The Role of Occupant Behavior in Achieving Net Zero Energy: A Demonstration Project at Fort Carson

This study, sponsored by the U.S. General Services Administration’s Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings, aimed to understand the potential for institutional and behavioral change to enhance the performance of buildings, through a demonstration project with the Department of Defense in five green buildings on the Fort Carson, Colorado, Army base. To approach this study, the research team identified specific occupant behaviors that had the potential to save energy in each building, defined strategies that might effectively support behavior change, and implemented a coordinated set of actions during a three-month intervention

Are We There Yet? Product Quantization and its Hardware Acceleration

Conventional multiply-accumulate (MAC) operations have long dominated computation time for deep neural networks (DNNs). Recently, product quantization (PQ) has been successfully applied to these workloads, replacing MACs with memory lookups to pre-computed dot products. While this property makes PQ an attractive solution for model acceleration, little is understood about the associated trade-offs in terms of compute and memory footprint, and the impact on accuracy. Our empirical study investigates the impact of different PQ settings and training methods on layerwise reconstruction error and end-to-end model accuracy. When studying the efficiency of deploying PQ DNNs, we find that metrics such as FLOPs, number of parameters, and even CPU/GPU performance, can be misleading. To address this issue, and to more fairly assess PQ in terms of hardware efficiency, we design the first custom hardware accelerator to evaluate the speed and efficiency of running PQ models. We identify PQ configurations that are able to improve performance-per-area for ResNet20 by 40%-104%, even when compared to a highly optimized conventional DNN accelerator. Our hardware performance outperforms recent PQ solutions by 4x, with only a 0.6% accuracy degradation. This work demonstrates the practical and hardware-aware design of PQ models, paving the way for wider adoption of this emerging DNN approximation methodology

Measuring spin ... spin interactions between heterospins in a hybrid [2]rotaxane

Use of molecular electron spins as qubits for quantum computing will depend on the ability to produce molecules with weak but measurable interactions between the qubits. Here we demonstrate use of pulsed EPR spectroscopy to measure the interaction between two inequivalent spins in a hybrid rotaxane molecule

Active Tension Network model suggests an exotic mechanical state realized in epithelial tissues.

Mechanical interactions play a crucial role in epithelial morphogenesis, yet understanding the complex mechanisms through which stress and deformation affect cell behavior remains an open problem. Here we formulate and analyze the Active Tension Network (ATN) model, which assumes that the mechanical balance of cells within a tissue is dominated by cortical tension and introduces tension-dependent active remodeling of the cortex. We find that ATNs exhibit unusual mechanical properties. Specifically, an ATN behaves as a fluid at short times, but at long times supports external tension like a solid. Furthermore, an ATN has an extensively degenerate equilibrium mechanical state associated with a discrete conformal - "isogonal" - deformation of cells. The ATN model predicts a constraint on equilibrium cell geometries, which we demonstrate to approximately hold in certain epithelial tissues. We further show that isogonal modes are observed in the fruit y embryo, accounting for the striking variability of apical areas of ventral cells and helping understand the early phase of gastrulation. Living matter realizes new and exotic mechanical states, the study of which helps to understand biological phenomena

Developing a National Implementation Strategy to accelerate Uptake of Evidence-Based Family Caregiver Support in Us Cancer Centers

OBJECTIVE: Characterize key factors and training needs of U.S. cancer centers in implementing family caregiver support services. METHODS: Sequential explanatory mixed methods design consisting of: (1) a national survey of clinicians and administrators from Commission-on-Cancer-accredited cancer centers (N = 238) on factors and training needed for establishing new caregiver programs and (2) qualitative interviews with a subsample of survey respondents (N = 30) to elicit feedback on survey findings and the outline of an implementation strategy to facilitate implementation of evidence-based family caregiver support (the Caregiver Support Accelerator). Survey data was tabulated using descriptive statistics and transcribed interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis. RESULTS: top factors for developing new caregiver programs were that the program be: consistent with the cancer center\u27s mission and strategic plan (87%), supported by clinic leadership (86.5%) and providers and staff (85.7%), and low cost or cost effective (84.9%). top training needs were how to: train staff to implement programs (72.3%), obtain program materials (63.0%), and evaluate program outcomes (62.6%). Only 3.8% reported that no training was needed. Qualitative interviews yielded four main themes: (1) gaining leadership, clinician, and staff buy-in and support is essential; (2) cost and clinician burden are major factors to program implementation; (3) training should help with adapting and marketing programs to local context and culture; and (4) the Accelerator strategy is comprehensive and would benefit from key organizational partnerships and policy standards. CONCLUSION: Findings will be used to inform and refine the Accelerator implementation strategy to facilitate the adoption and growth of evidence-based cancer caregiver support in U.S. cancer centers

