1,043 research outputs found
3D morphological reconstruction of oligodendrocyte precursor cells
Reconstruction of mouse cerebellar oligodendrocyte precursor cells. Cells in cultured brain slices were labeled using a recombinant viral vector encoding membrane targeted GFP. Cells were imaged using a spinning disk confocal microscope, and confocal images were then traced in 3D using NeuronStudio software
Medical Library Association Historical Marker to be Installed in Philadelphia
During 2015, its 117th anniversary year, MLA will celebrate a novel and permanent way of informing both residents and visitors to Philadelphia about the association. Several months ago, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission voted to approve the nomination of an official State Historical Marker to commemorate MLA\u27s founding in Philadelphia in 1898. The text of the marker will not be revealed until the marker\u27s dedication ceremony in keeping with the commission\u27s guidelines
Mortality in intensive care: The impact of bacteremia and the utility of systemic inflammatory response syndrome
Background:
The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of bacteremia on intensive care unit (ICU) mortality and to develop a bacteremia prediction tool using systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) criteria.
Methods:
Patients included those aged >18 years who had blood cultures taken in the ICU from January 1, 2011-December 31, 2013. Eligible patients were identified from microbiology records of the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Scotland. Clinical and outcome data were gathered from ICU records. Patients with clinically significant bacteremia were matched to controls using propensity scores. SIRS criteria were gathered and used to create decision rules to predict the absence of bacteremia. The main outcome was mortality at ICU discharge. The utility of the decision tools was measured using sensitivity and specificity.
Results:
One hundred patients had a clinically significant positive blood culture and were matched to 100 controls. Patients with bacteremia had higher ICU mortality (odds ratio [OR], 2.35; P = .001) and longer ICU stay (OR, 17.0 vs 7.8 days; P ≤ .001). Of 1,548 blood culture episodes, 1,274 met ≥2 SIRS criteria (106 significant positive cultures and 1,168 negative cultures). There was no association between SIRS criteria and positive blood cultures (P = .11). A decision rule using 3 SIRS criteria had optimal predictive performance (sensitivity, 56%; specificity, 50%) but low accuracy.
Conclusions:
ICU patients with bacteremia have increased mortality and length of ICU stay. SIRS criteria cannot be used to identify patients at low risk of bacteremia
Soft-bottom benthic assemblages and levels of contaminants in sediments and biota at Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary and nearby shelf waters off the coast of Georgia (2000 and 2001)
A series of studies was initiated to assess the condition of benthic macroinfauna and chemical contaminant levels in sediments and biota of the Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary (GRNMS) and nearby shelf waters off the coast of Georgia. Four key objectives of the research are (1) to
document existing environmental conditions within the sanctuary in order to provide a quantitative benchmark for tracking any future changes due to either natural or human disturbances; (2) to examine broader cross-shelf spatial patterns in benthic fauna and sediment contaminant
concentrations and to identify potential controlling factors associated with the observed patterns; (3) to assess any between-year temporal variability in benthic fauna; and (4) to evaluate the importance of benthic fauna as prey for higher trophic levels. Such questions are being addressed to help fulfill long-term science and management goals of the GRNMS. However, it is anticipated that the
information will be of additional value in broadening our understanding of the surrounding South Atlantic Bight (SAB) ecosystem and in bringing the knowledge to bear on related resourcemanagement issues of the region.
