Creditors’ Rights Involved in the Production and Sale of Natural Gas

101 pages (includes forms). Contains 6 attachments

Driving Simulators – More than a Video Game!

Background: This study aimed to investigate teenager, young adult, and adult knowledge levels on distracted and impaired driving through the use of educational driving simulators. The distracted and impaired driving simulators were customized to instruct participants on the dangers of driving distracted or impaired utilizing consequence videos. The simulators were taken to high schools, colleges/universities, and businesses over a four year period where we hypothesized that they would play a significant role in raising knowledge about the dangers and penalties of these risky driving behaviors and would also help to increase seat belt usage. Setting: High schools, colleges / universities, and businesses in northeastern central Pennsylvania September 2012 through May 2016. Sample: 22,801 pre-surveys were taken by mainly students that participated through their high school. Methods: An electronic pre-survey was administered to all participants wanting to drive the simulators. The survey questions were designed to test the participant’s knowledge of driving distracted while driving alone or with somebody else, driving impaired while driving alone or with somebody else, and the use of a seat belt every time they get into a vehicle. Demographic information was collected prior to driving the simulators such as the driver’s age and gender. Based upon their driving outcome, the post survey collected data was based on which drive they did (distracted vs. impaired) and if they thought the consequences for their actions were what they thought they would be. Also questioned was how likely they were to wear their seat belt in the future. Results: In the 22,801 completed pre-surveys, males completed 53% of the surveys, females 47%. Participants of teen driver age (16 to 18) made up the largest number of participants at 49%, with 30% being of non-driver age, and 21% over age 18; 88% of participants have not or rarely checked e-mail or talked on the cell phone within the last 30 days while driving; while 44% have ridden with a driver that was frequently or occasionally texting, checking email, or talking on a cell phone while driving in the last 30 days. Understanding that impaired includes: alcohol, over the counter prescription or other drugs, and drowsy/overly tired, 95% have rarely or not driven impaired in the last 30 days and 95% reported rarely or never going to drive impaired in the future. Those who stated they always wear a seat belt when getting into a vehicle were 77%; however post survey reports showed in the future 87% said they would always wear a seat belt, a 10% gain in knowledge after their driving experience. Conclusions: Driving simulators used on new drivers showing real life consequences, does raise awareness about texting, cellphone use, impaired driving, and not wearing a seat belt. Sixty seven percent of the participants stated the consequences to driving distracted were worse or much worse than they thought

Axisymmetric slosh frequencies of a liquid mass in a circular cylinder

Spectral eigenvalue methods along with some lower-dimensional techniques are used to determine the natural frequencies of a liquid slug in a circular tube. The contact lines are either pinned or governed by a slip coefficient assumed small. Corresponding physical experiments are conducted for a borosilicate glass tube and a treated water slug. Gravitational and viscous effects are neglected for the analyses. The spectral results agree well with a simple spherical end cap approximation (zero dimensional) for large aspect ratio slugs and with a membrane approximation (one dimensional) for small aspect ratios. The experimental observations for different aspect ratios agree well with the predictions, although the gravity, viscosity and/or slip are neglected in the analyses. © 2003 American Institute of Physics.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/71120/2/PHFLE6-15-12-3659-1.pd

Genetic Taster Status as a Mediator of Neural Activity and Swallowing Mechanics in Healthy Adults

As part of a larger study examining relationships between taste properties and swallowing, we assessed the influence of genetic taster status (GTS) on measures of brain activity and swallowing physiology during taste stimulation in healthy men and women. Twenty-one participants underwent videofluoroscopic swallowing study (VFSS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during trials of high-intensity taste stimuli. The precisely formulated mixtures included sour, sweet-sour, lemon, and orange taste profiles and unflavored controls. Swallowing physiology was characterized via computational analysis of swallowing mechanics plus other kinematic and temporal measures, all extracted from VFSS recordings. Whole-brain analysis of fMRI data assessed blood oxygen responses to neural activity associated with taste stimulation. Swallowing morphometry, kinematics, temporal measures, and neuroimaging analysis revealed differential responses by GTS. Supertasters exhibited increased amplitude of most pharyngeal movements, and decreased activity in the primary somatosensory cortex compared to nontasters and midtasters. These preliminary findings suggest baseline differences in swallowing physiology and the associated neural underpinnings associated with GTS. Given the potential implications for dysphagia risk and recovery patterns, GTS should be included as a relevant variable in future research regarding swallowing function and dysfunction

Nontarget Effects of the Mosquito Adulticide Pyrethrin Applied Aerially During a West Nile Virus Outbreak in an Urban California Environment

