Ground Heave Due to Jet Grouting Near an Existing Structure

Renovations of the MBTA Copley Station in Boston included construction of a new elevator shaft to improve disabled access to the existing Green Line station. The site is immediately adjacent to the Eastern façade of the historic Old South Church. The construction work required excavation support including a perimeter secant pile wall and a jet-grouted base plug. Significant ground and structural movements were observed during jet grouting, mainly associated with soil displacements during grout injection. A three dimensional numerical model was developed, using the Plaxis 3D Foundation™ program, in order to test the hypothesis that the observed movements of the structure could be associated with the installation of the jet grout piles. The amount of volume expansion associated with installation of jet grout piles is estimated based by calibrating the model to measured ground movements. The finite element model results give a consistent explanation for the observed pattern of movements, including the heave of the church wall and lateral displacements at inclinometers located within the vicinity of the structure, measured at the time when damage occurred. The model assumes there is a vertical line of weakness in the masonry, representative of a pre-existing structural crack, as observed by structural investigations; and hence, confirms the underlying mechanical hypothesis for the source of ground movements

Aplicación de la acción autónoma de nulidad por cosa juzgada fraudulenta

The investigation addressed the extraordinary nature of the autonomous action for annulment, on the basis that there is no possibility of rectifying in another objective way a punctual or procedural error, before a trial in the execution stage of res judicata, meaning the opening of a procedure misused and applied by the courts. The general objective is to analyze the relevance of the application of the autonomous action of nullity due to fraudulent res judicata in the framework of the protection of legal security in Paraguay. Methodology non-experimental cross-sectional design, with a qualitative approach and a descriptive-explanatory level, with a convenience sample of a total of 5 Magistrates, through the interview as a field work technique. The effect of the admissibility of the autonomous action of nullity was highlighted, which could yield to the value of justice. The autonomous action of annulment due to fraudulent res judicata represents one of the controversial institutions in the law, based on its possible scope on due process, taking into account the scarce normative wording that they make to the legal text, especially in its aspect. conceptual, temporal and determination of precautions in its implementation.La investigación abordó el carácter extraordinario de la acción autónoma de nulidad, sobre la base de que no existe posibilidad de rectificar de otra manera objetiva un error puntual o procesal, ante un juicio en etapa de ejecución de cosa juzgada, significando la apertura de un procedimiento mal utilizado y aplicado por los tribunales. El objetivo general es analizar la pertinencia de la aplicación de la acción autónoma de nulidad por cosa juzgada fraudulenta en el marco de la protección de la seguridad jurídica en el Paraguay. El diseño es no experimental de tipo transversal, de enfoque cualitativo y nivel descriptivo-explicativo, con un muestreo por conveniencia sobre un total de 5 Magistrados, por medio de la entrevista como técnica del trabajo de campo. Se destacó el efecto de la admisibilidad de la acción autónoma de nulidad, que podría ceder ante el valor justicia. La acción autónoma de nulidad por cosa juzgada fraudulenta representa una de las instituciones controversiales en el derecho, en base a sus posibles alcances sobre el debido proceso, tomando en cuenta la escasa redacción normativa que hacen al texto legal, sobre todo en su aspecto conceptual, temporal y determinación de los recaudos en su instrumentación

The Role of Language in Anatomy and Physiology Instruction

Research indicates that student learning of science, student attitudes toward science, and their motivation to learn science and pursue science-related careers is related to classroom instruction. This study examined anatomy and physiology (A&P) classes in a south Texas high school where 97 percent of students are Hispanic bilingual learners. Classes were assigned to control or treatment groups, with the treatment group receiving instruction designed to help students develop a deeper understanding of anatomy vocabulary related to brain structures by making connections to these words in everyday life as well as to their understanding of Spanish. Main effects between group and test scores were significant, with the control group reporting higher test scores than the treatment group. We attribute this finding to a bleed-over of the treatment group instructional design to the control group. In addition, significant differences in mean and median scores were observed with respect to intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. The statistically significant increases in learning for both groups suggests the activity-, problem-, and project-based (APB) curriculum has the potential to be an effective type of instruction, especially for bilingual learners

Correction to: VULCAN integrates ChIP-seq with patient-derived co-expression networks to identify GRHL2 as a key co-regulator of ERa at enhancers in breast cancer.

