2,635 research outputs found
Exploring the Case for Expanded Remote Texter Liability for Employers
In 2013, the New Jersey Appellate Court decided the potentially landmark case of Kubert v. Best, recognizing for the first time that a sender of a text may be held liable to an innocent third party injured in an automobile accident caused by a driver who was distracted by receiving the text. Other subsequent cases have both confirmed and limited the Kubert ruling. In this article, we explore possible further extensions of the Kubert ruling, anticipating that because of expanding employer liability for acts undertaken by their employees, the next step in the evolution of texting and driving law may likely hold employers liable for accidents caused by their employees whose employment-related texts to others result in accident and harm
Analytical Approximations of Critical Clearing Time for Parametric Analysis of Power System Transient Stability
An analytic approximation for the critical clearing time (CCT) metric is derived from direct methods for power system stability. The formula has been designed to incorporate as many features of transient stability analysis as possible such as different fault locations and different post-fault network states. The purpose of this metric is to analyse trends in stability (in terms of CCT) of power systems under the variation of a system parameter. The performance of this metric to measure stability trends is demonstrated on an aggregated power network, the so-called two machine infinite bus network, by varying load parameters in the full bus admittance matrix using numerical continuation. The metric is compared to two other expressions for the CCT which incorporate additional non-linearities present in the model
Stability of Negative Image Equilibria in Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity
We investigate the stability of negative image equilibria in mean synaptic
weight dynamics governed by spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP). The
neural architecture of the model is based on the electrosensory lateral line
lobe (ELL) of mormyrid electric fish, which forms a negative image of the
reafferent signal from the fish's own electric discharge to optimize detection
of external electric fields. We derive a necessary and sufficient condition for
stability, for arbitrary postsynaptic potential functions and arbitrary
learning rules. We then apply the general result to several examples of
biological interest.Comment: 13 pages, revtex4; uses packages: graphicx, subfigure; 9 figures, 16
subfigure
Erythropoietin response in critically ill mechanically ventilated patients: a prospective observational study
INTRODUCTION: Anemia is a common problem in critically ill patients. The etiology of anemia of critical illness is often determined to be multifactorial in the clinical setting, but the pathophysiology remains to be elucidated. Erythropoietin (EPO) is an endogenous glycoprotein hormone that serves as the primary stimulus for erythropoiesis. Recent evidence has demonstrated a blunted EPO response as a factor contributing to anemia of critical illness in specific subsets of patients. Critically ill patients requiring mechanical ventilation who exhibit anemia have not been the subject of previous studies. Our goal was to evaluate the erythropoietic response to anemia in the critically ill mechanically ventilated patient. METHODS: A prospective observational study was undertaken in the medical intensive care unit of a tertiary care, military hospital. Twenty patients admitted to the medical intensive care unit requiring mechanical ventilation for at least 72 hours were enrolled as study patients. EPO levels and complete blood count were measured 72 hours after admission and initiation of mechanical ventilation. Admission clinical and demographic data were recorded, and patients were followed for the duration of mechanical ventilation. Twenty patients diagnosed with iron deficiency anemia in the outpatient setting were enrolled as a control population. Control patients had baseline complete blood count and iron panel recorded by primary care physicians. EPO levels were measured at the time of enrollment in conjunction with complete blood count. RESULTS: The mean EPO level for the control population was 60.9 mU/ml. The mean EPO level in the mechanically ventilated patient group was 28.7 mU/ml, which was significantly less than in the control group (P = 0.035). The mean hemoglobin value was not significantly different between groups (10.6 g/dl in mechanically ventilated patients versus 10.2 g/dl in control patients; P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Mechanically ventilated patients demonstrate a blunted EPO response to anemia. Further study of therapies directed at treating anemia of critical illness and evaluating its potential impact on mechanical ventilation outcomes and mortality is warranted
A trio of new Local Group galaxies with extreme properties
We report on the discovery of three new dwarf galaxies in the Local Group.
These galaxies are found in new CFHT/MegaPrime g,i imaging of the south-western
quadrant of M31, extending our extant survey area to include the majority of
the southern hemisphere of M31's halo out to 150 kpc. All these galaxies have
stellar populations which appear typical of dwarf spheroidal (dSph) systems.
