Battery cell balance of electric vehicles under fast-DC charging

Electric vehicle (EV) range, recharge opportunities and time to recharge are major barriers to mainstream acceptance. Fast-DC charging has the potential to overcome these barriers. This research investigates the impact of fast-DC charging on battery cell balance, charge capacity and range for an EV travelling long distances on an 'electric-highway'. Two commercially available EVs were exposed to a series of discharge and fast-DC charge cycles to measure cell balance and charge capacity. The vehicles' battery management systems (BMS) were capable of successfully balancing individual cells and hence maintaining the batteries' charge capacity. Although fast-DC charge levels and discharge safety margins significantly reduced the vehicles' charge capacity and range as stated by the manufacturer, these values remained stable for the test period. In regards to cell balance and charge capacity, our research suggests that fast-DC charging technology is a feasible option for EVs to travel large distances in a day

Streptococcus constellatus Brain Abscess in a Middle-Aged Man With an Undiagnosed Patent Foramen Ovale

Brain abscess is a rare diagnosis. Common sources of infection include direct spread from otic sources, sinuses, or oral cavities, and hematogenous spread from distant sources, including the heart and lungs. Brain abscess with cultures growing oral flora species, in rare cases, may develop from bacteria in the oral cavity entering the bloodstream and then traveling to the brain via a patent foramen ovale. This report highlights a case of brain abscess caused by Streptococcus constellatus in a middle-aged man with an undiagnosed patent foramen ovale

Interdiffusion: A probe of vacancy diffusion in III-V materials

Copyright 1997 by the American Physical Society. Article is available at

What Should Be Done To Tackle Ghostwriting in the Medical Literature?

Background to the debate: Ghostwriting occurs when someone makes substantial contributions to a manuscript without attribution or disclosure. It is considered bad publication practice in the medical sciences, and some argue it is scientific misconduct. At its extreme, medical ghostwriting involves pharmaceutical companies hiring professional writers to produce papers promoting their products but hiding those contributions and instead naming academic physicians or scientists as the authors. To improve transparency, many editors' associations and journals allow professional medical writers to contribute to the writing of papers without being listed as authors provided their role is acknowledged. This debate examines how best to tackle ghostwriting in the medical literature from the perspectives of a researcher, an editor, and the professional medical writer

Worse Postoperative Outcomes and Higher Reoperation in Smokers Compared to Nonsmokers for Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair

Introduction: Smoking impairs healing potential and is a significant risk factor for complications following orthopaedic surgeries. The purpose of this study was to determine if a cohort of former or current smokers at time of surgery met the minimally clinical important difference (MCID) for Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System Upper Extremity (PROMIS-UE), Depression (PROMIS-D), and Pain Interference (PROMIS-PI) scores in comparison to nonsmokers. Methods: A retrospective review of patients who underwent rotator cuff repair was performed. Patients who completed preoperative and 6-month postoperative PROMIS scores were included. The MCID was calculated using a distribution technique with a threshold of 0.5 standard deviations above the mean. A cohort of nonsmokers was compared to current/former smokers in terms of clinical outcomes and PROMIS scores. Results: A total of 182 patients, 80 current/former smokers and 102 nonsmokers, were included. Smokers had significantly more massive-sized tears and more reoperations (16.3% vs 5.9%,P=0.02). No differences were found in change in PROMIS scores, proportion meeting MCID for PROMIS scores, and retear rate. In the sub-analysis, 74 current/former smokers were matched to 74 nonsmokers. Smokers had lower change in PROMIS-UE (8.6±9.8 vs 12.3±10.0,P=0.007) and PROMIS-PI (-9.1±8.5 vs -12.8±10.1,P=0.03) postoperatively. Fewer met MCID for PROMIS UE postoperatively (60.3% vs 82.4%,P=0.003) and more had reoperations (16.2% vs 4.1%,P=0.02). Conclusion: Smokers or former smokers demonstrated smaller improvements in function, pain scores, and were less likely to meet MCID for PROMIS-UE when compared to nonsmokers after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair. Smokers were more likely to undergo reoperations within 6 months

Neural mediators of subjective and autonomic responding during threat learning and regulation

