Initial condition effect on pressure waves in an axisymmetric jet

A pair of microphones (separated axially by 5.08 cm and laterally by 1.3 cm) are placed on either side of the jet centerline to investigate coherent pressure fluctuations in an axisymmetric jet at Strouhal numbers less than unity. Auto-spectra, transfer-function, and coherence measurements are made for a tripped and untripped boundary layer initial condition. It was found that coherent acoustic pressure waves originating in the upstream plenum chamber propagate a greater distance downstream for the tripped initial condition than for the untripped initial condition. In addition, for the untripped initial condition the development of the coherent hydrodynamic pressure waves shifts downstream

DFDL: Discriminative Feature-oriented Dictionary Learning for Histopathological Image Classification

In histopathological image analysis, feature extraction for classification is a challenging task due to the diversity of histology features suitable for each problem as well as presence of rich geometrical structure. In this paper, we propose an automatic feature discovery framework for extracting discriminative class-specific features and present a low-complexity method for classification and disease grading in histopathology. Essentially, our Discriminative Feature-oriented Dictionary Learning (DFDL) method learns class-specific features which are suitable for representing samples from the same class while are poorly capable of representing samples from other classes. Experiments on three challenging real-world image databases: 1) histopathological images of intraductal breast lesions, 2) mammalian lung images provided by the Animal Diagnostics Lab (ADL) at Pennsylvania State University, and 3) brain tumor images from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, show the significance of DFDL model in a variety problems over state-of-the-art methodsComment: Accepted to IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging (ISBI), 201

Driving outcomes among older adults: A systematic review on racial and ethnic differences over 20 years

The population of older adults (aged 65 years and older) in the United States will become more racially and ethnically diverse in the next three decades. Additionally, the growth of the aging population will come with an expansion in the number of older drivers and an increased prevalence of chronic neurological conditions. A major gap in the aging literature is an almost exclusive focus on homogenous, non-Hispanic white samples of older adults. It is unclear if this extends to the driving literature. A systematic review of SCOPUS, PubMed, CINAHL Plus, and Web of Science examined articles on driving and racial/ethnic differences among older adults. Eighteen studies met inclusion criteria and their results indicate that racial and ethnic minorities face a greater risk for driving reduction, mobility restriction, and driving cessation. The majority of studies compared African Americans to non-Hispanic whites but only examined race as a covariate. Only four studies explicitly examined racial/ethnic differences. Future research in aging and driving research needs to be more inclusive and actively involve different racial/ethnic groups in study design and analysis

Effect of Single Event Multilevel Soft Tissue Surgery on Gait Parameters in Spastic Diplegia

Locomotion in subjects with Cerebral Palsy is complicated by a variety of deformities and their respective compensatory mechanisms. Children presenting with cerebral diplegia have reduced range of motion in their joints, short stride length, and increase in the energy requirement during standing and walking. In this study instrumented gait analysis data of 14 subjects with cerebral diplegia, prior to intervention was compared with data from similar analysis after multilevel soft tissue surgery and rehabilitation. Following intervention there was an increase in the range of motion in the hip and knee joints; stride length, single limb support and reduction in the energy cost of ambulation. Statistically significant differences were notedonly for the stride length data (p=0.004). Overall the gait was improved by multilevel soft tissue surgery, as there was an increase in the degrees of freedom of movement in the kinetic chain

Interstellar extinction towards the inner Galactic Bulge

DENIS observations in the J (1.2 micron) and K_S (2.15 micron) bands together with isochrones calculated for the RGB and AGB phase are used to draw an extinction map of the inner Galactic Bulge. The uncertainty in this method is mainly limited by the optical depth of the Bulge itself. A comparison with fields of known extinction shows a very good agreement. We present an extinction map for the inner Galactic Bulge (approx. 20 sq. deg.)Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A as a letter, see also http://www-denis.iap.fr/articles/extinction

Estimation of Runoff Using SCS-CN and GIS method in ungauged watershed: A case study of Kharadya mill watershed, India

