485 research outputs found
Risk of SARS-CoV-2 Transmission During Flexible Laryngoscopy: A Systematic Review.
IMPORTANCE: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reportedly infected otolaryngologists disproportionately in the early parts of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Recommendations from national and international health organizations suggest minimizing the use of flexible laryngoscopy as a result.
OBJECTIVE: To review evidence on the risks of aerosolization and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from patients to health care personnel during endoscopy of the upper aerodigestive tract.
EVIDENCE REVIEW: A comprehensive review of literature was performed on April 19, 2020, using the PubMed/MEDLINE (1966-April 2020), Embase (1975-April 2020), and Web of Science (1900-April 2020) databases. All English-language primary research studies were included if they assessed the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 or SARS-CoV-1 during procedures in the upper aerodigestive tract. The primary outcome measure was disease transmission among health care workers. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were used for accuracy of reporting.
FINDINGS: The queries for SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-1 identified 6 articles for systematic review. No studies included in this review provided data for SARS-CoV-2 transmission during flexible laryngoscopy. A total of 204 of 1264 health care workers (16.1%) had procedure-specific infections of SARS-CoV-1 or SARS-CoV-2. Among those, 53 of 221 (24.0%) were exposed during intubation, 1 of 15 (6.7%) during bronchoscopy, and 1 of 1 (100%) during endoscopy-assisted intubation.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: A substantial lack of research precludes formal conclusions about the safety of flexible laryngoscopy and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from patients to health care workers. The use of appropriate precautionary measures and personal protective equipment appears to reduce the risk of transmission. Given the uncertainty in transmission and the known benefits of safety precautions, upper airway endoscopy may be reasonable to perform if precautionary steps are taken
The Life of a Professor: Stress and Coping
The life of a professor is a balancing act, both professionally and personally. Professors must weigh the demands of research, publishing, teaching, and service with the requirements of their personal responsibilities. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to explore the role of stress on the work-life balance of a professor. This study was conducted by an interdisciplinary research team and included participants from a wide-range of academic fields. A mixed-methods approach, utilizing an electronic survey composed of demographic questions, Likert-scale responses, and open-ended questions, yielded data related to the benefits and challenges of being a professor from 31 states in the United States as well as from other countries. Structured interviews were then conducted to reveal the coping methods of the participants. In addition, this article incorporated embedded media in the form of audio sound bites and animated video, which provided the ‘voice’ of the faculty. The triangulated data revealed that lack of supports, both social and institutional, significantly increased the stress experienced by professors. Mechanisms for coping with stress that could be utilized by individual professors as well as institutional stress management strategies were discussed
Citizens without nations
To broach the question of whether citizenship could exist without (or beyond) community, this paper discusses genealogies of citizenship as membership that binds an individual to the community of birth (of the self or a parent). It is birthright as fraternity that blurs the boundary between citizenship and nationality. After briefly discussing recent critical studies on birthright citizenship (whether it is civic or ethnic or blood or soil) by Ayelet Shachar and Jacqueline Stevens, the paper discusses three critical genealogies of the relationship between birthright and citizenship by Max Weber, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault. Although each provides a critical perspective into the question, Weber reduces citizenship to fraternity with nation and Arendt reduces citizenship to fraternity with the state. It is Foucault who illustrates racialization of fraternity as the connection between citizenship and nationality. Yet, since Foucault limits his genealogical investigations to the 18th and 19th centuries, a genealogy of fraternity of what he calls an immense biblical and Greek tradition remains for Derrida to articulate as a question of citizenship
Point process model of 1/f noise versus a sum of Lorentzians
We present a simple point process model of noise, covering
different values of the exponent . The signal of the model consists of
pulses or events. The interpulse, interevent, interarrival, recurrence or
waiting times of the signal are described by the general Langevin equation with
the multiplicative noise and stochastically diffuse in some interval resulting
in the power-law distribution. Our model is free from the requirement of a wide
distribution of relaxation times and from the power-law forms of the pulses. It
contains only one relaxation rate and yields spectra in a wide
range of frequency. We obtain explicit expressions for the power spectra and
present numerical illustrations of the model. Further we analyze the relation
of the point process model of noise with the Bernamont-Surdin-McWhorter
model, representing the signals as a sum of the uncorrelated components. We
show that the point process model is complementary to the model based on the
sum of signals with a wide-range distribution of the relaxation times. In
contrast to the Gaussian distribution of the signal intensity of the sum of the
uncorrelated components, the point process exhibits asymptotically a power-law
distribution of the signal intensity. The developed multiplicative point
process model of noise may be used for modeling and analysis of
stochastic processes in different systems with the power-law distribution of
