An interprofessional, intercultural, immersive short-term study abroad program: public health and service systems in rome

The purpose of this paper is to describe a short-term study abroad program that exposes engineering and nursing undergraduate students from the United States and Italy to an intercultural and interprofessional immersion experience. Faculty from Purdue University and Sapienza Università di Roma collaborated to design a technical program that demonstrates the complementary nature of engineering and public health in the service sector, with Rome as an integral component of the program. Specifically, the intersection of topics including systems, reliability, process flow, maintenance management, and public health are covered through online lectures, in-class activities and case study discussions, field experiences, and assessments. Herein, administrative issues such as student recruitment, selection, and preparation are elucidated. Additionally, the pedagogical approach used to ensure constructive alignment among the program goals, the intended learning outcomes, and the teaching and learning activities is described. Finally, examples of learning outcomes resulting from this alignment are provided

Nonlocal effects in high energy charged particle beams

Within the framework of the thermal wave model, an investigation is made of the longitudinal dynamics of high energy charged particle beams. The model includes the self-consistent interaction between the beam and its surroundings in terms of a nonlinear coupling impedance, and when resistive as well as reactive parts are included, the evolution equation becomes a generalised nonlinear Schroedinger equation including a nonlocal nonlinear term. The consequences of the resistive part on the propagation of particle bunches are examined using analytical as well as numerical methods.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, uses RevTeX

On the Absence of Continuous Symmetries for Noncommutative 3-Spheres

A large class of noncommutative spherical manifolds was obtained recently from cohomology considerations. A one-parameter family of twisted 3-spheres was discovered by Connes and Landi, and later generalized to a three-parameter family by Connes and Dubois-Violette. The spheres of Connes and Landi were shown to be homogeneous spaces for certain compact quantum groups. Here we investigate whether or not this property can be extended to the noncommutative three-spheres of Connes and Dubois-Violette. Upon restricting to quantum groups which are continuous deformations of Spin(4) and SO(4) with standard co-actions, our results suggest that this is not the case.Comment: 15 pages, no figure

Organic molecules in the protoplanetary disk of DG Tau revealed by ALMA

Planets form in protoplanetary disks and inherit their chemical compositions. It is thus crucial to map the distribution and investigate the formation of simple organics, such as formaldehyde and methanol, in protoplanetary disks. We analyze ALMA observations of the nearby disk-jet system around the T Tauri star DG Tau in the o-H$_2$CO $3_{1,2}-2_{1,1}$ and CH$_3$OH $3_{-2,2}-4_{-1,4}$ E, $5_{0,5}-4_{0,4}$ A transitions at an unprecedented resolution of $\sim0.15"$, i.e., $\sim18$ au at a distance of 121 pc. The H$_2$CO emission originates from a rotating ring extending from $\sim40$ au with a peak at $\sim62$ au, i.e., at the edge of the 1.3mm dust continuum. CH$_3$OH emission is not detected down to an r.m.s. of 3 mJy/beam in the 0.162 km/s channel. Assuming an ortho-to-para ratio of 1.8-2.8 the ring- and disk-height-averaged H$_2$CO column density is $\sim0.3-4\times10^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$, while that of CH$_3$OH is $<0.04-0.7\times10^{14}$ cm$^{-2}$. In the inner $40$ au no o-H$_2$CO emission is detected with an upper limit on its beam-averaged column density of $\sim0.5-6\times10^{13}$ cm$^{-2}$. The H$_2$CO ring in the disk of DG Tau is located beyond the CO iceline (R$_{\rm CO}\sim30$ au). This suggests that the H$_2$CO abundance is enhanced in the outer disk due to formation on grain surfaces by the hydrogenation of CO ice. The emission peak at the edge of the mm dust continuum may be due to enhanced desorption of H$_2$CO in the gas phase caused by increased UV penetration and/or temperature inversion. The CH$_3$OH/H$_2$CO abundance ratio is $<1$, in agreement with disk chemistry models. The inner edge of the H$_2$CO ring coincides with the radius where the polarization of the dust continuum changes orientation, hinting at a tight link between the H$_2$CO chemistry and the dust properties in the outer disk and at the possible presence of substructures in the dust distribution.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication on A&A Letter