Following publication of the original article [1], the authors reported that Figs. 4 and 5 had mistakenly been transposed. Please find the correct Figs. 4 and 5 below. The original article [1] has been corrected

Quantifying the errors in animal contacts recorded by proximity loggers

Automated contact detection by means of proximity loggers permits the measurement of encounters between individuals (animal-animal contacts) and the time spent by individuals in the proximity of a focal resource of interest (animal-fixed logger contacts). The ecological inference derived from contact detection is intrinsically associated with the distance at which the contact occurred. But no proximity loggers currently exist that record this distance and therefore all distance estimations are associated with error. Here we applied a probabilistic approach to model the relationship between contact detection and inter-logger distance, and quantify the associated error, on free-ranging animals in semi-controlled settings. The probability of recording a contact declined with the distance between loggers, and this decline was steeper for weaker radio transmission powers. Even when proximity loggers were adjacent, contact detection was not guaranteed, irrespective of the radio transmission power. Accordingly, the precision and sensitivity of the system varied as a function of inter-logger distance, radio transmission power, and experimental setting (e.g., depending on animal body mass and fine-scale movements). By accounting for these relationships, we were able to estimate the probability that a detected contact occurred at a certain distance, and the probability that contacts were missed (i.e., false negatives). These calibration exercises have the potential to improve the predictability of the study and enhance the applicability of proximity loggers to key wildlife management issues such as disease transmission rates or wildlife use of landscape features and resources

How Environmental Factors Impact Outdoor Wireless Sensor Networks: A Case Study

How do the characteristics of the surrounding en- vironment affect the ability of the nodes of a wireless sensor network (WSN) to communicate? Partial answers to this question can be found in the literature, but always with a focus on the short-term, small-scale behavior of individual links, as this directly informs the design of WSN protocols. In this paper, we are instead concerned with the large- scale behavior of the overall network, observed over a longer time scale, as our primary interest is to support the deployment of WSNs by characterizing the impact of the target environment. Motivated by a real-world wildlife monitoring application, we report about experimental campaigns in three outdoor environments characterized by varying degrees of vegetation. Experiments are repeated in summer and winter, to account for seasonal variations, and span multiple days, allowing us to assess variations induced by the succession of day and night. Our experiments focus primarily on characterizing the impact of the environment on the physical layer, but we also investigate how this is mirrored at higher layers. We analyze the experimental data along multiple dimensions, yielding quantitative answers to the aforementioned question, and eliciting trends and findings previously not reported in the literature. We argue that this type of study may inspire new methods to better estimate the performance of a WSN in its target deployment environment

Genetic Variants of VEGFA and FLT4 Are Determinants of Survival in Renal Cell Carcinoma Patients Treated with Sorafenib

Molecular markers of sorafenib efficacy in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) are not available. The purpose of this study was to discover genetic markers of survival in patients with mRCC treated with sorafenib. Germline variants from 56 genes were genotyped in 295 patients with mRCC. Variant-overall survival (OS) associations were tested in multivariate regression models. Mechanistic studies were conducted to validate clinical associations. VEGFA rs1885657, ITGAV rs3816375, and WWOX rs8047917 (sorafenib arm), and FLT4 rs307826 and VEGFA rs3024987 (sorafenib and placebo arms combined) were associated with shorter OS. FLT4 rs307826 increased VEGFR-3 phosphorylation, membrane trafficking, and receptor activation. VEGFA rs1885657 and rs58159269 increased transcriptional activity of the constructs containing these variants in endothelial and RCC cell lines, and VEGFA rs58159269 increased endothelial cell proliferation and tube formation. FLT4 rs307826 and VEGFA rs58159269 led to reduced sorafenib cytotoxicity. Genetic variation in VEGFA and FLT4 could affect survival in sorafenib-treated patients with mRCC. These markers should be examined in additional malignancies treated with sorafenib and in other angiogenesis inhibitors used in mRCC. Significance: Clinical and mechanistic data identify germline genetic variants in VEGFA and FLT4 as markers of survival in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.Peer reviewe

