Simulating Interactions Between Coronal Mass Ejections

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) launch large amounts of plasma and magnetic fields into the interplanetary medium. Under the right initial conditions, this ejecta can reach Earth and cause issues with electronic devices. As such, we would like to have an accurate model that depicts how these CMEs propagate as they leave the sun. By using fluid dynamics and one-minute resolution in-situ solar wind data, we sought to simulate CME plasma propagation with analytical and numerical models. Because the interstellar medium contains other material and other events happen on the sun simultaneously, CMEs can interact with each other and other ejecta, which can cause them to change, so in order to have an accurate simulation we considered these interactions in our model. For our model, we made the assumption that the plasma was an ideal fluid, was super-alfvenic, and we employed an injection radius of 10 R⦿

Long-term cortisol levels in hair of children and adolescents with Prader-Willi Syndrome

Context: Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) is characterized by hypothalamic dysfunction. In children with PWS, stress-induced central adrenal insufficiency (CAI) has been described, however, daily life cortisol production may be normal. Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) is a marker of long-term systemic cortisol production. Cortisol awakening response (CAR) is the increase in cortisol level after awakening. A negative CAR might suggest hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)-axis reactivity problems. Little is known about HCC and CAR in children with PWS. Objective: To investigate long-term cortisol levels in hair and CAR in children with PWS. Design: Cross-sectional study. Patients: 41 children with PWS. Setting: Dutch PWS Reference Center. Main outcome measures: HCC and salivary cortisol measured by LCMS. Results: Median (IQR) HCC was 1.90 (1.02–3.30) pg/mg at a median (IQR) age of 14.5 (8.20–19.0) years, with median HCC in age-matched references being 2.63 pg/mg. Five patients (13.2%) had HCC &lt; 2.5th percentile for age and these patients had a repeatedly negative CAR. Median HCC was significantly lower in patients with negative CAR than in patients with normal CAR (1.00 (0.22–1.59) vs. 2.25 (1.47–3.26) pg/mg, p = 0.007). One patient had both HCC &lt; 2.5th percentile and repeatedly low morning salivary cortisol levels and negative CAR, and was diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency by overnight metyrapone test. Conclusions: HCC were normal in the majority of children with PWS. Our data suggest that children with HCC &lt; 2.5th percentile and (repeatedly) negative CAR might possibly have adrenal insufficiency or delayed HPA-axis responsiveness.</p

Ultrafast pump-probe dynamics in ZnSe-based semiconductor quantum-wells

Pump-probe experiments are used as a controllable way to investigate the properties of photoexcited semiconductors, in particular, the absorption saturation. We present an experiment-theory comparison for ZnSe quantum wells, investigating the energy renormalization and bleaching of the excitonic resonances. Experiments were performed with spin-selective excitation and above-bandgap pumping. The model, based on the semiconductor Bloch equations in the screened Hartree-Fock approximation, takes various scattering processes into account phenomenologically. Comparing numerical results with available experimental data, we explain the experimental results and find that the electron spin-flip occurs on a time scale of 30 ps.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures. Key words: nonlinear and ultrafast optics, modeling of femtosecond pump-probe experiments, electron spin-flip tim

Deep Compact Person Re-Identification with Distractor Synthesis via Guided DC-GANs

We present a dual-stream CNN that learns both appearance and facial features in tandem from still images and, after feature fusion, infers person identities. We then describe an alternative architecture of a single, lightweight ID-CondenseNet where a face detector-guided DC-GAN is used to generate distractor person images for enhanced training. For evaluation, we test both architectures on FLIMA, a new extension of an existing person re-identification dataset with added frame-by-frame annotations of face presence. Although the dual-stream CNN can outperform the CondenseNet approach on FLIMA, we show that the latter surpasses all state-of-the-art architectures in top-1 ranking performance when applied to the largest existing person re-identification dataset, MSMT17. We conclude that whilst re-identification performance is highly sensitive to the structure of datasets, distractor augmentation and network compression have a role to play for enhancing performance characteristics for larger scale applications

Semantically selective augmentation for deep compact person re-identification

We present a deep person re-identification approach that combines semantically selective, deep data augmentation with clustering-based network compression to generate high performance, light and fast inference networks. In particular, we propose to augment limited training data via sampling from a deep convolutional generative adversarial network (DCGAN), whose discriminator is constrained by a semantic classifier to explicitly control the domain specificity of the generation process. Thereby, we encode information in the classifier network which can be utilized to steer adversarial synthesis, and which fuels our CondenseNet ID-network training. We provide a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the approach and its variants on a number of datasets, obtaining results that outperform the state-of-the-art on the LIMA dataset for long-term monitoring in indoor living spaces

Attitudes of Students at Sultan Qaboos University towards the Nursing Profession

Objectives: The aim of this study was to explore the attitudes of Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) students towards the nursing profession. Methods: A sample of 377 students (male = 130; female = 247) were selected from different colleges of SQU, including the College of Nursing. A questionnaire was constructed and validated to assess the attitudes of SQU students towards the nursing profession. Results: Findings revealed that both male and female students in all academic years and colleges had positive attitudes toward the nursing profession. The findings also revealed that gender and academic year created no significant differences (P &lt;0.05) among the study participants, but that the students’ college affiliation did have a significant effect on their attitudes. In particular, nursing students had more positive attitudes than students of other colleges. Conclusion: Findings indicated that the attitudes of SQU students towards the nursing profession were positive, especially those of the nursing students. This means that serious efforts should be made to continue to promote the nursing profession and so ensure that it remains positively regarded by all concerned

Bibliography on HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia and Ethiopians in the diaspora: The 2016 update

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An Australian longitudinal pilot study examining health determinants of cardiac outcomes 12 months post percutaneous coronary intervention

Background Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a very common revascularisation procedure for coronary artery disease (CAD). The purpose of this study was to evaluate cardiac outcomes, health related quality of life (HRQoL), resilience and adherence behaviours in patients who have undergone a PCI at two time points (6 and 12 months) following their procedure. Methods A longitudinal pilot study was conducted to observe the cardiac outcomes across a cohort of patients who had undergone a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Participants who had undergone PCI 6 months prior were invited. Those participants who met the inclusion criteria and provided consent then completed a telephone survey (time point 1). These participants were then contacted 6 months later (i.e. 12 months post-intervention, time point 2) and the measures were repeated. Results All patients (n = 51) were recorded as being alive at time point 1. The multiple model indicated that controlling for other factors, gender was significantly associated with a linear combination of outcome measures (p = 0.004). The effect was moderate in magnitude (partial-η2 = 0.303), where males performed significantly better than females 6 months after the PCI procedure physically and with mood. Follow-up univariate ANOVAs indicated that gender differences were grounded in the scale measuring depression (PHQ9) (p = 0.005) and the physical component score of the short form measuring HRQoL (SF12-PCS) (p = 0.003). Thirteen patients were lost to follow-up between time points 1 and 2. One patient was confirmed to have passed away. The pattern of correlations between outcome measures at time point 2 revealed statistically significant negative correlation between the PHQ instrument and the resilience scale (CD-RISC) (r = -0.611; p < 0.001); and the physical component score of the SF-12 instrument (r = -0.437; p = 0.054). Conclusions Men were performing better than women in the 6 months post-PCI, particularly in the areas of mood (depression) and physical health. This pilot results indicate gender-sensitive practices are recommended particularly up to 6 months post-PCI. Any gender differences observed at 6 month appear to disappear at 12 months post-PCI. Further research into the management of mood particularly for women post-PCI is warranted. A more detailed inquiry related to access/attendance to secondary prevention is also warranted