Method of Solubilizing Carbon Nanotubes in Organic Solutions

Carbon nanotubes are dissolved in organic solutions by attaching an aliphatic carbon chain (which may contain aromatic residues) so as to render the carbon nanotubes soluble

Method of Solubilizing Unshortened Carbon Nanotubes in Organic Solutions

Naked carbon nanotubes are dissolved in organic solutions by terminating the nanotubes with carboxylic acid groups and attaching an aliphatic carbon chain so as to render the carbon nanotubes soluble

Population dynamics and habitat partitioning by size, sex, and molt stage of blue crabs Callinectes sapidus in a subestuary of central Chesapeake Bay

Abundances, size-frequency distributions, sexual composition and molt-stage composition of blue crabs Callinectes sapjdus were measured during 1983 to 1985 in the Rhode River, a subestuary of central Chesapeake Bay, USA. Crabs at the mouth and head of the river basin were sampled with monthly triplicate otter trawls. Crabs in the principal tidal creek of the river were sampled 3 d a week with a fish weir, which caught crabs moving upstream and downstream separately. Crabs exhibited consistent, marked seasonal cycles in abundance as well as considerable annual variation in July peak abundances. New recruits entered the subestuary in late fall and spring and grew rapidly to 70 to 100+ mm in their first summer; by the second year they reached mature sizes of 120 to 170 mm. Sixty % of crabs in the river basin were males; and after maturation and copulation in late summer to early fall, mature females left the subestuary. Crabs partitoned habitats within the Rhode fiver subestuary by size, sex, and molt stage. Polymodal size structures were similar throughout the river basin, but increased percentages of males were found at the head of the river. Predominantly (90 %) medium-sized (80 to 120 mm) males utilized the tidal creek as a molting habitat. Most crabs moving upstream were in premolt, whereas most crabs moving downstream were significantly larger and in postrnolt, so that about 70 % of crabs in the creek were near ecdysis. Males and females exhibited significantly lower, but still appreciable (about 25 Oh) rnolting activit; Lhrsughout tie river basin. These data provide one of the best documented cases of habitat partitioning by size, sex and molt stage in crustaceans

The Role and Responsibility of Defense Counsel

How does a defense attorney\u27s role change when defending a high-profile client? Beyond traditional legal defense, must a modern defense attorney seek to protect a client\u27s public image? When speaking with the media, what rules, if any, should constrain a defense attorney\u27s behavior? Does media coverage affect the fairness of a trial? These are some of the questions dealt with in Panel #4: The Role Of Defense Counsel, moderated by Robert Mosteller, and featuring Laurie Levenson, Michael Tigar and Harold Haddon. Laurie Levenson begins the discussion by outlining some of the rules governing attorney behavior in the media, with special emphasis on the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Next, Michael Tigar discusses how the press has traditionally served as a watchdog against government misconduct in high-profile cases, and how media coverage of cases from his own career has helped his clients. Lastly, Harold Haddon provides a word of caution about the dangers attorneys face in using the media in high-profile cases and discusses how media coverage can hurt defendants by leading to premature public judgment. Questions/themes/discussion topics ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct 3.6: Trial Publicity Attorney conduct not prohibited by ABA MRPC 3.6 Media gag orders Allowing video cameras in the courtroom Proposed rules to govern legal commentators unconnected to a proceeding Historic instances of media coverage acting as a judicial watchdog Examples of media coverage aiding defendants in high-profile cases The effect of defense attorney\u27 statements on the public perception of defendants The difficulty of changing public perception of a defendant\u27s guilt or innocenc

Electronic Structure of Superconducting Ba6c60

We report the results of first-principles electronic-structure calculations for superconducting Ba6C60. Unlike the A3C60 superconductors, this new compound shows strong Ba-C hybridization in the valence and conduction regions, mixed covalent/ionic bonding character, partial charge transfer, and insulating zero-gap band structure.Comment: 11 pages + 4 figures (1 appended, others on request), LaTeX with REVTE

Gene Expression Changes Reflect Clinical Response in a Placebo-Controlled Randomized Trial of Abatacept in Patients with Diffuse Cutaneous Systemic Sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis is an autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation and fibrosis of the skin and internal organs. We sought to assess the clinical and molecular effects associated with response to intravenous abatacept in patients with diffuse cutaneous systemic

How can health care organisations make and justify decisions about risk reduction? Lessons from a cross-industry review and a health care stakeholder consensus development process

