Abstract Importance: A mystery illness striking U.S. and Canadian diplomats to Cuba (and now China) “has confounded the FBI, the State Department and US intelligence agencies” (Lederman, Weissenstein, & Lee, 2017). Sonic explanations for the so-called health attacks have long dominated media reports, propelled by peculiar sounds heard and auditory symptoms experienced. Sonic mediation was justly rejected by experts. We assessed whether pulsed radiofrequency/microwave radiation (RF/MW) exposure can accommodate reported facts in diplomats, including unusual ones. Observations: (1) Noises: Many diplomats heard chirping, ringing or grinding noises at night during episodes reportedly triggering health problems. Some reported that noises were localized with laser-like precision or said the sounds seemed to follow them (within the territory in which they were perceived). Pulsed RF/MW engenders just these apparent “sounds” via the Frey effect. Perceived “sounds” differ by head dimensions and pulse characteristics and can be perceived as located behind in or above the head. Ability to hear the “sounds” depends on high-frequency hearing and low ambient noise. (2) Signs/symptoms: Hearing loss and tinnitus are prominent in affected diplomats and in RF/MW-affected individuals. Each of the protean symptoms that diplomats report also affect persons reporting symptoms from RF/MW: sleep problems, headaches, and cognitive problems dominate in both groups. Sensations of pressure or vibration figure in each. Both encompass vision, balance, and speech problems and nosebleeds. Brain injury and brain swelling are reported in both. (3) Mechanisms: Oxidative stress provides a documented mechanism of RF/MW injury compatible with reported signs and symptoms; sequelae of endothelial dysfunction (yielding blood flow compromise), membrane damage, blood-brain barrier disruption, mitochondrial injury, apoptosis, and autoimmune triggering afford downstream mechanisms, of varying persistence, that merit investigation. (4) Of note, microwaving of the U.S. embassy in Moscow is historically documented. Conclusions and relevance: Reported facts appear consistent with pulsed RF/MW as the source of injury in affected diplomats. Nondiplomats citing symptoms from RF/MW, often with an inciting pulsed-RF/MW exposure, report compatible health conditions. Under the RF/MW hypothesis, lessons learned for diplomats and for RF/MW-affected civilians may each aid the other.

During the summers (1951–1954) that I was a graduate student in “pure mathematics,” I worked in the Systems Engineering Section of the Glenn L. Martin Company. I began to notice the applicability of supposedly pure topics like prime number theory and finite field theory to problems in communications. My first major applied effort involved developing the theory of “Shift Register Sequences.” (My book with this title will soon see its third edition, with a third publisher.) Much of my work has been in response to practical questions I was asked, for which I had the necessary mathematical tools. These topics have included comma-free codes, Costas arrays, Tuscan squares, Golomb rulers, zero-sidelobe radar, etc. My shift register work has had the broadest impact: to cell phone signals, the GPS system, error-correcting codes, radar, cryptography, etc. I am fortunate to have lived long enough to get some recognition for my work.

We sought to assess whether coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) benefits the chronic multisymptom problems that affect one-quarter to one-third of 1990-1 Gulf War veterans, using a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Participants were 46 veterans meeting Kansas and Centers for Disease Control criteria for Gulf War illness. Intervention was PharmaNord (Denmark) CoQ10 100 mg per day (Q100), 300 mg per day (Q300), or an identical-appearing placebo for 3.5 ± 0.5 months. General self-rated health (GSRH), the primary outcome, differed across randomization arms at baseline, and sex significantly predicted GSRH change, compelling adjustment for baseline GSRH and prompting sex-stratified analysis. GSRH showed no significant benefit in the combined-sex sample. Among males (85% of participants), Q100 significantly benefited GSRH versus placebo and versus Q300, providing emphasis on Q100. Physical function (summary performance score, SPS) improved on Q100 versus placebo. A rise in CoQ10 approached significance as a predictor of improvement in GSRH and significantly predicted SPS improvement. Among 20 symptoms each present in half or more of the enrolled veterans, direction-of-difference on Q100 versus placebo was favorable for all except sleep problems; sign test 19:1, p=0.00004) with several symptoms individually significant. Significance for these symptoms despite the small sample underscores large effect sizes, and an apparent relation of key outcomes to CoQ10 change increases prospects for causality. In conclusion, Q100 conferred benefit to physical function and symptoms in veterans with Gulf War illness. Examination in a larger sample is warranted, and findings from this study can inform the conduct of a larger trial.

ermine how the reliability of sex discrimination is related to resolution. A normalized pixel-based representation was used for the faces because it explicitly retained texture and shape information while also maintaining geometric relationships. We found that the linear perceptron model can classify sex from facial images with 81% accuracy, compared to 92% accuracy with compression coding on the same data set [6]. The advantage of using a simple linear perceptron with normalized pixel-based inputs is that it allows us to see explicitly those regions of the face that make the largest and most reliable contributions to the classification of sex. A database of 90 faces (44 males, 46 females) was used (O'Toole, Millward, & Anderson [9]). No facial hair, jewelry, or makeup was on any of the faces. Each face was rotated until the eyes were level, and then scaled and cropped so that each image showed a similar facial area. From the original set of faces, we created 5 separate databases at 5