Thermo-kinetic approach of single-particles and clusters involving anomalous diffusion under viscoelastic response

We present a thermo-kinetic description of anomalous diffusion of single-particles and clusters in a viscoelastic medium in terms of a non-Markovian diffusion equation involving memory functions. The scaling behaviour of these functions is analyzed by considering hydrodynamics and cluster-size space random walk arguments. We explain experimental results on diffusion of Brownian particles in the cytoskeleton, in cluster-cluster aggregation and in a suspension of micelles.Comment: To be published in the Journal of Physical Chemistry

Finite-size effects in intracellular microrheology

We propose a model to explain finite-size effects in intracellular microrheology observed in experiments. The constrained dynamics of the particles in the intracellular medium, treated as a viscoelastic medium, is described by means of a diffusion equation in which interactions of the particles with the cytoskeleton are modelled by a harmonic force. The model reproduces the observed power-law behavior of the mean-square displacement in which the exponent depends on the ratio between particle-to-cytoskeleton-network sizes.Comment: 6 pages 2 figures. To appear in the Journal of Chemical Physic

On temperature- and space-dimension dependent matter agglomeration in a mature growing stage

Model matter agglomerations, with temperature as leading control parameter, have been considered, and some of their characteristics have been studied. The primary interest has been focused on the grain volume fluctuations, the magnitude of which readily differentiates between two commonly encountered types of matter agglomeration/aggregation processes, observed roughly for high- and low-density matter organizations. The two distinguished types of matter arrangements have been described through the (entropic) potential driving system. The impact of the potential type on the character of matter agglomeration has been studied, preferentially for (low density) matter agglomeration for which a logarithmic measure of its speed has been proposed. A common diffusion as well as mechanical relaxation picture, emerging during the mature growing stage, has been drawn using a phenomenological line of argumentation. Applications, mostly towards obtaining soft agglomerates of so-called jammed materials, have been mentioned

Evaluation of Muscle Imbalances and the Presence of Upper- and Lower-Crossed Syndromes among Powerlifters

Please view abstract in the attached PDF fil

Measuring Glacier Surface Velocities With LiDAR: A Comparison of Three-Dimensional Change Detection Methods

Using airborne and terrestrial LiDAR data from glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, we compare three change detection methods for accuracy and performance. We focus in particular on one method, Coherent Point Drift (CPD). We find that CPD outperforms Iterative Closest Point (ICP) and Particle Imaging Velocimetry (PIV) when used on a terrestrial LiDAR dataset at the Helheim Glacier in southeast Greenland. At one representative location, CPD calculated an average glacier velocity of 20.11 m d−1 with Root-Mean Squared Error of 2.5 m d−1 when compared to a GNSS-derived measurement of 20.44md−1. All three change detection methods fail to fully capture the motion of the Canada Glacier in Antarctica, but do detect change in the fast-moving and crevassed portion of the glacier. We conclude that these change detection methods, and CPD in particular, are useful tools for measuring glacier velocity when the data have sufficient identifiable features in both epochs.Civil and Environmental Engineering, Department o

