The palaeoecology of two Scottish encrinites: Jurassic crinoid assemblages from the Trotternish Peninsula, Isle of Skye, Scotland

Despite a long history of investigation, articulate crinoids from the Jurassic of Scotland have not received great attention compared to their counterparts in Southern England or continental Europe; this is thought to be largely due to poor preservation. Two examples of ‘local’ encrinites (rocks almost entirely composed of crinoids debris), one from the Pliensbachian and the other from the Aalenian/Bajocian from the Isle of Skye, are shown to consist of columnals of Hispidocrinus cf. schlumbergeri and Balanocrinus donovani respectively. They represent local encrinites that have been deposited parautochthonously; one in a proximal, and the other in a more offshore low energy environment. This demonstrates that even limited encrinite material can not only be assigned systematically, but can also be used to reconstruct the original palaeoenvironments that the crinoids inhabited

Multiple plasmon resonances from gold nanostructures

Understanding and controlling plasmon resonances from metallic nanoscale structures have been the focus of much attention recently, with applications including local surface plasmon resonance sensing, surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy, and negative refractive index materials. In this letter the authors demonstrate the fabrication of uniform arrays of split rings from gold and show that such structures are capable of supporting multiple plasmon resonances. The authors show that up to five plasmon resonances can be identified and use finite difference time domain modeling and absorption spectroscopy to fully characterize and identify each resonance. The implications of higher order surface plasmon resonances for sensing are discussed

Mothering and Professing in the Ivory Tower: Supporting Graduate Student Mothers

Women interested in becoming professors and mothers are often unsure of the besttime to start their families. Many women decide to become mothers in graduateschool. This article discusses the landscape for graduate students who decide to becomemothers ( gsm s) while still in school. There are several obstacles for gsm s who wishto become tenured faculty members. Institutional obstacles include the notion of idealworkers and ideal careers, which do not include the option of motherhood and oftenconflict with the notion of the ideal mother. Another obstacle is institutional genderbiases and assumptions about women, such as the bias against caregiving. Womenof any age are assumed to be responsible for caregiving of children and/or elders.Finally, women lack their own individual agency and do not have family supportto be able to be successful. gsm s can employ various strategies to overcome theseobstacles. Strategies can include institutional change strategies, department support,individual agency, and family support. Obstacles and strategies are illustrated throughpersonal vignettes from the authors’ own experiences: three authors are tenured withchildren, and two have infants and are gsm s. Two authors are or have been chairsof dissertation committees. Recommendations for institutions are offered that cansupport gsm s in their efforts to be successful at mothering and professing in theivory tower. The presented arguments make it clear that the mothering viewpointis sorely needed in the academy, and that gsm s need support from all stakeholdersin order to be successful

Characteristics of fetal heart rate tracings prior to uterine rupture

Objective: To identify the fetal heart rate patterns that occurred in a 2‐h period of time preceding uterine rupture. Methods: The fetal monitor strips and the medical records of patients with a confirmed diagnosis of uterine rupture were reviewed. These patients delivered at the University of Michigan Hospital from January 1, 1985 to December 31, 1999 and were ≥28 weeks gestational age. Asymptomatic uterine scar dehiscences were excluded. The weeks of gestation, the number of cesarean sections, the surgical findings, and the maternal complications were obtained from the review of the maternal records. The fetal monitor strips for the 2 h preceding the uterine rupture were analyzed, and the fetal heart rate patterns were classified. Results: During the study period, there were 11 patients identified with uterine rupture. Seven of the 11 (64%) had operative or post‐operative complications. There were no maternal deaths. Review of the eight fetal heart rate tracings available revealed 7/8 (87.5%) with recurrent late decelerations and 4/8 (50%) with terminal bradycardia. All four of the patients with fetal bradycardia were preceded by recurrent late decelerations (100%). Conclusions: The most common fetal heart rate abnormalities that occurred prior to uterine rupture were recurrent late decelerations and bradycardia. The appearance of recurrent late decelerations may be an early sign of impending uterine rupture.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135337/1/ijgo235.pd

Revision and 90-day mortality following hip arthroplasty in patients with inflammatory arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis enrolled in the National Joint Registry for England and Wales

Aim: To assess revision rates and postoperative mortality in patients undergoing hip arthroplasty (HA) for inflammatory arthritis compared to hip osteoarthritis (OA). Methods: The analysis was conducted among cases of HA that were recorded in the National Joint Registry for England and Wales (NJR) between April 2003 and December 2012 and linked to Office for National Statistics mortality records. Procedures were identified where the indication for surgery was listed as seropositive rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), other inflammatory arthritis (otherIA), or OA. 5-year revision risk and 90-day postoperative mortality according to indication were compared using Cox regression models adjusted for age, sex, American Society of Anaesthesiologists (ASA) grade, year of operation, implant type, and surgical approach. Results: The cohort included 1457 HA procedures conducted for RA, 615 for AS, 1000 for otherIA, and 183,108 for OA. When compared with OA, there was no increased revision risk for any form of inflammatory arthritis (adjusted HRs: RA: 0.93 (0.64–1.35); AS: 1.14 (0.73–1.79); otherIA: 1.08 (0.73–1.59)). Postoperative 90-day mortality was increased for RA when compared with OA (adjusted HR: 2.86 (1.68–4.88)), but not for AS (adjusted HR: 1.56 (0.59–4.18)) or otherIA (adjusted HR: 0.64 (0.16–2.55)). Conclusions: The revision risk in HA performed for all types of inflammatory arthritis is similar to that for HA performed for OA. The 3-fold increased risk of 90-day mortality in patients with RA compared with OA highlights the need for active management of associated comorbidities in RA patients during the perioperative period

