The \u2724\u27 Effect: How entertainment media affects the public perception of torture

This thesis highlights how entertainment media perpetuates the public perception that the use of torture is an effective method to gain valuable and actionable intelligence from enemy combatants. This poses a significant problem to society because torture does not work, and if society continues to believe this misperception, it may lead to the erosion of societal morals for future generations. A possible explanation for entertainment media’s role in the continuation of this misperception could be related to the mere exposure effect due to frequency of torture being seen on television. In order to see how entertainment media perpetuates this misperception, three television shows, 24, Chicago P.D., and Homeland, were chosen to be screened for the presence of torture in episodes of the shows. For each randomly selected episode, indicators of torture and dialogue were monitored and recorded into a data set that marks the episode and time that the acts occurred. In addition to indicators of torture, the description of the individual being tortured was also recorded. After scanning a third of each show, 55% of the episodes in 24, 60% of the episodes in Chicago P.D., and 35% of the episodes of Homeland depicted torture. From these results, it is argued that it is likely these television shows made a significant impact on the public perception of the effectiveness of torture due to how often they were shown and because who was getting tortured

Imposition of physical parameters in dissipative particle dynamics

In the mesoscale simulations by the dissipative particle dynamics (DPD), the motion of a fluid is modelled by a set of particles interacting in a pairwise manner, and it has been shown to be governed by the Navier–Stokes equation, with its physical properties, such as viscosity, Schmidt number, isothermal compressibility, relaxation and inertia time scales, in fact its whole rheology resulted from the choice of the DPD model parameters. In this work, we will explore the response of a DPD fluid with respect to its parameter space, where the model input parameters can be chosen in advance so that (i) the ratio between the relaxation and inertia time scales is fixed; (ii) the isothermal compressibility of water at room temperature is enforced; and (iii) the viscosity and Schmidt number can be specified as inputs. These impositions are possible with some extra degrees of freedom in the weighting functions for the conservative and dissipative forces. Numerical experiments show an improvement in the solution quality over conventional DPD parameters/weighting functions, particularly for the number density distribution and computed stresses

BEM-RBF approach for viscoelastic flow analysis

A new BE-only method is achieved for the numerical solution of viscoelastic flows. A decoupled algorithm is chosen where the fluid is considered as being composed of an artificial Newtonian component and the remaining component is accordingly defined from the original constitutive equation. As a result the problem is viewed as that of solving for the flow of a Newtonian liquid with the non-linear viscoelastic effects acting as a pseudo body force. Thus the general solution is obtained by adding a particular solution to the homogeneous one. The former is obtained by a BEM for the base Newtonian fluid and the latter is obtained analytically by approximating the pseudo body force in terms of suitable radial basis functions (RBFs). Embedded in the approximation of the pseudo body force is the calculation of the polymer stress. This is achieved by solving the constitutive equation using RBF networks (RBFNs). Both the calculations of the particular solution and the polymer stress are therefore meshless and the resultant BEM-RBF method is a BE-only method. The complete elimination of any structured domain discretisation is demonstrated with a number of flow problems involving the Upper Convected Maxwell (UCM) and the Oldroyd-B fluids

Energy harvesting-based spectrum access with incremental cooperation, relay selection and hardware noises

In this paper, we propose an energy harvesting (EH)-based spectrum access model in cognitive radio (CR) network. In the proposed scheme, one of available secondary transmitters (STs) helps a primary transmitter (PT) forward primary signals to a primary receiver (PR). Via the cooperation, the selected ST finds opportunities to access licensed bands to transmit secondary signals to its intended secondary receiver (SR). Secondary users are assumed to be mobile, hence, optimization of energy consumption for these users is interested. The EH STs have to harvest energy from the PT's radio-frequency (RF) signals to serve the PTPR communication as well as to transmit their signals. The proposed scheme employs incremental relaying technique in which the PR only requires the assistance from the STs when the transmission between PT and PR is not successful. Moreover, we also investigate impact of hardware impairments on performance of the primary and secondary networks. For performance evaluation, we derive exact and lower-bound expressions of outage probability (OP) over Rayleigh fading channel. Monte-Carlo simulations are performed to verify the theoretical results. The results present that the outage performance of both networks can be enhanced by increasing the number of the ST-SR pairs. In addition, the outage performance of both primary and secondary networks is severely degraded with the increasing of hardware impairment level. It is also shown that fraction of time used for EH and positions of the secondary users significantly impact on the system performance.Web of Science26125024

An inverse problem by boundary element method

Boundary Element Methods (BEM) have been established as useful and powerful tools in a wide range of engineering applications, e.g. Brebbia et al. In this paper, we report a particular three dimensional implementation of a direct boundary integral equation (BIE) formulation and its application to numerical simulations of practical polymer processing operations. In particular, we will focus on the application of the present boundary element technology to simulate an inverse problem in plastics processing.by extrusion. The task is to design profile extrusion dies for plastics. The problem is highly non-linear due to material viscoelastic behaviours as well as unknown free surface conditions. As an example, the technique is shown to be effective in obtaining the die profiles corresponding to a square viscoelastic extrudate under different processing conditions. To further illustrate the capability of the method, examples of other non-trivial extrudate profiles and processing conditions are also given

