HRXRD study of the theoretical densities of novel reactive sintered boride candidate neutron shielding materials

Reactive Sintered Borides (RSBs) are novel borocarbide materials derived from FeCr-based cemented tungsten (FeCr-cWCs) show considerable promise as compact radiation armour for proposed spherical tokamak,[1],[2],[3],[4],[5]. Six candidate compositions (four RSBs, two cWCs) were evaluated by high-resolution X-ray diffraction (XRD), inductively coupled plasma (ICP), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to determine the atomic composition, phase presence, and theoretical density. RSB compositions were evaluated with initial boron contents equivalent to 25 at% 30 at%. All RSB compositions showed delamination and carbon enrichment in the bulk relative to the surface, consistent with non-optimal binder removal and insufficient sintering time. Phase abundance within RSBs derived from powder XRD was dominated by iron tungsten borides (FeWB/FeW2B2), tungsten borides (W2B5/WB) and iron borides. The most optimal RSB composition (B5T522W) with respect to physical properties and highest ρ/ρtheo had ρtheo = 12.59 ± 0.01 g cm-3 for ρ/ρtheo = 99.3% and had the weigh-in and post-sintered W : B : Fe abundance closest to 1 : 1 : 1. This work indicates that despite their novelty, RSB materials can be optimized and in principle be processed using existing cWC processing routes

Stress Management Podcast Capstone Project

The Stress Management Podcast Capstone Project sought to answer the question of how I might raise awareness about integrating holistic mental health services into my health coaching practice. This relevant topic centered on developing an innovative solution by drawing together two opposing perspectives from public health opinions and holistic health mindset. Launching a podcast proved to be a creative means for offering value to all stakeholders involved. Listeners received free holistic stress support, community and mental health professionals gained additional tools for their clients, while I established myself as an expert on mental health coaching. Exercising emotional intelligence regarding the sensitive nature of the topic was essential. The project best fit the action approach as it was a new professional obligation for me. Results included eight total listeners for the four podcast episodes. The podcast project successfully concluded with positive outcomes from a small but enthusiastic audience

Editorial: advances in understanding marine heatwaves and their impacts

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Benthuysen, J. A., Oliver, E. C. J., Chen, K., & Wernberg, T. Editorial: advances in understanding marine heatwaves and their impacts. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, (2020): 147, doi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00147.Editorial on the Research Topic Advances in Understanding Marine Heatwaves and Their Impacts In recent years, prolonged, extremely warm water events, known as marine heatwaves, have featured prominently around the globe with their disruptive consequences for marine ecosystems. Over the past decade, marine heatwaves have occurred from the open ocean to marginal seas and coastal regions, including the unprecedented 2011 Western Australia marine heatwave (Ningaloo Niño) in the eastern Indian Ocean (e.g., Pearce et al., 2011), the 2012 northwest Atlantic marine heatwave (Chen et al., 2014), the 2012 and 2015 Mediterranean Sea marine heatwaves (Darmaraki et al., 2019), the 2013/14 western South Atlantic (Rodrigues et al., 2019) and 2017 southwestern Atlantic marine heatwave (Manta et al., 2018), the persistent 2014–2016 “Blob” in the North Pacific (Bond et al., 2015; Di Lorenzo and Mantua, 2016), the 2015/16 marine heatwave spanning the southeastern tropical Indian Ocean to the Coral Sea (Benthuysen et al., 2018), and the Tasman Sea marine heatwaves in 2015/16 (Oliver et al., 2017) and 2017/18 (Salinger et al., 2019). These events have set new records for marine heatwave intensity, the temperature anomaly exceeding a climatology, and duration, the sustained period of extreme temperatures. We have witnessed the profound consequences of these thermal disturbances from acute changes to marine life to enduring impacts on species, populations, and communities (Smale et al., 2019). These marine heatwaves have spurred a diversity of research spanning the methodology of identifying and quantifying the events (e.g., Hobday et al., 2016) and their historical trends (Oliver et al., 2018), understanding their physical mechanisms and relationships with climate modes (e.g., Holbrook et al., 2019), climate projections (Frölicher et al., 2018), and understanding the biological impacts for organisms and ecosystem function and services (e.g., Smale et al., 2019). By using sea surface temperature percentiles, temperature anomalies can be quantified based on their local variability and account for the broad range of temperature regimes in different marine environments. For temperatures exceeding a 90th-percentile threshold beyond a period of 5-days, marine heatwaves can be classified into categories based on their intensity (Hobday et al., 2018). While these recent advances have provided the framework for understanding key aspects of marine heatwaves, a challenge lies ahead for effective integration of physical and biological knowledge for prediction of marine heatwaves and their ecological impacts. This Research Topic is motivated by the need to understand the mechanisms for how marine heatwaves develop and the biological responses to thermal stress events. This Research Topic is a collection of 18 research articles and three review articles aimed at advancing our knowledge of marine heatwaves within four themes. These themes include methods for detecting marine heatwaves, understanding their physical mechanisms, seasonal forecasting and climate projections, and ecological impacts.We thank the contributing authors, reviewers, and the editorial staff at Frontiers in Marine Science for their support in producing this issue. We thank the Marine Heatwaves Working Group (http://www.marineheatwaves.org/) for inspiration and discussions. This special issue stemmed from the session on Advances in Understanding Marine Heat Waves and Their Impacts at the 2018 Ocean Sciences meeting (Portland, USA)

