An Inspiration-triggered Delivery System for Oxygen Therapy via a Nasal Cannula

Therapy for severe chronic lung disease currently includes the administration of supplemental oxygen to prevent breathlessness and tissue hypoxia. Although effective, this therapy is unnecessarily costly, because oxygen is administered to the patient during expiration as well as inspiration. To eliminate this inefficiency, a delivery system that senses the inspiratory effort and delivers oxygen to the patient only during inspiration was developed. The 11 5 8-cm flow control unit attaches easily to a portable oxygen supply. The components of the system have an expected life of five years, and the 9-Volt battery provides power for about one month of use. Manual controls permit accommodation to the respiratory pattern of the patient. Preliminary evaluation of the system showed that its effectiveness in producing tissue oxygenation is similar to that of continuous oxygen systems. The system has potential applications in ambulatory oxygen therapy and in other clinical settings to improve the cost/benefit ratio of oxygen treatment

Projectile Energy Loss in Multiply Ionizing Ion-Atom Collisions

The projectile energy loss for 7.5--25-MeV C6+,5+ and F6+ ions was measured for single collisions with He, Ne, Ar, and Kr as a function of the recoil-ion charge state and the projectile scattering. This energy loss was measured for collisions in which the projectile captured an electron and for those involving just direct ionization. We investigated and found a large average energy transfer (100--250 eV/electron) to the continuum electrons. A strong increase of the scattering angle with recoil-ion charge state was observed for both capture and direct ionization. The results imply that, for smaller impact parameters, higher recoil-ion charge states are produced and that higher energy losses are obtained. We observed a weak target-Z dependence of the energy loss. The results are compared with n-body classical-trajectory Monte Carlo calculations by Olson, semiclassical-approximation calculations by Schuch et al. [Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. Sect. B 42, 566 (1989)], and the energy-deposition model

Resonant Dielectronic and Direct Excitation in Crystal Channels

We have observed dielectronic and direct excitation of H-like S15+ and Ca19+ and He-like Ti20+ ions in silicon channels caused by collision with weakly bound target electrons which behave as a free-electron gas. As in vacuo, relaxation of the doubly excited states can occur radiatively leading to ions of decreased charge, but in a crystal channel collisional effects can cause double ionization. The effects are seen in both the x-ray yields and charge-state fractions, and, in the case of Ti20+, in charge-state x-ray coincidences

The emission by dust and stars of nearby galaxies in the Herschel KINGFISH survey

Using new far-infrared imaging from the Herschel Space Observatory with ancillary data from ultraviolet (UV) to submillimeter wavelengths, we estimate the total emission from dust and stars of 62 nearby galaxies in the KINGFISH survey in a way that is as empirical and model independent as possible. We collect and exploit these data in order to measure from the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) precisely how much stellar radiation is intercepted and re-radiated by dust, and how this quantity varies with galaxy properties. By including SPIRE data, we are more sensitive to emission from cold dust grains than previous analyses at shorter wavelengths, allowing for more accurate estimates of dust temperatures and masses. The dust/stellar flux ratio, which we measure by integrating the SEDs, has a range of nearly three decades (from 10(-2.2) to 10(0.5)). The inclusion of SPIRE data shows that estimates based on data not reaching these far-IR wavelengths are biased low by 17% on average. We find that the dust/stellar flux ratio varies with morphology and total infrared (IR) luminosity, with dwarf galaxies having faint luminosities, spirals having relatively high dust/stellar ratios and IR luminosities, and some early types having low dust/stellar ratios. We also find that dust/stellar flux ratios are related to gas-phase metallicity ((log(f(dust)/f(*)) over bar) = -0.66 +/- 0.08 and -0.22 +/- 0.12 for metal-poor and intermediate-metallicity galaxies, respectively), while the dust/stellar mass ratios are less so (differing by approximate to 0.2 dex); the more metal-rich galaxies span a much wider range of the flux ratios. In addition, the substantial scatter between dust/stellar flux and dust/stellar mass indicates that the former is a poor proxy of the latter. Comparing the dust/stellar flux ratios and dust temperatures, we also show that early types tend to have slightly warmer temperatures (by up to 5 K) than spiral galaxies, which may be due to more intense interstellar radiation fields, or possibly to different dust grain compositions. Finally, we show that early types and early-type spirals have a strong correlation between the dust/stellar flux ratio and specific star formation rate, which suggests that the relatively bright far-IR emission of some of these galaxies is due to ongoing (if limited) star formation as well as to the radiation field from older stars, which is heating the dust grains

Planning for Sustainability in Small Municipalities: The Influence of Interest Groups, Growth Patterns, and Institutional Characteristics

How and why small municipalities promote sustainability through planning efforts is poorly understood. We analyzed ordinances in 451 Maine municipalities and tested theories of policy adoption using regression analysis.We found that smaller communities do adopt programs that contribute to sustainability relevant to their scale and context. In line with the political market theory, we found that municipalities with strong environmental interests, higher growth, and more formal governments were more likely to adopt these policies. Consideration of context and capacity in planning for sustainability will help planners better identify and benefit from collaboration, training, and outreach opportunities

