Modelling spatial and inter-annual variations of nitrous oxide emissions from UK cropland and grasslands using DailyDayCent

This work contributes to the Defra funded projects AC0116: ‘Improving the nitrous oxide inventory’, and AC0114: ‘Data Synthesis, Management and Modelling’. Funding for this work was provided by the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) AC0116 and AC0114, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for Northern Ireland, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government. Rothamsted Research receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council. This study also contributes to the projects: N-Circle (BB/N013484/1), U-GRASS (NE/M016900/1) and GREENHOUSE (NE/K002589/1).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Smart Focal Plane Technologies for VLT Instruments

As we move towards the era of ELTs, it is timely to think about the future role of the 8-m class telescopes. Under the OPTICON programme, novel technologies have been developed that are intended for use in multi-object and integral-field spectrographs. To date, these have been targeted at instrument concepts for the European ELT, but there are also significant possibilities for their inclusion in new VLT instruments, ensuring the continued success and productivity of these unique telescopes.Comment: 5 pages, to appear in the proceedings of the ESO Workshop "Science with the VLT in the ELT era

Use of high cost care among Veterans with comorbid mental illness and Alzheimer's Disease and related dementias

Introduction/Objective Alzheimer's Disease and Other Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) leads to frequent emergency department (ED) and inpatient use. Mental health symptoms among persons with AD/ADRD increases cognitive and functional disabilities and could contribute to these high rates of intensive health care use. The objective of this paper is to assess the relationship of mental illness on 12-month patterns in hospitalization and ED use among Veterans aged 65 and over with a new AD/ADRD diagnosis. Methods We used an existing dataset of administrative electronic health record data of Veterans with AD/ADRD from the US Veterans Health Administration linked with Medicare claims data from 2011-2015. We use multivariable logistic regression to examine the association between no pre-existing mental illness, pre-existing mental illness (e.g., major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder), and pre-existing severe mental illness-or SMI-(e.g., bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder with psychosis, or schizophrenia) and 12- month ED and hospitalization use and readmissions among Veterans who had an initial hospitalization visit. We estimated predicted probabilities, differential effect, and associated 95% confidence intervals. Results In our sample, 1.4% had SMI and 11% had non-SMI mental illness. The unadjusted percentage with inpatient and ED use was higher among Veterans with SMI (34% and 26%, respectively) and Veterans with non-SMI mental illness (20%, 16%) compared with Veterans without pre-existing mental illness (12%, 9%). Compared to individuals with no pre-existing mental illness, having a pre-existing mental illness (1.27 percentage points, 95% CI: 0.76, 1.78) and a pre-existing SMI (7.17 percentage points, 95% CI: 5.66, 8.69) were both associated with an increased likelihood of ED use. The same pattern was observed for any inpatient use (mental illness 2.18, 95% CI: 1.59, 2.77; SMI 9.91, 95% CI: 8.21, 11.61). Only preexisting SMI was associated higher hospitalization readmission. Discussion Pre-existing mental illness increases use of high cost, intensive health care and this association is higher of more severe mental health conditions. We also show that pre-existing mental illness exerts a unique influence, above and beyond other comorbidities, such as diabetes, on ED and inpatient visits. More needs to be done to increase recognition of the unique risks of this combination of health conditions and encourage strategies to address them. Developing, testing, and implementing comprehensive strategies that address the intersection of ADRD and mental illness is promising approach that requires more focused attention

Toward Automatic Verification of Multiagent Systems for Training Simulations

Abstract. Advances in multiagent systems have led to their successful applica-tion in experiential training simulations, where students learn by interacting with agents who represent people, groups, structures, etc. These multiagent simula-tions must model the training scenario so that the students ’ success is correlated with the degree to which they follow the intended pedagogy. As these simula-tions increase in size and richness, it becomes harder to guarantee that the agents accurately encode the pedagogy. Testing with human subjects provides the most accurate feedback, but it can explore only a limited subspace of simulation paths. In this paper, we present a mechanism for using human data to verify the degree to which the simulation encodes the intended pedagogy. Starting with an analysis of data from a deployed multiagent training simulation, we then present an auto-mated mechanism for using the human data to generate a distribution appropriate for sampling simulation paths. By generalizing from a small set of human data, the automated approach can systematically explore a much larger space of possi-ble training paths and verify the degree to which a multiagent training simulation adheres to its intended pedagogy

Long-Time Behavior of Macroscopic Quantum Systems: Commentary Accompanying the English Translation of John von Neumann's 1929 Article on the Quantum Ergodic Theorem

The renewed interest in the foundations of quantum statistical mechanics in recent years has led us to study John von Neumann's 1929 article on the quantum ergodic theorem. We have found this almost forgotten article, which until now has been available only in German, to be a treasure chest, and to be much misunderstood. In it, von Neumann studied the long-time behavior of macroscopic quantum systems. While one of the two theorems announced in his title, the one he calls the "quantum H-theorem", is actually a much weaker statement than Boltzmann's classical H-theorem, the other theorem, which he calls the "quantum ergodic theorem", is a beautiful and very non-trivial result. It expresses a fact we call "normal typicality" and can be summarized as follows: For a "typical" finite family of commuting macroscopic observables, every initial wave function $\psi_0$ from a micro-canonical energy shell so evolves that for most times $t$ in the long run, the joint probability distribution of these observables obtained from $\psi_t$ is close to their micro-canonical distribution.Comment: 34 pages LaTeX, no figures; v2: minor improvements and additions. The English translation of von Neumann's article is available as arXiv:1003.213

Vascular endothelial growth factor-D is an independent prognostic factor in epithelial ovarian carcinoma.