Risk factors for monozygotic twinning after in vitro fertilization : a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives: To establish the risk factors for monozygotic twin (MZT) and monochorionic twin (MCT) pregnancies after in vitro fertilization (IVF). Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Setting: Not applicable. Patient(s): Women who achieved MZT and non-MZT pregnancies through IVF. Intervention(s): Systematic search of Medline from January 1995 to October 2018 with cross-checking of references from relevant articles in English. Main Outcome Measure(s): Possible risk factors for MZT or MCT pregnancies after IVF, comprising extended embryo culture, insemination method (conventional IVF and intracytoplasmic sperm injection [ICSI]), embryo biopsy for preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidies or for monogenic/single-gene defects (PGT-A or PGT-M) programs, assisted hatching (AH), oocytes donation, female age, and embryo cryopreservation. Result(s): A total of 40 studies were included. Blastocyst transfer compared with cleavage-stage embryo transfer, and female age &lt;35 years were associated with a statistically significant increase in the MZT and MCT pregnancy rate after IVF: (23 studies, OR 2.16, 95% CI, 1.74\u20132.68, I 2 =78%; 4 studies, OR 1.29; 95% CI, 1.03\u20131.62, I 2 =62%; and 3 studies, OR 1.90, 95% CI, 1.21\u20132.98, I 2 =59%; 2 studies, OR 2.34; 95% CI, 1.69\u20133.23, I 2 =0, respectively). Conventional IVF compared with ICSI and assisted hatching were associated with a statistically significantly increased risk of MZT pregnancy (9 studies, OR 1.19, 95% CI, 1.04\u20131.35, I 2 =0; 16 studies, OR 1.17, 95% CI, 1.09\u20131.27, I 2 =29%, respectively). Embryo biopsy for PGT-A or PGT-M, embryo cryopreservation, and oocytes donation were not associated with MZT pregnancies after IVF. Conclusion(s): Blastocyst transfer is associated with an increased risk of both MZT and MCT pregnancies after IVF. Further evidence is needed to clarify the impact of female age, insemination method and AH on the investigated outcomes

The Rapid Growth of Fibroids during Early Pregnancy

Several studies aimed to disentangle whether pregnancy influences the growth of uterine fibroids but results were inconsistent. In this study, we speculated that fibroid enlargement during pregnancy may not be linear and we hypothesized that this phenomenon may mainly occur during initial pregnancy. To test this hypothesis, we set up a prospective cohort study of women with fibroids undergoing IVF. Cases were women achieving a viable pregnancy. Controls were the subsequent women with fibroids but failing to become pregnant. Twenty-five cases and 25 controls were recruited. The total number of fibroids in the two groups was 46 and 41, respectively. The mean \ub1 SD diameter of the fibroids was 17 \ub1 10 and 20 \ub1 11 mm, respectively (p = 0.18). A statistically significant enlargement emerged exclusively in pregnant women. The median (Interquartile Range) modification of the diameter of the lesions in cases and controls was +34% (+6%/+65%) and +2% (-6%/+12%), respectively (p&lt;0.001). The median (Interquartile Range) modification of the volume of the lesions was +140% (+23%/+357%) and 0% (-18%/+37%), respectively (p&lt;0.001). In pregnant women, we failed to document any significant correlation between the magnitude of the growth and ovarian responsiveness to hyper-stimulation, suggesting that steroids hormones are not the unique factors involved. In conclusion, fibroids undergo a rapid and remarkable growth during initial pregnancy. Reasons behind this phenomenon remain to be clarified. The early rise in steroids hormones during early pregnancy may not be sufficient to explain the process. Other pregnancy-related hormones and proteins may play also key roles

Gaia DR2 view of the Lupus V-VI clouds: the candidate diskless young stellar objects are mainly background contaminants

Extensive surveys of star-forming regions with Spitzer have revealed populations of disk-bearing young stellar objects. These have provided crucial constraints, such as the timescale of dispersal of protoplanetary disks, obtained by carefully combining infrared data with spectroscopic or X-ray data. While observations in various regions agree with the general trend of decreasing disk fraction with age, the Lupus V and VI regions appeared to have been at odds, having an extremely low disk fraction. Here we show, using the recent Gaia data release 2 (DR2), that these extremely low disk fractions are actually due to a very high contamination by background giants. Out of the 83 candidate young stellar objects (YSOs) in these clouds observed by Gaia, only five have distances of 150 pc, similar to YSOs in the other Lupus clouds, and have similar proper motions to other members in this star-forming complex. Of these five targets, four have optically thick (Class II) disks. On the one hand, this result resolves the conundrum of the puzzling low disk fraction in these clouds, while, on the other hand, it further clarifies the need to confirm the Spitzer selected diskless population with other tracers, especially in regions at low galactic latitude like Lupus V and VI. The use of Gaia astrometry is now an independent and reliable way to further assess the membership of candidate YSOs in these, and potentially other, star-forming regions.Comment: Accepted for publication on Astronomy&Astrophysics Letter

Modelling Quantum Mechanics by the Quantumlike Description of the Electric Signal Propagation in Transmission Lines

It is shown that the transmission line technology can be suitably used for simulating quantum mechanics. Using manageable and at the same time non-expensive technology, several quantum mechanical problems can be simulated for significant tutorial purposes. The electric signal envelope propagation through the line is governed by a Schrodinger-like equation for a complex function, representing the low-frequency component of the signal, In this preliminary analysis, we consider two classical examples, i.e. the Frank-Condon principle and the Ramsauer effect

Stabilization of high-order solutions of the cubic Nonlinear Schrodinger Equation

In this paper we consider the stabilization of non-fundamental unstable stationary solutions of the cubic nonlinear Schrodinger equation. Specifically we study the stabilization of radially symmetric solutions with nodes and asymmetric complex stationary solutions. For the first ones we find partial stabilization similar to that recently found for vortex solutions while for the later ones stabilization does not seem possible