System for measuring passenger reaction to transportation-vehicle vibration

Equipment is capable of measuring frequencies from 0 to 50 Hz and is portable, light, inexpensive, and easily adaptable to field operations. System could be used in situations where it is necessary to record simultaneously subject response to other types of physical measurement or stimuli, such as temperature, noise, or pressure

Predicting Autism over Large-Scale Child Dataset

Data Analytics and Machine learning in healthcare are one of the most emerging and needed fields in current time. Also, a lot of research has been performed and is still being done in this field. In healthcare, gone are those days when only doctor examines and patient listens. Now doctor has a lot of technologies which can assist him and help in accurately diagnosing the disease with which his patient is suffering. The backbone of such technologies is data analytics and machine learning where we can make out a lot of inferences from tons of patients‟ data already available. This project aims at performing research and implementation of big data and machine learning techniques on the data related to the patients suffering from the disease called Autism. Autism is a neural disorder disease characterized by impaired social communication, verbal and non-verbal interaction, restrictive and repetitive behavior [4]. Autism is majorly noticed in children under or about the age of two years. One very important thing to be observed here is that autism is highly heritable and the cause includes both environmental factors and genetic susceptibility. Hence it is very important to have such data which contains details of patients including their symptoms, lab test data, history, vaccination details etc. which gives specific details of patients and their history. The project ultimately aims at training the data model with the set of training data and then testing and evaluating the data model using the test data. In this way, it should be a research and solution for implementing machine learning to detect and diagnose autism

Generation of energetic He atom beams by a pulsed positive corona discharge

Time-of-flight measurements were made of neutral helium atom beams extracted from a repetitive, pulsed, positive-point corona discharge. Two strong neutral peaks, one fast and one slow, were observed, accompanied by a prompt photon peak and a fast ion peak. All peaks were correlated with the pulsing of the discharge. The two types of atoms appear to be formed by different mechanisms at different stages of the corona discharge. The fast atoms had energies of 190 eV and were formed at the onset of the pulsing, approximately 0.7 µs before the maximum of the photon peak. The slow peak, composed of electronically metastable He atoms, originated 30–50 µs after the photon pulse, and possessed a nearly thermal velocity distribution. The velocity distribution was typical of an undisturbed supersonic expansion with a stagnation temperature of 131 K and a speed ratio of 3.6. Peak intensities and velocities were measured as a function of source voltage, stagnation pressure, and skimmer voltage

Form and urban change : an urban morphometric study of five gentrified neighbourhoods in London

Research in Urban Morphology has long been exploring the form of cities and their changes over time, especially by establishing links with the parallel dynamics of these cities’ social, economic and political environments. The capacity of an adaptable and resilient urban form for ensuring a fertile environment for economic prosperity and social cohesion is at the forefront of discussion. Gentrification has emerged in the past few decades as an important topic of research in urban sociology, geography and economy, addressing the social impact of some forms of urban evolution; to some extent, these studies emphasise the form of the environment in which gentrification takes place, however, a systematic and quantitative method for a detailed characterization of this type of urban form is still far from being achieved. With this paper, we make a first step towards the establishment of an approach based on “urban morphometrics”. To this end, we measure and compare key morphological features of five London neighbourhoods that have undergone a process of piecemeal gentrification. Findings suggest that these five case studies display similar and recognisable morphological patterns in terms of their built form, geographical location of main and local roads and physical relationships between street fronts and street types. These initial results, while not implying any causal or universal relationship between morphological and social dynamics, nevertheless contribute to; a) highlight the benefits of a rigorous quantitative approach towards interpreting urban form beyond the disciplinary boundaries of Urban Morphology and b) define the statistical recurrence of a few, specific morphological features amongst the five cases of gentrified areas in London

Lichens of Callahan Mine, a copper and zinc-enriched Superfund site in Brooksville, Maine, U.S.A.

