Internal‐Rotation in Hydrogen Peroxide: The Far‐Infrared Spectrum and the Determination of the Hindering Potential

The torsional oscillation between the two OH groups of the hydrogen peroxide molecule is investigated through a study of the far‐infrared absorption spectrum of the molecule. A 1‐m‐focal‐length vacuum grating monochromator was used to scan the region from 15 to 700 cm−1 with an average resolution of 0.3 cm−1. The observed spectrum contains seven perpendicular‐type bands of which only the Q branches are resolved. The centers of the seven bands are at 11.43, 116.51, 198.57, 242.76, 370.70, 521.68, and 557.84 cm−1. These bands result from transitions between different states of the internal rotation and their identification makes it possible to construct the internal‐rotation energy level scheme through the first five excited states. Relative to the torsional ground state, these levels occur at 11.43, 254.2, 370.7, 569.3, and 775.9 cm−1.A theory of internal rotation in the hydrogen peroxide molecule is developed for use in the analysis of the far‐infrared spectra. In this theory, the Hamiltonian is constructed assuming all structural distances and angles fixed except the dihedral angle x defining the relative position of the two OH bars. By the use of a contact transformation the Hamiltonian is put in the form H (asymmetric top)+H(internal rotation) where the interaction between the internal and over‐all rotations arises through the x dependence of the inertial parameters of H(asymmetric top). It is assumed that the relative position of the two OH bars is governed by a potential‐energy function of the form V(x) = V1cosx+V2cos2x+V3cos3xV(x)=V1cosx+V2cos2x+V3cos3x. The internal‐rotation wave equation [αpx2+V(x)]M(x) = EM(x)[αpx2+V(x)]M(x)=EM(x) is solved numerically by an electronic‐computer and the potential function parameters V1=993 cm−1, V2=636 cm−1, and V3=44 cm−1 are chosen to fit the internal‐rotation energy‐level scheme. The trans and cis potential barrier heights are 386 and 2460 cm−1, respectively, and the potential‐function minima are located 111.5° from the cis configuration. Diagonalization of the matrix of the complete Hamiltonian to second order by the use of perturbation theory is sufficient to account for the observed Q‐branch shapes in the far infrared region.Two microwave frequencies observed by Massey and Bianco at 22 054.5 and 27 639.6 Mc/sec are identified from their Stark effects as the first excited‐state transitions J, K, n, τ=8, 6, 1, 1→7, 5, 1, 3 and J, K, n, τ=8, 5, 1, 3→9, 6, 1, 1, respectively, where the internal‐rotation quantum number n=1 denotes the first excited torsional state and where τ denotes trans symmetric (τ=1 and 2) or antisymmetric (τ=3 and 4) states. The form of the dipole moment operator is assumed to be μ0 cos(x/2) and μ0 is found to be 3.15 D in agreement with the value obtained from the torsional ground‐state transitions.Two J=0 microwave series observed by Massey, Beard, and Jen in a mixed sample of the deuterated species D2O2 and HOOD give confirmation of the potential function determined from the H2O2 analysis. The K=4→5 series is identified as the D2O2 first excited torsional state transition n=1→1, τ=4→2. The K=0→1 series is identified as the HOOD torsional ground‐state transition n=0→0, τ=4→2. Only very small changes in the trans barrier height are necessary to fit the constant terms of these series exactly. These changes, which are expected to arise from vibration‐internal rotation interactions, show a reasonable progression from H2O2 to D2O2: V (trans, HOOH) = 386 cm−1, V (trans, HOOD) = 381 cm−1 and V (trans, DOOD) = 378 cm−1.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/71115/2/JCPSA6-42-6-1931-1.pd