An improved dissipative particle dynamics scheme

Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) and smoothed dissipative particle dynamics (sDPD) have become most popular numerical techniques for simulating mesoscopic flow phenomena in fluid systems. Several DPD/sDPD simulations in the literature indicate that \textcolor{red}{the model fluids} should be designed with their dynamic response, measured by the Schmidt number, in a relevant range in order to reach a good agreement with the experimental results. In this paper, we propose a new dissipative weighting function (or a new kernel) for the DPD (or the sDPD) formulation, which allows both the viscosity and the Schmidt number to be independently specified as input parameters. We also show that some existing dissipative functions/kernels are special cases of the proposed one, and the imposed viscosity of the present DPD/sDPD system has a lower and upper limit. Numerical verification of the proposed function/kernel is conducted in viscometric flows

Pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics of colistin and polymyxin B: are we there yet?

The polymyxin antibiotics [colistin and polymyxin B (PMB)] are increasingly used as a last-line option for the treatment of infections caused by extensively drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Despite having similar structures and antibacterial activity in vitro, the two clinically available polymyxins have very different pharmacological properties, as colistin (polymyxin E) is intravenously administered to patients in the form of an inactive prodrug colistin methanesulphonate (sodium). This review will discuss recent progress in the pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics and toxicity of colistin and PMB, the factors that affect their pharmacological profiles, and the challenges for the effective use of both polymyxins. Strategies are proposed for optimising their clinical utility based upon the recent pharmacological studies in vitro, in animals and patients. In the ‘bad bugs, no drugs’ era, polymyxins are a critically important component of the antibiotic armamentarium against difficult-to-treat Gram-negative ‘superbugs’. Rational approaches to the use of polymyxins must be pursued to increase their effectiveness and to minimise resistance and toxicity

Prevalence of zoonotic trematodes in fish from a Vietnamese fish-farming community

The prevalence of fish-borne zoonotic trematode (FZT) metacercariae was investigated in fish farmed by rural households in Nghe An Province, located in northern Vietnam. In total, 716 fish, including tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) and 6 carp species, i.e., grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idellus), bighead carp (Aristichthys nobilis), mrigal (Cirrhinus mrigala), common carp (Cyprinus carpio), silver carp (Hypophthalmychthys molitrix), and roha (Labeo rohita), collected from 53 fish farms were examined. The overall prevalence of FZT metacercariae was 44.6%, ranging from 12.5% to 61.0% in fish species collected from grow-out ponds, which are the production system for growing fish from fingerling size to market size. The overall prevalence was 43.6% in fingerlings cultured in nurseries, ranging from 7.4% to 62.8% for different fish species. The FZT species recovered were heterophyids and echinostomatids and included Haplorchis pumilio, H. taichui, H. yokogawai, Centrocestus formosanus, Stellantchasmus falcatus, and Echinochasmus japonicus, all of which are intestinal flukes in humans, other mammals, and birds. This is the first report of H. yokogawai and E. japonicus in fish in Vietnam, and the first record for S. falcatus in northern Vietnam. Although a previous cross-sectional survey of the people living in these fish farm households revealed a very low prevalence of FZTs (<1%), our results demonstrate that intestinal flukes are common in farmed fish in this area, suggesting that reservoir hosts such as dogs, cats, and pigs are more important in sustaining the life cycles of these flukes in fish farms than human hosts. This has implications for the effectiveness of control programs focused mainly on treatment of humans

Treating asthma with omega-3 fatty acids: where is the evidence? A systematic review

BACKGROUND: Considerable interest exists in the potential therapeutic value of dietary supplementation with the omega-3 fatty acids. Given the interplay between pro-inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids, and the less pro-inflammatory omega-3 fatty acids, it has been thought that the latter could play a key role in treating or preventing asthma. The purpose was to systematically review the scientific-medical literature in order to identify, appraise, and synthesize the evidence for possible treatment effects of omega-3 fatty acids in asthma. METHODS: Medline, Premedline, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, CAB Health, and, Dissertation Abstracts were searched to April 2003. We included randomized controlled trials (RCT's) of subjects of any age that used any foods or extracts containing omega-3 fatty acids as treatment or prevention for asthma. Data included all asthma related outcomes, potential covariates, characteristics of the study, design, population, intervention/exposure, comparators, and co interventions. RESULTS: Ten RCT's were found pertinent to the present report. CONCLUSION: Given the largely inconsistent picture within and across respiratory outcomes, it is impossible to determine whether or not omega-3 fatty acids are an efficacious adjuvant or monotherapy for children or adults. Based on this systematic review we recommend a large randomized controlled study of the effects of high-dose encapsulated omega-3 fatty acids on ventilatory and inflammatory measures of asthma controlling diet and other asthma risk factors. This review was limited because Meta-analysis was considered inappropriate due to missing data; poorly or heterogeneously defined populations, interventions, intervention-comparator combinations, and outcomes. In addition, small sample sizes made it impossible to meaningfully assess the impact on clinical outcomes of co-variables. Last, few significant effects were found