Intra- and inter-examiner Reliability of Direct Facial Soft Tissue Measurements Using Digital Calipers

Background: The objective of this study is to determine if facial soft tissue measurements using digital calipers can be reliably taken by the same examiner and by a large group of examiners. Materials and Methods: Ten examiners performed a set of 18 in-clinic measurements on 10 female and 10 male dental students using a digital caliper twice over a 3-week period. The intra-class correlation coefficient and the Shrout-Fleiss method were used for the statistical analysis. Results: Anthropometric intra-examiner reliability was high for all measurements (none fell below R = 0.934). However, inter-examiner reliability exhibited a wide range of values, some reliable (nasal width at widest nostrils [R = 0.922] and subnasale to upper lip [R = 0.926]), and others unreliable [base of nose (R = 0.590), mouth height (R = 0.585), and soft tissue B point to gnathion (R = 0.623)]. Conclusions: Soft tissue measurements of clearly identifiable points measured by the same examiner produced highly consistent, accurate and reliable measurements. Soft tissue points with poor definition resulted in average-to-poor reliabilities measurements

REGRESSION ADJUSTMENT AND STRATIFICATION BY PROPENSTY SCORE IN TREATMENT EFFECT ESTIMATION

Propensity score adjustment of effect estimates in observational studies of treatment is a common technique used to control for bias in treatment assignment. In situations where matching on propensity score is not possible or desirable, regression adjustment and stratification are two options. Regression adjustment is used most often and can be highly efficient, but it can lead to biased results when model assumptions are violated. Validity of the stratification approach depends on fewer model assumptions, but is less efficient than regression adjustment when the regression assumptions hold. To investigate these issues, by simulation we compare stratification and regression adjustments. We consider two stratification approaches; equal frequency classes and an approach the attempts to minimize the mean squared error (MSE) of the treatment effect estimate. The regression approach we consider is a Generalized Additive Model (GAM), that flexibly estimates the relations among propensity score, treatment assignment, and outcome. We find that, under a wide range of plausible data generating distributions, the GAM approach outperforms stratification in treatment effect estimation with respect to bias, variance, and thereby MSE. We illustrate approaches via analysis of data on insurance plan choice and its relation to satisfaction with asthma care

OPTIMAL PROPENSITY SCORE STRATIFICATION

Stratifying on propensity score in observational studies of treatment is a common technique used to control for bias in treatment assignment; however, there have been few studies of the relative efficiency of the various ways of forming those strata. The standard method is to use the quintiles of propensity score to create subclasses, but this choice is not based on any measure of performance either observed or theoretical. In this paper, we investigate the optimal subclassification of propensity scores for estimating treatment effect with respect to mean squared error of the estimate. We consider the optimal formation of subclasses within formation schemes that require either equal frequency of observations within each subclass or equal variance of the effect estimate within each subclass. Under these restrictions, choosing the partition is reduced to choosing the number of subclasses. We also consider an overalll optimal partition that produces an effect estimate with minimum MSE among all partitions considered. To create this stratification, the investigator must choose both the number of subclasses and their placement. Finally, we present a stratified propensity score analysis of data concerning insurance plan choice and its relation to satisfaction with asthma care

Dramatic expansion of the black widow toxin arsenal uncovered by multi-tissue transcriptomics and venom proteomics.

BackgroundAnimal venoms attract enormous interest given their potential for pharmacological discovery and understanding the evolution of natural chemistries. Next-generation transcriptomics and proteomics provide unparalleled, but underexploited, capabilities for venom characterization. We combined multi-tissue RNA-Seq with mass spectrometry and bioinformatic analyses to determine venom gland specific transcripts and venom proteins from the Western black widow spider (Latrodectus hesperus) and investigated their evolution.ResultsWe estimated expression of 97,217 L. hesperus transcripts in venom glands relative to silk and cephalothorax tissues. We identified 695 venom gland specific transcripts (VSTs), many of which BLAST and GO term analyses indicate may function as toxins or their delivery agents. ~38% of VSTs had BLAST hits, including latrotoxins, inhibitor cystine knot toxins, CRISPs, hyaluronidases, chitinase, and proteases, and 59% of VSTs had predicted protein domains. Latrotoxins are venom toxins that cause massive neurotransmitter release from vertebrate or invertebrate neurons. We discovered ≥ 20 divergent latrotoxin paralogs expressed in L. hesperus venom glands, significantly increasing this biomedically important family. Mass spectrometry of L. hesperus venom identified 49 proteins from VSTs, 24 of which BLAST to toxins. Phylogenetic analyses showed venom gland specific gene family expansions and shifts in tissue expression.ConclusionsQuantitative expression analyses comparing multiple tissues are necessary to identify venom gland specific transcripts. We present a black widow venom specific exome that uncovers a trove of diverse toxins and associated proteins, suggesting a dynamic evolutionary history. This justifies a reevaluation of the functional activities of black widow venom in light of its emerging complexity

