"A simple method of evaluating skill in badminton performance."

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit

Solubility of C-O-H mixtures in natural melts: new experimental data and application range of recent models

The effect of pressure, temperature, and melt composition on CO2 and H2O solubilities in aluminosilicate melts, coexisting with CO2-H2O fluids, is discussed on the basis of previously published and new experimental data. The datasets have been chosen so that CO2 and H2O are the main fluid components and the conclusions are only valid for relatively oxidizing conditions. The most important parameters controlling the solubilities of H2O and CO2 are pressure and composition of melt and fluid. On the other hand, the effect of temperature on volatile solubilities is relatively small. At pressures up to 200 MPa, intermediate compositions such as dacite, in which both molecular CO2 and carbonate species can be dissolved, show higher volatile solubilities than rhyolite and basalt. At higher pressures (0.5 to 1 GPa), basaltic melts can incorporate higher amounts of carbon dioxide (by a factor of 2 to 3) than rhyolitic and dacitic melts. Henrian behavior is observed only for CO2 solubility in equilibrium with H2O-CO2 fluids at pressures < 100 MPa, whereas at higher pressures CO2 solubility varies nonlinearly with CO2 fugacity. The positive deviation from linearity with almost constant CO2 solubility at low water activity indicates that dissolved water strongly enhances the solubility Of CO2. Water always shows non-Henrian solubility behavior because of its complex dissolution mechanism (incorporation of OH-groups and H2O molecules in the melt). The model of Newman and Lowenstern (2002), in which ideal mixing between volatiles in both fluid and melt phases is assumed, reproduces adequately the experimental data for rhyolitic and basaltic compositions at pressures below 200 MPa but shows noticeable disagreement at higher pressures, especially for basalt. The empirical model of Liu et al. (2004) is applicable to rhyolitic melts in a wide range of pressure (0-500 MPa) and temperature (700-1200 degrees C) but cannot be used for other melt compositions. The thermodynamic approach of Papale (1999) allows to calculate the effect of melt composition on volatile solubilities but needs an update to account for more recent experimental data. A disadvantage of this model is that it is not available as a program code. The review indicates a crucial need of new experimental data for scarcely investigated field of pressures and fluid compositions and new models describing evident non-ideality of H-C-O fluid solubility in silicate melts at high pressures

Mitigating Ischemic Injury of Stem Cell-Derived Insulin-Producing Cells after Transplant.

The advent of large-scale in&nbsp;vitro differentiation of human stem cell-derived insulin-producing cells (SCIPC) has brought us closer to treating diabetes using stem cell technology. However, decades of experiences from islet transplantation show that ischemia-induced islet cell death after transplant severely limits the efficacy of the therapy. It is unclear to what extent human SCIPC are susceptible to ischemia. In this study, we show that more than half of SCIPC die shortly after transplantation. Nutrient deprivation and hypoxia acted synergistically to kill SCIPC in&nbsp;vitro. Amino acid supplementation rescued SCIPC from nutrient deprivation, likely by providing cellular energy. Generating SCIPC under physiological oxygen tension of 5% conferred hypoxia resistance without affecting their differentiation or function. A two-pronged strategy of physiological oxygen acclimatization during differentiation and amino acid supplementation during transplantation significantly improved SCIPC survival after transplant

Impact of providing patients access to electronic health records on quality and safety of care: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To evaluate the impact of sharing electronic health records (EHRs) with patients and map it across six domains of quality of care (ie, patient-centredness, effectiveness, efficiency, timeliness, equity and safety). Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources CINAHL, Cochrane, Embase, HMIC, Medline/PubMed and PsycINFO, from 1997 to 2017. Eligibility criteria Randomised trials focusing on adult subjects, testing an intervention consisting of sharing EHRs with patients, and with an outcome in one of the six domains of quality of care. Data analysis The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed. Title and abstract screening were performed by two pairs of investigators and assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool. For each domain, a narrative synthesis of the results was performed, and significant differences in results between low risk and high/unclear risk of bias studies were tested (t-test, p<0.05). Continuous outcomes evaluated in four studies or more (glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP)) were pooled as weighted mean difference (WMD) using random effects meta-analysis. Sensitivity analyses were performed for low risk of bias studies, and long-term interventions only (lasting more than 12 months). Results Twenty studies were included (17 387 participants). The domain most frequently assessed was effectiveness (n=14), and the least were timeliness and equity (n=0). Inconsistent results were found for patient-centredness outcomes (ie, satisfaction, activation, self-efficacy, empowerment or health literacy), with 54.5% of the studies (n=6) demonstrating a beneficial effect. Meta-analyses showed a beneficial effect in effectiveness by reducing absolute values of HbA1c (unit: %; WMD=−0.316; 95% CI −0.540 to −0.093, p=0.005, I2=0%), which remained significant in the sensitivity analyses for low risk of bias studies (WMD= −0.405; 95% CI −0.711 to −0.099), and long-term interventions only (WMD=−0.272; 95% CI −0.482 to −0.062). A significant reduction of absolute values of SBP (unit: mm Hg) was found but lost in sensitivity analysis for studies with low risk of bias (WMD= −1.375; 95% CI −2.791 to 0.041). No significant effect was found for DBP (unit: mm Hg; WMD=−0.918; 95% CI −2.078 to 0.242, p=0.121, I2=0%). Concerning efficiency, most studies (80%, n=4) found either a reduction of healthcare usage or no change. A beneficial effect was observed in a range of safety outcomes (ie, general adherence, medication safety), but not in medication adherence. The proportion of studies reporting a beneficial effect did not differ between low risk and high/unclear risk studies, for the domains evaluated. Discussion Our analysis supports that sharing EHRs with patients is effective in reducing HbA1c levels, a major predictor of mortality in type 2 diabetes (mean decrease of −0.405, unit: %) and could improve patient safety. More studies are necessary to enhance meta-analytical power and assess the impact in other domains of care. Protocol registration http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO (CRD42017070092)

