The COVID-19 pandemic has changed work and commuting in Los Angeles for good

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we work, with working from home – or teleworking – now commonplace for office workers. In new research, Fynnwin Prager, Mohja Rhoads, and Jose Martinez examined the practice in Los Angeles, finding that for workers and businesses, the benefits appear to have outweighed some of the potential downsides. They also write that the changes to the way people commute means that Los Angeles’ transport systems will have to adjust to these new patterns, and that there will be continuing implications for social equity between wealthier and white workers and low-income and minority workers that will need to be explored further

SiGe quantum dots for fast hole spin Rabi oscillations

We report on hole g-factor measurements in three terminal SiGe self-assembled quantum dot devices with a top gate electrode positioned very close to the nanostructure. Measurements of both the perpendicular as well as the parallel g-factor reveal significant changes for a small modulation of the top gate voltage. From the observed modulations we estimate that, for realistic experimental conditions, hole spins can be electrically manipulated with Rabi frequencies in the order of 100MHz. This work emphasises the potential of hole-based nano-devices for efficient spin manipulation by means of the g-tensor modulation technique

“TELE-commuting” During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Unveiling State-wide Patterns and Trends of Telecommuting in Relation to Transportation, Employment, Land Use, and Emissions in Calif

Telecommuting, the practice of working remotely at home, increased significantly (25% to 35%) early in the COVID-19 pandemic. This shift represented a major societal change that reshaped the family, work, and social lives of many Californians. These changes also raise important questions about what factors influenced telecommuting before, during, and after COVID-19, and to what extent changes in telecommuting have influenced transportation patterns across commute modes, employment, land use, and environment. The research team conducted state-level telecommuting surveys using a crowd-sourced platform (i.e., Amazon Mechanical Turk) to obtain valid samples across California (n=1,985) and conducted state-level interviews among stakeholders (n=28) across ten major industries in California. The study leveraged secondary datasets and developed regression and time-series models. Our surveys found that, compared to pre-pandemic levels, more people had a dedicated workspace at home and had received adequate training and support for telecommuting, became more flexible to choose their own schedules, and had improved their working performance—but felt isolated and found it difficult to separate home and work life. Our interviews suggested that telecommuting policies were not commonly designed and implemented until COVID-19. Additionally, regression analyses showed that telecommuting practices have been influenced by COVID-19 related policies, public risk perception, home prices, broadband rates, and government employment. This study reveals advantages and disadvantages of telecommuting and unveils the complex relationships among the COVID-19 outbreak, transportation systems, employment, land use, and emissions as well as public risk perception and economic factors. The study informs statewide and regional policies to adapt to the new patterns of telecommuting

Urinary bladder innervation within the sacral roots of a sheep

Managing the urinary bladder after spinal cord injury is of primary importance because neurogenic dysfunction leads to life-threatening complications. Sacral Anterior Root Stimulators that control the bladder have been available for many years, however, these devices cannot sense the fullness of the bladder or detect the onset of reflex voiding. In order to address this fundamental limitation, this paper explores the possibility of recording the neural signals that encode bladder fullness from the sacral roots in sheep using extra-neural books. Stimulation of and recording from six roots (S1, S2 and S3 bilaterally) shows that efferent and afferent pathways seem to be co-located within roots, but also that simultaneous recording from multiple roots may be useful to enhance overall signal quality. </p

Methods of olfactory ensheathing cell harvesting from the olfactory mucosa in dogs

Olfactory ensheathing cells are thought to support regeneration and remyelination of damaged axons when transplanted into spinal cord injuries. Following transplantation, improved locomotion has been detected in many laboratory models and in dogs with naturally-occurring spinal cord injury; safety trials in humans have also been completed. For widespread clinical implementation, it will be necessary to derive large numbers of these cells from an accessible and, preferably, autologous, source making olfactory mucosa a good candidate. Here, we compared the yield of olfactory ensheathing cells from the olfactory mucosa using 3 different techniques: rhinotomy, frontal sinus keyhole approach and rhinoscopy. From canine clinical cases with spinal cord injury, 27 biopsies were obtained by rhinotomy, 7 by a keyhole approach and 1 with rhinoscopy. Biopsy via rhinoscopy was also tested in 13 cadavers and 7 living normal dogs. After 21 days of cell culture, the proportions and populations of p75-positive (presumed to be olfactory ensheathing) cells obtained by the keyhole approach and rhinoscopy were similar (~4.5 x 106 p75-positive cells; ~70% of the total cell population), but fewer were obtained by frontal sinus rhinotomy. Cerebrospinal fluid rhinorrhea was observed in one dog and emphysema in 3 dogs following rhinotomy. Blepharitis occurred in one dog after the keyhole approach. All three biopsy methods appear to be safe for harvesting a suitable number of olfactory ensheathing cells from the olfactory mucosa for transplantation within the spinal cord but each technique has specific advantages and drawbacks

Drift and Diffusion in Periodically Driven Renewal Processes

We consider the drift and diffusion properties of periodically driven renewal processes. These processes are defined by a periodically time dependent waiting time distribution, which governs the interval between subsequent events. We show that the growth of the cumulants of the number of events is asymptotically periodic and develop a theory which relates these periodic growth coefficients to the waiting time distribution defining the periodic renewal process. The first two coefficients, which are the mean frequency and effective diffusion coefficient of the number of events are considered in greater detail. They may be used to quantify stochastic synchronization.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Journal of Statistical Physic