Lunar navigation study, sections 1 through 7 Final report, Jun. 1964 - May 1965

Lunar navigation analysis using passive nongyro, inertial navigation, and radio frequency technolog

Lunar navigation study, summary volume Final report, Jun. 1964 - May 1965

Lunar surface navigation and guidance study to implement lunar surface vehicle exploration mission

Understanding and Visualizing Droplet Distributions in Simulations of Shallow Clouds

Thorough analysis of local droplet-level interactions is crucial to better understand the microphysical processes in clouds and their effect on the global climate. High-accuracy simulations of relevant droplet size distributions from Large Eddy Simulations (LES) of bin microphysics challenge current analysis techniques due to their high dimensionality involving three spatial dimensions, time, and a continuous range of droplet sizes. Utilizing the compact latent representations from Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), we produce novel and intuitive visualizations for the organization of droplet sizes and their evolution over time beyond what is possible with clustering techniques. This greatly improves interpretation and allows us to examine aerosol-cloud interactions by contrasting simulations with different aerosol concentrations. We find that the evolution of the droplet spectrum is similar across aerosol levels but occurs at different paces. This similarity suggests that precipitation initiation processes are alike despite variations in onset times.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted at NeurIPS 2023 (Machine Learning and the Physical Sciences Workshop

Lunar navigation study, sections 8 through 10 and appendices Final report, Jun. 1964 - May 1965

Component capabilities and requirements for lunar navigation concept

Continuing the conversation about public health ethics: education for public health professionals in Europe

An important related question is why we should teach public health ethics. Fundamentally, we must teach public health ethics because ethical practice creates and maintains public trust and public health cannot function without public trust. To serve the public—whether through controlling an outbreak of an infectious disease, preparing for or responding to public health emergencies, or reducing the impact of non-communicable diseases—communities and individuals must trust our decisions and actions. This trust grows in large part from past successes, transparent and participatory decision making, and ethical management of the inevitable moral tensions that arise in our work.S

More things in Heaven and Earth: spirit possession, mental disorder, and intentionality

Spirit possession is a common phenomenon around the world in which a non-corporeal agent is involved with a human host. This manifests in a range of maladies or in displacement of the host's agency and identity. Prompted by engagement with the phenomenon in North Africa, this paper draws connections between spirit possession, and the concepts of personhood and intentionality. It employs these concepts to articulate spirit possession, while also developing the intentional stance as formulated by Daniel Dennett. It argues for an understanding of spirit possession as the spirit stance: an intentional strategy that aims at predicting and explaining behaviour by ascribing to an agent (the spirit) beliefs and desires, but is only deployed once the mental states and activity of the subject (the person) fail specific normative distinctions. Applied to behaviours which are generally taken to signal mental disorder, the spirit stance preserves a peculiar form of intentionality where behaviour would otherwise be explained as a consequence of a malfunctioning physical mechanism. Centuries before the modern disciplines of psychoanalysis and phenomenological-psychopathology endeavoured to restore meaning to 'madness', the social institution of spirit possession had been preserving the intentionality of socially deviant behaviour

Appraisal of health care: from patient value to societal benefit

Aim: This paper summarizes the deficiencies and weaknesses of the most frequently used methods for the allocation of health-care resources. New, more transparent and practical methods for optimizing the allocation of these resources are proposed. Method: The examples of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) and efficiency frontier (EF) are analyzed to describe weaknesses and problems in decisions regulating health-care provision. After conducting a literature search and discussions with an international group of professionals, three groups of professionals were formed to discuss the assessment and appraisal of health-care services and allocation of available resources. Results: At least seven essential variables were identified that should be heeded when applying the concept of QALYs for decisions concerning health-care provision. The efficiency frontier (EF) concept can be used to set a ceiling price and perform a cost-benefit analysis of provision, but different stakeholders—a biostatistician (efficacy), an economist (costs), a clinician (effectiveness), and the patient (value)—could provide a fairer appraisal of health-care services. Efficacy and costs are often based on falsifiable data. Effectiveness and value depend on the success with which a particular clinical problem has been solved. These data cannot be falsified. The societal perspective is generated by an informal cost-benefit analysis including appraisals by the above-mentioned stakeholders and carried out by an authorized institution. Conclusion: Our analysis suggests that study results expressed in QALYs or as EF cannot be compared unless the variables included in the calculation are specified. It would be far more objective and comprehensive if an authorized institution made an informal decision based on formal assessments of the effectiveness of health-care services evaluated by health-care providers, of the value assessed by consumers, of efficacy described by biostatisticians, and of costs calculated by economists

