The influence of rifle carriage on the kinetics of human gait

The influence that rifle carriage has on human gait has received little attention in the published literature. Rifle carriage has two main effects, to add load to the anterior of the body and to restrict natural arm swing patterns. Kinetic data were collected from 15 male participants, with 10 trials in each of four experimental conditions. The conditions were: walking without a load (used as a control condition); carrying a lightweight rifle simulator, which restricted arm movements but applied no additional load; wearing a 4.4 kg diving belt, which allowed arms to move freely; carrying a weighted (4.4 kg) replica SA80 rifle. Walking speed was fixed at 1.5 m/s (+5%) and data were sampled at 400 Hz. Results showed that rifle carriage significantly alters the ground reaction forces produced during walking, the most important effects being an increase in the impact peak and mediolateral forces. This study suggests that these effects are due to the increased range of motion of the body’s centre of mass caused by the impeding of natural arm swing patterns. The subsequent effect on the potential development of injuries in rifle carriers is unknown

Design by immersion: A transdisciplinary approach to problem-driven visualizations

While previous work exists on how to conduct and disseminate insights from problem-driven visualization work and design studies, the literature does not address how to accomplish these goals in transdisciplinary teams in ways that advance all disciplines involved. In this paper we introduce and define a new methodological paradigm we call design by immersion, which provides an alternative perspective on problem-driven visualization work. Design by immersion embeds transdisciplinary experiences at the center of the visualization process by having visualization researchers participate in the work of the target domain (or domain experts participate in visualization research). Based on our own combined experiences of working on cross-disciplinary, problem-driven visualization projects, we present six case studies that expose the opportunities that design by immersion enables, including (1) exploring new domain-inspired visualization design spaces, (2) enriching domain understanding through personal experiences, and (3) building strong transdisciplinary relationships. Furthermore, we illustrate how the process of design by immersion opens up a diverse set of design activities that can be combined in different ways depending on the type of collaboration, project, and goals. Finally, we discuss the challenges and potential pitfalls of design by immersion

A novel reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography method to accurately determine low concentrations of curcumin in rat plasma

Due to its lipophilic nature, curcumin levels in plasma are very low after oral administration, and therefore hard to detect. A number of chromatographic methods, including LC/MS have been developed. Although the LC/MS method is sensitive, the matrix effect can be difficult to handle. Furthermore, LC/MS equipment is relatively expensive compared to the conventional RP-HPLC. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a sensitive and reliable method for the determination of curcumin concentration in plasma using an RP-HPLC. Curcuma longa extract was used which contains three curcuminoids. The method started by selection of mobile phase to optimally separate the curcuminoids. The best mobile phase composition was used to analyze the plasma samples. Rat plasma was spiked with curcumin and processed for protein precipitation followed by liquid-liquid extraction of curcuminoids and an internal standard, emodin. Chromatogaphic separation of curcuminoids and emodin was achieved using a Knauer C-18 column (250 x 4.6 mm; particle size: 5µm) and a gradient program of mobile phase of three solvents, methanol -acetonitrile-1% acetic acid. A gradient elution was applied with increasing the ratio of the volume percentages of acetonitrile to acetic acid from 50/45 to 53/42 during 5 minute and thereafter elution was isocratic for 15 minute. The methanol concentration was kept constant at 5 vol-% during the whole run. The method was validated according to the FDA guidelines.The method was selective, with an excellent resolution (Rs value > 2.5). The peak shape of both curcumin and emodin were symmetric with a tailing factor of 0.9-1.1. The method linearity (correlation coefficient of 0.999) was demonstrated at 6 to 200 ng/mL. The intra and inter-day precision was 5.90-8.50% and 5.37-11.26%, respectively; the intra- and inter-day accuracy was 92.47-103.61% and 96.17-105.70%, respectively. In conclusion, the RP-HPLC method meets the validation requirements as described in the FDA guidelines and is applicable to accurately quantify curcumin concentrations as low as 6 ng/mL in rat plasma samples

A novel reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography method to accurately determine low concentrations of curcumin in rat plasma