Water is the precious gift of nature becoming scarce needs to be conserved. Estimation of runoff in a watershed is very important in order to manage the scarce water resources efficiently. In India the availability of accurate runoff information is rare where most of the watersheds are ungauged, which poses a serious challenge for hydrologists. In this paper Soil Conservation Services Curve Number (SCS-CN) method and the Geographical Information System (GIS) was used for runoff estimation of ungauged Kharadya milli watershed in Mandya district, Karnataka, with an area of 23.95 sq.km. The average annual rainfall is 749 mm from 2003 to 2013. The runoff was varied between 35.47 mm to 240.16mm. The land use details of study area were obtained by integration of GIS and remote sensing. 58.63% of watershed consists of gravelly clay soil and 39.49% area is cultivable crop land. The study reveals that the integration of GIS with the SCS-CN method is a powerful tool for estimating runoff from the ungauged watersheds for better watershed management and conservation purposes

Hypoxia Preconditioning Increases Survival and Decreases Expression of Toll-like Receptor 4 in Pulmonary Artery Endothelial Cells Exposed to Lipopolysaccharide

Pulmonary or systemic infections and hypoxemic respiratory failure are among the leading causes of admission to intensive care units, and these conditions frequently exist in sequence or in tandem. Inflammatory responses to infections are reproduced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) engaging Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4). Apoptosis is a hallmark of lung injury in sepsis. This study was conducted to determine whether preexposure to LPS or hypoxia modulated the survival of pulmonary artery endothelial cells (PAECs). We also investigated the role TLR4 receptor expression plays in apoptosis due to these conditions. Bovine PAECs were cultured in hypoxic or normoxic environments and treated with LPS. TLR4 antagonist TAK-242 was used to probe the role played by TLR4 receptors in cell survival. Cell apoptosis and survival were measured by caspase 3 activity and 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) incorporation. TLR4 expression and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) production were also determined. LPS increased caspase 3 activity in a TAK-242-sensitive manner and decreased MTT incorporation. Apoptosis was decreased in PAECs preconditioned with hypoxia prior to LPS exposure. LPS increased TNF-α production, and hypoxic preconditioning blunted it. Hypoxic preconditioning reduced LPS-induced TLR4 messenger RNA and TLR4 protein. TAK-242 decreased to baseline the LPS-stimulated expression of TLR4 messenger RNA regardless of environmental conditions. In contrast, LPS followed by hypoxia substantially increased apoptosis and cell death. In conclusion, protection from LPS-stimulated PAEC apoptosis by hypoxic preconditioning is attributable in part to reduction in TLR4 expression. If these signaling pathways apply to septic patients, they may account for differing sensitivities of individuals to acute lung injury depending on oxygen tensions in PAECs in vivo

A Special Purpose Hybrid Computer

Electric heating of buildings and houses is becoming more and more competitive with conventional heating methods. A survey in the magazine, Electrical World, indicates 29 million houses will be electrically heated by 1980 in USA. Ease of control, flexibility in operation, competitive tariff rates of electrical energy, and cleanliness are some of the major factors responsible for this new trend. Under certain special circumstances, even if electrical energy is more expensive, it may be preferred to conventional heating methods due to the above listed advantages. Because of these trends, electric utility companies involved in electric heating of buildings are faced with the problem of estimating operating costs and the capacity of the heating equipment in KW (Kilowatts). Cost estimation and heating system planning is a very attractive service supplied to the customers and the heating system requirements may be altered and readjusted several times before the final heating scheme is decided upon. This may not be a difficult matter to deal with for one or two customers, especially when time is not important and the heating requirements are not complex, but if one has to deal with several customers, it is very desirable and often a necessity to have some computational aid to assist in quickly preparing and/or presenting such an estimate. This can save valuable time by freeing the people concerned from the drudgery of repeated hand computations and thereby producing an ultimate saving in the cost of preparation of estimates. This thesis originates from the interest shown by an electrical utility, H & D Electric Company, Clear Lake, South Dakota, for a computational aid to assist them in the preparation of cost estimates and KW requirements for electric heating of buildings. With very minor adjustments in the calibration, the computing device discussed in this thesis can also be used in preparing similar estimates for air conditioning. However, this aspect has not been explored in this work

Poisson approximations for the Ising model

A $d$-dimensional Ising model on a lattice torus is considered. As the size $n$ of the lattice tends to infinity, a Poisson approximation is given for the distribution of the number of copies in the lattice of any given local configuration, provided the magnetic field $a=a(n)$ tends to $-\infty$ and the pair potential $b$ remains fixed. Using the Stein-Chen method, a bound is given for the total variation error in the ferromagnetic case.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figur