Serologic Evidence of West Nile Virus Infection in Horses, Coahuila State, Mexico

Serum samples were obtained from 24 horses in the State of Coahuila, Mexico, in December 2002. Antibodies to West Nile virus were detected by epitope-blocking enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and confirmed by plaque reduction neutralization test in 15 (62.5%) horses. We report the first West Nile virus activity in northern Mexico

Availability of Family Caregiver Programs in Us Cancer Centers

IMPORTANCE: Family caregivers provide the majority of health care to the 18 million patients with cancer in the US. Yet despite providing complex medical and nursing care, a large proportion of caregivers report no formal support or training. In recognition of this gap, many interventions to support cancer caregivers have been developed and tested over the past 2 decades. However, there are few system-level data on whether US cancer centers have adopted and implemented these interventions. OBJECTIVE: to describe and characterize the availability of family caregiver support programs in US cancer centers. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cross-sectional national survey study was conducted between September 1, 2021, and April 30, 2023. Participants comprised clinical and administrative staff of Commission on Cancer-accredited US cancer centers. Data analysis was performed in May and June 2023. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Survey questions about the availability of 11 types of family caregiver programs (eg, peer mentoring, education classes, and psychosocial programs) were developed after literature review, assessment of similar program evaluation surveys, and discussions among a 13-member national expert advisory committee. Family caregiver programs were defined as structured, planned, and coordinated groups of activities and procedures aimed at specifically supporting family caregivers as part of usual care. Survey responses were tabulated using standard descriptive statistics, including means, proportions, and frequencies. RESULTS: Of the surveys sent to potential respondents at 971 adult cancer centers, 238 were completed (response rate, 24.5%). After nonresponse weight adjustment, most cancer centers (75.4%) had at least 1 family caregiver program; 24.6% had none. The most common program type was information and referral services (53.6%). Cancer centers with no programs were more likely to have smaller annual outpatient volumes (χ2 = 11.10; P = .011). Few centers had caregiver programs on training in medical and/or nursing tasks (21.7%), caregiver self-care (20.2%), caregiver-specific distress screening (19.3%), peer mentoring (18.9%), and children caregiving for parents (8.3%). Very few programs were developed from published evidence in a journal (8.1%). The top reason why cancer centers selected their programs was community members requesting the program (26.3%); only 12.3% of centers selected their programs based on scientific evidence. Most programs were funded by the cancer center or hospital (58.6%) or by philanthropy (42.4%). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: In this survey study, most cancer centers had family caregiver programs; however, a quarter had none. Furthermore, the scope of programming was limited and rarely evidence based, with few centers offering caregiving education and training. These findings suggest that implementation strategies are critically needed to foster uptake of evidence-based caregiver interventions

Detection of a two-phonon mode in a cuprate superconductor via polarimetric RIXS

Recent improvements in the energy resolution of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering experiments (RIXS) at the Cu-L$_3$ edge have enabled the study of lattice, spin, and charge excitations. Here, we report on the detection of a low intensity signal at 140meV, twice the energy of the bond-stretching (BS) phonon mode, in the cuprate superconductor $\textrm{Bi}_2\textrm{Sr}_2\textrm{Ca}\textrm{Cu}_2\textrm{O}_{8+x}$ (Bi-2212). Ultra-high resolution polarimetric RIXS measurements allow us to resolve the outgoing polarization of the signal and identify this feature as a two-phonon excitation. Further, we study the connection between the two-phonon mode and the BS one-phonon mode by constructing a joint density of states toy model that reproduces the key features of the data