Spinal Cord Infarction with Multiple Etiologic Factors

Spinal cord infarction is uncommon and usually presents with sudden onset of paralysis and sensory disturbances. A variety of causes are described, but rarely with multiple factors involved. We report a case of a 63-year-old man with a history of diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and osteoarthritis who presented with acute onset of chest pain, numbness, and weakness associated with episodic hypotension. He had incomplete tetraplegia and was areflexic without spasticity. Pain and temperature sensations were impaired below the C7 dermatome and absent below the T4 dermatome bilaterally. Proprioception and vibration sensations were diminished on the right below the C6 dermatome. Magnetic resonance imaging showed spinal cord infarction affecting C6–T3 segments, and severe cervical and lumbar spine degenerative changes. This case illustrates an unusual presenting symptom of spinal infarction, the need to identify multiple risk factors for spinal cord infarction, and the importance of optimal preventive therapy in patients at risk

Exploiting MeSH indexing in MEDLINE to generate a data set for word sense disambiguation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Evaluation of Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) methods in the biomedical domain is difficult because the available resources are either too small or too focused on specific types of entities (e.g. diseases or genes). We present a method that can be used to automatically develop a WSD test collection using the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) Metathesaurus and the manual MeSH indexing of MEDLINE. We demonstrate the use of this method by developing such a data set, called MSH WSD.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In our method, the Metathesaurus is first screened to identify ambiguous terms whose possible senses consist of two or more MeSH headings. We then use each ambiguous term and its corresponding MeSH heading to extract MEDLINE citations where the term and only one of the MeSH headings co-occur. The term found in the MEDLINE citation is automatically assigned the UMLS CUI linked to the MeSH heading. Each instance has been assigned a UMLS Concept Unique Identifier (CUI). We compare the characteristics of the MSH WSD data set to the previously existing NLM WSD data set.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The resulting MSH WSD data set consists of 106 ambiguous abbreviations, 88 ambiguous terms and 9 which are a combination of both, for a total of 203 ambiguous entities. For each ambiguous term/abbreviation, the data set contains a maximum of 100 instances per sense obtained from MEDLINE.</p> <p>We evaluated the reliability of the MSH WSD data set using existing knowledge-based methods and compared their performance to that of the results previously obtained by these algorithms on the pre-existing data set, NLM WSD. We show that the knowledge-based methods achieve different results but keep their relative performance except for the Journal Descriptor Indexing (JDI) method, whose performance is below the other methods.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The MSH WSD data set allows the evaluation of WSD algorithms in the biomedical domain. Compared to previously existing data sets, MSH WSD contains a larger number of biomedical terms/abbreviations and covers the largest set of UMLS Semantic Types. Furthermore, the MSH WSD data set has been generated automatically reusing already existing annotations and, therefore, can be regenerated from subsequent UMLS versions.</p

Multifrequency observation of the optically violent variable quasar 3C 446

Extensive optical and radio monitoring data and seven multifrequency spectra were obtained of the violently variable quasar 3C 446. The monitoring data suggest a correlation between the radio and optical outbursts, with the optical flare preceding the radio activity by 400-600 days. A difference in the statistical behavior of the optical and radio variability indicates that considerable processing occurs to the optical emitting plasma before it becomes radio emitting plasma. Within the radio band, outbursts proceed from high to low frequencies. An outburst in 1983 showed greater and more rapid variation in the optical than in the near-IR region. The 10-100 μm fluxes did not follow the higher frequency variation, suggesting a time delay between these spectral domains. During another time, the X-ray emission varied on a time scale of days and more rapidly than the UV or optical emission. On a time scale of weeks-months, the X-ray fluxes are well correlated with the UV-IR fluxes but not with the radio fluxes. The multifrequency data show that the flat radio spectrum turns over at 3-10 x 10^(11) Hz and the continuum steepens with frequency; ɑ(IR) = 1.1, ɑ(opt-UV) = -2 to -3. The X-ray emission lies an order of magnitude above an extrapolation of the optical-UV spectrum and has a harder spectrum. The power is primarily concentrated in the submillimeter and infrared region. When the source is faint, a blue bump may be present. The flux in the Lycx line is proportional to the UV continuum flux density when the source is bright but is independent of the continuum level when the source is faint. The data suggest that the X-rays are produced by the inverse Compton process from an emitting region (10^(16) cm) smaller than but related to the synchrotron emitting UV-IR region. The characteristic size of the emitting region increases with decreasing frequency from 10^(16) (X-ray region) to 1-3 x 10^(17) cm (far IR-submillimeter region) to 10^(19)-10^(20) cm (radio region). Plasma conditions are best constrained at the frequency when the source becomes transparent, the far IR-submillimeter band, where B ≈ 3-100 G, n ≈ 40-100 cm^(-3); and the Doppler boosting factor δ ≈ 1-5

