Free vibration analysis of laminated composite plates based on FSDT using one-dimensional IRBFN method

This paper presents a new effective radial basis function (RBF) collocation technique for the free vibration analysis of laminated composite plates using the first order shear deformation theory (FSDT). The plates, which can be rectangular or non-rectangular, are simply discretised by means of Cartesian grids. Instead of using conventional differentiated RBF networks, one-dimensional integrated RBF networks (1D-IRBFN) are employed on grid lines to approximate the field variables. A number of examples concerning various thickness-to-span ratios, material properties and boundary conditions are considered. Results obtained are compared with the exact solutions and numerical results by other techniques in the literature to investigate the performance of the proposed method

Buckling and vibration analysis of laminated composite plate/shell structures via a smoothed quadrilateral flat shell element with in-plane rotations

This paper presents buckling and free vibration analysis of composite plate/shell structures of various shapes, modulus ratios, span-to-thickness ratios, boundary conditions and lay-up sequences via a novel smoothed quadrilateral flat element. The element is developed by incorporating a strain smoothing technique into a flat shell approach. As a result, the evaluation of membrane, bending and geometric stiffness matrices are based on integration along the boundary of smoothing elements, which leads to accurate numerical solutions even with badly-shaped elements. Numerical examples and comparison with other existing solutions show that the present element is efficient, accurate and free of locking

An ECG-on-Chip with 535-nW/Channel Integrated Lossless Data Compressor for Wireless Sensors

This paper presents a low-power ECG recording system-on-chip (SoC) with on-chip low-complexity lossless ECG compression for data reduction in wireless/ambulatory ECG sensor devices. The chip uses a linear slope predictor for data compression, and incorporates a novel low-complexity dynamic coding-packaging scheme to frame the prediction error into fixed-length 16-bit format. The proposed technique achieves an average compression ratio of 2.25x on MIT/BIH ECG database. Implemented in a standard 0.35 um process, the compressor uses 0.565K gates/channel occupying 0.4 mm2 for four channels, and consumes 535 nW/channel at 2.4 V for ECG sampled at 512 Hz. Small size and ultra-low power consumption makes the proposed technique suitable for wearable ECG sensor applications

The LONI QC System: A Semi-Automated, Web-Based and Freely-Available Environment for the Comprehensive Quality Control of Neuroimaging Data.

Quantifying, controlling, and monitoring image quality is an essential prerequisite for ensuring the validity and reproducibility of many types of neuroimaging data analyses. Implementation of quality control (QC) procedures is the key to ensuring that neuroimaging data are of high-quality and their validity in the subsequent analyses. We introduce the QC system of the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging (LONI): a web-based system featuring a workflow for the assessment of various modality and contrast brain imaging data. The design allows users to anonymously upload imaging data to the LONI-QC system. It then computes an exhaustive set of QC metrics which aids users to perform a standardized QC by generating a range of scalar and vector statistics. These procedures are performed in parallel using a large compute cluster. Finally, the system offers an automated QC procedure for structural MRI, which can flag each QC metric as being 'good' or 'bad.' Validation using various sets of data acquired from a single scanner and from multiple sites demonstrated the reproducibility of our QC metrics, and the sensitivity and specificity of the proposed Auto QC to 'bad' quality images in comparison to visual inspection. To the best of our knowledge, LONI-QC is the first online QC system that uniquely supports the variety of functionality where we compute numerous QC metrics and perform visual/automated image QC of multi-contrast and multi-modal brain imaging data. The LONI-QC system has been used to assess the quality of large neuroimaging datasets acquired as part of various multi-site studies such as the Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in Traumatic Brain Injury (TRACK-TBI) Study and the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). LONI-QC's functionality is freely available to users worldwide and its adoption by imaging researchers is likely to contribute substantially to upholding high standards of brain image data quality and to implementing these standards across the neuroimaging community

Genome analysis of a new Rhodothermaceae strain isolated from a hot spring

A bacterial strain, designated RA, was isolated from water sample of a hot spring on Langkawi Island of Malaysia using marine agar. Strain RA is an aerophilic and thermophilic microorganism that grows optimally at 50-60°C and is capable of growing in marine broth containing 1-10% (w/v) NaCl. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis demonstrated that this strain is most closely related (<90% sequence identity) to Rhodothermaceae, which currently comprises of six genera: Rhodothermus (two species), Salinibacter (three species), Salisaeta (one species), Rubricoccus (one species), Rubrivirga (one species), and Longimonas (one species). Notably, analysis of average nucleotide identity (ANI) values indicated that strain RA may represent the first member of a novel genus of Rhodothermaceae. The draft genome of strain RA is 4,616,094 bp with 3630 protein-coding gene sequences. Its GC content is 68.3%, which is higher than that of most other genomes of Rhodothermaceae. Strain RA has genes for sulfate permease and arylsulfatase to withstand the high sulfur and sulfate contents of the hot spring. Putative genes encoding proteins involved in adaptation to osmotic stress were identified which encode proteins namely Na+/H+ antiporters, a sodium/solute symporter, a sodium/glutamate symporter, trehalose synthase, malto-oligosyltrehalose synthase, choline-sulfatase, potassium uptake proteins (TrkA and TrkH), osmotically inducible protein C, and the K+ channel histidine kinase KdpD. Furthermore, genome description of strain RA and comparative genome studies in relation to other related genera provide an overview of the uniqueness of this bacterium