Due to its lipophilic nature, curcumin levels in plasma are very low after oral administration, and therefore hard to detect. A number of chromatographic methods, including LC/MS have been developed. Although the LC/MS method is sensitive, the matrix effect can be difficult to handle. Furthermore, LC/MS equipment is relatively expensive compared to the conventional RP-HPLC. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop a sensitive and reliable method for the determination of curcumin concentration in plasma using an RP-HPLC. Curcuma longa extract was used which contains three curcuminoids. The method started by selection of mobile phase to optimally separate the curcuminoids. The best mobile phase composition was used to analyze the plasma samples. Rat plasma was spiked with curcumin and processed for protein precipitation followed by liquid-liquid extraction of curcuminoids and an internal standard, emodin. Chromatogaphic separation of curcuminoids and emodin was achieved using a Knauer C-18 column (250 x 4.6 mm; particle size: 5µm) and a gradient program of mobile phase of three solvents, methanol -acetonitrile-1% acetic acid. A gradient elution was applied with increasing the ratio of the volume percentages of acetonitrile to acetic acid from 50/45 to 53/42 during 5 minute and thereafter elution was isocratic for 15 minute. The methanol concentration was kept constant at 5 vol-% during the whole run. The method was validated according to the FDA guidelines.The method was selective, with an excellent resolution (Rs value > 2.5). The peak shape of both curcumin and emodin were symmetric with a tailing factor of 0.9-1.1. The method linearity (correlation coefficient of 0.999) was demonstrated at 6 to 200 ng/mL. The intra and inter-day precision was 5.90-8.50% and 5.37-11.26%, respectively; the intra- and inter-day accuracy was 92.47-103.61% and 96.17-105.70%, respectively. In conclusion, the RP-HPLC method meets the validation requirements as described in the FDA guidelines and is applicable to accurately quantify curcumin concentrations as low as 6 ng/mL in rat plasma samples

BigWig and BigBed: enabling browsing of large distributed datasets

Summary: BigWig and BigBed files are compressed binary indexed files containing data at several resolutions that allow the high-performance display of next-generation sequencing experiment results in the UCSC Genome Browser. The visualization is implemented using a multi-layered software approach that takes advantage of specific capabilities of web-based protocols and Linux and UNIX operating systems files, R trees and various indexing and compression tricks. As a result, only the data needed to support the current browser view is transmitted rather than the entire file, enabling fast remote access to large distributed data sets

Target Mass Monitoring and Instrumentation in the Daya Bay Antineutrino Detectors

The Daya Bay experiment measures sin^2 2{\theta}_13 using functionally identical antineutrino detectors located at distances of 300 to 2000 meters from the Daya Bay nuclear power complex. Each detector consists of three nested fluid volumes surrounded by photomultiplier tubes. These volumes are coupled to overflow tanks on top of the detector to allow for thermal expansion of the liquid. Antineutrinos are detected through the inverse beta decay reaction on the proton-rich scintillator target. A precise and continuous measurement of the detector's central target mass is achieved by monitoring the the fluid level in the overflow tanks with cameras and ultrasonic and capacitive sensors. In addition, the monitoring system records detector temperature and levelness at multiple positions. This monitoring information allows the precise determination of the detectors' effective number of target protons during data taking. We present the design, calibration, installation and in-situ tests of the Daya Bay real-time antineutrino detector monitoring sensors and readout electronics.Comment: 22 pages, 20 figures; accepted by JINST. Changes in v2: minor revisions to incorporate editorial feedback from JINS

Scaling property of the critical hopping parameters for the Bose-Hubbard model

Recently precise results for the boundary between the Mott insulator phase and the superfluid phase of the homogeneous Bose-Hubbard model have become available for arbitrary integer filling factor g and any lattice dimension d > 1. We use these data for demonstrating that the critical hopping parameters obey a scaling relationship which allows one to map results for different g onto each other. Unexpectedly, the mean-field result captures the dependence of the exact critical parameters on the filling factor almost fully. We also present an approximation formula which describes the critical parameters for d > 1 and any g with high accuracy.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures. to appear in EPJ