Threat learning elicits robust changes across multiple affective domains, including changes in autonomic indices and subjective reports of fear and anxiety. It has been argued that the underlying causes of such changes may be dissociable at a neural level, but there is currently limited evidence to support this notion. To address this, we examined the neural mediators of trial-by-trial skin conductance responses (SCR), and subjective reports of anxious arousal and valence in participants (n = 27; 17 females) performing a threat reversal task during ultra-high field functional magnetic resonance imaging. This allowed us to identify brain mediators during initial threat learning and subsequent threat reversal. Significant neural mediators of anxious arousal during threat learning included the dorsal anterior cingulate, anterior insula cortex (AIC), and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), subcortical regions including the amygdala, ventral striatum, caudate and putamen, and brain-stem regions including the pons and midbrain. By comparison, autonomic changes (SCR) were mediated by a subset of regions embedded within this broader circuitry that included the caudate, putamen and thalamus, and two distinct clusters within the vmPFC. The neural mediators of subjective negative valence showed prominent effects in posterior cortical regions and, with the exception of the AIC, did not overlap with threat learning task effects. During threat reversal, positive mediators of both subjective anxious arousal and valence mapped to the default mode network; this included the vmPFC, posterior cingulate, temporoparietal junction, and angular gyrus. Decreased SCR during threat reversal was positively mediated by regions including the mid cingulate, AIC, two sub-regions of vmPFC, the thalamus, and the hippocampus. Our findings add novel evidence to support distinct underlying neural processes facilitating autonomic and subjective responding during threat learning and threat reversal. The results suggest that the brain systems engaged in threat learning mostly capture the subjective (anxious arousal) nature of the learning process, and that appropriate responding during threat reversal is facilitated by participants engaging self- and valence-based processes. Autonomic changes (SCR) appear to involve distinct facilitatory and regulatory contributions of vmPFC sub-regions

The NeuroDante Project: Neurometric measurements of participant’s reaction to literary auditory stimuli from dante’s “divina commedia”

Neurodante. Progetto di analisi neurometrica di alcuni brani della Commedi

P‐13: Photosensitivity of Amorphous IGZO TFTs for Active‐Matrix Flat‐Panel Displays

We studied the optical and electrical properties of the amorphous indium gallium zinc oxide thin‐film transistors (a‐IGZO TFTs). To develop a‐IGZO density‐of‐states model, intrinsic a‐IGZO optical properties such as optical band gap and Urbach energy, and TFT characteristics under illumination are investigated. During the a‐IGZO TFTs illumination with the wavelengths ranging from 460 to 660 nm, the off‐state drain current only slightly increases while a large increase was observed for the wavelength below 400 nm. Threshold voltage and subthreshold swing are also only slightly modified between 460 to 660 nm, while field‐effect mobility is almost unchanged in the investigated photon energy range. The observed results are consistent with the a‐IGZO optical energy band gap of about 3.05 eV. This study suggest that the a‐IGZO TFTs are light sensitive above 3.0 eV and photogenerated electrons are more mobile than holes within device channel region.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/92030/1/1.3069354.pd

A Bayesian General Linear Modeling Approach to Cortical Surface fMRI Data Analysis

Cortical surface functional magnetic resonance imaging (cs-fMRI) has recently grown in popularity versus traditional volumetric fMRI. In addition to offering better whole-brain visualization, dimension reduction, removal of extraneous tissue types, and improved alignment of cortical areas across subjects, it is also more compatible with common assumptions of Bayesian spatial models. However, as no spatial Bayesian model has been proposed for cs-fMRI data, most analyses continue to employ the classical general linear model (GLM), a “massive univariate” approach. Here, we propose a spatial Bayesian GLM for cs-fMRI, which employs a class of sophisticated spatial processes to model latent activation fields. We make several advances compared with existing spatial Bayesian models for volumetric fMRI. First, we use integrated nested Laplacian approximations, a highly accurate and efficient Bayesian computation technique, rather than variational Bayes. To identify regions of activation, we utilize an excursions set method based on the joint posterior distribution of the latent fields, rather than the marginal distribution at each location. Finally, we propose the first multi-subject spatial Bayesian modeling approach, which addresses a major gap in the existing literature. The methods are very computationally advantageous and are validated through simulation studies and two task fMRI studies from the Human Connectome Project. Supplementary materials for this article, including a standardized description of the materials available for reproducing the work, are available as an online supplement