Being proven wrong elicits learning in children - but only in those with higher executive function skills

This study investigated whether prompting children to generate predictions about an outcome facilitates activation of prior knowledge and improves belief revision. 51 children aged 9-12 were tested on two experimental tasks in which generating a prediction was compared to closely matched control conditions, as well as on a test of executive functions (EF). In Experiment 1, we showed that children exhibited a pupillary surprise response to events that they had predicted incorrectly, hypothesized to reflect the transient release of noradrenaline in response to cognitive conflict. However, children\u27s surprise response was not associated with better belief revision, in contrast to a previous study involving adults. Experiment 2 revealed that, while generating predictions helped children activate their prior knowledge, only those with better inhibitory control skills learned from incorrectly predicted outcomes. Together, these results suggest that good inhibitory control skills are needed for learning through cognitive conflict. Thus, generating predictions benefits learning - but only among children with sufficient EF capacities to harness surprise for revising their beliefs. (DIPF/Orig.

Topological phase transition in an all-optical exciton-polariton lattice

Topological insulators are a class of electronic materials exhibiting robust edge states immune to perturbations and disorder. This concept has been successfully adapted in photonics, where topologically nontrivial waveguides and topological lasers were developed. However, the exploration of topological properties in a given photonic system is limited to a fabricated sample, without the flexibility to reconfigure the structure in-situ. Here, we demonstrate an all-optical realization of the orbital Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model in a microcavity exciton-polariton system, whereby a cavity photon is hybridized with an exciton in a GaAs quantum well. We induce a zigzag potential for exciton polaritons all-optically, by shaping the nonresonant laser excitation, and measure directly the eigenspectrum and topological edge states of a polariton lattice in a nonlinear regime of bosonic condensation. Furthermore, taking advantage of the tunability of the optically induced lattice we modify the intersite tunneling to realize a topological phase transition to a trivial state. Our results open the way to study topological phase transitions on-demand in fully reconfigurable hybrid photonic systems that do not require sophisticated sample engineering.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Multicentre randomised placebo-controlled trial of oral anticoagulation with apixaban in systemic sclerosis-related pulmonary arterial hypertension: the SPHInX study protocol

Introduction: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a severe and costly multiorgan autoimmune connective tissue disease characterised by vasculopathy and fibrosis. One of the major causes of SSc-related death is pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), which develops in 12–15% of patients with SSc and accounts for 30– 40% of deaths. In situ thrombosis in the small calibre peripheral pulmonary vessels resulting from endothelial dysfunction and an imbalance of anticoagulant and prothrombotic mediators has been implicated in the complex pathophysiology of SSc-related PAH (SSc- PAH), with international clinical guidelines recommending the use of anticoagulants for some types of PAH, such as idiopathic PAH. However, anticoagulation has not become part of standard clinical care for patients with SSc-PAH as only observational evidence exists to support its use. Therefore, we present the rationale and methodology of a phase III randomised controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the efficacy, safety and cost-effectiveness of anticoagulation in SSc-PAH. Methods and analysis: This Australian multicentre RCT will compare 2.5 mg apixaban with placebo, in parallel treatment groups randomised in a 1:1 ratio, both administered twice daily for 3 years as adjunct therapy to stable oral PAH therapy. The composite primary outcome measure will be the time to death or clinical worsening of PAH. Secondary outcomes will include functional capacity, health-related quality of life measures and adverse events. A cost-effectiveness analysis of anticoagulation versus placebo will also be undertaken. Ethics and dissemination: Ethical approval for this RCT has been granted by the Human Research Ethics Committees of all participating centres. An independent data safety monitoring board will review safety and tolerability data for the duration of the trial. The findings of this RCT are to be published in open access journals.Alicia Calderone, Wendy Stevens, David Prior, Harshal Nandurkar, Eli Gabbay, Susanna M Proudman, Trevor Williams, David Celermajer, Joanne Sahhar, Peter K K Wong, Vivek Thakkar, Nathan Dwyer, Jeremy Wrobel, Weng Chin, Danny Liew, Margaret Staples, Rachelle Buchbinder, Mandana Nikpou