Prediction of the dynamic environment of spacecraft components. Part 2 - Acoustic and structural path transmission through two models of a shroud-enclosed spacecraft Final report

Acoustic and structural path transmission through shroud enclosed spacecraf

Methods for calculating noise transmitted to the inside of space vehicles from random loading on the outside. Preliminary ideas and basic equations Technical report no. 4

Equations for computing noise transmitted to space vehicle inside from random loading on outsid

Modelling of spacecraft under random loading

Modeling laws for space vehicles under random dynamic loadin

Use of EPIC EMR for Early Identification and Management of Patients at Risk of Cardiac Implantable Electronic Device (CIED) Infection

Objectives Aim of our project was early identification of 100% of patients with a CIED IMPLANT presenting with bacteremia Process involves use of EPIC EMR to automatically identify patients with positive blood cultures Traditionally, cardiologists are alerted by the care team using the CONSULT system for management of these patients EPIC EMR as an adjunct to the CONSULT syste

Lead-associated endocarditis: the important role of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

BACKGROUND: Infection is a potentially life-threatening complication of cardiac device implantation. Lead-associated endocarditis (LAE) may be the most serious complication since it is associated with a high mortality. METHODS: The medical records of patients referred to our institution for the treatment of LAE between 1999 and 2007 were reviewed. RESULTS: A total of 51 of 107 patients referred for device-related infections met the criteria for LAE. Of these, 19 occurred within 6 months of their most recent procedure (early), while the remaining 32 occurred more than 6 months later (mean = 31.9 months post procedure). Devices included pacemakers in 33 patients and ICDs in 18 patients. The most common organism responsible for infection was Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) followed by coagulase-negative staphylocci (22%) and streptococci (12%). Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) accounted for 67% of the S. aureus infections. Coagulase-negative staphylococci were responsible for only 26% of early and 19% of late cases. A distant site of infection was common (26/51 = 51%), particularly in patients with MRSA LAE. The device and leads were removed percutaneously in all patients. Only one patient failed to respond to intravenous antibiotics. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that methicillin-resistant S. aureus is an important pathogen in LAE. Since many infections occur months after the last device procedure, hematogenous spread of organisms from a distant site may be an important contributing factor. These data suggest that strategies to prevent hematogenous infection, particularly with S. aureus, are critical in patients with implantable cardiac devices

Chronic Use of a Sensitized Bionic Hand Does Not Remap the Sense of Touch

Electrical stimulation of tactile nerve fibers can be used to restore touch through a bionic hand. Ortiz-Catalan et al. show that a mismatch between the location of the sensor on the bionic hand and the tactile experience is not resolved after long-term prosthesis use

On the Prospects for Laser Cooling of TlF

We measure the upper state lifetime and two ratios of vibrational branching fractions f_{v'v} on the B^{3}\Pi_{1}(v') - X^{1}\Sigma^{+}(v) transition of TlF. We find the B state lifetime to be 99(9) ns. We also determine that the off-diagonal vibrational decays are highly suppressed: f_{01}/f_{00} < 2x10^{-4} and f_{02}/f_{00} = 1.10(6)%, in excellent agreement with their predicted values of f_{01}/f_{00} < 8x10^{-4} and f_{02}/f_{00} = 1.0(2)% based on Franck-Condon factors calculated using Morse and RKR potentials. The implications of these results for the possible laser cooling of TlF and fundamental symmetries experiments are discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Validation of a Novel, Non-Invasive System for Autonomic Profiling in Healthy Volunteers

Noninvasive profiling of the autonomic nervous system has been shown to have prognostic value in patients with myocardial infarction, CHF and diabetes. The ANSAR system (ANX 3.0, Philadelphia, PA) is a new commercially available system that utilizes respiratory rate, HR and BP to assess on-going sympathovagal modulation during various maneuvers known to evoke autonomic perturbations. Instead of using conventional Fast Fourier Transform for frequency domain analysis, a Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) is used to generate numerical and graphical data. The system calculates Low Frequency Area (LFA, analogous to LF Power) and Respiratory Frequency Area (RFA, analogous to High Frequency Power.) A time domain index (pNN50 is also calculated

Sensory computations in the cuneate nucleus of macaques

Tactile nerve fibers fall into a few classes that can be readily distinguished based on their spatiotemporal response properties. Because nerve fibers reflect local skin deformations, they individually carry ambiguous signals about object features. In contrast, cortical neurons exhibit heterogeneous response properties that reflect computations applied to convergent input from multiple classes of afferents, which confer to them a selectivity for behaviorally relevant features of objects. The conventional view is that these complex response properties arise within the cortex itself, implying that sensory signals are not processed to any significant extent in the two intervening structures-the cuneate nucleus (CN) and the thalamus. To test this hypothesis, we recorded the responses evoked in the CN to a battery of stimuli that have been extensively used to characterize tactile coding in both the periphery and cortex, including skin indentations, vibrations, random dot patterns, and scanned edges. We found that CN responses are more similar to their cortical counterparts than they are to their inputs: CN neurons receive input from multiple classes of nerve fibers, they have spatially complex receptive fields, and they exhibit selectivity for object features. Contrary to consensus, then, the CN plays a key role in processing tactile information