Metal-enriched habitats often harbor physiologically distinct biotas able to tolerate and accumulate toxic metals. Plants and lichens that accumulate metals have served as effective indicators of ecosystem pollution. Whereas the diversity of metal-tolerant lichens has been well documented globally, the literature of metal-tolerant lichen communities for eastern North America is limited. We examined the lichen flora of the Callahan Mine, a Cu-, Pb-, and Zn-enriched superfund site in Brooksville, Hancock County, Maine, U.S.A. Through collections along transects across metal-contaminated areas of the mine, we documented 76 species of lichens and related fungi. Fifty species were saxicolous, 26 were terricolous. Forty-three species were macrolichens, 31 were microlichens. Although no globally rare or declining species were encountered at the mine, two regionally rare or declining species, Stereocaulon tomentosum and Leptogium imbricatum, were found. The species found at the Callahan Mine were mostly ecological generalists frequenting disturbed habitats. Two extensively studied Cu-tolerant lichens, Acarospora smaragdula and Lecanora polytropa, and other known Cd-, Cu-, Pb-, and Zn-tolerant taxa, were found at the site

Computational Studies of Intramolecular Hydrogen Atom Transfers in the ß-Hydroxyethylperoxy and ß -Hydroxyethoxy Radicals

The ß-hydroxyethylperoxy (I) and ß-hydroxyethoxy (III) radicals are prototypes of species that can undergo hydrogen atom transfer across their intramolecular hydrogen bonds. These reactions may play an important role in both the atmosphere and in combustion systems. We have used density functional theory and composite electronic structure methods to predict the energetics of these reactions, RRKM/master equation simulations to model the kinetics of chemically activated I, and variational transition state theory (TST) to predict thermal rate constants for the 1,5-hydrogen shift in I (Reaction 1) and the 1,4-hydrogen shift in III (Reaction 2). Our multi-coefficient Gaussian-3 calculations predict that Reaction 1 has a barrier of 23.59 kcal/mol, and that Reaction 2 has a barrier of 22.71 kcal/mol. These predictions agree rather well with the MPW1K and BB1K density functional theory predictions but disagree with predictions based on B3LYP energies or geometries. Our RRKM/master equation simulations suggest that almost 50% of I undergoes a prompt hydrogen shift reaction at pressures up to 10 Torr, but the extent to which I is chemically activated is uncertain. For Reaction 1 at 298 K, the variational TST rate constant is ~30% lower than the conventional TST result, and the microcanonical optimized multidimensional tunneling (OMT) method predicts that tunneling accelerates the reaction by a factor of 3. TST calculations on Reaction 2 reveal no variational effect and a 298 K OMT transmission coefficient of 105. The Eckart method overestimates transmission coefficients for both reactions. [ACS abstract]http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/jpcafh/asap/abs/jp0704113.htm

The impact of pericytes on the stability of microvascular networks in response to nanoparticles.

Recapitulating the normal physiology of the microvasculature is pivotal in the development of more complex in-vitro models and organ-on-chip designs. Pericytes are an important component of the vasculature, promoting vessel stability, inhibiting vascular permeability and maintaining the vascular hierarchical architecture. The use of such co-culture for the testing of therapeutics and nanoparticle safety is increasingly considered for the validation of therapeutic strategies. This report presents the use of a microfluidic model for such applications. Interactions between endothelial cells and pericytes are first explored. We identify basal conditions required to form stable and reproducible endothelial networks. We then investigate interactions between endothelial cells and pericytes via direct co-culture. In our system, pericytes prevented vessel hyperplasia and maintained vessel length in prolonged culture (> 10 days). In addition, these vessels displayed barrier function and expression of junction markers associated with vessel maturation, including VE-cadherin, β-catenin and ZO-1. Furthermore, pericytes maintained vessel integrity following stress (nutrient starvation) and prevented vessel regression, in contrast to the striking dissociation of networks in endothelial monocultures. This response was also observed when endothelial/pericyte co-cultures were exposed to high concentrations of moderately toxic cationic nanoparticles used for gene delivery. This study highlights the importance of pericytes in protecting vascular networks from stress and external agents and their importance to the design of advanced in-vitro models, including for the testing of nanotoxicity, to better recapitulate physiological response and avoid false positives

Structure and dynamics of colloidal depletion gels: coincidence of transitions and heterogeneity