Interventions to reduce risk often have an associated cost. In UK industries decisions about risk reduction are made and justified within a shared regulatory framework that requires that risk be reduced as low as reasonably practicable. In health care no such regulatory framework exists, and the practice of making decisions about risk reduction is varied and lacks transparency. Can health care organisations learn from relevant industry experiences about making and justifying risk reduction decisions? This paper presents lessons from a qualitative study undertaken with 21 participants from five industries about how such decisions are made and justified in UK industry. Recommendations were developed based on a consensus development exercise undertaken with 20 health care stakeholders. The paper argues that there is a need in health care to develop a regulatory framework and an agreed process for managing explicitly the trade-off between risk reduction and cost. The framework should include guidance about a health care specific notion of acceptable levels of risk, guidance about standardised risk reduction interventions, it should include regulatory incentives for health care organisations to reduce risk, and it should encourage the adoption of an approach for documenting explicitly an organisation’s risk position

Demographic Diversity and Sustainable Fisheries

Fish species are diverse. For example, some exhibit early maturation while others delay maturation, some adopt semelparous reproductive strategies while others are iteroparous, and some are long-lived and others short-lived. The diversity is likely to have profound effects on fish population dynamics, which in turn has implications for fisheries management. In this study, a simple density-dependent stage-structured population model was used to investigate the effect of life history traits on sustainable yield, population resilience, and the coefficient of variation (CV) of the adult abundance. The study showed that semelparous fish can produce very high sustainable yields, near or above 50% of the carrying capacity, whereas long-lived iteroparous fish can produce very low sustainable yields, which are often much less than 10% of the carrying capacity. The difference is not because of different levels of sustainable fishing mortality rate, but because of difference in the sensitivity of the equilibrium abundance to fishing mortality. On the other hand, the resilience of fish stocks increases from delayed maturation to early maturation strategies but remains almost unchanged from semelparous to long-lived iteroparous. The CV of the adult abundance increases with increased fishing mortality, not because more individuals are recruited into the adult stage (as previous speculated), but because the mean abundance is more sensitive to fishing mortality than its standard deviation. The magnitudes of these effects vary depending on the life history strategies of the fish species involved. It is evident that any past high yield of long-lived iteroparous fish is a transient yield level, and future commercial fisheries should focus more on fish that are short-lived (including semelparous species) with high compensatory capacity

VIDIIA Hunter: a low-cost, smartphone connected, artificial intelligence-assisted COVID-19 rapid diagnostic platform approved for medical use in the UK

Introduction: Accurate and rapid diagnostics paired with effective tracking and tracing systems are key to halting the spread of infectious diseases, limiting the emergence of new variants and to monitor vaccine efficacy. The current gold standard test (RT-qPCR) for COVID-19 is highly accurate and sensitive, but is time-consuming, and requires expensive specialised, lab-based equipment.Methods: Herein, we report on the development of a SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) rapid and inexpensive diagnostic platform that relies on a reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay and a portable smart diagnostic device. Automated image acquisition and an Artificial Intelligence (AI) deep learning model embedded in the Virus Hunter 6 (VH6) device allow to remove any subjectivity in the interpretation of results. The VH6 device is also linked to a smartphone companion application that registers patients for swab collection and manages the entire process, thus ensuring tests are traced and data securely stored.Results: Our designed AI-implemented diagnostic platform recognises the nucleocapsid protein gene of SARS-CoV-2 with high analytical sensitivity and specificity. A total of 752 NHS patient samples, 367 confirmed positives for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and 385 negatives, were used for the development and validation of the test and the AI-assisted platform. The smart diagnostic platform was then used to test 150 positive clinical samples covering a dynamic range of clinically meaningful viral loads and 250 negative samples. When compared to RT-qPCR, our AI-assisted diagnostics platform was shown to be reliable, highly specific (100%) and sensitive (98–100% depending on viral load) with a limit of detection of 1.4 copies of RNA per µL in 30 min. Using this data, our CE-IVD and MHRA approved test and associated diagnostic platform has been approved for medical use in the United Kingdom under the UK Health Security Agency’s Medical Devices (Coronavirus Test Device Approvals, CTDA) Regulations 2022. Laboratory and in-silico data presented here also indicates that the VIDIIA diagnostic platform is able to detect the main variants of concern in the United Kingdom (September 2023).Discussion: This system could provide an efficient, time and cost-effective platform to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious diseases in resource-limited settings