning and memory of the premises were studied by comparing mean performance in fix...

In this paper we show how to express the values of fF(3) for arbitrary number field F in terms of the trilogarithms (D. Zagier's conjecture) and how to relate this result to algebraic K-theory. 1. THE CLASSICAL POLYLOGARITHM FUNCTION The classical polylogarithm function n (1.1) Up(z) := ^ ^ ( 2 € C , | 2 | < l , p € N ) n-\ during the last 200 years was the subject of much research—see [L]. Usi...

Aim: The purpose of this study was to determine if the in vitro age of endothelial cells alters endothelial response(s) to breast cancer cells. Method: After characterizing lower passage (‘‘young’’; passages 10–16) and higher passage (‘‘old’’; passages 30–36) bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells (BPAECs), fluorescently labeled MCF-7 breast cancer cells were added to confluent monolayers of...

In this paper, we discuss the following conjecture raised by BaumDouglas: For any first-order elliptic differential operator D on smooth manifold M with boundary ∂M , D possesses an elliptic boundary condition if and only if ∂[D] = 0 in K1(∂M), where [D] is the relative K-cycle in K0(M, ∂M) corresponding to D. We prove the “if” part of this conjecture for dim(M) 6= 4, 5, 6, 7 and the “only if” ...

We announce a proof of the Tait flyping conjecture; the confirmation of this conjecture renders almost trivial the problem of deciding whether two given alternating link diagrams represent equivalent links. The proof of the conjecture also shows that alternating links have no "hidden" symmetries. In the nineteenth century, the celebrated physicist and knot tabulator P. G. Tait proposed the foll...

In this paper, we discuss the following conjecture raised by BaumDouglas: For any first-order elliptic differential operator D on smooth manifold M with boundary dM , D possesses an elliptic boundary condition if and only if d[D] = 0 in Kx(dM), where [D] is the relative AT-cycle in K0(M, dM) corresponding to D . We prove the "if part of this conjecture for dim(M) ± 4, 5, 6, 7 and the "only if p...

Penrose's twistor theory and many other ideas of mathematical physics are based on the notion of complexification. This notion is explained and examples of its apphcation in physics and mathematics are described. In particular, the well-known analogy between Yang-Mills fields and harmonic maps of Riemann surfaces becomes rather stronger after complexification. This strengthening is the main poi...