266 research outputs found
John Hammond Moore Papers - Accession 435
The John Hammond Moore Papers consists of records and materials related to Dr. John Hammond Moore\u27s literary career. Dr. Moore (1924-2017) was a Winthrop professor of History from 1962-1965. The vast majority of the papers relate to Dr. Moore’s book, The Faustball Tunnel, which is an account of the escape of 25 German prisoners of war from Papago Park Camp, Arizona, December 23, 1944. The papers include National Archives records of the military papers relating to the escape, correspondence concerning the book, and photographs used in the book. Also included in the papers are records, notes, documents, correspondence, maps, photographs, reviews, and manuscripts concerning Dr. Moore’s books, The Young Errol, which was about Errol Flynn’s life, and Over-Sexed, Over-Paid and Over Here, which was about Americans role in Australia during World War II. Within the John Hammond Moore papers there are also articles, both published and unpublished, that spanned topics other than those of Dr. Moore’s books.https://digitalcommons.winthrop.edu/manuscriptcollection_findingaids/1539/thumbnail.jp
An Inexpensive Cardiovascular Flow Simulator for Cardiac Catheterization Procedure Using a Pulmonary Artery Catheter
Cardiac catheterization associated with central vein cannulation can involve potential thrombotic and infectious complications due to multiple cannulation trials or improper placement. To minimize the risks, medical simulators are used for training. Simulators are also employed to test medical devices such as catheters before performing animal tests because they are more cost-effective and still reveal necessary improvements. However, commercial simulators are expensive, simplified for their purpose, and provide limited access sites. Inexpensive and anatomical cardiovascular simulators with central venous access for cannulation are sparse. Here, we developed an anatomically and physiologically accurate cardiovascular flow simulator to help train medical professionals and test medical devices. Our simulator includes an anatomical right atrium/ventricle, femoral and radial access sites, and considers the variability of arm position. It simulates physiological pulsatile blood flow with a setting for constant flow from 3 to 6 L/min and mimics physiological temperature (37◦C). We demonstrated simulation by inserting a catheter into the system at radial/femoral access sites, passing it through the vasculature, and advancing it into the heart. We expect that our simulator can be used as an educational tool for cardiac catheterization as well as a testing tool that will allow for design iteration before moving to animal trials
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Identification of extracellular glycerophosphodiesterases in Pseudomonas and their role in soil organic phosphorus remineralisation
In soils, phosphorus (P) exists in numerous organic and inorganic forms. However, plants can only acquire inorganic orthophosphate (Pi), meaning global crop production is frequently limited by P availability. To overcome this problem, rock phosphate fertilisers are heavily applied, often with negative environmental and socio-economic consequences. The organic P fraction of soil contains phospholipids that are rapidly degraded resulting in the release of bioavailable Pi. However, the mechanisms behind this process remain unknown. We identified and experimentally confirmed the function of two secreted glycerolphosphodiesterases, GlpQI and GlpQII, found in Pseudomonas stutzeri DSM4166 and Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25, respectively. A series of co-cultivation experiments revealed that in these Pseudomonas strains, cleavage of glycerolphosphorylcholine and its breakdown product G3P occurs extracellularly allowing other bacteria to benefit from this metabolism. Analyses of metagenomic and metatranscriptomic datasets revealed that this trait is widespread among soil bacteria with Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria, specifically Betaproteobacteria and Gammaproteobacteria, the likely major players
Computational Complexity in Electronic Structure
In quantum chemistry, the price paid by all known efficient model chemistries
is either the truncation of the Hilbert space or uncontrolled approximations.
Theoretical computer science suggests that these restrictions are not mere
shortcomings of the algorithm designers and programmers but could stem from the
inherent difficulty of simulating quantum systems. Extensions of computer
science and information processing exploiting quantum mechanics has led to new
ways of understanding the ultimate limitations of computational power.
Interestingly, this perspective helps us understand widely used model
chemistries in a new light. In this article, the fundamentals of computational
complexity will be reviewed and motivated from the vantage point of chemistry.
Then recent results from the computational complexity literature regarding
common model chemistries including Hartree-Fock and density functional theory
are discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Comments welcom
NASA's Robotic Lunar Lander Development Program
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory have developed several mission concepts to place scientific and exploration payloads ranging from 10 kg to more than 200 kg on the surface of the moon. The mission concepts all use a small versatile lander that is capable of precision landing. The results to date of the lunar lander development risk reduction activities including high pressure propulsion system testing, structure and mechanism development and testing, and long cycle time battery testing will be addressed. The most visible elements of the risk reduction program are two fully autonomous lander flight test vehicles. The first utilized a high pressure cold gas system (Cold Gas Test Article) with limited flight durations while the subsequent test vehicle, known as the Warm Gas Test Article, utilizes hydrogen peroxide propellant resulting in significantly longer flight times and the ability to more fully exercise flight sensors and algorithms. The development of the Warm Gas Test Article is a system demonstration and was designed with similarity to an actual lunar lander including energy absorbing landing legs, pulsing thrusters, and flight-like software implementation. A set of outdoor flight tests to demonstrate the initial objectives of the WGTA program was completed in Nov. 2011, and will be discussed
Associations with photoreceptor thickness measures in the UK Biobank.
