Recombination coefficients for O II lines in nebular conditions

We present the results of a calculation of recombination coefficients for O^{2+} + e^- using an intermediate coupling treatment that fully accounts for the dependence of the distribution of population among the ground levels of O^{2+} on electron density and temperature. The calculation is extended down to low electron temperatures where dielectronic recombination arising from Rydberg states converging on the O^{2+} ground levels is an important process. The data, which consist of emission coefficients for 8889 recombination lines and recombination coefficients for the ground and metastable states of O^+ are in Cases A, B and C, and are organised as a function of the electron temperature and number density, as well as wavelength. An interactive fortran 77 data server is also provided as an accessory for mining the line emission coefficients and obtaining Lagrange interpolated values for any choice of the two variables between the explicitly provided values for any set of wavelengths. Some illustrations of the application of the new data to nebular observations are also provided.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, 6 table

Emerging Communication Technologies (ECT) Phase 2 Report

The Emerging Communication Technology (ECT) project investigated three First Mile communication technologies in support of NASA s Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle (2nd Gen RLV), Orbital Space Plane, Advanced Range Technology Working Group (ARTWG) and the Advanced Spaceport Technology Working Group (ASTWG). These First Mile technologies have the purpose of interconnecting mobile users with existing Range Communication infrastructures. ECT was a continuation of the Range Information System Management (RISM) task started in 2002. RISM identified the three advance communication technologies investigated under ECT. These were Wireless Ethernet (Wi-Fi), Free Space Optics (FSO), and Ultra Wideband (UWB). Due to the report s size, it has been broken into three volumes: 1) Main Report 2) Appendices 3) UWB

Global Community Guidelines for Documenting, Sharing, and Reusing Quality Information of Individual Digital Datasets

Open-source science builds on open and free resources that include data, metadata, software, and workflows. Informed decisions on whether and how to (re)use digital datasets are dependent on an understanding about the quality of the underpinning data and relevant information. However, quality information, being difficult to curate and often context specific, is currently not readily available for sharing within and across disciplines. To help address this challenge and promote the creation and (re)use of freely and openly shared information about the quality of individual datasets, members of several groups around the world have undertaken an effort to develop international community guidelines with practical recommendations for the Earth science community, collaborating with international domain experts. The guidelines were inspired by the guiding principles of being findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). Use of the FAIR dataset quality information guidelines is intended to help stakeholders, such as scientific data centers, digital data repositories, and producers, publishers, stewards and managers of data, to: i) capture, describe, and represent quality information of their datasets in a manner that is consistent with the FAIR Guiding Principles; ii) allow for the maximum discovery, trust, sharing, and reuse of their datasets; and iii) enable international access to and integration of dataset quality information. This article describes the processes that developed the guidelines that are aligned with the FAIR principles, presents a generic quality assessment workflow, describes the guidelines for preparing and disseminating dataset quality information, and outlines a path forward to improve their disciplinary diversity

Age-dependent attentional style and arousal regulate reportability of spontaneous mental states

editorial reviewedThe reportability of spontaneous thoughts relies significantly on attention and arousal. As these cognitive faculties change with age, we aimed at testing how spontaneous mental state reportability is influenced accordingly. Using experience sampling, 20 senior (65-75yrs) and 20 young participants (20-30yrs) were prompted to report mind-wandering (MW), mind-blanking (MB), or sensory-related (S) mental states at random times. Attention was assessed with the Attentional Style Questionnaire, and arousal with continuous monitoring of pupil diameter. First, we found more MW occurrences than MB or S across all participants. For young responders, we replicated that MW was more prevalent in easily distracted participants. MW was also linked to higher arousal (pupil dilation) and MB was linked to lower arousal (pupil constriction) independently of attentional style. In seniors though, MW was more prevalent in participants with higher focused style. As participants were more easily distracted, MW was associated with lower arousal and MB with higher arousal. We postulate that these effects in seniors may result from intentional MW, during which they allocate attentional resources inwards, as opposed to younger participants who get more easily distracted by intrusive thoughts leading to unintentional MW. Together, our results highlight opposite mechanisms by which attentional style regulates the reportability of spontaneous mental states across age. They also point towards the role of attentional style in mediating the impact of arousal on spontaneous thinking in the senior population

Age-dependent attentional style and arousal regulate reportability of spontaneous mental states

editorial reviewedThe reportability of spontaneous thoughts relies significantly on attention and arousal. As these cognitive faculties change with age, we aimed at testing how spontaneous mental state reportability is influenced accordingly. Using experience sampling, 20 senior (65-75yrs) and 20 young participants (20-30yrs) were prompted to report mind-wandering (MW), mind-blanking (MB), or sensory-related (S) mental states at random times. Attention was assessed behaviorally with the Attentional Style Questionnaire, and arousal physiologically with continuous monitoring of pupil diameter. First, we found more MW occurrences compared to MB or S across all participants. For young responders, we replicated that MW was more prevalent in easily distracted participants. MW was also linked to higher arousal (pupil dilation) and MB was linked to lower arousal (pupil constriction) independently of attentional style. In seniors though, MW was more prevalent in participants reporting higher focused style. As participants were more easily distracted, MW was associated with lower arousal (pupil constriction) instead and MB with higher arousal (pupil dilation). We postulate that these effects in seniors may be a result of intentional MW, during which they allocate attentional resources inwards in order to stay on task, as opposed to younger participants who get more easily distracted by intrusive thoughts leading to unintentional MW. Together, our results highlight opposite mechanisms by which attentional style regulates the reportability of spontaneous mental states across age. They also point towards the role of attentional style in mediating the impact of arousal on spontaneous thinking in the senior population

