Direct force-measuring transducer used in blood pressure research

Direct force measuring transducer acts as an arterial tonometer, gives a direct readout to instrumentation, and is unaffected by ambient noise. It uses a semiconductor strain gage which is deflected by pressure pulses in the artery. The deflection changes the resistance of the gage and alters the voltage reading on the associated instrumentation

Elastic cavitation, tube hollowing, and differential growth in plants and biological tissues

Elastic cavitation is a well-known physical process by which elastic materials under stress can open cavities. Usually, cavitation is induced by applied loads on the elastic body. However, growing materials may generate stresses in the absence of applied loads and could induce cavity opening. Here, we demonstrate the possibility of spontaneous growth-induced cavitation in elastic materials and consider the implications of this phenomenon to biological tissues and in particular to the problem of schizogenous aerenchyma formation

Misremembering pain: A memory blindness approach to adding a better end.

How people remember feeling in the past informs future decisions; however, memory for past emotion is subject to a number of biases. Previous research on choice blindness has shown that people often fail to notice when they are exposed to misinformation about their own decisions, preferences, and memories. This type of misinformation can influence how they later remember past events. In the present study, we examined the memory blindness effect in a new domain: memory for pain. Participants (N = 269) underwent a cold-pressor task and rated how much pain, distress, and positive and negative affect they had experienced. Later, participants were shown their pain ratings and asked to explain them. Some of the participants were shown lower pain ratings than they had actually made. In a second session, participants recalled how painful the task had been and how much distress and positive and negative affect they remembered experiencing. The results indicated that the majority of participants who were exposed to misinformation failed to detect the manipulation, and subsequently remembered the task as being less painful. The participants in the misinformation condition were not overall more willing to repeat the study tasks, but the participants who recalled less distress, less negative affect, and more positive affect were more willing to repeat the study tasks again in a future experiment. These results demonstrate the malleability of memory for painful experiences and that willingness to repeat aversive experiences may depend more on memory for affective reactions to the original experience than on memory for the physical pain itself

Public Protests and the Risk of Novel Coronavirus Disease Hospitalizations: A County-Level Analysis from California

The objective of this study was to assess the relationship between public protests and county-level, novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) hospitalization rates across California. Publicly available data were included in the analysis from 55 of 58 California state counties (29 March–14 October 2020). Mixed-effects negative binomial regression models were used to examine the relationship between daily county-level COVID-19 hospitalizations and two main exposure variables: any vs. no protests and 1 or \u3e1 protest vs. no protests on a given county-day. COVID-19 hospitalizations were used as a proxy for viral transmission since such rates are less sensitive to temporal changes in testing access/availability. Models included covariates for daily county mobility, county-level characteristics, and time trends. Models also included a county-population offset and a two-week lag for the association between exposure and outcome. No significant associations were observed between protest exposures and COVID-19 hospitalization rates among the 55 counties. We did not find evidence to suggest that public protests were associated with COVID-19 hospitalization within California counties. These findings support the notion that protesting during a pandemic may be safe, ostensibly, so long as evidence-based precautionary measures are taken

Collaborative multidisciplinary learning : quantity surveying students’ perspectives

The construction industry is highly fragmented and is known for its adversarial culture, culminating in poor quality projects not completed on time or within budget. The aim of this study is thus to guide the design of QS programme curricula in order to help students develop the requisite knowledge and skills to work more collaboratively in their multi-disciplinary future workplaces. A qualitative approach was considered appropriate as the authors were concerned with gathering an initial understanding of what students think of multi-disciplinary learning. The data collection method used was a questionnaire which was developed by the Behaviours4Collaboration (B4C) team. Knowledge gaps were still found across all the key areas where a future QS practitioner needs to be collaborative (either as a project contributor or as a project leader) despite the need for change instigated by the multi-disciplinary (BIM) education revolution. The study concludes that universities will need to be selective in teaching, and innovative in reorienting, QS education so that a collaborative BIM education can be effected in stages, increasing in complexity as the students’ technical knowledge grows. This will help students to build the competencies needed to make them future leaders. It will also support programme currency and delivery

Association of atrial fibrillation and obstructive sleep apnea.

BACKGROUND: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is associated with recurrent atrial fibrillation (AF) after electrocardioversion. OSA is highly prevalent in patients who are male, obese, and/or hypertensive, but its prevalence in patients with AF is unknown. METHODS AND RESULTS: We prospectively studied consecutive patients undergoing electrocardioversion for AF (n=151) and consecutive patients without past or current AF referred to a general cardiology practice (n=312). OSA was diagnosed with the Berlin questionnaire, which is validated to identify patients with OSA. We also assessed its accuracy compared with polysomnography in a sample of the study population. Groups were compared with the 2-tailed t, Wilcoxon, and chi2 tests. Logistic regression modeled the association of AF and OSA after adjustment for relevant covariates. Patients in each group had similar age, gender, body mass index, and rates of diabetes, hypertension, and congestive heart failure. The questionnaire performed with 0.86 sensitivity, 0.89 specificity, and 0.97 positive predictive value in our sample. The proportion of patients with OSA was significantly higher in the AF group than in the general cardiology group (49% versus 32%, P=0.0004). The adjusted odds ratio for the association between AF and OSA was 2.19 (95% CI 1.40 to 3.42, P=0.0006). CONCLUSIONS: The novel finding of this study is that a strong association exists between OSA and AF, such that OSA is strikingly more prevalent in patients with AF than in high-risk patients with multiple other cardiovascular diseases. The coinciding epidemics of obesity and AF underscore the clinical importance of these results

A reference framework for process-oriented software development organizations

In this paper, a proposal of a generic framework for process-oriented software development organizations is presented. Additionally, the respective way of managing the process model, and the instantiation of their processes with the Rational Unified Process (RUP) disciplines, whenever they are available, or with other kind of processes is suggested. The proposals made here were consolidated with experiences from real projects and we report the main results from one of those projects.FCT -Fuel Cell Technologies Program(POSI/37334/CHS/2001