Excited Hydroxyl Outflow in the High-Mass Star-Forming Region G34.26+0.15

G34.26+0.15 is a region of high-mass star formation that contains a broad range of young stellar objects in different stages of evolution, including a hot molecular core, hyper-compact HII regions and a prototypical cometary ultra-compact HII region. Previous high-sensitivity single dish observations by our group resulted in the detection of broad 6035 MHz OH absorption in this region; the line showed a significant blue-shifted asymmetry indicative of molecular gas expansion. We present high-sensitivity Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) observations of the 6035 MHz OH line conducted to image the absorption and investigate its origin with respect to the different star formation sites in the region. In addition, we report detection of 6030 MHz OH absorption with the VLA and further observations of 4.7 GHz and 6.0 GHz OH lines obtained with the Arecibo Telescope. The 6030 MHz OH line shows a very similar absorption profile as the 6035 MHz OH line. We found that the 6035 MHz OH line absorption region is spatially unresolved at $\sim 2$" scales, and it is coincident with one of the bright ionized cores of the cometary HII region that shows broad radio recombination line emission. We discuss a scenario where the OH absorption is tracing the remnants of a pole-on molecular outflow that is being ionized inside-out by the ultra-compact HII region.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Hot isostatic pressing of ceramic waste from spent nuclear fuel.

Argonne National Laboratory has developed a process to immobilize waste salt containing fission products, uranium, and transuranic elements as chlorides in a glass-bonded ceramic waste form. This salt was generated in the electrorefining operation used in electrometallurgical treatment of spent Experimental Breeder Reactor-II fuel. The ceramic waste process culminated with a hot isostatic pressing operation. This paper reviews the installation and operation of a hot isostatic press in a radioactive environment. Processing conditions for the hot isostatic press are presented for non-irradiated material and irradiated material. Sufficient testing was performed to demonstrate that a hot isostatic press could be used as the final step of the processing of ceramic waste for the electrometallurgical spent fuel treatment process

Hot startup experience with electrometallurgical treatment of spent nuclear fuel

The treatment of spent metal fuel from the EBR-II fast reactor commenced in June of 1996 at the Fuel Conditioning Facility on the Argonne-West site in Idaho, USA. During the first year of hot operations, 20 fuel assemblies entered processing and 6 low enrichment uranium product ingots were produced. Results are presented for the various process steps with decontamination factors achieved and equipment operational history reported

Is the Shroud of Turin in Relation to the Old Jerusalem Historical Earthquake?

Phillips and Hedges suggested, in the scientific magazine Nature (1989), that neutron radiation could be liable of a wrong radiocarbon dating, while proton radiation could be responsible of the Shroud body image formation. On the other hand, no plausible physical reason has been proposed so far to explain the radiation source origin, and its effects on the linen fibres. However, some recent studies, carried out by the first author and his Team at the Laboratory of Fracture Mechanics of the Politecnico di Torino, found that it is possible to generate neutron emissions from very brittle rock specimens in compression through piezonuclear fission reactions. Analogously, neutron flux increments, in correspondence to seismic activity, should be a result of the same reactions. A group of Russian scientists measured a neutron flux exceeding the background level by three orders of magnitude in correspondence to rather appreciable earthquakes (4th degree in Richter Scale). The authors consider the possibility that neutron emissions by earthquakes could have induced the image formation on Shroud linen fibres, trough thermal neutron capture by Nitrogen nuclei, and provided a wrong radiocarbon dating due to an increment in C(14,6)content. Let us consider that, although the calculated integral flux of 10^13 neutrons per square centimetre is 10 times greater than the cancer therapy dose, nevertheless it is100 times smaller than the lethal dose.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figur

Finding Homogeneity in Heterogeneity—A New Approach to Quantifying Landscape Mosaics Developed for the Lao PDR