Age-dependent attentional style and pupil-linked arousal regulate the reportability of spontaneous mental states

The reportability of spontaneous thinking relies significantly on attention and arousal. As these cognitive faculties change with age, we aimed at testing how spontaneous mental state reportability is influenced accordingly. Using experience sampling, 20 senior (65-75yrs) and 20 young participants (20-30yrs) were prompted to report mind-wandering (MW), mind-blanking (MB), or sensory-related (S) mental states at random times. Attention was assessed with the Attentional Style Questionnaire, and arousal with continuous monitoring of pupil diameter. First, we found more MW occurrences than MB or S across all participants. For young responders, we replicated that MW was more prevalent in easily-distracted participants. In seniors, though, MW was more prevalent in participants with a higher focused attentional style. In senior participants who reported being more easily distracted, MW was associated with lower arousal (pupil constriction) and MB with higher arousal (pupil dilation), reversing the pattern found for young adults and focused seniors. We propose that these effects may result from intentional MW, during which senior participants allocate attentional resources to mentally engage inwards, as opposed to younger participants who get more easily distracted by their own mental activity leading to unintentional MW. Together, our results highlight age-dependent mechanisms by which attentional style and pupil-linked arousal regulate the reportability of spontaneous mental states across age

Measurements of Aperture Averaging on Bit-Error-Rate

We report on measurements made at the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) runway at Kennedy Space Center of receiver aperture averaging effects on a propagating optical Gaussian beam wave over a propagation path of 1,000 in. A commercially available instrument with both transmit and receive apertures was used to transmit a modulated laser beam operating at 1550 nm through a transmit aperture of 2.54 cm. An identical model of the same instrument was used as a receiver with a single aperture that was varied in size up to 20 cm to measure the effect of receiver aperture averaging on Bit Error Rate. Simultaneous measurements were also made with a scintillometer instrument and local weather station instruments to characterize atmospheric conditions along the propagation path during the experiments

Development, Implementation and Outcomes of a Quality Assurance System for the Provision of Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy in the Intensive Care Unit

Critically ill patients with requirement of continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) represent a growing intensive care unit (ICU) population. Optimal CRRT delivery demands continuous communication between stakeholders, iterative adjustment of therapy, and quality assurance systems. This Quality Improvement (QI) study reports the development, implementation and outcomes of a quality assurance system to support the provision of CRRT in the ICU. This study was carried out at the University of Kentucky Medical Center between September 2016 and June 2019. We implemented a quality assurance system using a step-wise approach based on the (a) assembly of a multidisciplinary team, (b) standardization of the CRRT protocol, (c) creation of electronic CRRT flowsheets, (d) selection, monitoring and reporting of quality metrics of CRRT deliverables, and (e) enhancement of education. We examined 34-month data comprising 1185 adult patients on CRRT (~ 7420 patient-days of CRRT) and tracked selected QI outcomes/metrics of CRRT delivery. As a result of the QI interventions, we increased the number of multidisciplinary experts in the CRRT team and ensured a continuum of education to health care professionals. We maximized to 100% the use of continuous veno-venous hemodiafiltration and doubled the percentage of patients using regional citrate anticoagulation. The delivered CRRT effluent dose (~ 30 ml/kg/h) and the delivered/prescribed effluent dose ratio (~ 0.89) remained stable within the study period. The average filter life increased from 26 to 31 h (p = 0.020), reducing the mean utilization of filters per patient from 3.56 to 2.67 (p = 0.054) despite similar CRRT duration and mortality rates. The number of CRRT access alarms per treatment day was reduced by 43%. The improvement in filter utilization translated into ~ 20,000 USD gross savings in filter cost per 100-patient receiving CRRT. We satisfactorily developed and implemented a quality assurance system for the provision of CRRT in the ICU that enabled sustainable tracking of CRRT deliverables and reduced filter resource utilization at our institution

Evidence for Loss of a Partial Flagellar Glycolytic Pathway during Trypanosomatid Evolution

Classically viewed as a cytosolic pathway, glycolysis is increasingly recognized as a metabolic pathway exhibiting surprisingly wide-ranging variations in compartmentalization within eukaryotic cells. Trypanosomatid parasites provide an extreme view of glycolytic enzyme compartmentalization as several glycolytic enzymes are found exclusively in peroxisomes. Here, we characterize Trypanosoma brucei flagellar proteins resembling glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) and phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK): we show the latter associates with the axoneme and the former is a novel paraflagellar rod component. The paraflagellar rod is an essential extra-axonemal structure in trypanosomes and related protists, providing a platform into which metabolic activities can be built. Yet, bioinformatics interrogation and structural modelling indicate neither the trypanosome PGK-like nor the GAPDH-like protein is catalytically active. Orthologs are present in a free-living ancestor of the trypanosomatids, Bodo saltans: the PGK-like protein from B. saltans also lacks key catalytic residues, but its GAPDH-like protein is predicted to be catalytically competent. We discuss the likelihood that the trypanosome GAPDH-like and PGK-like proteins constitute molecular evidence for evolutionary loss of a flagellar glycolytic pathway, either as a consequence of niche adaptation or the re-localization of glycolytic enzymes to peroxisomes and the extensive changes to glycolytic flux regulation that accompanied this re-localization. Evidence indicating loss of localized ATP provision via glycolytic enzymes therefore provides a novel contribution to an emerging theme of hidden diversity with respect to compartmentalization of the ubiquitous glycolytic pathway in eukaryotes. A possibility that trypanosome GAPDH-like protein additionally represents a degenerate example of a moonlighting protein is also discussed