Nonlinear stratified spindown over a slope

Author Posting. © Cambridge University Press, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of Cambridge University Press for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Fluid Mechanics 726 (2013): 371-403, doi:10.1017/jfm.2013.231.Nonlinear stratified spindown of an along-isobath current over an insulated slope is shown to develop asymmetries in the vertical circulation and vertical relative vorticity field. During spindown, cyclonic vorticity is weakened to a greater extent than anticyclonic vorticity near the boundary because of buoyancy advection. As a consequence, Ekman pumping is weakened over Ekman suction. Momentum advection can weaken Ekman pumping and strengthen Ekman suction. Time-dependent feedback between the geostrophic flow and the frictional secondary circulation induces asymmetry in cyclonic and anticyclonic vorticity away from the boundary. Buoyancy advection over a slope can modify the secondary circulation such that anticyclonic vorticity decays faster than cyclonic vorticity outside the boundary layer. In contrast, momentum advection can cause cyclonic vorticity to spin down faster than anticyclonic vorticity. A scaling and analytical solutions are derived for when buoyancy advection over a slope can have a more significant impact than momentum advection on these asymmetries. In order to test this scaling and analytical solutions, numerical experiments are run in which both buoyancy and momentum advection are active. These solutions are contrasted with homogeneous or stratified spindown over a flat bottom, in which momentum advection controls the asymmetries. These results are applied to ocean currents over continental shelves and slopes.2014-06-0

Asymmetries in vertical vorticity and vertical velocity arising during nonlinear homogeneous spindown

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2012. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of American Institute of Physics for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Physics of Fluids 24 (2012): 076601, doi:10.1063/1.4731280.During the spindown of a uni-directional, geostrophic current in a homogeneous fluid, asymmetry arises in the vertical velocity and vertical relative vorticity fields. A closed-form, time-dependent solution valid to order Rossby number is derived to explore these asymmetries. Momentum advection in the interior and the Ekman layer leads to competing tendencies in the vertical vorticity’s evolution. In the interior, momentum advection hastens spindown in cyclonic regions. In the Ekman layer, momentum advection weakens Ekman pumping over Ekman suction and thus tends to slow the spindown of cyclonic vorticity. It is shown that the former effect dominates, and hence cyclonic vorticity decays faster than anticyclonic vorticity

Capacity building efforts and perceptions for wildlife surveillance to detect zoonotic pathogens: comparing stakeholder perspectives.

BackgroundThe capacity to conduct zoonotic pathogen surveillance in wildlife is critical for the recognition and identification of emerging health threats. The PREDICT project, a component of United States Agency for International Development's Emerging Pandemic Threats program, has introduced capacity building efforts to increase zoonotic pathogen surveillance in wildlife in global 'hot spot' regions where zoonotic disease emergence is likely to occur. Understanding priorities, challenges, and opportunities from the perspectives of the stakeholders is a key component of any successful capacity building program.MethodsA survey was administered to wildlife officials and to PREDICT-implementing in-country project scientists in 16 participating countries in order to identify similarities and differences in perspectives between the groups regarding capacity needs for zoonotic pathogen surveillance in wildlife.ResultsBoth stakeholder groups identified some human-animal interfaces (i.e. areas of high contact between wildlife and humans with the potential risk for disease transmission), such as hunting and markets, as important for ongoing targeting of wildlife surveillance. Similarly, findings regarding challenges across stakeholder groups showed some agreement in that a lack of sustainable funding across regions was the greatest challenge for conducting wildlife surveillance for zoonotic pathogens (wildlife officials: 96% and project scientists: 81%). However, the opportunity for improving zoonotic pathogen surveillance capacity identified most frequently by wildlife officials as important was increasing communication or coordination among agencies, sectors, or regions (100% of wildlife officials), whereas the most frequent opportunities identified as important by project scientists were increasing human capacity, increasing laboratory capacity, and the growing interest or awareness regarding wildlife disease or surveillance programs (all identified by 69% of project scientists).ConclusionsA One Health approach to capacity building applied at local and global scales will have the greatest impact on improving zoonotic pathogen surveillance in wildlife. This approach will involve increasing communication and cooperation across ministries and sectors so that experts and stakeholders work together to identify and mitigate surveillance gaps. Over time, this transdisciplinary approach to capacity building will help overcome existing challenges and promote efficient targeting of high risk interfaces for zoonotic pathogen transmission