Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS Imaging of W3 IRS 5: A Trapezium in the Making?

We present Hubble Space Telescope NICMOS imaging of W3 IRS 5, a binary high-mass protostar. In addition to the two protostars, NICMOS images taken in the F222M and F160W filters show three new 2.22 micron sources with very red colors; these sources fall within a region 5600 AU in diameter, and are coincident with a 100 solar mass dense molecular clump. Two additional point sources are found within 0.4'' (800 AU) of one of the high-mass protostars; these may be stellar companions or unresolved emission knots from an outflow. We propose that these sources constitute a nascent Trapezium system in the center of the W3 IRS 5 cluster containing as many as five proto OB stars. This would be the first identification of a Trapezium still deeply embedded in its natal gas.Comment: accepted to ApJ letter

DeepCare: A Deep Dynamic Memory Model for Predictive Medicine

Personalized predictive medicine necessitates the modeling of patient illness and care processes, which inherently have long-term temporal dependencies. Healthcare observations, recorded in electronic medical records, are episodic and irregular in time. We introduce DeepCare, an end-to-end deep dynamic neural network that reads medical records, stores previous illness history, infers current illness states and predicts future medical outcomes. At the data level, DeepCare represents care episodes as vectors in space, models patient health state trajectories through explicit memory of historical records. Built on Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), DeepCare introduces time parameterizations to handle irregular timed events by moderating the forgetting and consolidation of memory cells. DeepCare also incorporates medical interventions that change the course of illness and shape future medical risk. Moving up to the health state level, historical and present health states are then aggregated through multiscale temporal pooling, before passing through a neural network that estimates future outcomes. We demonstrate the efficacy of DeepCare for disease progression modeling, intervention recommendation, and future risk prediction. On two important cohorts with heavy social and economic burden -- diabetes and mental health -- the results show improved modeling and risk prediction accuracy.Comment: Accepted at JBI under the new name: "Predicting healthcare trajectories from medical records: A deep learning approach

Poststroke Trajectories: The Process of Recovery Over the Longer Term Following Stroke

We adopted a grounded theory approach to explore the process of recovery experienced by stroke survivors over the longer term who were living in the community in the United Kingdom, and the interacting factors that are understood to have shaped their recovery trajectories. We used a combination of qualitative methods. From the accounts of 22 purposively sampled stroke survivors, four different recovery trajectories were evident: (a) meaningful recovery, (b) cycles of recovery and decline, (c) ongoing disruption, (d) gradual, ongoing decline. Building on the concept of the illness trajectory, our findings demonstrate how multiple, interacting factors shape the process and meaning of recovery over time. Such factors included conception of recovery and meanings given to the changing self, the meanings and consequences of health and illness experiences across the life course, loss, sense of agency, and enacting relationships. Awareness of the process of recovery will help professionals better support stroke survivors

Production of Gravitational Waves in the nMSSM

During a strongly first-order phase transition gravitational waves are produced by bubble collisions and turbulent plasma motion. We analyze the relevant characteristics of the electroweak phase transition in the nMSSM to determine the generated gravitational wave signal. Additionally, we comment on correlations between the production of gravitational waves and baryogenesis. We conclude that the gravitational wave relic density in this model is generically too small to be detected in the near future by the LISA experiment. We also consider the case of a "Standard Model" with dimension-six Higgs potential, which leads to a slightly stronger signal of gravitational waves.Comment: 29 pages, 7 figures; published version, some comments adde

Influential factors of aligning Spotify squads in mission-critical and offshore projects – a longitudinal embedded case study

Changing the development process of an organization is one of the toughest and riskiest decisions. This is particularly true if the known experiences and practices of the new considered ways of working are relative and subject to contextual assumptions. Spotify engineering culture is deemed as a new agile software development method which increasingly attracts large-scale organizations. The method relies on several small cross-functional self-organized teams (i.e., squads). The squad autonomy is a key driver in Spotify method, where a squad decides what to do and how to do it. To enable effective squad autonomy, each squad shall be aligned with a mission, strategy, short-term goals and other squads. Since a little known about Spotify method, there is a need to answer the question of: How can organizations work out and maintain the alignment to enable loosely coupled and tightly aligned squads? In this paper, we identify factors to support the alignment that is actually performed in practice but have never been discussed before in terms of Spotify method. We also present Spotify Tailoring by highlighting the modified and newly introduced processes to the method. Our work is based on a longitudinal embedded case study which was conducted in a real-world large-scale offshore software intensive organization that maintains mission-critical systems. According to the confidentiality agreement by the organization in question, we are not allowed to reveal a detailed description of the features of the explored project

Search for muonic decays of the antiproton at the Fermilab Antiproton Accumulator