Collocation analysis for UMLS knowledge-based word sense disambiguation

BACKGROUND: The effectiveness of knowledge-based word sense disambiguation (WSD) approaches depends in part on the information available in the reference knowledge resource. Off the shelf, these resources are not optimized for WSD and might lack terms to model the context properly. In addition, they might include noisy terms which contribute to false positives in the disambiguation results. METHODS: We analyzed some collocation types which could improve the performance of knowledge-based disambiguation methods. Collocations are obtained by extracting candidate collocations from MEDLINE and then assigning them to one of the senses of an ambiguous word. We performed this assignment either using semantic group profiles or a knowledge-based disambiguation method. In addition to collocations, we used second-order features from a previously implemented approach.Specifically, we measured the effect of these collocations in two knowledge-based WSD methods. The first method, AEC, uses the knowledge from the UMLS to collect examples from MEDLINE which are used to train a Naïve Bayes approach. The second method, MRD, builds a profile for each candidate sense based on the UMLS and compares the profile to the context of the ambiguous word.We have used two WSD test sets which contain disambiguation cases which are mapped to UMLS concepts. The first one, the NLM WSD set, was developed manually by several domain experts and contains words with high frequency occurrence in MEDLINE. The second one, the MSH WSD set, was developed automatically using the MeSH indexing in MEDLINE. It contains a larger set of words and covers a larger number of UMLS semantic types. RESULTS: The results indicate an improvement after the use of collocations, although the approaches have different performance depending on the data set. In the NLM WSD set, the improvement is larger for the MRD disambiguation method using second-order features. Assignment of collocations to a candidate sense based on UMLS semantic group profiles is more effective in the AEC method.In the MSH WSD set, the increment in performance is modest for all the methods. Collocations combined with the MRD disambiguation method have the best performance. The MRD disambiguation method and second-order features provide an insignificant change in performance. The AEC disambiguation method gives a modest improvement in performance. Assignment of collocations to a candidate sense based on knowledge-based methods has better performance. CONCLUSIONS: Collocations improve the performance of knowledge-based disambiguation methods, although results vary depending on the test set and method used. Generally, the AEC method is sensitive to query drift. Using AEC, just a few selected terms provide a large improvement in disambiguation performance. The MRD method handles noisy terms better but requires a larger set of terms to improve performance

Measurement of the Neutron Radius of 208Pb Through Parity-Violation in Electron Scattering

We report the first measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry A_PV in the elastic scattering of polarized electrons from 208Pb. A_PV is sensitive to the radius of the neutron distribution (Rn). The result A_PV = 0.656 \pm 0.060 (stat) \pm 0.014 (syst) ppm corresponds to a difference between the radii of the neutron and proton distributions Rn - Rp = 0.33 +0.16 -0.18 fm and provides the first electroweak observation of the neutron skin which is expected in a heavy, neutron-rich nucleus.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Inducing behavioural change in society through communication and education in sustainable manufacturing

The United Nations considers the mobilization of the broad public to be the essential requirement for achieving a shift towards a more sustainable development. Science can play a vital role in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) by contributing to ESD-related research and development on the one hand, and by becoming active awareness raisers themselves in education and multiplier networks. Specifically, the use of special Learnstruments, and investment inOpen Educationformats among other educational tools, may pave the way for accelerated apprehension and appreciation of sustainable manufacturing topics among the greater populace