573 research outputs found
Legal Considerations for the Use of Social Media by Public School Educators
Abstract is available to download
Is guaifenesin safe during pregnancy?
It's not clear; little evidence supports or refutes the safety of guaifenesin, a common expectorant, in pregnancy. A small number of observational and case-control studies suggest a weak association between guaifenesin use and inguinal hernias and neural tube defects in newborns. However, substantial methodological flaws, the absence of statistical significance, and low rates of prevalence cast a shadow of a doubt over the data (strength of recommendation [SOR]: B, based on observational and case- control studies)
Algorithms for the Numerical Solution of a Finite-Part Integral Equation
The authors investigate a hypersingular integral equation which arises in the study of acoustic wave scattering by moving objects. A Galerkin method and two collocation methods are presented for solving the problem numerically. These numerical techniques are compared and contrasted in three test problems
What is appropriate fetal surveillance for women with diet-controlled gestational diabetes?
No evidence clearly supports the practice of increased fetal surveillance in the pregnancies of women with well-controlled (ie, fasting blood sugar <105 mg/dL) class A1 gestational diabetes (strength of recommendation [SOR]: B, consistent retrospective cohort studies). However, a number of guidelines recommend beginning surveillance of some kind between 32 and 40 weeks based on cumulative risk factors, including gestational diabetes (SOR: C, expert opinion)
Investigation of Acoustical Shielding by a Wedge-Shaped Airframe
Experiments on a scale model of an advanced unconventional subsonic transport concept, the Blended Wing Body (BWB), have demonstrated significant shielding of inlet-radiated noise. A computational model of the shielding mechanism has been developed using a combination of boundary integral equation method (BIEM) and equivalent source method (ESM). The computation models the incident sound from a point source in a nacelle and determines the scattered sound field. In this way the sound fields with and without the airfoil can be estimated for comparison to experiment. An experimental test bed using a simplified wedge-shape airfoil and a broadband point noise source in a simulated nacelle has been developed for the purposes of verifying the analytical model and also to study the effect of engine nacelle placement on shielding. The experimental study is conducted in the Anechoic Noise Research Facility at NASA Langley Research Center. The analytic and experimental results are compared at 6300 and 8000 Hz. These frequencies correspond to approximately 150 Hz on the full scale aircraft. Comparison between the experimental and analytic results is quite good, not only for the noise scattering by the airframe, but also for the total sound pressure in the far field. Many of the details of the sound field that the analytic model predicts are seen or indicated in the experiment, within the spatial resolution limitations of the experiment. Changing nacelle location produces comparable changes in noise shielding contours evaluated analytically and experimentally. Future work in the project will be enhancement of the analytic model to extend the analysis to higher frequencies corresponding to the blade passage frequency of the high bypass ratio ducted fan engines that are expected to power the BWB
Mapping the real space distributions of galaxies in SDSS DR7: I. Two Point Correlation Functions
Using a method to correct redshift space distortion (RSD) for individual
galaxies, we mapped the real space distributions of galaxies in the Sloan
Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7). We use an ensemble of mock
catalogs to demonstrate the reliability of our method. Here as the first paper
in a series, we mainly focus on the two point correlation function (2PCF) of
galaxies. Overall the 2PCF measured in the reconstructed real space for
galaxies brighter than agrees with the direct
measurement to an accuracy better than the measurement error due to cosmic
variance, if the reconstruction uses the correct cosmology. Applying the method
to the SDSS DR7, we construct a real space version of the main galaxy catalog,
which contains 396,068 galaxies in the North Galactic Cap with redshifts in the
range . The Sloan Great Wall, the largest known
structure in the nearby Universe, is not as dominant an over-dense structure as
appears to be in redshift space. We measure the 2PCFs in reconstructed real
space for galaxies of different luminosities and colors. All of them show clear
deviations from single power-law forms, and reveal clear transitions from
1-halo to 2-halo terms. A comparison with the corresponding 2PCFs in redshift
space nicely demonstrates how RSDs boost the clustering power on large scales
(by about at scales ) and suppress it on
small scales (by about at a scale of ).Comment: 19 pages, 13 figure
Mapping the Real Space Distributions of Galaxies in SDSS DR7: II. Measuring the growth rate, clustering amplitude of matter and biases of galaxies at redshift
We extend the real-space mapping method developed in Shi et at. (2016) so
that it can be applied to flux-limited galaxy samples. We use an ensemble of
mock catalogs to demonstrate the reliability of this extension, showing that it
allows for an accurate recovery of the real-space correlation functions and
galaxy biases. We also demonstrate that, using an iterative method applied to
intermediate-scale clustering data, we can obtain an unbiased estimate of the
growth rate of structure , which is related to the clustering
amplitude of matter, to an accuracy of . Applying this method to the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7), we construct a real-space
galaxy catalog spanning the redshift range , which
contains 584,473 galaxies in the north Galactic cap (NGC). Using this data, we
infer \fss at a median redshift , which is consistent with the WMAP9
cosmology at the level. By combining this measurement with the
real-space clustering of galaxies and with galaxy-galaxy weak lensing
measurements for the same sets of galaxies, we are able to break the degeneracy
between , , and . From the SDSS DR7 data alone, we obtain the
following cosmological constraints at redshift :
, , and
, ,
, and for galaxies within
different absolute magnitude bins and , respectively
The NHS visitor and migrant cost recovery programme - a threat to health?