The evolution of plasticity at geographic range edges

Acknowledgments This article is the product of a working group funded by a grant from the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Sciences to J-P.L. and K.E.M. J-P.L. is funded by a Concordia University Research Chair and an NSERC Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2015-06081). D.L. is supported by the Sustainability and Energy Research Initiative PhD grant. K.E.M. is supported by an NSERC Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2019-04239). C.J.G., A.L.A., and C.S. are funded by NSERC Discovery Grants. T.U. is supported by the UBC International Doctoral Fellowship.Peer reviewedPostprin

Forecasting ground-based sensitivity to the Rayleigh scattering of the CMB in the presence of astrophysical foregrounds

The Rayleigh scattering of cosmic microwave background (CMB) photons off the neutral hydrogen produced during recombination effectively creates an additional scattering surface after recombination that encodes new cosmological information, including the expansion and ionization history of the universe. A first detection of Rayleigh scattering is a tantalizing target for next-generation CMB experiments. We have developed a Rayleigh scattering forecasting pipeline that includes instrumental effects, atmospheric noise, and astrophysical foregrounds (e.g., Galactic dust, cosmic infrared background, or CIB, and the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect). We forecast the Rayleigh scattering detection significance for several upcoming ground-based experiments, including SPT-3G+, Simons Observatory, CCAT-prime, and CMB-S4, and examine the limitations from atmospheric and astrophysical foregrounds as well as potential mitigation strategies. When combined with Planck data, we estimate that the ground-based experiments will detect Rayleigh scattering with a significance between 1.6 and 3.7, primarily limited by atmospheric noise and the CIB.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures (v2 additional author added

Adapted treatment guided by interim PET-CT scan in advanced Hodgkin's lymphoma

BACKGROUND: We tested interim positron-emission tomography-computed tomography (PET-CT) as a measure of early response to chemotherapy in order to guide treatment for patients with advanced Hodgkin's lymphoma. METHODS: Patients with newly diagnosed advanced classic Hodgkin's lymphoma underwent a baseline PETCT scan, received two cycles of ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine) chemotherapy, and then underwent an interim PET-CT scan. Images were centrally reviewed with the use of a 5-point scale for PET findings. Patients with negative PET findings after two cycles were randomly assigned to continue ABVD (ABVD group) or omit bleomycin (AVD group) in cycles 3 through 6. Those with positive PET findings after two cycles received BEACOPP (bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone). Radiotherapy was not recommended for patients with negative findings on interim scans. The primary outcome was the difference in the 3-year progression-free survival rate between randomized groups, a noninferiority comparison to exclude a difference of 5 or more percentage points. RESULTS: A total of 1214 patients were registered; 937 of the 1119 patients (83.7%) who underwent an interim PET-CT scan according to protocol had negative findings. With a median follow-up of 41 months, the 3-year progression-free survival rate and overall survival rate in the ABVD group were 85.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 82.1 to 88.6) and 97.2% (95% CI, 95.1 to 98.4), respectively; the corresponding rates in the AVD group were 84.4% (95% CI, 80.7 to 87.5) and 97.6% (95% CI, 95.6 to 98.7). The absolute difference in the 3-year progression-free survival rate (ABVD minus AVD) was 1.6 percentage points (95% CI, -3.2 to 5.3). Respiratory adverse events were more severe in the ABVD group than in the AVD group. BEACOPP was given to the 172 patients with positive findings on the interim scan, and 74.4% had negative findings on a third PET-CT scan; the 3-year progression-free survival rate was 67.5% and the overall survival rate 87.8%. A total of 62 patients died during the trial (24 from Hodgkin's lymphoma), for a 3-year progression-free survival rate of 82.6% and an overall survival rate of 95.8%. CONCLUSIONS: Although the results fall just short of the specified noninferiority margin, the omission of bleomycin from the ABVD regimen after negative findings on interim PET resulted in a lower incidence of pulmonary toxic effects than with continued ABVD but not significantly lower efficacy