Twenty-three unsolved problems in hydrology (UPH) – a community perspective

This paper is the outcome of a community initiative to identify major unsolved scientific problems in hydrology motivated by a need for stronger harmonisation of research efforts. The procedure involved a public consultation through on-line media, followed by two workshops through which a large number of potential science questions were collated, prioritised, and synthesised. In spite of the diversity of the participants (230 scientists in total), the process revealed much about community priorities and the state of our science: a preference for continuity in research questions rather than radical departures or redirections from past and current work. Questions remain focussed on process-based understanding of hydrological variability and causality at all space and time scales. Increased attention to environmental change drives a new emphasis on understanding how change propagates across interfaces within the hydrological system and across disciplinary boundaries. In particular, the expansion of the human footprint raises a new set of questions related to human interactions with nature and water cycle feedbacks in the context of complex water management problems. We hope that this reflection and synthesis of the 23 unsolved problems in hydrology will help guide research efforts for some years to come

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

The Changing Landscape for Stroke\ua0Prevention in AF: Findings From the GLORIA-AF Registry Phase 2

Background GLORIA-AF (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients with Atrial Fibrillation) is a prospective, global registry program describing antithrombotic treatment patterns in patients with newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation at risk of stroke. Phase 2 began when dabigatran, the first non\u2013vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulant (NOAC), became available. Objectives This study sought to describe phase 2 baseline data and compare these with the pre-NOAC era collected during phase 1. Methods During phase 2, 15,641 consenting patients were enrolled (November 2011 to December 2014); 15,092 were eligible. This pre-specified cross-sectional analysis describes eligible patients\u2019 baseline characteristics. Atrial fibrillation disease characteristics, medical outcomes, and concomitant diseases and medications were collected. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Of the total patients, 45.5% were female; median age was 71 (interquartile range: 64, 78) years. Patients were from Europe (47.1%), North America (22.5%), Asia (20.3%), Latin America (6.0%), and the Middle East/Africa (4.0%). Most had high stroke risk (CHA2DS2-VASc [Congestive heart failure, Hypertension, Age  6575 years, Diabetes mellitus, previous Stroke, Vascular disease, Age 65 to 74 years, Sex category] score  652; 86.1%); 13.9% had moderate risk (CHA2DS2-VASc = 1). Overall, 79.9% received oral anticoagulants, of whom 47.6% received NOAC and 32.3% vitamin K antagonists (VKA); 12.1% received antiplatelet agents; 7.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. For comparison, the proportion of phase 1 patients (of N = 1,063 all eligible) prescribed VKA was 32.8%, acetylsalicylic acid 41.7%, and no therapy 20.2%. In Europe in phase 2, treatment with NOAC was more common than VKA (52.3% and 37.8%, respectively); 6.0% of patients received antiplatelet treatment; and 3.8% received no antithrombotic treatment. In North America, 52.1%, 26.2%, and 14.0% of patients received NOAC, VKA, and antiplatelet drugs, respectively; 7.5% received no antithrombotic treatment. NOAC use was less common in Asia (27.7%), where 27.5% of patients received VKA, 25.0% antiplatelet drugs, and 19.8% no antithrombotic treatment. Conclusions The baseline data from GLORIA-AF phase 2 demonstrate that in newly diagnosed nonvalvular atrial fibrillation patients, NOAC have been highly adopted into practice, becoming more frequently prescribed than VKA in Europe and North America. Worldwide, however, a large proportion of patients remain undertreated, particularly in Asia and North America. (Global Registry on Long-Term Oral Antithrombotic Treatment in Patients With Atrial Fibrillation [GLORIA-AF]; NCT01468701

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

GWAS meta-analysis of over 29,000 people with epilepsy identifies 26 risk loci and subtype-specific genetic architecture

Epilepsy is a highly heritable disorder affecting over 50 million people worldwide, of which about one-third are resistant to current treatments. Here we report a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study including 29,944 cases, stratified into three broad categories and seven subtypes of epilepsy, and 52,538 controls. We identify 26 genome-wide significant loci, 19 of which are specific to genetic generalized epilepsy (GGE). We implicate 29 likely causal genes underlying these 26 loci. SNP-based heritability analyses show that common variants explain between 39.6% and 90% of genetic risk for GGE and its subtypes. Subtype analysis revealed markedly different genetic architectures between focal and generalized epilepsies. Gene-set analyses of GGE signals implicate synaptic processes in both excitatory and inhibitory neurons in the brain. Prioritized candidate genes overlap with monogenic epilepsy genes and with targets of current antiseizure medications. Finally, we leverage our results to identify alternate drugs with predicted efficacy if repurposed for epilepsy treatment