STRAW-b (STRings for Absorption length in Water-b): the second pathfinder mission for the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment

Since 2018, the potential for a high-energy neutrino telescope, named the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment (P-ONE), has been thoroughly examined by two pathfinder missions, STRAW and STRAW-b, short for short for Strings for Absorption Length in Water. The P-ONE project seeks to install a neutrino detector with a one cubic kilometer volume in the Cascadia Basin's deep marine surroundings, situated near the western shores of Vancouver Island, Canada. To assess the environmental conditions and feasibility of constructing a neutrino detector of that scale, the pathfinder missions, STRAW and STRAW-b, have been deployed at a depth of 2.7 km within the designated site for P-ONE and were connected to the NEPTUNE observatory, operated by Ocean Networks Canada (ONC). While STRAW focused on analyzing the optical properties of water in the Cascadia Basin, \ac{strawb} employed cameras and spectrometers to investigate the characteristics of bioluminescence in the deep-sea environment. This report introduces the STRAW-b concept, covering its scientific objectives and the instrumentation used. Furthermore, it discusses the design considerations implemented to guarantee a secure and dependable deployment process of STRAW-b. Additionally, it showcases the data collected by battery-powered loggers, which monitored the mechanical stress on the equipment throughout the deployment. The report also offers an overview of STRAW-b's operation, with a specific emphasis on the notable advancements achieved in the data acquisition (DAQ) system and its successful integration with the server infrastructure of ONC.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, 2 table

PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathways

Large language models have been shown to achieve remarkable performance across a variety of natural language tasks using few-shot learning, which drastically reduces the number of task-specific training examples needed to adapt the model to a particular application. To further our understanding of the impact of scale on few-shot learning, we trained a 540-billion parameter, densely activated, Transformer language model, which we call Pathways Language Model PaLM. We trained PaLM on 6144 TPU v4 chips using Pathways, a new ML system which enables highly efficient training across multiple TPU Pods. We demonstrate continued benefits of scaling by achieving state-of-the-art few-shot learning results on hundreds of language understanding and generation benchmarks. On a number of these tasks, PaLM 540B achieves breakthrough performance, outperforming the finetuned state-of-the-art on a suite of multi-step reasoning tasks, and outperforming average human performance on the recently released BIG-bench benchmark. A significant number of BIG-bench tasks showed discontinuous improvements from model scale, meaning that performance steeply increased as we scaled to our largest model. PaLM also has strong capabilities in multilingual tasks and source code generation, which we demonstrate on a wide array of benchmarks. We additionally provide a comprehensive analysis on bias and toxicity, and study the extent of training data memorization with respect to model scale. Finally, we discuss the ethical considerations related to large language models and discuss potential mitigation strategies

Factors Associated with Revision Surgery after Internal Fixation of Hip Fractures

Background: Femoral neck fractures are associated with high rates of revision surgery after management with internal fixation. Using data from the Fixation using Alternative Implants for the Treatment of Hip fractures (FAITH) trial evaluating methods of internal fixation in patients with femoral neck fractures, we investigated associations between baseline and surgical factors and the need for revision surgery to promote healing, relieve pain, treat infection or improve function over 24 months postsurgery. Additionally, we investigated factors associated with (1) hardware removal and (2) implant exchange from cancellous screws (CS) or sliding hip screw (SHS) to total hip arthroplasty, hemiarthroplasty, or another internal fixation device. Methods: We identified 15 potential factors a priori that may be associated with revision surgery, 7 with hardware removal, and 14 with implant exchange. We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses in our investigation. Results: Factors associated with increased risk of revision surgery included: female sex, [hazard ratio (HR) 1.79, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25-2.50; P = 0.001], higher body mass index (fo

Two-year optical site characterization for the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment (P-ONE) in the Cascadia Basin

The STRings for Absorption length in Water (STRAW) are the first in a series of pathfinders for the Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment (P-ONE), a future large-scale neutrino telescope in the north-eastern Pacific Ocean. STRAW consists of two $$150\,\mathrm {m}$$ long mooring lines instrumented with optical emitters and detectors. The pathfinder is designed to measure the attenuation length of the water and perform a long-term assessment of the optical background at the future P-ONE site. After 2 years of continuous operation, measurements from STRAW show an optical attenuation length of about 28 m at $$450\,\mathrm {nm}$$. Additionally, the data allow a study of the ambient undersea background. The overall optical environment reported here is comparable to other deep-water neutrino telescopes and qualifies the site for the deployment of P-ONE

Fracture fixation in the operative management of hip fractures (FAITH): an international, multicentre, randomised controlled trial

Background Reoperation rates are high after surgery for hip fractures. We investigated the effect of a sliding hip screw versus cancellous screws on the risk of reoperation and other key outcomes. Methods For this international, multicentre, allocation concealed randomised controlled trial, we enrolled patients aged 50 years or older with a low-energy hip fracture requiring fracture fixation from 81 clinical centres in eight countries. Patients were assigned by minimisation with a centralised computer system to receive a single large-diameter screw with a side-plate (sliding hip screw) or the present standard of care, multiple small-diameter cancellous screws. Surgeons and patients were not blinded but the data analyst, while doing the analyses, remained blinded to treatment groups. The primary outcome was hip reoperation within 24 months after initial surgery to promote fracture healing, relieve pain, treat infection, or improve function. Analyses followed the intention-to-treat principle. This study was registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00761813. Findings Between Mar