the intensity of pulsing signals.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Electrical and Noise Characteristics of Graphene Field-Effect Transistors: Ambient Effects and Noise Sources
We fabricated a large number of single and bilayer graphene transistors and
carried out a systematic experimental study of their low-frequency noise
characteristics. A special attention was given to determining the dominant
noise sources in these devices and the effect of aging on the current-voltage
and noise characteristics. The analysis of the noise spectral density
dependence on the area of graphene channel showed that the dominant
contributions to the low-frequency electronic noise come from the graphene
layer itself rather than from the contacts. Aging of graphene transistors due
to exposure to ambient for over a month resulted in substantially increased
noise attributed to the decreasing mobility of graphene and increasing contact
resistance. The noise spectral density in both single and bilayer graphene
transistors either increased with deviation from the charge neutrality point or
depended weakly on the gate bias. This observation confirms that the
low-frequency noise characteristics of graphene transistors are qualitatively
different from those of conventional silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor
field-effect transistors.Comment: 26 pages with 8 figure
Diversity, competition, extinction: the ecophysics of language change
As early indicated by Charles Darwin, languages behave and change very much
like living species. They display high diversity, differentiate in space and
time, emerge and disappear. A large body of literature has explored the role of
information exchanges and communicative constraints in groups of agents under
selective scenarios. These models have been very helpful in providing a
rationale on how complex forms of communication emerge under evolutionary
pressures. However, other patterns of large-scale organization can be described
using mathematical methods ignoring communicative traits. These approaches
consider shorter time scales and have been developed by exploiting both
theoretical ecology and statistical physics methods. The models are reviewed
here and include extinction, invasion, origination, spatial organization,
coexistence and diversity as key concepts and are very simple in their defining
rules. Such simplicity is used in order to catch the most fundamental laws of
organization and those universal ingredients responsible for qualitative
traits. The similarities between observed and predicted patterns indicate that
an ecological theory of language is emerging, supporting (on a quantitative
basis) its ecological nature, although key differences are also present. Here
we critically review some recent advances lying and outline their implications
and limitations as well as open problems for future research.Comment: 17 Pages. A review on current models from statistical Physics and
Theoretical Ecology applied to study language dynamic
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Hidden Challenges to MEMS Commercialization: Design Realization and Reliability Assurance
The successful commercialization of MicroElectroMechanical Systems (MEMS) is an essential prerequisite for their implementation in many critical government applications. Several unique challenges must be overcome to achieve this widespread commercialization. Challenges associated with design realization and reliability assurance are discussed, along with approaches taken by Sandia to successfully overcome these challenges
Universal 1/f Noise from Dissipative SOC Models
We introduce a model able to reproduce the main features of 1/f noise:
hyper-universality (the power-law exponents are independent on the dimension of
the system; we show here results in d=1,2) and apparent lack of a low-frequency
cutoff in the power spectrum. Essential ingredients of this model are an
activation-deactivation process and dissipation.Comment: 3 Latex pages, 2 eps Figure
Adenocarcinoma arising at ileostomy sites: Two cases and a review of the literature
Total colectomy with ileostomy placement is a treatment for patients with inflammatory bowel disease or familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP). A rare and late complication of this treatment is carcinoma arising at the ileostomy site. We describe two such cases: a 78-year-old male 30 years after subtotal colectomy and ileostomy for FAP, and an 85-year-old male 50 years after colectomy and ileostomy for ulcerative colitis. The long latency period between creation of the ileostomies and development of carcinoma suggests a chronic metaplasia due to an irritating/inflammatory causative factor. Surgical excision of the mass and relocation of the stoma is the mainstay of therapy, with possible benefits from adjuvant chemotherapy. Newly developed lesions at stoma sites should be biopsied to rule out the possibility of this rare ileostomy complication
The Depth and Dynamics of Context: Tracing the Sources and Channels of Engagement and Disengagement in Students' Response to Literature
In this article, we analyze one coauthor's 12th-grade English class, focusing on a small group of students who interpreted the character of Gertrude in Hamlet through a body biography, a life-sized human outline that students filled with words and images that represented their understanding of the character. We analyze the body biography production as a function of the social context of activity and then analyze the processes of composition involved in their production. Analysis of the data reveals that (a) the students exhibited different degrees of commitment to and involvement in the group task, (b) the degree of equity in productivity and social relations varied within the group in accordance with these different degrees of engagement, and (c) the inequity in social relations and contributions to the group product belied the degree to which the final interpretive product met the teacher's assessment criteria. We conclude with a reconsideration of the notion of engagement that includes attention to both the immediate social relations within the classroom and the histories of engagement that students bring to class.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline
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