Transitions in structural heterogeneity of colloidal depletion gels formed through short-range attractive interactions are correlated with their dynamical arrest. The system is a density and refractive index matched suspension of 0.20 volume fraction poly(methyl methacyrlate) colloids with the non-adsorbing depletant polystyrene added at a size ratio of depletant to colloid of 0.043. As the strength of the short-range attractive interaction is increased, clusters become increasingly structurally heterogeneous, as characterized by number-density fluctuations, and dynamically immobilized, as characterized by the single-particle mean-squared displacement. The number of free colloids in the suspension also progressively declines. As an immobile cluster to gel transition is traversed, structural heterogeneity abruptly decreases. Simultaneously, the mean single-particle dynamics saturates at a localization length on the order of the short-range attractive potential range. Both immobile cluster and gel regimes show dynamical heterogeneity. Non-Gaussian distributions of single particle displacements reveal enhanced populations of dynamical trajectories localized on two different length scales. Similar dependencies of number density fluctuations, free particle number and dynamical length scales on the order of the range of short-range attraction suggests a collective structural origin of dynamic heterogeneity in colloidal gels.Comment: 14 pages, 10 figure

Two-year trajectory of fall risk in people with Parkinson disease: a latent class analysis

Published in final edited form as: Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 2016 March ; 97(3): 372–379.e1. doi:10.1016/j.apmr.2015.10.105.OBJECTIVE: To examine fall risk trajectories occurring naturally in a sample of individuals with early to middle stage Parkinson disease (PD). DESIGN: Latent class analysis, specifically growth mixture modeling (GMM), of longitudinal fall risk trajectories. SETTING: Assessments were conducted at 1 of 4 universities. PARTICIPANTS: Community-dwelling participants with PD of a longitudinal cohort study who attended at least 2 of 5 assessments over a 2-year follow-up period (N=230). INTERVENTIONS: Not applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Fall risk trajectory (low, medium, or high risk) and stability of fall risk trajectory (stable or fluctuating). Fall risk was determined at 6 monthly intervals using a simple clinical tool based on fall history, freezing of gait, and gait speed. RESULTS: The GMM optimally grouped participants into 3 fall risk trajectories that closely mirrored baseline fall risk status (P=.001). The high fall risk trajectory was most common (42.6%) and included participants with longer and more severe disease and with higher postural instability and gait disability (PIGD) scores than the low and medium fall risk trajectories (P<.001). Fluctuating fall risk (posterior probability <0.8 of belonging to any trajectory) was found in only 22.6% of the sample, most commonly among individuals who were transitioning to PIGD predominance. CONCLUSIONS: Regardless of their baseline characteristics, most participants had clear and stable fall risk trajectories over 2 years. Further investigation is required to determine whether interventions to improve gait and balance may improve fall risk trajectories in people with PD.Supported by the Davis Phinney Foundation, the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, National Institutes of Health (NIH) (grant nos. NIH R01 NS077959 and NIH UL1 TR000448), the Massachusetts and Utah Chapters of the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA), the Greater St Louis Chapter of the APDA, and the APDA Center for Advanced Research at Washington University. (Davis Phinney Foundation; Parkinson's Disease Foundation; NIH R01 NS077959 - National Institutes of Health (NIH); NIH UL1 TR000448 - National Institutes of Health (NIH); Utah Chapter of the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA); Greater St Louis Chapter of the APDA; APDA Center for Advanced Research at Washington University; Massachusetts Chapter of the American Parkinson Disease Association (APDA)

Kinetics of phase changes in large molecular clusters

A method has been devised to study the kinetics of phase changes in an unfamiliar regime of extreme undercooling and rate of transformation. We show how electron diffraction can monitor the time evolution of phase changes in molecular clusters condensed from the vapor in supersonic flow. Transitions taking place in microseconds are readily followed. Examples include solid state transformations as well as the freezing of liquid clusters. Aspects of the experiment making it possible to observe familiar transitions under highly unusual conditions will be discussed along with some advantages of the new technique.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43924/1/10053_2005_Article_BF01543986.pd