BACKGROUND: In April 2014 the UK government launched the 'NHS Visitor and Migrant Cost Recovery Programme Implementation Plan' which set out a series of policy changes to recoup costs from 'chargeable' (largely non-UK born) patients. In England, approximately 75% of tuberculosis (TB) cases occur in people born abroad. Delays in TB treatment increase risk of morbidity, mortality and transmission in the community. We investigated whether diagnostic delay has increased since the Cost Recovery Programme (CRP) was introduced. METHODS: There were 3342 adult TB cases notified on the London TB Register across Barts Health NHS Trust between 1st January 2011 and 31st December 2016. Cases with missing relevant information were excluded. The median time between symptom onset and treatment initiation before and after the CRP was calculated according to birthplace and compared using the Mann Whitney test. Delayed diagnosis was considered greater or equal to median time to treatment for all patients (79 days). Univariable logistic regression was used to manually select exposure variables for inclusion in a multivariable model to test the association between diagnostic delay and the implementation of the CRP. RESULTS: We included 2237 TB cases. Among non-UK born patients, median time-to-treatment increased from 69 days to 89 days following introduction of CRP (p < 0.001). Median time-to-treatment also increased for the UK-born population from 75.5 days to 89.5 days (p = 0.307). The multivariable logistic regression model showed non-UK born patients were more likely to have a delay in diagnosis after the CRP (adjOR 1.37, 95% CI 1.13-1.66, p value 0.001). CONCLUSION: Since the introduction of the CRP there has been a significant delay for TB treatment among non-UK born patients. Further research exploring the effect of policies restricting access to healthcare for migrants is urgently needed if we wish to eliminate TB nationally
ELUCID IV: Galaxy Quenching and its Relation to Halo Mass, Environment, and Assembly Bias
We examine the quenched fraction of central and satellite galaxies as a
function of galaxy stellar mass, halo mass, and the matter density of their
large scale environment. Matter densities are inferred from our ELUCID
simulation, a constrained simulation of local Universe sampled by SDSS, while
halo masses and central/satellite classification are taken from the galaxy
group catalog of Yang et al. The quenched fraction for the total population
increases systematically with the three quantities. We find that the
`environmental quenching efficiency', which quantifies the quenched fraction as
function of halo mass, is independent of stellar mass. And this independence is
the origin of the stellar mass-independence of density-based quenching
efficiency, found in previous studies. Considering centrals and satellites
separately, we find that the two populations follow similar correlations of
quenching efficiency with halo mass and stellar mass, suggesting that they have
experienced similar quenching processes in their host halo. We demonstrate that
satellite quenching alone cannot account for the environmental quenching
efficiency of the total galaxy population and the difference between the two
populations found previously mainly arises from the fact that centrals and
satellites of the same stellar mass reside, on average, in halos of different
mass. After removing these halo-mass and stellar-mass effects, there remains a
weak, but significant, residual dependence on environmental density, which is
eliminated when halo assembly bias is taken into account. Our results therefore
indicate that halo mass is the prime environmental parameter that regulates the
quenching of both centrals and satellites.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Ap
- …