Plasmonic gold nanodiscs using piezoelectric substrate birefringence for liquid sensing

This article presents the simulation, fabrication, and experimental characterization of a surface plasmonic resonance (SPR) sensor integrated with an acoustic sensing compatible substrate. The SPR sensor is designed to work in the visible region with gold nanodisc arrays fabricated on LiNbO3, which is both piezoelectric and birefringent. A linear relationship between resonance wavelength and varying liquid refractive indices were observed in experiments, and a sensitivity of 165 nm/refractive index unit was obtained. Polarization effects of the birefringent property of the Y-cut LiNbO3 substrate have been investigated, which can also be applied to X-cut LiNbO3. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of an SPR sensor device utilizing a birefringent substrate, which has acoustic wave compatibility and can pave the way toward much more robust and flexible biosensing device

A sock for foot-drop: A preliminary study on two chronic stroke patients

Background: Foot-drop is a common motor impairment of chronic stroke patients, which may be addressed with an ankle foot orthosis. Although there is reasonable evidence of effectiveness for ankle foot orthoses, user compliance is sometimes poor. This study investigated a new alternative to the ankle foot orthosis, the dorsiflex sock. Case description and methods: The dorsiflex sock was evaluated using an A-B single case experimental design. Two community-dwelling, chronic stroke patients with foot-drop participated in this study. Measures were selected to span the International Classification of Function, Disability and Health domains and user views on the dorsiflex sock were also collected. Findings and outcomes: The dorsiflex sock was not effective in improving participants’ walking symmetry, speed or energy expenditure. Participant 1 showed improvement in the distance he could walk in 6 min when using the dorsiflex sock, but this was in keeping with a general improvement trend over the course of this study. However, both participants viewed the dorsiflex sock positively and reported a positive effect on their walking. Conclusion: Despite positive user perceptions, the study found no clear evidence that dorsiflex sock is effective in improving foot-drop. Clinical relevance Although the dorsiflex sock offers an attractive alternative to an ankle foot orthosis, the case studies found no clear evidence of its efficacy. Clinicians should view this device with caution until further research becomes availabl

Online Instruction of Dyslexic Students: A Call to Action

This paper is a call to action for academic and information technology industry leaders to develop a generalizable online instructional model tailored to the learning needs of those suffering from dyslexia. It is estimated that 35% of entrepreneurs are dyslexic (Logan, 2009). According to the Sloan Consortium, online instruction is the fastest growing segment of the higher education industry (Allen & Seaman, 2010). Online entrepreneurship students may provide researchers with an opportunity to identify dyslexics clustered in higher proportions than other academic disciplines. There is no evidence to show entrepreneurship students are more likely to be dyslexic than other students, but the higher density of dyslexics in entrepreneurial careers suggests that dyslexic students may gravitate toward entrepreneurship programs. A model to tailor instruction to the needs of dyslexic entrepreneurship students in an online higher education setting may have a profoundly positive impact, when generalized across academic programs, on the instruction of current and future dyslexic online students

The Past, Present, and Future of Predictive Coding

Electronic discovery, or e-discovery, refers to the discovery of electronically stored documents and images.\u27 Examples of e-discovery related documentation would include email, digital versions of paper documents (e.g. MS Word, PDF, Excel, and PowerPoint), social media postings, digital photos, Global Positioning System data, and content within computerized databases, etc. Digital data stored on computers, smartphones, tape drives, hard-drives, portable digital storage devices and the like would fall under the domain of e-discovery. Collecting and sorting massive amounts of electronically stored data presents both opportunities and challenges for lawyers. For context: In 2015, electronic discovery was a $10.2 billion global industry. Of this amount,$8.2 billion flowed to e-discovery service providers (e.g. document review by contract attorneys and vendors); and $2 billion flowed to the development of new software. The worldwide e-discovery market is expected to grow at 9.4% annually through 2019. Predictive coding-a dimension of e-discovery-is a process whereby attorneys train computer programs to identify potentially relevant documents within a large body of documents.This process begins with the attorney(s) selecting a seed set of documents and choosing keywords relevant to the case. This seed set is then searched, and re-searched, in an iterative process until the software recognizes patterns. For practical purposes, it is simply telling the software what to find. However, attorneys need to have a general understanding of statistics and computer assisted technology prior to engaging in predictive coding

