Low-cost autonomous 3-D monitoring systems for hydraulic engineering environments and applications with limited accuracy requirements

The details of developing autonomous 3-D motion monitoring systems based on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) motion sensors for hydraulic environments are discussed. Possible areas of application, are river bed sediment transport monitoring and monitoring the agitation and other physical parameters inside milk vats with a mechanized agitator. Simplified calculations of inertial navigation systems (INSs) such as Euler angle method, MATLAB programs for further processing, power management systems for autonomous operation including the possibility of inductive power transfer (IPT) and use of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) technology are discussed. Experimental results for proof of concept systems are highlighted

Comprehensive Analysis of Escape-Cone Losses from Luminescent Waveguides

Luminescent waveguides (LWs) occur in a wide range of applications, from solar concentrators to doped fiber amplifiers. Here we report a comprehensive analysis of escape-cone losses in LWs, which are losses associated with internal rays making an angle less than the critical angle with a waveguide surface. For applications such as luminescent solar concentrators, escape-cone losses often dominate all others. A statistical treatment of escape-cone losses is given accounting for photoselection, photon polarization, and the Fresnel relations, and the model is used to analyze light absorption and propagation in waveguides with isotropic and orientationally aligned luminophores. The results are then compared to experimental measurements performed on a fluorescent dye-doped poly(methyl methacrylate) waveguide

Simulations of Luminescent Solar Concentrators: Effects of Polarization and Fluorophore Alignment

We model the effects of dye molecule alignment on the collection efficiency of luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs). A Monte Carlo model for photontransport in LSC’s is derived and utilized, which incorporates the effects of fluorescent-dye-molecular alignment and the subsequent control over absorption, emission, and propagation properties. We focus on the effects of molecular alignment statistics on photon absorption and subsequent emission, including polarization and propagation direction imparted by dipole direction, to model device light-capture efficiency, defined as the ratio of the amount of light reaching particular slab edges to that incident on a face. We find that modest control of alignment, coupled with reasonable and attainable emission-absorption dipole angles, can produce very large collection efficiencies for a range of device parameters. We note that efficiencies for small values of dye molecule Stoke’s shift may be made as large as those for homogeneous (unaligned) systems with large Stoke’s shift

Medical student assessments-frequency of radiological images used : a national study

Assessments are a key part of life for medical students at University. We know there is variation in these assessments across Universities. The aims of this study were to expatiate summative assessments in Scottish Medical Schools and to examine how frequently radiological images feature in them. All Scottish medical schools were invited to participate in the study. Data on objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs; 5 years) and written assessments (3 years) were retrospectively collected for each university and results were collated. Each University was randomly assigned a letter from A to E and anonymised for data presentation. 10,534 multiple choice questions (MCQ) and 1083 OSCE stations were included in this study. There was wide variation in the number, type and timing of assessments across Scottish medical schools. There were highly significant differences in the number of OSCE stations and the number of MCQs set over the study period ( <0.0001). Radiological images were used on average 0.6 times (range 0-1.1) in each OSCE examination and 2.4 times (range 0.1-3.7) for written assessments. In this detailed study, we demonstrated significant differences in medical student assessments across Scottish Universities. Given the importance of Radiology in modern medicine, the frequency and differences in which radiological images were used in assessments across Universities should be addressed. This is the first national longitudinal study to quantify the role of radiological images in summative Medical Student Assessments. Great variability exists in the extent and how (clinical versus written assessments) radiological images are used to assess Scottish medical students. Radiological images are used infrequently in clinical assessments, but are present in every written assessment. These findings could help inform medical schools and academic radiologists as they prepare medical students for the imminent unified medical licensing examination, where Clinical Imaging is a subject with one of the highest number of associated conditions examinable. [Abstract copyright: © 2020 The Authors. Published by the British Institute of Radiology.]Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Evolutionary genomic analyses of canine E. coli infections identify a relic capsular locus associated with resistance to multiple classes of antimicrobials.

UNLABELLED: Infections caused by antimicrobial-resistant Escherichia coli are the leading cause of death attributed to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) worldwide, and the known AMR mechanisms involve a range of functional proteins. Here, we employed a pan-genome wide association study (GWAS) approach on over 1,000 E. coli isolates from sick dogs collected across the US and Canada and identified a strong statistical association (empirical P &lt; 0.01) of AMR, involving a range of antibiotics to a group 1 capsular (CPS) gene cluster. This cluster included genes under relaxed selection pressure, had several loci missing, and had pseudogenes for other key loci. Furthermore, this cluster is widespread in E. coli and Klebsiella clinical isolates across multiple host species. Earlier studies demonstrated that the octameric CPS polysaccharide export protein Wza can transmit macrolide antibiotics into the E. coli periplasm. We suggest that the CPS in question, and its highly divergent Wza, functions as an antibiotic trap, preventing antimicrobial penetration. We also highlight the high diversity of lineages circulating in dogs across all regions studied, the overlap with human lineages, and regional prevalence of resistance to multiple antimicrobial classes. IMPORTANCE: Much of the human genomic epidemiology data available for E. coli mechanism discovery studies has been heavily biased toward shiga-toxin producing strains from humans and livestock. E. coli occupies many niches and produces a wide variety of other significant pathotypes, including some implicated in chronic disease. We hypothesized that since dogs tend to share similar strains with their owners and are treated with similar antibiotics, their pathogenic isolates will harbor unexplored AMR mechanisms of importance to humans as well as animals. By comparing over 1,000 genomes with in vitro antimicrobial susceptibility data from sick dogs across the US and Canada, we identified a strong multidrug resistance association with an operon that appears to have once conferred a type 1 capsule production system

