Slope measurement from contour maps

Estimating slope gradients from digitized contour ma

Intracerebral hemorrhage for the palliative care provider: what you need to know.

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) makes up 10%-30% of all strokes. Palliative care providers are often asked to get involved with ICH cases to aid with development of short-term and long-term goals. Prognosis can be calculated using the ICH score (based on Glasgow Coma Score score, ICH volume, presence of intraventricular hemorrhage, age, and location of origin) or the Essen score (based on age, NIH Stroke Scale [NIHSS], and level of consciousness). Do-not-resuscitate (DNR) status is important to discuss with families. Expert consensus states DNR is appropriate if the patient has two of the following: severe stroke, life-threatening brain damage, or significant comorbidities. The process of withdrawing ventilatory support can differ greatly from that of a medical intensive care unit (ICU) patient. Most ICH patients die within 24 hours following extubation. Symptoms of dyspnea and pain warrant use of opioids before and after terminal extubation. In addition, treating death rattle and postextubation stridor are important interventions. Family meetings are a vital intervention to help explain prognosis, establish a plan of care, and to get all family members on the same page. Family meetings can have a rapid effect, with 66% of families opting for withdrawal of life support to decide within 24 hours of such a meeting

Web-crippling Strength Of Cold-formed Steel Beams

The structural behavior of high-strength cold-formed steel beams subjected primarily to web crippling is investigated analytically and experimentally. Hat sections and I-beams, formed from five different types of high-strength sheet steels, are investigated under various loading conditions. In addition to the test data gathered in this phase of study, the experimental results obtained from the beam tests conducted at various companies are carefully evaluated. The evaluation indicates that the present available design criteria are not suitable for high-strength materials with yield strengths exceeding 80 ksi (552 MPa). New design formulas are derived for different types of loading conditions on the basis of available test data with material yield strengths ranging from 30 to 165 ksi (207 to 1,138 MPa). These empirical equations distinguish between web crippling failure caused by overstressing (bearing failure) and web buckling. Interaction formulas are derived for sections under combined web crippling and bending moment. The newly proposed design equations are verified by test results. © ASCE

Weak Values with Decoherence

The weak value of an observable is experimentally accessible by weak measurements as theoretically analyzed by Aharonov et al. and recently experimentally demonstrated. We introduce a weak operator associated with the weak values and give a general framework of quantum operations to the W operator in parallel with the Kraus representation of the completely positive map for the density operator. The decoherence effect is also investigated in terms of the weak measurement by a shift of a probe wave function of continuous variable. As an application, we demonstrate how the geometric phase is affected by the bit flip noise.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figure

Embracing The Future: What Can Accounting Graduates Expect?

This article informs accounting educators and graduates about key issues in the accounting profession of today, which has entered a new age, and accounting educators and advisors, old and new, must be informed about future prospects for students and make students aware of what they can expect as accounting graduates. Passing this knowledge to students early on provides them with advanced understanding of what the future holds for accounting professionals and will allow students to better embrace their future once they graduate. This article emphasizes supply and demand, hiring and salary practices, and potential job opportunities for the accounting graduate. Information on the various certifications available for accountants and the interview process is included as well. The final section within the article offers insight into the future of the accounting profession. With this paper, educators and advisors gain knowledge to assist accounting students with their future career search process. Students will still need assistance to help them navigate the new environment that they are about to enter, but a clearer understanding of what to expect provides a better foundation on which to build a successful career

Changes in food cravings and eating behavior after a dietary carbohydrate restriction intervention trial

Compared to low-fat diets, low-carbohydrate (CHO) diets cause weight loss (WL) over a faster time frame; however, it is unknown how changes in food cravings and eating behavior contribute to this more rapid WL in the early phases of dieting. We hypothesized that reductions in food cravings and improved eating behaviors would be evident even after a relatively short (4-week) duration of CHO-restriction, and that these changes would be associated with WL. Adult participants

Preferred Basis in a Measurement Process

The effect of decoherence is analysed for a free particle, interacting with an environment via a dissipative coupling. The interaction between the particle and the environment occurs by a coupling of the position operator of the particle with the environmental degrees of freedom. By examining the exact solution of the density matrix equation one finds that the density matrix becomes completely diagonal in momentum with time while the position space density matrix remains nonlocal. This establishes the momentum basis as the emergent 'preferred basis' selected by the environment which is contrary to the general expectation that position should emerge as the preferred basis since the coupling with the environment is via the position coordinate.Comment: Standard REVTeX format, 10 pages of output. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev

A lower bound for the BCS functional with boundary conditions at infinity

We consider a many-body system of fermionic atoms interacting via a local pair potential and subject to an external potential within the framework of BCS theory. We measure the free energy of the whole sample with respect to the free energy of a reference state which allows us to define a BCS functional with boundary conditions at infinity. Our main result is a lower bound for this energy functional in terms of expressions that typically appear in Ginzburg-Landau functionals.Comment: 32 page