Universal Dynamics of a Strongly-interaction Fermi Gas

Current work in atomic DFGs. New frontier: Universal Behavior in Strongly-Interacting Fermi Gases. Free Expansion Experiment. Extraction of a Universal Parameter. Summary

A Descriptive Analysis of 1251 Solid Organ Transplant Visits to the Emergency Department

Background: As solid organ transplants become more common, recipients present more frequently to the emergency department (ED) for care.Methods: We performed a retrospective medical record review of ED visits of all patients who received an organ transplant at our medical center from 2000-2004, and included all visits following the patients’ transplant surgery through December 2005 or until failed graft, lost to follow up, or death. Clinically relevant demographic variables, confounding and outcome variables were recorded. Kidney, liver and combined kidney with other organ transplant recipients were included.Results: Five hundred ninety-three patients received kidney (395), liver (161), or combined renal (37) organ transplants during the study period, resulting in 1,251 ED visits. This represents 3.15 ED visits/patient followed over a mean of 30.8 months. Abdominal pain/gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms (31.3%) and infectious complaints (16.7%) were the most common presentations. The most common ED discharge diagnoses were fever/infection (36%), GI/Genitourinary (GU) pathology (20.4%) and dehydration (15%). Renal transplant recipients were diagnosed with infectious processes most often, despite time elapsed from transplant. Liver transplant patients had diagnoses of fever/infection most often in their first 30 days post transplant. Thereafter they were more likely to develop GI/GU pathology. After the first year of transplantation, cardiopulmonary and musculoskeletal pathology become more common in all transplant organ groups. Of the 1,251 ED visits, 762 (60.9%) resulted in hospitalization. Chief complaints of abdominal pain/GI symptoms, infectious complaints, cardiovascular and neurologic symptoms, and abnormal laboratory studies were significantly likely to result in hospitalization.Conclusions: This study demonstrates a significant utilization of the ED by transplant recipients, presenting with a wide variety of symptoms and diagnoses, and with a high hospitalization rate. As the transplant-recipient population grows, these complex patients continue to present diagnostic and treatment challenges to primary care and emergency physicians.[WestJEM. 2009;10:48-54.

Creating an experimental testbed for information-theoretic analysis of architectures for x-ray anomaly detection

Anomaly detection requires a system that can reliably convert measurements of an object into knowledge about that object. Previously, we have shown that an information-theoretic approach to the design and analysis of such systems provides insight into system performance as it pertains to architectural variations in source fluence, view number/angle, spectral resolution, and spatial resolution.(1) However, this work was based on simulated measurements which, in turn, relied on assumptions made in our simulation models and virtual objects. In this work, we describe our experimental testbed capable of making transmission x-ray measurements. The spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution is sufficient to validate aspects of the simulation-based framework, including the forward models, bag packing techniques, and performance analysis. In our experimental CT system, designed baggage is placed on a rotation stage located between a tungsten-anode source and a spectroscopic detector array. The setup is able to measure a full 360 rotation with 18,000 views, each of which defines a 10 ms exposure of 1,536 detector elements, each with 64 spectral channels. Measurements were made of 1,000 bags that comprise 100 clutter instantiations each with 10 different target materials. Moreover, we develop a systematic way to generate bags representative of our desired clutter and target distributions. This gives the dataset a statistical significance valuable in future investigations.US Department of Homeland Security through the Advanced X-Ray Material Discrimination ProgramThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Risk of diabetes after para-aortic radiation for testicular cancer

Background: While the risk of diabetes is increased following radiation exposure to the pancreas among childhood cancer survivors, its association among testicular cancer (TC) survivors has not been investigated. Methods: Diabetes risk was studied in 2998 1-year TC survivors treated before 50 years of age with orchidectomy with/without radiotherapy between 1976 and 2007. Diabetes incidence was compared with general population rates. Treatment-specific risk of diabetes was assessed using a case–cohort design. Results: With a median follow-up of 13.4 years, 161 TC survivors were diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes risk was not increased compared to general population rates (standardised incidence ratios (SIR): 0.9; 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0.7–1.1). Adjusted for age, para-aortic radiotherapy was associated with a 1.66-fold (95% CI: 1.05–2.62) increased diabetes risk compared to no radiotherapy. The excess hazard increased with 0.31 with every 10 Gy increase in the prescribed radiation dose (95% CI: 0.11–0.51, P = 0.003, adjusted for age and BMI); restricted to irradiated patients the excess hazard increased with 0.33 (95% CI: −0.14 to 0.81, P = 0.169) with every 10 Gy increase in radiation dose. Conclusion: Compared to surgery only, para-aortic irradiation is associated with increased diabetes risk among TC survivors

Schlussbericht

Heterogenität und Inklusion gestalten – Zukunftsstrategie Lehrer*innenbildung (ZuS)“ an der Universität zu Köln hat sich eine wichtige und aktuelle gesellschaftliche und bildungspolitische Aufgabe zum Leitmotiv gemacht: Sie will Studierende besser auf ihre beruflichen Herausforderungen vorbereiten und zugleich die dafür entwickelten Maßnahmen für einen nachhaltigen institutionellen Wandel nutzen. Diese Strategie wurde in vier großen thematischen Handlungsfeldern umgesetzt: Studium inklusiv als thematisch strukturiertes Lehrangebot, Competence Labs als innovative praxisorientierte Lehr-Lernformate sowie Nachwuchsförderung und Qualitätssicherung als Mittel der Nachhaltigkeit. Die zweite Förderphase des Projektes soll die bewährten Innovationen strukturell verankern und nachhaltig in die Gesamtheit der Fächer und der Studierenden sowie in die zweite Ausbildungsphase transferieren. Anknüpfend an die erste Förderphase werden zusätzlich zur inklusiven Bildung zwei weitere Zieldimensionen adressiert: digitale Bildung und sprachliche Bildung. Damit werden die drei zentralen Herausforderungen im Bildungsbereich bearbeitet, nämlich das Unterrichten in heterogenen Klassen, die kritisch-konstruktive Nutzung digitaler Ressourcen sowie die Vermittlung bildungssprachlicher Kompetenzen im Kontext der Mehrsprachigkeit. Datei-Upload durch TIB„Performing heterogeneity and inclusion – Teacher Training Quality Campaign (ZuS)” at the University of Cologne has adopted a significant and topical task as its guiding theme: The campaign has set out to better prepare students for their professional challenges and at the same time is intent on profiting from the measures developed for that purpose in order to warrant a sustainable institutional change. This strategy is currently being realized in four large thematic spheres of activity: Inclusive Studies (“Studium inklusiv”) as a thematically structured programme, Competence Labs as innovate, practice-oriented teaching and learning formats as well as Promotion of Young Researchers (“Nachwuchsförderung”) and Quality Assurances as means of sustainability. In the second funding phase the successful innovations will be structurally implemented and transferred to all of the study programmes accross disciplines, to all the students as well as to the second educational phase (i.e. the teacher training phase). In connection to the first funding phase, two further objectives will be addressed: digital education and linguistic education. These objectives ensure that we are facing the following three central challenges: i. teaching heterogeneous classes, ii. the critical-constructive use of digital teaching iii. linguistic educational competences in the context of multilingualism

Calibration—An open challenge in creating practical computational- and compressive-sensing systems

Publication in the conference proceedings of SampTA, Bremen, Germany, 201