Electrical controlled rheology of a suspension of weakly conducting particles in dielectric liquid

The properties of suspensions of fine particles in dielectric liquid (electrorheological fluids) subjected to an electric field lead to a drastic change of the apparent viscosity of the fluid. For high applied fields (~ 3-5 kV/mm) the suspension congeals to a solid gel (particles fibrillate span the electrode gap) having a finite yield stress. For moderate fields the viscosity of the suspension is continuously controlled by the electric field strength. We have roposed that in DC voltage the field distribution in the solid (particles) and liquid phases of the suspension and so the attractive induced forces between particles and the yield stress of the suspension are controlled by the conductivities of the both materials. In this paper we report investigation and results obtained with nanoelectrorheological suspensions: synthesis of coated nanoparticles (size ~ 50 to 600 nm, materials Gd2O3:Tb, SiOx...), preparation of ER fluids (nanoparticles mixed in silicone oil), electrical and rheological characterization of the ER fluids. We also propose a possible explanation of the enhanced ER effect (giant ER fluids) taking into account the combined effects of the (nano)size of the particles, the Van der Waals forces between particles in contact and the electrostatic pressure in a very thin layer of insulating liquid.Comment: Article pour la conf\'{e}rence sur les charges d'espaces (CSC 6\`{e}me \'{e}dition) qui s'est d\'{e}roul\'{e}e \`{a} Tours du 3 au 7 juillet 2006. 6page

The sermons of Clarence E. Macartney

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/2384/thumbnail.jp

Underreporting of Patient-Reported Outcomes in Myeloproliferative Neoplasms Clinical Trials

Introduction Improvements in overall survival (OS) and quality of life (QoL) are clinically relevant outcomes that should guide clinical decision-making. Patients with MPNs can live with their disease for a long period of time, which increases the importance of understanding the impact of treatment in regards to a patients’ Health-Related QoL. Therefore, including PROs in clinical trials has become paramount in facilitating informed treatment decisions made by health care providers and patients. Furthermore, the FDA encourages the implementation of patient-centric measures in clinical trials. Objective We aimed to evaluate the frequency at which PRO measures are utilized as study endpoints and are made publicly available when trial results are published. Methods A review was conducted to characterize studies that have evaluated PRO in patients undergoing treatment for myeloproliferative neoplasms. We searched Citeline® Trialtrove database, a registry of clinical trials, for randomized clinical trials including patients with all myeloproliferative neoplasms, initiated between the years 2006-2016, utilizing at least 1 PRO. We excluded trials that evaluated supportive care and studies with no publications. For included trials, we recorded the following data: indication, treatment and comparator, clinical development phase, endpoints, trial sponsorship, and type of scale or questionnaire used for PRO endpoint. We then identified all available publications associated with the trial, and recorded the type of publication (abstract or full text), year, number of randomized patients, and reported outcomes. Results Thirty-five MPN trials were obtained through our search. Trials included patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), polycythemia vera (PV), essential thrombocythemia (ET), primary myelofibrosis, and mastocytosis. Of these 35 trials, 16 were excluded; two studies were classified as supportive care, three studies did not have a publication or were terminated without results, and 11 studies did not have at least one PRO. 19 trials (19/30; 63%) included at least one PRO assessment as an endpoint and were included in the analysis. Among these 19 trials, the commonly used PRO assessments were EQ-5D, EORTC-QLQ C30, Total Symptom Score (TSS), FACT-Leu, FACT-G, MPN-SAF, and Patient Global Impression of Change (PGIC). Three of the 19 trials (15.8%) utilized at least one PRO as a primary endpoint. Among the 19 trials, thirteen (68.4%) were sponsored by industry, three (15.8%) were sponsored by industry-academic collaborations, and three (15.8%) were sponsored solely by academic institutions. 12 studies (63.2%) reported PRO results within their publications. Six studies (31.6%) reported PRO data within their initial publication. Nine of the19 trials (47.4%) included a comprehensive report of PRO data within their publications, while three (15.8%) only partially reported PRO data. Of the 12 trials with published PRO data, four of 12 (33.3%) reported the PRO more than six months after the initial full publication. Most of the included trials focused on disease control outcome and overall survival benefit was not shown. Conclusions: Despite a growing emphasis on QoL and the inclusion of PROs in oncology clinical trials, a significant number of the observed MPN randomized trials did not include a PRO measure. Of those trials that included a PRO measurement, many lacked the comprehensive reporting needed to inform the assessment of clinical benefit and respective decisions. Early and timely reporting of PRO data should be valued, especially in this indication; however, the publication of PRO data along with other critical trial endpoints was not seen in many of the initial trial reports. The collection of PRO data should result in routine, timely, and appropriate reporting as part of the trial outcome publication, to allow for a thorough assessment of investigational clinically relevant treatment effects. If the primary trial publication does not include the PRO results, there should be a reference or acknowledgment to the impending PRO publication. Future research in this field may evaluate the reasons why PROs are not implemented more often in clinical trials and what causal factors have influenced the under-reporting of PRO data in trial publications

