262 research outputs found
Processing of glass-ceramics from lunar resources
The goal is to fabricate useful ceramic materials from the by-products of lunar oxygen production processes. Specifically, the crystal nucleation and growth kinetics of ilmenite-extracted lunar regolith were studied in order to produce glass-ceramics with optimal mechanical, thermal, and abrasion resistant properties. In the initial year of the program, construction and calibration of a high temperature viscometer, used for determining the viscosity of simulated lunar glasses was finished. A series of lunar simulants were also prepared, and the viscosity of each was determined over a range of temperatures. It was found that an increase in the concentration of Fe2O3 decreases the viscosity of the glass. While this may be helpful in processing the glass, Fe2O3 concentrations greater than approximately 10 wt percent resulted in uncontrolled crystallization during viscosity measurements. Impurities (such as Na2O, MnO, and K2O) in the regolith appeared to decrease the viscosity of the parent glass. These effects, as well as those of TiO2 and SiO2 on the processability of the glass, however, remain to be quantified
Resolvent Estimates in L^p for the Stokes Operator in Lipschitz Domains
We establish the resolvent estimates for the Stokes operator in
Lipschitz domains in , for . The result, in particular, implies that the Stokes operator in a
three-dimensional Lipschitz domain generates a bounded analytic semigroup in
for (3/2)-\varep < p< 3+\epsilon. This gives an affirmative answer to a
conjecture of M. Taylor.Comment: 28 page. Minor revision was made regarding the definition of the
Stokes operator in Lipschitz domain
Protocol for a prospective double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled feasibility trial of octreotide infusion during liver transplantation
Introduction Liver transplantation is a complex operation that can provide significant improvements in quality of life and survival to the recipients. However, serious complications are common and include major haemorrhage, hypotension and renal failure. Blood transfusion and the development of acute kidney injury lead to both short-term and long-term poor patient outcomes, including an increased risk of death, graft failure, length of stay and reduced quality of life. Octreotide may reduce the incidence of renal dysfunction, perioperative haemorrhage and enhance intraoperative blood pressure. However, octreotide does have risks, including resistant bradycardia, hyperglycaemia and hypoglycaemia and QT prolongation. Hence, a randomised controlled trial of octreotide during liver transplantation is needed to determine the cost-efficacy and safety of its use; this study represents a feasibility study prior to this trial.
Methods and analysis We describe a multicentre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled feasibility study of continuous infusion of octreotide during liver transplantation surgery. We will recruit 30 adult patients at two liver transplant centres. A blinded infusion during surgery will be administered in a 2:1 ratio of octreotide:placebo. The primary outcomes will determine the feasibility of this study design. These include the recruitment ratio, correct administration of blinded study intervention, adverse event rates, patient and clinician enrolment refusal and completion of data collection. Secondary outcome measures of efficacy and safety will help shape future trials by assessing potential primary outcome measures and monitoring safety end points. No formal statistical tests are planned. This manuscript represents study protocol number 1.3, dated 2 June 2021.
Ethics and dissemination This study has received Research Ethics Committee approval. The main study outcomes will be submitted to an open-access journal.
Trial sponsor The Joint Research Office, University College London, UK.
Neither the sponsor nor the funder have any role in study design, collection, management, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the study report or the decision to submit the report for publication.
Trial registration The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04941911) with recruitment due to start in August 2021 with anticipated completion in July 2022.