In August 2006, a pyrethrin insecticide synergized with piperonyl butoxide (EverGreen Crop Protection EC 60-6, McLaughlin Gormley King Company, Golden Valley, MN) was sprayed in ultralow volumes over the city of Davis, CA, by the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District to control mosquitoes transmitting West Nile virus. Concurrently, we evaluated the impact of the insecticide on nontarget arthropods by 1) comparing mortality of treatment and control groups of sentinel arthropods, and 2) measuring the diversity and abundance of dead arthropods found on treatment and control tarps placed on the ground. We found no effect of spraying on nontarget sentinel species including dragonflies (Sympetrum corruptum), spiders (Argiope aurantia), butterflies (Colias eurytheme), and honeybees (Apis mellifera). In contrast, significantly higher diversity and numbers of nontarget arthropods were found on ground tarps placed in sprayed versus unsprayed areas. All of the dead nontarget species were small-bodied arthropods as opposed to the large-bodied sentinels that were not affected. The mortality of sentinel mosquitoes placed at the same sites as the nontarget sentinels and ground tarps ranged from 0% to 100%. Dead mosquitoes were not found on the ground tarps. We conclude that aerial spraying with pyrethrins had no impact on the large-bodied arthropods placed in the spray zone, but did have a measurable impact on a wide range of small-bodied organisms

New superconduting cuprates with no effective doping: T'-(La3+)2-x(RE3+)xCuO4

We report the synthesis of new superconducting cuprates T'-La2-xRExCuO4 (RE = Sm, Eu, Tb, Lu, and Y) using molecular beam epitaxy. The new superconductors have no effective dopant, at least nominally. The substitution of isovalent RE for La was essentially performed to stabilize the T' phase of La2CuO4 instead of the T phase. The maximum Tconset is ~ 25 K and Tczero is ~ 21 K. The keys to our discovery are (1) the preparation of high-crystalline-quality La-based T' films by low-temperature (~ 650C) thin film processes, and (2) more thorough removal of impurity oxygen at the apical site, which is achieved by the larger in-plane lattice constant (a0) of T'-La2-xRExCuO4 than other T'-Ln2CuO4 (Ln = Pr, Nd, Sm, Eu, Gd) with the aid of large surface-to-volume ratio of thin films.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures (Proceedings of the 16th international symposium on superconductivity (ISS 2003), to be published in Physica C

Optical parametric oscillation with distributed feedback in cold atoms

There is currently a strong interest in mirrorless lasing systems, in which the electromagnetic feedback is provided either by disorder (multiple scattering in the gain medium) or by order (multiple Bragg reflection). These mechanisms correspond, respectively, to random lasers and photonic crystal lasers. The crossover regime between order and disorder, or correlated disorder, has also been investigated with some success. Here, we report one-dimensional photonic-crystal lasing (that is, distributed feedback lasing) with a cold atom cloud that simultaneously provides both gain and feedback. The atoms are trapped in a one-dimensional lattice, producing a density modulation that creates a strong Bragg reflection with a small angle of incidence. Pumping the atoms with auxiliary beams induces four-wave mixing, which provides parametric gain. The combination of both ingredients generates a mirrorless parametric oscillation with a conical output emission, the apex angle of which is tunable with the lattice periodicity

Nonisothermal model of glass fiber drawing stability

Draw resonance is caused by a constant speed winder that leads to non-constant axial forces (Schultz, 1984). The well studied isothermal Newtonian fiber drawing predicts very modest critical draw ratios (around 20, much less than the typical production draw ratios for glass fibers of 10 3 – 10 5 ). The nonisothermal fiber drawing model presented here shows that cooling along the spin line strongly stabilizes the process. However, we show that the conclusion of Shah and Pearson (1972a,b) that non-isothermal Newtonian fiber spinning is unconditionally stable is based on non-converged numerical results. The choice of viscosity-temperature correlation function has a strong influence in determining the stability of the process. While viscoelasticity generally has an adverse effect on the stability, low viscoelasticity in the presence of extensional thinning helps to slightly improve the maximum critical draw ratio.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47210/1/397_2004_Article_BF00396509.pd

Invasive cutaneous rhizopus infections in an immunocompromised patient population associated with hospital laundry carts

Mucormycosis is an invasive fungal infection with high morbidity and mortality that most commonly occurs in immunocompromised hosts.1–5 Cutaneous mucormycosis is rare and can be acquired through direct contact of the fungi with non-intact skin or mucous membranes.3,4,7–9 Outbreaks of mucormycosis associated with contaminated adhesive bandages, ostomy supplies, wooden tongue depressors, and linen have been published.1,6–9 This is a report of a cluster of cutaneous mucormycosis with Rhizopus that occurred in 4 immunocompromised inpatients housed primarily in the same intensive care unit (ICU) prior to infection