Mechanical properties of femoral trabecular bone in dogs

BACKGROUND: Studying mechanical properties of canine trabecular bone is important for a better understanding of fracture mechanics or bone disorders and is also needed for numerical simulation of canine femora. No detailed data about elastic moduli and degrees of anisotropy of canine femoral trabecular bone has been published so far, hence the purpose of this study was to measure the elastic modulus of trabecular bone in canine femoral heads by ultrasound testing and to assess whether assuming isotropy of the cancellous bone in femoral heads in dogs is a valid simplification. METHODS: From 8 euthanized dogs, both femora were obtained and cubic specimens were cut from the centre of the femoral head which were oriented along the main pressure and tension trajectories. The specimens were tested using a 100 MHz ultrasound transducer in all three orthogonal directions. The directional elastic moduli of trabecular bone tissue and degrees of anisotropy were calculated. RESULTS: The elastic modulus along principal bone trajectories was found to be 11.2 GPa ± 0.4, 10.5 ± 2.1 GPa and 10.5 ± 1.8 GPa, respectively. The mean density of the specimens was 1.40 ± 0.09 g/cm(3). The degrees of anisotropy revealed a significant inverse relationship with specimen densities. No significant differences were found between the elastic moduli in x, y and z directions, suggesting an effective isotropy of trabecular bone tissue in canine femoral heads. DISCUSSION: This study presents detailed data about elastic moduli of trabecular bone tissue obtained from canine femoral heads. Limitations of the study are the relatively small number of animals investigated and the measurement of whole specimen densities instead of trabecular bone densities which might lead to an underestimation of Young's moduli. Publications on elastic moduli of trabecular bone tissue present results that are similar to our data. CONCLUSION: This study provides data about directional elastic moduli and degrees of anisotropy of canine femoral head trabecular bone and might be useful for biomechanical modeling of proximal canine femora

Evolution and networks in ancient and widespread symbioses between Mucoromycotina and liverworts

Like the majority of land plants, liverworts regularly form intimate symbioses with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (Glomeromycotina). Recent phylogenetic and physiological studies report that they also form intimate symbioses with Mucoromycotina fungi and that some of these, like those involving Glomeromycotina, represent nutritional mutualisms. To compare these symbioses, we carried out a global analysis of Mucoromycotina fungi in liverworts and other plants using species delimitation, ancestral reconstruction, and network analyses. We found that Mucoromycotina are more common and diverse symbionts of liverworts than previously thought, globally distributed, ancestral, and often co-occur with Glomeromycotina within plants. However, our results also suggest that the associations formed by Mucoromycotina fungi are fundamentally different because, unlike Glomeromycotina, they may have evolved multiple times and their symbiotic networks are un-nested (i.e., not forming nested subsets of species). We infer that the global Mucoromycotina symbiosis is evolutionarily and ecologically distinctive

Association of 3 different antihypertensive medications with hip and pelvic fracture risk in older adults secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial

IMPORTANCE On the basis of observational studies, the use of thiazide diuretics for the treatment of hypertension is associated with reduced fracture risk compared with nonuse. Data from randomized clinical trials are lacking. OBJECTIVE To examine whether the use of thiazide diuretics for the treatment of hypertension is associated with reduced fracture risk compared with nonuse. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Using Veterans Affairs and Medicare claims data, this study examined hip and pelvic fracture hospitalizations in Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial participants randomized to first-step therapy with a thiazide-type diuretic (chlorthalidone), a calcium channel blocker (amlodipine besylate), or an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (lisinopril). Recruitment was from February 1994 to January 1998; in-trial follow-up ended in March 2002. The mean follow-up was 4.9 years. Posttrial follow-up was conducted through the end of 2006, using passive surveillance via national databases. For this secondary analysis, which used an intention-to-treat approach, data were analyzed from February 1, 1994, through December 31, 2006. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Hip and pelvic fracture hospitalizations. RESULTS A total of 22 180 participants (mean [SD] age, 70.4 [6.7] years; 43.0%female; and 49.9%white non-Hispanic, 31.2%African American, and 19.1%other ethnic groups) were followed for up to 8 years (mean [SD], 4.9 [1.5] years) during masked therapy. After trial completion, 16 622 participants for whom claims data were available were followed for up to 5 additional years (mean [SD] total follow-up, 7.8 [3.1] years). During the trial, 338 fractures occurred. Participants randomized to receive chlorthalidone vs amlodipine or lisinopril had a lower risk of fracture on adjusted analyses (hazards ratio [HR], 0.79; 95%CI, 0.63-0.98; P = .04). Risk of fracture was significantly lower in participants randomized to receive chlorthalidone vs lisinopril (HR, 0.75; 95%CI, 0.58-0.98; P = .04) but not significantly different compared with those randomized to receive amlodipine (HR, 0.82; 95%CI, 0.63-1.08; P = .17). During the entire trial and posttrial period of follow-up, the cumulative incidence of fractures was nonsignificantly lower in participants randomized to receive chlorthalidone vs lisinopril or amlodipine (HR, 0.87; 95%CI, 0.74-1.03; P = .10) and vs each medication separately. In sensitivity analyses, when 1 year after randomization was used as the baseline (to allow for the effects of medications on bone to take effect), similar results were obtained for in-trial and in-trial plus posttrial follow-up. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE These findings from a large randomized clinical trial provide evidence of a beneficial effect of thiazide-type diuretic therapy in reducing hip and pelvic fracture risk compared with treatment with other antihypertensive medications