The first of these galaxies, Andromeda XVIII, is the most distant Local Group
dwarf discovered in recent years, at ~1.4 Mpc from the Milky Way (~ 600 kpc
from M31). The second galaxy, Andromeda XIX, a satellite of M31, is the most
extended dwarf galaxy known in the Local Group, with a half-light radius of r_h
~ 1.7 kpc. This is approximately an order of magnitude larger than the typical
half-light radius of many Milky Way dSphs, and reinforces the difference in
scale sizes seen between the Milky Way and M31 dSphs (such that the M31 dwarfs
are generally more extended than their Milky Way counterparts). The third
galaxy, Andromeda XX, is one of the faintest galaxies so far discovered in the
vicinity of M31, with an absolute magnitude of order M_V ~ -6.3. Andromeda
XVIII, XIX and XX highlight different aspects of, and raise important questions
regarding, the formation and evolution of galaxies at the extreme faint-end of
the luminosity function. These findings indicate that we have not yet sampled
the full parameter space occupied by dwarf galaxies, although this is an
essential pre-requisite for successfully and consistently linking these systems
to the predicted cosmological dark matter sub-structure.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figures (ApJ preprint format). Accepted for publication
in Ap
Random Walks for Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity
Random walk methods are used to calculate the moments of negative image
equilibrium distributions in synaptic weight dynamics governed by spike-timing
dependent plasticity (STDP). The neural architecture of the model is based on
the electrosensory lateral line lobe (ELL) of mormyrid electric fish, which
forms a negative image of the reafferent signal from the fish's own electric
discharge to optimize detection of sensory electric fields. Of particular
behavioral importance to the fish is the variance of the equilibrium
postsynaptic potential in the presence of noise, which is determined by the
variance of the equilibrium weight distribution. Recurrence relations are
derived for the moments of the equilibrium weight distribution, for arbitrary
postsynaptic potential functions and arbitrary learning rules. For the case of
homogeneous network parameters, explicit closed form solutions are developed
for the covariances of the synaptic weight and postsynaptic potential
distributions.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, 15 subfigures; uses revtex4, subfigure, amsmat
The Demography of Massive Dark Objects in Galaxy Centres
We construct dynamical models for a sample of 36 nearby galaxies with Hubble
Space Telescope photometry and ground-based kinematics. The models assume that
each galaxy is axisymmetric, with a two-integral distribution function,
arbitrary inclination angle, a position-independent stellar mass-to-light ratio
Upsilon, and a central massive dark object (MDO) of arbitrary mass M_bh. They
provide acceptable fits to 32 of the galaxies for some value of M_bh and
Upsilon; the four galaxies that cannot be fit have kinematically decoupled
cores. The mass-to-light ratios inferred for the 32 well-fit galaxies are
consistent with the fundamental plane correlation Upsilon \propto L^0.2, where
L is galaxy luminosity. In all but six galaxies the models require at the 95%
confidence level an MDO of mass M_bh ~ 0.006 M_bulge = 0.006 Upsilon L. Five of
the six galaxies consistent with M_bh=0 are also consistent with this
correlation. The other (NGC 7332) has a much stronger upper limit on M_bh. We
consider various parameterizations for the probability distribution describing
the correlation of the masses of these MDOs with other galaxy properties. One
of the best models can be summarized thus: a fraction f ~0.97 of galaxies have
MDOs, whose masses are well described by a Gaussian distribution in log
(M_bh/M_bulge) of mean -2.27 and width ~0.07.Comment: 28 pages including 13 figures and 4 tables. Submitted to A
Renormalization group and perfect operators for stochastic differential equations
We develop renormalization group methods for solving partial and stochastic
differential equations on coarse meshes. Renormalization group transformations
are used to calculate the precise effect of small scale dynamics on the
dynamics at the mesh size. The fixed point of these transformations yields a
perfect operator: an exact representation of physical observables on the mesh
scale with minimal lattice artifacts. We apply the formalism to simple
nonlinear models of critical dynamics, and show how the method leads to an
improvement in the computational performance of Monte Carlo methods.Comment: 35 pages, 16 figure
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