The emergency observation and assessment ward

A recent development to reduce ED crowding and increase urgent patient admissions is the opening of an Emergency Observation and Assessment Ward (EOA Ward). At these wards urgent patients are temporarily hospitalized until they can be transferred to an inpatient bed. In this paper we present an overflow model to evaluate the effect of employing an EOA Ward on elective and urgent patient admissions

E-Manufacturing for product improvement at Red Bull technology

In Formula 1 racing, there is a strong motive for reducing component weight and thereby improving efficiency. This paper demonstrates the advantages e-Manufacturing brings to the production of hydraulic components. The DMLS production technique would enable weight reductions to be attained by its geometric design freedom coupled with this material’s attributes. The use of EOS Titanium Ti64 material for hydraulic components has been assessed by a hydraulic soak test at 25 MPa and no significant losses or failure occurred. The benefits to the efficiency of hydraulic flow have been measured using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and the use of DMLS designed geometry has improved flow characteristics by 250% over that of the currently used techniques of manufacturing channels and bores

Environmental Change and Sustainability of Indigenous Languages in Northern Alaska

Relatively few people under the age of 60 are fluent speakers of the various Indigenous languages of Alaska. Concurrently, climate change is severely impacting Alaska and its residents, where environments are changing far more rapidly than the majority of the planet. These factors complicate the land-language nexus and may have implications for the sustainability of Indigenous languages in Alaska and other parts of the Arctic. In this collaborative, community-centered project, we spoke with Iñupiaq and Yupik language speakers to learn how rapid environmental change affects heritage language discourse practices and how generational gaps in levels of heritage language fluency affect safety and efficacy of customary and traditional land use activities. The results show how local community choices and attitudes are reflecting and constructing dynamic ecologies of language, culture, and environment. Iñupiaq and Yupik languages provide important forms of socio-cultural resilience because they embed the past, yet are inherently dynamic. Community-driven social practices that promote increased local heritage language use can lead to new, creative language domains, new expressions of Indigenous culture, and new Indigenous stances toward a changing environment.  Relativement peu de personnes de moins de 60 ans parlent les diverses langues autochtones de l’Alaska couramment. En même temps, le changement climatique a de fortes incidences sur l’Alaska et ses habitants, où l’environnement change beaucoup plus vite que dans la majorité de la planète. Ces facteurs compliquent le lien entre la terre et la langue, sans compter qu’ils peuvent avoir des répercussions sur la durabilité des langues autochtones en Alaska et dans d’autres régions de l’Arctique. Dans le cadre de ce projet collaboratif axé sur la communauté, nous nous sommes entretenus avec des locuteurs parlant les langues des Iñupiaq et des Yupik afin d’apprendre comment les changements environnementaux rapides influencent les pratiques linguistiques patrimoniales et comment les écarts générationnels en ce qui a trait aux degrés de facilité verbale des langues du patrimoine influent sur la sécurité et l’efficacité des activités habituelles et traditionnelles liées à l’utilisation de la terre. Les résultats de l’étude illustrent comment les choix et les attitudes des gens de la région sont le reflet d’écologies dynamiques en matière de langue, de culture et d’environnement, et comment ils parviennent à former ces écologies. Les langues des Iñupiaq et des Yupik fournissent d’importantes formes de résilience socioculturelle parce qu’elles incorporent le passé tout en étant intrinsèquement dynamiques. Les pratiques sociales communautaires favorisant une utilisation accrue des langues du patrimoine local peuvent finir par engendrer de nouveaux domaines linguistiques créatifs, de nouvelles expressions de la culture autochtone et de nouvelles positions autochtones à l’égard de l’environnement changeant

Minkowski's Object: A Starburst Triggered by a Radio Jet, Revisited

We present neutral hydrogen, ultraviolet, optical and near-infrared imaging, and optical spectroscopy, of Minkowski's Object (MO), a star forming peculiar galaxy near NGC 541. The observations strengthen evidence that star formation in MO was triggered by the radio jet from NGC 541. Key new results are the discovery of a 4.9E8 solar mass double HI cloud straddling the radio jet downstream from MO, where the jet changes direction and decollimates; strong detections of MO, also showing double structure, in UV and H-alpha; and numerous HII regions and associated clusters in MO. In UV, MO resembles the radio-aligned, rest-frame UV morphologies in many high redshift radio galaxies (HzRGs), also thought to be caused by jet-induced star formation. MO's stellar population is dominated by a 7.5 Myr-old, 1.9E7 solar mass instantaneous burst, with current star formation rate 0.52 solar masses per year (concentrated upstream from where the HI column density is high). This is unlike the jet-induced star formation in Centaurus A, where the jet interacts with pre-existing cold gas; in MO the HI may have cooled out of a warmer, clumpy intergalactic or interstellar medium as a result of jet interaction, followed by collapse of the cooling clouds and subsequent star formation (consistent with numerical simulations). Since the radio source that triggered star formation in MO is much less luminous, and therefore more common, than powerful HzRGs, and because the environment around MO is not particularly special in terms of abundant dense, cold gas, jet-induced star formation in the early universe might be even more prevalent than previously thought.Comment: 52 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

The near-infrared luminosity function of cluster galaxies beyond redshift one

We determined the K band luminosity function (LF) of cluster galaxies at redshift z~1.2, using near-infrared images of three X-ray luminous clusters at z=1.11,1.24,1.27. The composite LF was derived down to M*+4, by means of statistical background subtraction, and is well described by a Schechter function with K*=20.5 AB mag and alpha=-1. From the K band composite LF we derived the stellar mass function of cluster galaxies. Using available X-ray mass profiles we determined the M/L ratios of these three clusters, which tend to be lower than those measured in the local universe. With these data, no significant difference can be seen between the shapes of the cluster galaxies LF and the LF of field galaxies at similar redshift. We also found no significant evolution out to z ~1.2 in the bright (<M*+4) part of the cluster galaxies LF probed in this study, apart from a brightening of ~1.3 mag of the characteristic magnitude of the high redshift LF. We confirm, and extend to higher redshift, the result from previous work that the redshift evolution of the characteristic magnitude M* is consistent with passive evolution of a stellar population formed at z>2. The results obtained in this work support and extend previous findings that most of the stars in bright galaxies were formed at high redshift, and that K-bright (M>10^11 Msun) galaxies were already in place at z ~ 1.2, at least in the central regions of X-ray luminous clusters. Together with recent results on the field galaxies stellar mass function, this implies that most of the stellar mass is already assembled in massive galaxies by z ~ 1, both in low and high density environments.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, to appear in A&

River Flows and Water Wars: Emerging Science for Environmental Decision Making

Real and apparent conflicts between ecosystem and human needs for fresh water are contributing to the emergence of an alternative model for conducting river science around the world. The core of this new paradigm emphasizes the need to forge new partnerships between scientists and other stakeholders where shared ecological goals and river visions are developed, and the need for new experimental approaches to advance scientific understanding at the scales relevant to whole-river management. We identify four key elements required to make this model succeed: existing and planned water projects represent opportunities to conduct ecosystem-scale experiments through controlled river flow manipulations; more cooperative interactions among scientists, managers, and other stakeholders are critical; experimental results must be synthesized across studies to allow broader generalization; and new, innovative funding partnerships are needed to engage scientists and to broadly involve the government, the private sector, and NGOs