A key challenge for land change science in general and research on swidden agriculture in particular, is linking land cover information to human–environment interactions over larger spatial areas. In Lao PDR, a country facing rapid and multi-level land change processes, this hinders informed policy- and decision-making. Crucial information on land use types and people involved is still lacking. This article proposes an alternative approach for the description of landscape mosaics. Instead of analyzing local land use combinations, we studied land cover mosaics at a meso-level of spatial scale and interpreted these in terms of human–environmental interactions. These landscape mosaics were then overlaid with population census data. Results showed that swidden agricultural landscapes, involving 17% of the population, dominate 29% of the country, while permanent agricultural landscapes involve 74% of the population in 29% of the territory. Forests still form an important component of these landscape mosaics

Bringing the countryside to the city: practices and imaginations of the rural in Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

10.1177/0042098014563031Urban Studies532324-33

Mortality within 30 days of chemotherapy: a clinical governance benchmarking issue for oncology patients

No national benchmark figures exist for early mortality due to chemotherapy unlike for surgical interventions. Deaths within 30 days of chemotherapy during a 6-month period were identified from the Royal Marsden Hospital electronic patient records. Treatment intention – curative or palliative, cause of death and number of previous treatments – were documented. Between April 2005 and September 2005, 1976 patients received chemotherapy with 161 deaths within 30 days of chemotherapy (8.1%). Of these, 124 deaths (77.0%) were due to disease progression. Of the other 37 deaths, 12 (7.5%) were related to chemotherapy, six each for solid tumours and haematological malignancies, of which seven (4.3%) were due to neutropenic sepsis. For the remaining 25 deaths (15.5%) there was insufficient information. There were more deaths after third and subsequent lines of therapy than with first and secondlines of therapy. Only 12 of the 161 deaths occurred in patients who were receiving potentially curative chemotherapy to give a mortality rate in breast and gastrointestinal malignancy of 0.5 and 1.5%, respectively. It is possible to audit mortality within 30 days of chemotherapy and this should become a benchmark for standard practice nationally. Most deaths were due to disease progression in the palliative setting. We practice this form of audit each quarter and feed back to the treating teams so that deaths are discussed and practice monitored

IFR Fuel Cycle Demonstration in the EBR-II Fuel Cycle Facility

The next major milestone of the IFR program is engineering-scale demonstration of the pyroprocess fuel cycle. The EBR-II Fuel Cycle Facility has just entered a startup phase which includes completion of facility modifications, and installation and cold checkout of process equipment. This paper reviews the design and construction of the facility, the design and fabrication of the process equipment, and the schedule and initial plan for its operation. 5 refs., 4 figs

Utilising artificial intelligence to determine patients at risk of a rare disease : idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension

Idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension is a rare and life-shortening condition often diagnosed at an advanced stage. Despite increased awareness, the delay to diagnosis remains unchanged. This study explores whether a predictive model based on healthcare resource utilisation can be used to screen large populations to identify patients at high risk of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. Hospital Episode Statistics from the National Health Service in England, providing close to full national coverage, were used as a measure of healthcare resource utilisation. Data for patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension from the National Pulmonary Hypertension Service in Sheffield were linked to pre-diagnosis Hospital Episode Statistics records. A non-idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension control cohort was selected from the Hospital Episode Statistics population. Patient history was limited to ≤5 years pre-diagnosis. Information on demographics, timing/frequency of diagnoses, medical specialities visited and procedures undertaken was captured. For modelling, a bagged gradient boosting trees algorithm was used to discriminate between cohorts. Between 2008 and 2016, 709 patients with idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension were identified and compared with a stratified cohort of 2,812,458 patients classified as non-idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension with ≥1 ICD-10 coded diagnosis of relevance to idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. A predictive model was developed and validated using cross-validation. The timing and frequency of the clinical speciality seen, secondary diagnoses and age were key variables driving the algorithm’s performance. To identify the 100 patients at highest risk of idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, 969 patients would need to be screened with a specificity of 99.99% and sensitivity of 14.10% based on a prevalence of 5.5/million. The positive predictive and negative predictive values were 10.32% and 99.99%, respectively. This study highlights the potential application of artificial intelligence to readily available real-world data to screen for rare diseases such as idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension. This algorithm could provide low-cost screening at a population level, facilitating earlier diagnosis, improved diagnostic rates and patient outcomes. Studies to further validate this approach are warranted