The compressibility of high purity YbB2

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The compressibility and phase stability of YbB2 are investigated under high pressure using high-resolution synchrotron x-ray diffraction in a diamond anvil cell. The bulk modules of high purity YbB2 is obtained as similar to 182 GPa using the Birch-Murnaghan equation of state. The patterns measured up to 20 GPa and the pressure dependence of normalized lattice parameters, a/a(0) and c/c(0), reveal that the compressibility of YbB2 is low and fairly isotropic, and this material can be classified as a hard material. X-ray photoemission studies demonstrate that Yb in YbB2 has a mostly trivalent valence state at room temperature. Moreover, sample preparation details provide a new insight into the high purity synthesis of YbB2 at ambient pressure and moderate temperatures. The presented structural and compressibility results are in agreement with the available theoretical and experimental data on binary rare-earth borides and can serve as a reliable reference for future studies

STAT-HI: A Socio-Technical Assessment Tool for Health Informatics Implementations

This paper proposes a socio-technical assessment tool (STAT-HI) for health informatics implementations. We explore why even projects allegedly using sound methodologies repeatedly fail to give adequate attention to socio-technical issues, and we present an initial draft of a structured assessment tool for health informatics implementation that encapsulates socio-technical good practice. Further work is proposed to enrich and validate the proposed instrument. This proposal was presented for discussion at a meeting of the UK Faculty of Health Informatics in December 2009

Phonologically-based biomarkers for major depressive disorder

Of increasing importance in the civilian and military population is the recognition of major depressive disorder at its earliest stages and intervention before the onset of severe symptoms. Toward the goal of more effective monitoring of depression severity, we introduce vocal biomarkers that are derived automatically from phonologically-based measures of speech rate. To assess our measures, we use a 35-speaker free-response speech database of subjects treated for depression over a 6-week duration. We find that dissecting average measures of speech rate into phone-specific characteristics and, in particular, combined phone-duration measures uncovers stronger relationships between speech rate and depression severity than global measures previously reported for a speech-rate biomarker. Results of this study are supported by correlation of our measures with depression severity and classification of depression state with these vocal measures. Our approach provides a general framework for analyzing individual symptom categories through phonological units, and supports the premise that speaking rate can be an indicator of psychomotor retardation severity.United States. Dept. of Defense (Air Force Contract FA8721-05-C-0002

Cardiac Uncoupling and Heart Rate Variability Stratify ICU Patients by Mortality: A Study of 2088 Trauma Patients

OBJECTIVE: We have previously shown that cardiac uncoupling (reduced heart rate variability) in the first 24 hours of trauma ICU stay is a robust predictor of mortality. We hypothesize that cardiac uncoupling over the entire ICU stay independently predicts mortality, reveals patterns of injury, and heralds complications. METHODS: A total of 2088 trauma ICU patients satisfied the inclusion criteria for this study. Cardiac uncoupling by outcome was compared using the Wilcoxon rank sum test. Risk of death from cardiac uncoupling and covariates (age, ISS, AIS Head Score, total transfusion requirements) was assessed using multivariate logistic regression models at each ICU day. Univariate logistic regression was used to assess risk of death from uncoupling irrespective of covariates at each ICU day. RESULTS: A total of 1325 (63.5%) patients displayed some degree of uncoupling over their ICU stay. The difference in uncoupling between survivors and nonsurvivors is both dramatic and consistent across the entire ICU stay, indicating that the presence of uncoupling is unrelated to the cause of death. However, the magnitude of uncoupling varies by day when data is stratified by cause of death. CONCLUSIONS: Cardiac uncoupling: 1) is an independent predictor of death throughout the ICU stay, 2) has a predictive window of 2 to 4 days, and 3) appears to increase in response to inflammation, infection, and multiple organ failure