We assessed the presence of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-C, VEGF-D and their receptor VEGFR-3 by immunohistochemistry in 59 epithelial ovarian carcinomas, 11 borderline tumours and 20 benign cystadenomas. VEGF-C and VEGF-D were generally expressed in tumour cells and also in endothelia adjacent to tumour nests which showed a strong staining for them. VEGFR-3 was expressed in lymphatic and vascular endothelial cells adjacent to tumour nests. Immunoreactivity was significantly more frequent as lesions progressed from a benign tumour to advanced carcinoma. A strong correlation was found between VEGF-C and VEGF-D detected in carcinoma and VEGFR-3 detected in neighbouring endothelial cells. Increased expression of VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 was significantly associated with lymph node metastasis and peritoneal metastasis outside the pelvis. There was a significant correlation between the high levels of VEGF-C and VEGF-D proteins, and poor survival. The presence of VEGF-D was an independent prognostic indicator by multivariate analysis. We conclude that VEGF-C, VEGF-D and VEGFR-3 play an important role in lymphatic spread and intraperitoneal tumour development in ovarian carcinoma. Since VEGF-D was found to be an independent predictor of poor outcome, its measurement, together with other prognostic markers may improve prospective identification of patients with a poor prognosis

Tensor network states and geometry

Tensor network states are used to approximate ground states of local Hamiltonians on a lattice in D spatial dimensions. Different types of tensor network states can be seen to generate different geometries. Matrix product states (MPS) in D=1 dimensions, as well as projected entangled pair states (PEPS) in D>1 dimensions, reproduce the D-dimensional physical geometry of the lattice model; in contrast, the multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA) generates a (D+1)-dimensional holographic geometry. Here we focus on homogeneous tensor networks, where all the tensors in the network are copies of the same tensor, and argue that certain structural properties of the resulting many-body states are preconditioned by the geometry of the tensor network and are therefore largely independent of the choice of variational parameters. Indeed, the asymptotic decay of correlations in homogeneous MPS and MERA for D=1 systems is seen to be determined by the structure of geodesics in the physical and holographic geometries, respectively; whereas the asymptotic scaling of entanglement entropy is seen to always obey a simple boundary law -- that is, again in the relevant geometry. This geometrical interpretation offers a simple and unifying framework to understand the structural properties of, and helps clarify the relation between, different tensor network states. In addition, it has recently motivated the branching MERA, a generalization of the MERA capable of reproducing violations of the entropic boundary law in D>1 dimensions.Comment: 18 pages, 18 figure

A new family of matrix product states with Dzyaloshinski-Moriya interactions

We define a new family of matrix product states which are exact ground states of spin 1/2 Hamiltonians on one dimensional lattices. This class of Hamiltonians contain both Heisenberg and Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions but at specified and not arbitrary couplings. We also compute in closed forms the one and two-point functions and the explicit form of the ground state. The degeneracy structure of the ground state is also discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

Does Media Affect Learning: Where Are We Now?

It is time to extinguish the argument as to whether or not the media of 1983 could, should or would affect learning outcomes. The technological advances that have occurred in the 20 years since Clark sparked the debate and Kozma fanned the flames have made the question irrelevant. High-speed, portable, reasonably priced computers, the Internet, and the World Wide Web have changed the face of how, when, and where learning occurs. The media of 2004 does affect learning. The question is no longer if; the question is how

Mobile nondestructive assay and examination instruments

A compact system that evaluates radioactive materials can furnish a big savings to taxpayers by ensuring that only properly identified nuclear waste is sent to a Department of Energy (DOE) radioactive waste storage area. The Los Alamos National Laboratory's Advanced Nuclear Technology Group has developed and field tested two esily transportable, self-contained modules: one x-rays the contents of special 208-l shipment containers, the other assays the contents. The assay and evaluation system is a simple, portable solution to a complex problem that ensures that only properly packaged transuranic (TRU) wste is shipped to the Department of Energy's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Caustic chemicals, liquids, and other objects or materials tht could cause a container leak during shipment are the objects of an x-ray and video camera used in the system. The camera inspects the contents of 208-l drums that are brought into the system on a conveyor and rotated, one at a time, in front of the x-ray source. Free liquids can be detected by shaking the drum; the sloshing liquid is visible on the video screen. After the drum is x-rayed, it is conveyed to the assay module where precision instruments measure the amounts of TRU isotopes present in the waste. If the drum contains fissile TRU isotopes above the safety limit, it is rejected and sent to an appropriate facility for repackaging; if the drum contains less than the 100 nCi/g lower-level limit for TRU, it is rejected and sent to a low-level nuclear waste burial site. Drums whose contents fall between these limits are accepted and certified for shipment to the WIPP. Made to fit on flatbed trailers, the entire system can be transported to a DOE facility and be ready for operations within 5 hours after arrival