Recovery of a US Endangered Fish

BACKGROUND: More fish have been afforded US Endangered Species Act protection than any other vertebrate taxonomic group, and none has been designated as recovered. Shortnose sturgeon (Acipenser brevirostrum) occupy large rivers and estuaries along the Atlantic coast of North America, and the species has been protected by the US Endangered Species Act since its enactment. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Data on the shortnose sturgeon in the Hudson River (New York to Albany, NY, USA) were obtained from a 1970s population study, a population and fish distribution study we conducted in the late 1990s, and a fish monitoring program during the 1980s and 1990s. Population estimates indicate a late 1990s abundance of about 60,000 fish, dominated by adults. The Hudson River population has increased by more than 400% since the 1970s, appears healthy, and has attributes typical for a long-lived species. Our population estimates exceed the government and scientific population recovery criteria by more than 500%, we found a positive trend in population abundance, and key habitats have remained intact despite heavy human river use. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Scientists and legislators have called for changes in the US Endangered Species Act, the Act is being debated in the US Congress, and the Act has been characterized as failing to recover species. Recovery of the Hudson River population of shortnose sturgeon suggests the combination of species and habitat protection with patience can yield successful species recovery, even near one of the world's largest human population centers

The Great American Crime Decline : Possible Explanations

This chapter examines the most important features of the crime decline in the United States during the 1990s-2010s but also takes a broader look at the violence declines of the last three centuries. The author argues that violent and property crime trends might have diverged in the 1990s, with property crimes increasingly happening in the online sphere and thus traditional property crime statistics not being reflective of the full picture. An important distinction is made between ‘contact crimes’ and crimes that do not require a victim and offender to be present in the same physical space. Contrary to the uncertainties engendered by property crime, the declines in violent (‘contact’) crime are rather general, and have been happening not only across all demographic and geographic categories within the United States but also throughout the developed world. An analysis of research literature on crime trends has identified twenty-four different explanations for the crime drop. Each one of them is briefly outlined and examined in terms of conceptual clarity and empirical support. Nine crime decline explanations are highlighted as the most promising ones. The majority of these promising explanations, being relative newcomers in the crime trends literature, have not been subjected to sufficient empirical scrutiny yet, and thus require further research. One potentially fruitful avenue for future studies is to examine the association of the most promising crime decline explanations with improvements in self-control

In Vivo Chromatin Organization of Mouse Rod Photoreceptors Correlates with Histone Modifications

BACKGROUND: The folding of genetic information into chromatin plays important regulatory roles in many nuclear processes and particularly in gene transcription. Post translational histone modifications are associated with specific chromatin condensation states and with distinct transcriptional activities. The peculiar chromatin organization of rod photoreceptor nuclei, with a large central domain of condensed chromatin surrounded by a thin border of extended chromatin was used as a model to correlate in vivo chromatin structure, histone modifications and transcriptional activity. METHODOLOGY: We investigated the functional relationships between chromatin compaction, distribution of histone modifications and location of RNA polymerase II in intact murine rod photoreceptors using cryo-preparation methods, electron tomography and immunogold labeling. Our results show that the characteristic central heterochromatin of rod nuclei is organized into concentric domains characterized by a progressive loosening of the chromatin architecture from inside towards outside and by specific combinations of silencing histone marks. The peripheral heterochromatin is formed by closely packed 30 nm fibers as revealed by a characteristic optical diffraction signal. Unexpectedly, the still highly condensed most external heterochromatin domain contains acetylated histones, which are usually associated with active transcription and decondensed chromatin. Histone acetylation is thus not sufficient in vivo for complete chromatin decondensation. The euchromatin domain contains several degrees of chromatin compaction and the histone tails are hyperacetylated, enriched in H3K4 monomethylation and hypo trimethylated on H3K9, H3K27 and H4K20. The transcriptionally active RNA polymerases II molecules are confined in the euchromatin domain and are preferentially located at the vicinity of the interface with heterochromatin. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that transcription is located in the most decondensed and highly acetylated chromatin regions, but since acetylation is found associated with compact chromatin it is not sufficient to decondense chromatin in vivo. We also show that a combination of histone marks defines distinct concentric heterochromatin domains

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

On Hepatitis

22 leaves ; 27 cm. ; MD thesis, 1828 ; v. 2, no.