Spectral-domain OCT (SD-OCT) provides high resolution images enabling identification of individual retinal layers. We included 32,923 participants aged 40-69 years old from UK Biobank. Questionnaires, physical examination, and eye examination including SD-OCT imaging were performed. SD OCT measured photoreceptor layer thickness includes photoreceptor layer thickness: inner nuclear layer-retinal pigment epithelium (INL-RPE) and the specific sublayers of the photoreceptor: inner nuclear layer-external limiting membrane (INL-ELM); external limiting membrane-inner segment outer segment (ELM-ISOS); and inner segment outer segment-retinal pigment epithelium (ISOS-RPE). In multivariate regression models, the total average INL-RPE was observed to be thinner in older aged, females, Black ethnicity, smokers, participants with higher systolic blood pressure, more negative refractive error, lower IOPcc and lower corneal hysteresis. The overall INL-ELM, ELM-ISOS and ISOS-RPE thickness was significantly associated with sex and race. Total average of INL-ELM thickness was additionally associated with age and refractive error, while ELM-ISOS was additionally associated with age, smoking status, SBP and refractive error; and ISOS-RPE was additionally associated with smoking status, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis. Hence, we found novel associations of ethnicity, smoking, systolic blood pressure, refraction, IOPcc and corneal hysteresis with photoreceptor thickness
Good for your soul? Adult learning and mental well-being
Although there is a widely held view that adult learning has a positive impact on well-being, only recently has this proposition been systematically tested. The paper reviews recent research findings on the influence of adult learning on earnings and employability, both of which may influence well-being indirectly. These are more important for some groups than others: in economically advanced societies, additional earnings produce limited gains in well-being for most groups except the poorest, while employability is most significant for groups that are most vulnerable in the labour market. The author then reviews recent research findings showing that participating in learning in adult life has some positive direct influence on well-being; analyses of cohort studies suggest that the influence is comparatively small, but nevertheless significant. There has been less study of learning’s negative consequences for well-being, and the paper draws on history data to illustrate some of these less desirable influences. It concludes by identifying areas for further research, and outlining a number of implications for policy and practice. These are particularly important in the current context, where environmental movements appear to be challenging the primacy of economic growth as the overarching goal of policy
Automated retinal image quality assessment on the UK Biobank dataset for epidemiological studies.
Morphological changes in the retinal vascular network are associated with future risk of many systemic and vascular diseases. However, uncertainty over the presence and nature of some of these associations exists. Analysis of data from large population based studies will help to resolve these uncertainties. The QUARTZ (QUantitative Analysis of Retinal vessel Topology and siZe) retinal image analysis system allows automated processing of large numbers of retinal images. However, an image quality assessment module is needed to achieve full automation. In this paper, we propose such an algorithm, which uses the segmented vessel map to determine the suitability of retinal images for use in the creation of vessel morphometric data suitable for epidemiological studies. This includes an effective 3-dimensional feature set and support vector machine classification. A random subset of 800 retinal images from UK Biobank (a large prospective study of 500,000 middle aged adults; where 68,151 underwent retinal imaging) was used to examine the performance of the image quality algorithm. The algorithm achieved a sensitivity of 95.33% and a specificity of 91.13% for the detection of inadequate images. The strong performance of this image quality algorithm will make rapid automated analysis of vascular morphometry feasible on the entire UK Biobank dataset (and other large retinal datasets), with minimal operator involvement, and at low cost
Developing a predictive modelling capacity for a climate change-vulnerable blanket bog habitat: Assessing 1961-1990 baseline relationships
Aim: Understanding the spatial distribution of high priority habitats and
developing predictive models using climate and environmental variables to
replicate these distributions are desirable conservation goals. The aim of this
study was to model and elucidate the contributions of climate and topography to
the distribution of a priority blanket bog habitat in Ireland, and to examine how
this might inform the development of a climate change predictive capacity for
peat-lands in Ireland.
Methods: Ten climatic and two topographic variables were recorded for grid
cells with a spatial resolution of 1010 km, covering 87% of the mainland
land surface of Ireland. Presence-absence data were matched to these variables
and generalised linear models (GLMs) fitted to identify the main climatic and
terrain predictor variables for occurrence of the habitat. Candidate predictor
variables were screened for collinearity, and the accuracy of the final fitted GLM
was evaluated using fourfold cross-validation based on the area under the curve
(AUC) derived from a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) plot. The GLM
predicted habitat occurrence probability maps were mapped against the actual
distributions using GIS techniques.
Results: Despite the apparent parsimony of the initial GLM using only climatic
variables, further testing indicated collinearity among temperature and precipitation
variables for example. Subsequent elimination of the collinear variables and
inclusion of elevation data produced an excellent performance based on the AUC
scores of the final GLM. Mean annual temperature and total mean annual
precipitation in combination with elevation range were the most powerful
explanatory variable group among those explored for the presence of blanket
bog habitat.
Main conclusions: The results confirm that this habitat distribution in general
can be modelled well using the non-collinear climatic and terrain variables tested
at the grid resolution used. Mapping the GLM-predicted distribution to the
observed distribution produced useful results in replicating the projected
occurrence of the habitat distribution over an extensive area. The methods
developed will usefully inform future climate change predictive modelling for
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