Uniform in bandwidth exact rates for a class of kernel estimators

Given an i.i.d sample $(Y_i,Z_i)$, taking values in \RRR^{d'}\times \RRR^d, we consider a collection Nadarya-Watson kernel estimators of the conditional expectations \EEE(+d_g(z)\mid Z=z), where $z$ belongs to a compact set H\subset \RRR^d, $g$ a Borel function on \RRR^{d'} and $c_g(\cdot),d_g(\cdot)$ are continuous functions on \RRR^d. Given two bandwidth sequences h_n<\wth_n fulfilling mild conditions, we obtain an exact and explicit almost sure limit bounds for the deviations of these estimators around their expectations, uniformly in g\in\GG,\;z\in H and h_n\le h\le \wth_n under mild conditions on the density $f_Z$, the class \GG, the kernel $K$ and the functions $c_g(\cdot),d_g(\cdot)$. We apply this result to prove that smoothed empirical likelihood can be used to build confidence intervals for conditional probabilities \PPP(Y\in C\mid Z=z), that hold uniformly in z\in H,\; C\in \CC,\; h\in [h_n,\wth_n]. Here \CC is a Vapnik-Chervonenkis class of sets.Comment: Published in the Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics Volume 63, p. 1077-1102 (2011

Isospin Asymmetry in Nuclei and Neutron Stars

The roles of isospin asymmetry in nuclei and neutron stars are investigated using a range of potential and field-theoretical models of nucleonic matter. The parameters of these models are fixed by fitting the properties of homogeneous bulk matter and closed-shell nuclei. We discuss and unravel the causes of correlations among the neutron skin thickness in heavy nuclei, the pressure of beta-equilibrated matter at a density of 0.1 fm$^{-3}$, the derivative of the nuclear symmetry energy at the same density and the radii of moderate mass neutron stars. Constraints on the symmetry properties of nuclear matter from the binding energies of nuclei are examined. The extent to which forthcoming neutron skin measurements will further delimit the symmetry properties is investigated. The impact of symmetry energy constraints for the mass and moment of inertia contained within neutron star crusts and the threshold density for the nucleon direct Urca process, all of which are potentially measurable, is explored. We also comment on the minimum neutron star radius, assuming that only nucleonic matter exists within the star.Comment: 49 pages, 17 figures, Phys. Rep. (in press); made improvements to "RAPR" and corrected transition densitie

Classification of a supersolid: Trial wavefunctions, Symmetry breakings and Excitation spectra

A state of matter is characterized by its symmetry breaking and elementary excitations. A supersolid is a state which breaks both translational symmetry and internal $U(1)$ symmetry. Here, we review some past and recent works in phenomenological Ginsburg-Landau theories, ground state trial wavefunctions and microscopic numerical calculations. We also write down a new effective supersolid Hamiltonian on a lattice. The eigenstates of the Hamiltonian contains both the ground state wavefunction and all the excited states (supersolidon) wavefunctions. We contrast various kinds of supersolids in both continuous systems and on lattices, both condensed matter and cold atom systems. We provide additional new insights in studying their order parameters, symmetry breaking patterns, the excitation spectra and detection methods.Comment: REVTEX4, 19 pages, 3 figure

Susceptibility and dilution effects of the kagome bi-layer geometrically frustrated network. A Ga-NMR study of SrCr_(9p)Ga_(12-9p)O_(19)

We present an extensive gallium NMR study of the geometrically frustrated kagome bi-layer compound SrCr_(9p)Ga_(12-9p)O_(19) (Cr^3+, S=3/2) over a broad Cr-concentration range (.72<p<.95). This allows us to probe locally the kagome bi-layer susceptibility and separate the intrinsic properties due to the geometric frustration from those related to the site dilution. Our major findings are: 1) The intrinsic kagome bi-layer susceptibility exhibits a maximum in temperature at 40-50 K and is robust to a dilution as high as ~20%. The maximum reveals the development of short range antiferromagnetic correlations; 2) At low-T, a highly dynamical state induces a strong wipe-out of the NMR intensity, regardless of dilution; 3) The low-T upturn observed in the macroscopic susceptibility is associated to paramagnetic defects which stem from the dilution of the kagome bi-layer. The low-T analysis of the NMR lineshape suggests that the defect can be associated with a staggered spin-response to the vacancies on the kagome bi-layer. This, altogether with the maximum in the kagome bi-layer susceptibility, is very similar to what is observed in most low-dimensional antiferromagnetic correlated systems; 4) The spin glass-like freezing observed at T_g=2-4 K is not driven by the dilution-induced defects.Comment: 19 pages, 19 figures, revised version resubmitted to PRB Minor modifications: Fig.11 and discussion in Sec.V on the NMR shif