Myocardial injury associated with coronavirus disease 2019 in pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE:Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with cardiac injury1-3 and bradycardia4 in the non-pregnant population. The incidence of these complications in pregnancy is unknown. The objective of this study was to determine the rate of abnormal serum cardiac biomarkers or bradycardia among pregnant and immediately postpartum women admitted for treatment of severe or critical COVID-19 in a large integrated health system in New York. STUDY DESIGN:This is a retrospective review of all pregnant and immediately postpartum women hospitalized for COVID-19 at 7 hospitals within Northwell Health, the largest academic health system in New York state, from March 1 to April 30, 2020. Women who tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay and who met the National Institute of Health (NIH) criteria for severe or critical illness5 were included. Women with a positive PCR test who were admitted for a reason other than treatment of COVID-19 (eg, labor) were excluded. The Northwell Health Institutional Review Board approved the study as minimal-risk research using data collected for routine clinical practice and waived the requirement for informed consent. Clinical records were manually reviewed. Data collected included demographics, medical comorbidities, pregnancy characteristics, laboratory and imaging results, medications administered, and clinical outcomes. Laboratory and imaging studies were ordered at the discretion of the attending physician. The primary outcomes evaluated were elevated cardiac troponins (I, T, or high sensitivity), elevated brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), bradycardia (defined as \u3c 60 beats per minute, bpm), and maternal heart rate (HR) nadir. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the data. RESULTS:A total of 31 women met inclusion criteria; 20 (65%) had cardiac biomarkers measured during hospitalization (Table). Cardiac troponins and BNP were elevated in 22% (n=4/18) and 30% (n=3/10) of these patients, respectively. Four patients had transthoracic echocardiograms performed and all were reported as normal. No patients had preexisting cardiovascular disease or hypertension. Two maternal mortalities in this cohort were previously reported;6 both patients had elevated cardiac troponins and one also had an elevated BNP. The nadir HR ranged from 30-92 bpm and bradycardia occurred in one-third of patients (n=10/31). Half of women with elevated troponin and three-fourths of women with elevated BNP had an episode of bradycardia recorded during their hospital course. CONCLUSION:Myocardial injury as demonstrated by abnormal cardiac biomarkers and bradycardia may be common among pregnant women with severe or critical COVID-19. In this study, one-fifth of patients who had troponin levels measured were found to have elevations (one-eighth of the overall study population). Among patients who had brain natriuretic peptide levels measured, 30% were elevated (10% of the overall study population). One third of women had bradycardia. This study is limited by a small sample size. Laboratory testing and imaging was not uniform due to the retrospective nature of the study. Sampling bias was unavoidable because the decision to measure cardiac markers or perform imaging studies was made by the patient\u27s care team, based on clinical presentation rather than a formal protocol. Few studies have evaluated the risk of cardiac injury or arrhythmia among pregnant women with COVID-19. It is also unknown whether there are long-term sequelae that affect maternal health or future pregnancy outcomes. This is an important area of focus for future research

Increasing Short-Stay Unplanned Hospital Admissions among Children in England; Time Trends Analysis '97-'06

BACKGROUND: Timely care by general practitioners in the community keeps children out of hospital and provides better continuity of care. Yet in the UK, access to primary care has diminished since 2004 when changes in general practitioners' contracts enabled them to 'opt out' of providing out-of-hours care and since then unplanned pediatric hospital admission rates have escalated, particularly through emergency departments. We hypothesised that any increase in isolated short stay admissions for childhood illness might reflect failure to manage these cases in the community over a 10 year period spanning these changes. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We conducted a population based time trends study of major causes of hospital admission in children 2 days. By 2006, 67.3% of all unplanned admissions were isolated short stays <2 days. The increases in admission rates were greater for common non-infectious than infectious causes of admissions. CONCLUSIONS: Short stay unplanned hospital admission rates in young children in England have increased substantially in recent years and are not accounted for by reductions in length of in-hospital stay. The majority are isolated short stay admissions for minor illness episodes that could be better managed by primary care in the community and may be evidence of a failure of primary care services

AC-coupled GaAs microstrip detectors with a new type of integrated bias resistors

Full size single-sided GaAs microstrip detectors with integrated coupling capacitors and bias resistors have been fabricated on 3'' substrate wafers. PECVD deposited SiO_2 and SiO_2/Si_3N_4 layers were used to provide coupling capacitaces of 32.5 pF/cm and 61.6 pF/cm, respectively. The resistors are made of sputtered CERMET using simple lift of technique. The sheet resistivity of 78 kOhm/sq. and the thermal coefficient of resistance of less than 4x10^-3 / degree C satisfy the demands of small area biasing resistors, working on a wide temperature range.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, to be published in NIM

The ATLAS SCT grounding and shielding concept and implementation

This paper presents a complete description of Virgo, the French-Italian gravitational wave detector. The detector, built at Cascina, near Pisa (Italy), is a very large Michelson interferometer, with 3 km-long arms. In this paper, following a presentation of the physics requirements, leading to the specifications for the construction of the detector, a detailed description of all its different elements is given. These include civil engineering infrastructures, a huge ultra-high vacuum (UHV) chamber (about 6000 cubic metres), all of the optical components, including high quality mirrors and their seismic isolating suspensions, all of the electronics required to control the interferometer and for signal detection. The expected performances of these different elements are given, leading to an overall sensitivity curve as a function of the incoming gravitational wave frequency. This description represents the detector as built and used in the first data-taking runs. Improvements in different parts have been and continue to be performed, leading to better sensitivities. These will be detailed in a forthcoming paper