ranacapa: An R package and Shiny web app to explore environmental DNA data with exploratory statistics and interactive visualizations.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding is becoming a core tool in ecology and conservation biology, and is being used in a growing number of education, biodiversity monitoring, and public outreach programs in which professional research scientists engage community partners in primary research. Results from eDNA analyses can engage and educate natural resource managers, students, community scientists, and naturalists, but without significant training in bioinformatics, it can be difficult for this diverse audience to interact with eDNA results. Here we present the R package ranacapa, at the core of which is a Shiny web app that helps perform exploratory biodiversity analyses and visualizations of eDNA results. The app requires a taxonomy-by-sample matrix and a simple metadata file with descriptive information about each sample. The app enables users to explore the data with interactive figures and presents results from simple community ecology analyses. We demonstrate the value of ranacapa to two groups of community partners engaging with eDNA metabarcoding results

Using the etalon effect for in-situ balancing of the Advanced Virgo arm cavities

Several large-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors use resonant arm cavities to enhance the light power in the interferometer arms. These cavities are based on different optical designs: One design uses wedged input mirrors to create additional optical pick-off ports for deriving control signals. The second design employs input mirrors without wedge and thus offers the possibility to use the etalon effect inside the input mirrors for tuning the finesse of the arm cavities. In this article we introduce a concept of maximized flexibility that combines both of these options, by featuring wedges at the input mirrors and using the etalon effect instead in the end mirrors. We present a design for the arm cavities of Advanced Virgo. We have used numerical simulations to derive requirements for the manufacturing accuracy of an end mirror etalon for Advanced Virgo. Furthermore, we give analytical approximations for the achievable tuning range of the etalon in dependence on the reflectance, the curvature and the orientation of the etalon back surface.Comment: 12 pages, 6 Figure

Non-mean-field theory of anomalously large double-layer capacitance

Mean-field theories claim that the capacitance of the double-layer formed at a metal/ionic conductor interface cannot be larger than that of the Helmholtz capacitor, whose width is equal to the radius of an ion. However, in some experiments the apparent width of the double-layer capacitor is substantially smaller. We propose an alternate, non-mean-field theory of the ionic double-layer to explain such large capacitance values. Our theory allows for the binding of discrete ions to their image charges in the metal, which results in the formation of interface dipoles. We focus primarily on the case where only small cations are mobile and other ions form an oppositely-charged background. In this case, at small temperature and zero applied voltage dipoles form a correlated liquid on both contacts. We show that at small voltages the capacitance of the double-layer is determined by the transfer of dipoles from one electrode to the other and is therefore limited only by the weak dipole-dipole repulsion between bound ions, so that the capacitance is very large. At large voltages the depletion of bound ions from one of the capacitor electrodes triggers a collapse of the capacitance to the much smaller mean-field value, as seen in experimental data. We test our analytical predictions with a Monte Carlo simulation and find good agreement. We further argue that our ``one-component plasma" model should work well for strongly asymmetric ion liquids. We believe that this work also suggests an improved theory of pseudo-capacitance.Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures; some Monte Carlo results and a section about aqueous solutions adde

Organ Donation and Utilization in the United States, 1997–2006

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/75743/1/j.1600-6143.2008.02171.x.pd

Probing seed black holes using future gravitational-wave detectors

Identifying the properties of the first generation of seeds of massive black holes is key to understanding the merger history and growth of galaxies. Mergers between ~100 solar mass seed black holes generate gravitational waves in the 0.1-10Hz band that lies between the sensitivity bands of existing ground-based detectors and the planned space-based gravitational wave detector, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). However, there are proposals for more advanced detectors that will bridge this gap, including the third generation ground-based Einstein Telescope and the space-based detector DECIGO. In this paper we demonstrate that such future detectors should be able to detect gravitational waves produced by the coalescence of the first generation of light seed black-hole binaries and provide information on the evolution of structure in that era. These observations will be complementary to those that LISA will make of subsequent mergers between more massive black holes. We compute the sensitivity of various future detectors to seed black-hole mergers, and use this to explore the number and properties of the events that each detector might see in three years of observation. For this calculation, we make use of galaxy merger trees and two different seed black hole mass distributions in order to construct the astrophysical population of events. We also consider the accuracy with which networks of future ground-based detectors will be able to measure the parameters of seed black hole mergers, in particular the luminosity distance to the source. We show that distance precisions of ~30% are achievable, which should be sufficient for us to say with confidence that the sources are at high redshift.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables, accepted for proceedings of 13th GWDAW meetin

Control sideband generation for dual-recycled laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors

We present a discussion of the problems associated with generation of multiple control sidebands for length sensing and control of dual-recycled, cavity-enhanced Michelson interferometers and the motivation behind more complicated sideband generation methods. We focus on the Mach–Zehnder interferometer as a topological solution to the problem and present results from tests carried out at the Caltech 40 m prototype gravitational wave detector. The consequences for sensing and control for advanced interferometry are discussed, as are the implications for future interferometers such as Advanced LIGO