Clinical trials unit Surgical and Interventional Group, Division of Surgery & Interventional Science, University College London
Harnack inequality and regularity for degenerate quasilinear elliptic equations
We prove Harnack inequality and local regularity results for weak solutions
of a quasilinear degenerate equation in divergence form under natural growth
conditions. The degeneracy is given by a suitable power of a strong
weight. Regularity results are achieved under minimal assumptions on the
coefficients and, as an application, we prove local estimates
for solutions of a degenerate equation in non divergence form
Curvature-dimension inequalities and Li-Yau inequalities in sub-Riemannian spaces
In this paper we present a survey of the joint program with Fabrice Baudoin
originated with the paper \cite{BG1}, and continued with the works \cite{BG2},
\cite{BBG}, \cite{BG3} and \cite{BBGM}, joint with Baudoin, Michel Bonnefont
and Isidro Munive.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1101.359
Harnack inequality for fractional sub-Laplacians in Carnot groups
In this paper we prove an invariant Harnack inequality on
Carnot-Carath\'eodory balls for fractional powers of sub-Laplacians in Carnot
groups. The proof relies on an "abstract" formulation of a technique recently
introduced by Caffarelli and Silvestre. In addition, we write explicitly the
Poisson kernel for a class of degenerate subelliptic equations in product-type
Carnot groups
Weighted maximal regularity estimates and solvability of non-smooth elliptic systems II
We continue the development, by reduction to a first order system for the
conormal gradient, of \textit{a priori} estimates and solvability for
boundary value problems of Dirichlet, regularity, Neumann type for divergence
form second order, complex, elliptic systems. We work here on the unit ball and
more generally its bi-Lipschitz images, assuming a Carleson condition as
introduced by Dahlberg which measures the discrepancy of the coefficients to
their boundary trace near the boundary. We sharpen our estimates by proving a
general result concerning \textit{a priori} almost everywhere non-tangential
convergence at the boundary. Also, compactness of the boundary yields more
solvability results using Fredholm theory. Comparison between classes of
solutions and uniqueness issues are discussed. As a consequence, we are able to
solve a long standing regularity problem for real equations, which may not be
true on the upper half-space, justifying \textit{a posteriori} a separate work
on bounded domains.Comment: 76 pages, new abstract and few typos corrected. The second author has
changed nam
Protocol for a prospective double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled feasibility trial of octreotide infusion during liver transplantation
IntroductionLiver transplantation is a complex operation that can provide significant improvements in quality of life and survival to the recipients. However, serious complications are common and include major haemorrhage, hypotension and renal failure. Blood transfusion and the development of acute kidney injury lead to both short-term and long-term poor patient outcomes, including an increased risk of death, graft failure, length of stay and reduced quality of life. Octreotide may reduce the incidence of renal dysfunction, perioperative haemorrhage and enhance intraoperative blood pressure. However, octreotide does have risks, including resistant bradycardia, hyperglycaemia and hypoglycaemia and QT prolongation. Hence, a randomised controlled trial of octreotide during liver transplantation is needed to determine the cost-efficacy and safety of its use; this study represents a feasibility study prior to this trial.Methods and analysisWe describe a multicentre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled feasibility study of continuous infusion of octreotide during liver transplantation surgery. We will recruit 30 adult patients at two liver transplant centres. A blinded infusion during surgery will be administered in a 2:1 ratio of octreotide:placebo. The primary outcomes will determine the feasibility of this study design. These include the recruitment ratio, correct administration of blinded study intervention, adverse event rates, patient and clinician enrolment refusal and completion of data collection. Secondary outcome measures of efficacy and safety will help shape future trials by assessing potential primary outcome measures and monitoring safety end points. No formal statistical tests are planned. This manuscript represents study protocol number 1.3, dated 2 June 2021.Ethics and disseminationThis study has received Research Ethics Committee approval. The main study outcomes will be submitted to an open-access journal.Trial sponsorThe Joint Research Office, University College London, UK.Neither the sponsor nor the funder have any role in study design, collection, management, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the study report or the decision to submit the report for publication.Trial registrationThe study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT04941911) with recruitment due to start in August 2021 with anticipated completion in July 2022.Clinical trials unitSurgical and Interventional Group, Division of Surgery & Interventional Science, University College London.</jats:sec
Skin Conductance Response to the Pain of Others Predicts Later Costly Helping
People show autonomic responses when they empathize with the suffering of another person. However, little is known about how these autonomic changes are related to prosocial behavior. We measured skin conductance responses (SCRs) and affect ratings in participants while either receiving painful stimulation themselves, or observing pain being inflicted on another person. In a later session, they could prevent the infliction of pain in the other by choosing to endure pain themselves. Our results show that the strength of empathy-related vicarious skin conductance responses predicts later costly helping. Moreover, the higher the match between SCR magnitudes during the observation of pain in others and SCR magnitude during self pain, the more likely a person is to engage in costly helping. We conclude that prosocial motivation is fostered by the strength of the vicarious autonomic response as well as its match with first-hand autonomic experience
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