A search for antiproton decay has been made at the Fermilab Antiproton Accumulator. Limits are placed on six antiproton decay modes which contain a final-state muon. At the 90% C.L. we find that tau/B(mu gamma) > 5.0 x 10^4 yr, tau/B(mu pi0) > 4.8 x 10^4 yr, tau/B(mu eta) > 7.9 x 10^3 yr, tau/B(mu gamma gamma) > 2.3 x 10^4 yr, tau/B(mu K0S > 4.3 x 10^3 yr, and tau/B(mu K0L) > 6.5 x 10^3 yr.Comment: 8 pages + 3 Postscript figure

Magnetic field tuning of mechanical properties of ultrasoft PDMS-based magnetorheological elastomers for biological applications

We report tuning of the moduli and surface roughness of magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) by varying applied magnetic field. Ultrasoft MREs are fabricated using a physiologically relevant commercial polymer, SylgardTM 527, and carbonyl iron powder (CIP). We found that the shear storage modulus, Young\u27s modulus, and root-mean-square surface roughness are increased by ∼41×, ∼11×, and ∼11×, respectively, when subjected to a magnetic field strength of 95.5 kA m−1. Single fit parameter equations are presented that capture the tunability of the moduli and surface roughness as a function of CIP volume fraction and magnetic field strength. These magnetic field-induced changes in the mechanical moduli and surface roughness of MREs are key parameters for biological applications

River Invertebrate Classification Tool

Background to research The Regulatory Agencies in the UK (the Environment Agency; Scottish Environment Protection Agency; and the Environment & Heritage Service) currently use RIVPACS III+ software to classify the ecological quality of rivers. However, because RIVPACS III+ pre-dates the WFD, there has been a requirement to ensure that the RIVPACS reference sites are fully WFD compliant, to add new biotic indices to the RIVPACS models, and to improve the robustness of the RIVPACS software to fully meet the needs of the Agencies in their delivery of WFD monitoring. These issues have been addressed in this project and have led to the development of new RIVPACS IV predictive models that will be programmed into a new River Invertebrate Classification Tool being built by SEPA. This new system will be based on a modern software programming language, be compatible with the agencies’ computer systems and include the ability to predict new biological indices, produce biological status assessments based on these new indices and be able to estimate the errors involved in using these new indices. Because access to the new system will be essential for the UK Agencies to be able to implementation the WFD, the new tool will be readily and freely available to anyone who might seek to use it. Objectives of research • The overall objective of the project was to produce a new set of RIVPACS predictive models for use within a new River Invertebrate Classification Tool that will be used to classify the ecological status of rivers for Water Framework Directive compliance monitoring • The new RIVPACS models constructed with this project required considerably enhanced functionality compared to RIVPACS III+ to properly address the monitoring requirements of the UK Agencies in their implementation of the Water Framework Directive. Key findings and recommendations This project has produced new RIVPACS IV models with considerably enhanced functionality compared to RIVPACS III+. These models incorporate: • A full revision of the taxonomic framework of RIVPACS to bring the taxonomy up-to-date and enable compatiability across the revised Miatland, Furse code and National Biodiversity Network taxon coding systems used across the UK Agencies and beyond • Predictions that fully satisfy the WFD definition of ‘reference condition’ by adjusting predictions for certain stream types and by removal of sites that were not in reference condition when sampled • Allocation of actual abundance values to family level records in the RIVPACS reference data set. Lack of actual abundance data, especially at family level, has affected all versions of RIVPACS and has constrained the types of biotic indices that RIVPACS can predict • Extension to the suite of biotic indices so that the new system can predict a wider range of reference state “expected” index values. This enables full WFD quality reporting capabilities as well as providing the system with the general functionality to predict a much wider range of indices e.g. intercalibration indices (e.g. ICMi), stress-specific indices, and ecological and functional trait indices • Extension of the uncertainty/errors module to estimate and assess uncertainty in (i) assignment to status class and (ii) comparison of samples for temporal change in quality and status. This needs to be done for a wider range of biotic indices (including those incorporating abundance data) These new RIVPACS IV models can be used by the UK Agencies across Great Britain and Northern Ireland in their WFD compliance monitoring. All of the algorithms, variables and data necessary to build these models have been provided to SEPA for programming into a new River Invertebrate Classification Tool that will be disseminated made free of charge to all interested user

Strong electroweak phase transitions without collider traces

We discuss the question if the upcoming generation of collider and low-energy experiments can successfully probe the nature of the electroweak phase transition. In particular, we are interested in phase transitions strong enough for electroweak baryogenesis or even for a production of gravitational radiation observable by the Big Bang Observer. As an explicit example, we present an analysis in a singlet extension of the Standard Model. We focus on the region in parameter space where the model develops no significant deviation in its low energy phenomenology from the Standard Model. Nevertheless, this class of models can develop a very strong phase transition.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, some comments and references adde