Civic and Political Leadership Education

Unique in its demands as a system of governance, democracy requires active citizen leadership to be successful. Citizen leadership, in turn, requires engagement based on knowledge and action. Therefore, civic and political education is essential to the success of any democracy. This article discusses a model of applied political and civic leadership education that is based in theory, yet practical to the lives of young people. Surveys of past participants demonstrate that after the program, participants are more confident that they have the skills to become involved in politics and in community life

Sustainable coexistence of the parental species and hemiclonal interspecific hybrids is provided by the variety of ontogenetic strategies

Factors determining the sustainability of Hemiclonal Population Systems in which the interspecies hybrids Pelophylax esculentus complex coexist with members of parental species were studied using a combination of empirical data and computer simulation modeling. The empirical data demonstrates the existence of different intrapopulation strategies by partitioning a sample of individuals into two groups on the basis of their body size at a given age and comparing selected groups in terms of factors such as growth rate, life span, females’ fecundity and the age at which breeding commences. Then by using simulation modeling, we study the probable importance of intrapopulation ontogenetic strategies for the stability of Pelophylax esculentus complex HPS

Comparative Assessment of Water markets: Insights from the Murray-Darling Basin of Australia and the Western USA

Water markets in Australia\u27s Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) and the western USA are compared in terms of their ability to allocate scarce water resources. The study finds that the gains from trade in the MDB are worth hundreds of millions of dollars per year (note that all monetary units of dollars in this article are treated as US$because Australian$ are converted at par). Total market turnover in water rights exceeds US$2 billion per year while the volume of trade exceeds over 20$4.3 billion (2008 US$; monetary units in dollars are expressed in their value in US$ in 2008) spent or committed by urban buyers between 1987 and 2008. The two-market comparison suggests that policy attention should be directed towards ways of promoting water trade while simultaneously mitigating the legitimate third party concerns about how and where water is used, especially in conflicts between consumptive and in situ uses of water. The study finds that institutional innovation is feasible in both countries and that further understanding about the size, duration an

Theoretical analysis of quantum dynamics in 1D lattices: Wannier-Stark description

This papers presents a formalism describing the dynamics of a quantum particle in a one-dimensional tilted time-dependent lattice. The description uses the Wannier-Stark states, which are localized in each site of the lattice and provides a simple framework leading to fully-analytical developments. Particular attention is devoted to the case of a time-dependent potential, which results in a rich variety of quantum coherent dynamics is found.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR

Hubble WFC3 Spectroscopy of the Habitable-zone Super-Earth LHS 1140 b

Atmospheric characterisation of temperate, rocky planets is the holy grail of exoplanet studies. These worlds are at the limits of our capabilities with current instrumentation in transmission spectroscopy and challenge our state-of-the-art statistical techniques. Here we present the transmission spectrum of the temperate Super-Earth LHS 1140b using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) G141 grism data of this habitable zone (T$_{\rm{eq}}$ = 235 K) Super-Earth (R = 1.7 $R_\oplus$), shows tentative evidence of water. However, the signal-to-noise ratio, and thus the significance of the detection, is low and stellar contamination models can cause modulation over the spectral band probed. We attempt to correct for contamination using these models and find that, while many still lead to evidence for water, some could provide reasonable fits to the data without the need for molecular absorption although most of these cause also features in the visible ground-based data which are nonphysical. Future observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) would be capable of confirming, or refuting, this atmospheric detection.Comment: Accepted for publication in AJ on 30th October 202

Wavepacket reconstruction via local dynamics in a parabolic lattice

We study the dynamics of a wavepacket in a potential formed by the sum of a periodic lattice and of a parabolic potential. The dynamics of the wavepacket is essentially a superposition of ``local Bloch oscillations'', whose frequency is proportional to the local slope of the parabolic potential. We show that the amplitude and the phase of the Fourier transform of a signal characterizing this dynamics contains information about the amplitude and the phase of the wavepacket at a given lattice site. Hence, {\em complete} reconstruction of the the wavepacket in the real space can be performed from the study of the dynamics of the system.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, RevTex