NGC 4314. III. Inflowing Molecular Gas Feeding a Nuclear Ring of Star Formation

NGC 4314 is an early-type barred galaxy containing a nuclear ring of recent star formation. We present CO(1-0) interferometer data of the bar and circumnuclear region with 2.3 x 2.2 arcsec spatial resolution and 13 km/s velocity resolution acquired at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory . These data reveal a clumpy circumnuclear ring of molecular gas. We also find a peak of CO inside the ring within 2 arcsec of the optical center that is not associated with massive star formation. We construct a rotation curve from these CO kinematic data and the mass model of Combes et al. (1992). Using this rotation curve, we have identified the location of orbital resonances in the galaxy. Assuming that the bar ends at corotation, the circumnuclear ring of star formation lies between two Inner Lindblad Resonances, while the nuclear stellar bar ends near the IILR. Deviations from circular motion are detected just beyond the CO and H-alpha ring, where the dust lanes along the leading edge of the bar intersect the nuclear ring. These non-circular motions along the minor axis correspond to radially inward streaming motions at speeds of 20 - 90 km/s and clearly show inflowing gas feeding an ILR ring. There are bright HII regions near the ends of this inflow region, perhaps indicating triggering of star formation by the inflow.Comment: 25 pages, uses aasms.sty. 7 Postscript figures, 12 JPEG figures. Figures may be retrieved from ftp://clyde.as.utexas.edu/pub/N4314COfigs.tar.g

The National Football Leauge

Some people thing that the national football league is just men bumping heads and hurting each other. this is not always the case. i wanted to show what the NFL really is and how things work and also a little about the history

The materials processing research base of the Materials Processing Center

The goals and activities of the center are discussed. The center activities encompass all engineering materials including metals, ceramics, polymers, electronic materials, composites, superconductors, and thin films. Processes include crystallization, solidification, nucleation, and polymer synthesis

The Evolution of Multicomponent Systems at High Pressures: VI. The Thermodynamic Stability of the Hydrogen-Carbon System: The Genesis of Hydrocarbons and the Origin of Petroleum

The spontaneous genesis of hydrocarbons which comprise natural petroleum have been analyzed by chemical thermodynamic stability theory. The constraints imposed upon chemical evolution by the second law of thermodynamics are briefly reviewed; and the effective prohibition of transformation, in the regime of temperatures and pressures characteristic of the near-surface crust of the Earth, of biological molecules into hydrocarbon molecules heavier than methane is recognized. A general, first-principles equation of state has been developed by extending scaled particle theory (SPT) and by using the technique of the factored partition function of the Simplified Perturbed Hard Chain Theory (SPHCT). The chemical potentials, and the respective thermodynamic Affinity, have been calculated for typical components of the hydrogen-carbon (H-C) system over a range pressures between 1-100 kbar, and at temperatures consistent with those of the depths of the Earth at such pressures. The theoretical analyses establish that the normal alkanes, the homologous hydrocarbon group of lowest chemical potential, evolve only at pressures greater than approximately thirty kbar, excepting only the lightest, methane. The pressure of thirty kbar corresponds to depths of approximately 100 km. Special high-pressure apparatus has been designed which permits investigations at pressures to 50 kbar and temperatures to 2000 K, and which also allows rapid cooling while maintaining high pressures. The high-pressure genesis of petroleum hydrocarbons has been demonstrated using only the solid reagents iron oxide, FeO, and marble, CaCO3, 99.9% pure and wet with triple-distilled water

Research in far ultraviolet filtering for space optical systems

Design and fabrication of multilayer interference filters for ultraviole