We have begun to address the first three of these objectives with data from samples collected in spring 2000 at stations within GRNMS, and in spring 2001 at stations within the sanctuary and along three cross-shelf transects extending from the mouths of Sapelo, Doboy, and Altamaha Sounds out to sanctuary depths (about 17-20 m). This report provides a description of baseline conditions within
the sanctuary, based on results of the spring 2000 survey (Section II), and uses data from both 2000 and 2001 to examine overall spatial and temporal patterns in biological and chemical variables within the sanctuary and surrounding inner-shelf environment (Section III). (PDF contains 65 pages
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Sustainable EV Market Incentives: Lessons Learned from European Feebates for a Zero Emissions Future
Strong policies are needed to accelerate the zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) transition so that it occurs at a pace in line with international climate goals. The purchase price of new vehicles tends to be the variable that most affects consumer decisions. With urgency for a ZEV transition, fiscal pressure for governments can be high as rebates for consumers and incentives supporting manufacturers in the switch to ZEV technologies will be needed for a mass-market transition. Fees on high-polluting vehicles—and rebates on clean ones—have become an effective and increasingly common strategy in European countries. The feebate mechanism can raise the necessary capital for financing a ZEV transition in combination with other regulatory mechanisms. This paper reviews and assesses feebate design types, issues, and implementation strategies in France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These examples show that feebates can be designed in a variety of ways to meet unique policy objectives and that periodic adjustments are helpful in achieving goals. Among twelve design considerations for an effective feebate, the authors find that: (1) focusing on a single fee parameter, such as CO2 emissions, can be a simple yet effective mechanism; (2) a continuous functional form for the fee and a stepwise rebate are likely to be most effective in driving EV adoption; and (3) pure feebates, where fee revenue funds EV incentives by program design, provide certainty for manufacturers, regulators, and consumers.
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Sustainable EV Market Incentives: Equitable Revenue-Neutral Incentives for Zero-emission Vehicles in the United States
The United States (US), under the Biden Administration, has set a goal of reaching a 50% sales share for zero-emission vehicles by 2030. The administration is pursuing a combination of aggressive fuel economy and greenhouse gas performance standards along with tax credits for consumers who purchase electric vehicles (EVs). Given the anticipated high costs of the EV transition and limited public funds, policy mechanisms that generate extra-budgetary funding are enticing. Feebates—where a fee charged on some purchases is used to offer a rebate for others—can serve as a self-sustaining tool. Feebates have been attempted at the state and federal level in the US but did not pass legislatures due to a lack of political support for levying a fee on internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. However, as governments face increasing fiscal constraints, there is greater support for self- funding EV incentive programs. Feebate policies can provide certainty for both producers and consumers to facilitate a steady transition to sustainable transportation. This paper assesses the potential utility of feebates for shaping the US light-duty vehicle market. The analysis demonstrates that: (1) revenue-neutral incentive systems are possible and (2) revenue-neutrality can be achieved with relatively low fees on ICE vehicles to support economic equity among buyers. From an industry perspective, market certainty can be created by incorporating fuel economy targets into a fee schedule as pivot points and allocating fees to finance rebates. This would likely influence industry investment decisions in ways that increase EV production and model availability.
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Sustainable Market Incentives -- Lessons from European Feebates for a ZEV Future
Strong policies with sustainable incentives are needed to accelerate the EV
transition. This paper assesses various feebate designs assessing recent policy
evolution in five European countries. While there are key design elements that
should be considered, there is no optimal feebate design. Different policy
objectives could be served by feebates influencing its design and
effectiveness. Using feebates to transition to EVs has emerged a key objective.
With the financial sustainability of EV incentive programs being questioned, a
self financing market mechanism could be the need of the hour solution.
Irrespective of the policy goals, a feebate will impact both the supply side,
i.e., the automotive industry and the consumer side. Globally, feebates can be
used to effect technology leapfrogging while navigating the political economy
of clean transportation policy in different country contexts. This paper
highlights thirteen design elements of an effective feebate policy that can
serve as a foundation for policymakers
Constrained Decoding for Code Language Models via Efficient Left and Right Quotienting of Context-Sensitive Grammars
Large Language Models are powerful tools for program synthesis and advanced
auto-completion, but come with no guarantee that their output code is
syntactically correct. This paper contributes an incremental parser that allows
early rejection of syntactically incorrect code, as well as efficient detection
of complete programs for fill-in-the-middle (FItM) tasks. We develop
Earley-style parsers that operate over left and right quotients of arbitrary
context-free grammars, and we extend our incremental parsing and quotient
operations to several context-sensitive features present in the grammars of
many common programming languages. The result of these contributions is an
efficient, general, and well-grounded method for left and right quotient
parsing.
To validate our theoretical contributions -- and the practical effectiveness
of certain design decisions -- we evaluate our method on the particularly
difficult case of FItM completion for Python 3. Our results demonstrate that
constrained generation can significantly reduce the incidence of syntax errors
in recommended code.Comment: 20 pages, Code available at
https://github.com/amazon-science/incremental-parsin
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