Ethics in Dangerous Situations

To protect soldiers repairing a vehicle on a road, a platoon leader in Iraq provided protection for them by positioning two manned vehicles along possible routes that other vehicles, potentially laden with explosives, could use. In doing so, he decided not to follow the platoon\u27s standard operating procedure (SOP), which called for controlling traffic along the road by separating nonthreatening Iraqi vehicles from suspicious ones. He believed that he was being paid to exercise judgment, so he broke from routine. Because he knew the enemy had used snipers against soldiers on this road in the past, he calculated that the risk of them doing so again far outweighed the potential of firing on nonthreatening Iraqi vehicles because of a failure to control the traffic. Soon after getting their vehicles in position, the soldiers saw a sedan speeding toward their position. As it got closer, the platoon leader ordered one of his soldiers to fire a warning shot, after which the sedan sped up. Thinking they were in imminent danger, the soldiers trained their fire on the sedan and braced for an explosion. The sedan skidded to a stop less than five meters from the soldiers, and they soon discovered that they had killed an elderly man with thick glasses and hearing aids in both ears. When the battalion executive officer reviewed the platoon\u27s actions, he agreed with the lieutenant\u27s decision to deviate from routine and not put soldiers on the road, affirmed that the soldiers did the right thing, and called the killing of the elderly man a terrible tragedy of war

Ethics in Dangerous Situations

To protect soldiers repairing a vehicle on a road, a platoon leader in Iraq provided protection for them by positioning two manned vehicles along possible routes that other vehicles, potentially laden with explosives, could use. In doing so, he decided not to follow the platoon\u27s standard operating procedure (SOP), which called for controlling traffic along the road by separating nonthreatening Iraqi vehicles from suspicious ones. He believed that he was being paid to exercise judgment, so he broke from routine. Because he knew the enemy had used snipers against soldiers on this road in the past, he calculated that the risk of them doing so again far outweighed the potential of firing on nonthreatening Iraqi vehicles because of a failure to control the traffic. Soon after getting their vehicles in position, the soldiers saw a sedan speeding toward their position. As it got closer, the platoon leader ordered one of his soldiers to fire a warning shot, after which the sedan sped up. Thinking they were in imminent danger, the soldiers trained their fire on the sedan and braced for an explosion. The sedan skidded to a stop less than five meters from the soldiers, and they soon discovered that they had killed an elderly man with thick glasses and hearing aids in both ears. When the battalion executive officer reviewed the platoon\u27s actions, he agreed with the lieutenant\u27s decision to deviate from routine and not put soldiers on the road, affirmed that the soldiers did the right thing, and called the killing of the elderly man a terrible tragedy of war

Neutron Capture Cross Sections for the Weak s Process

In past decades a lot of progress has been made towards understanding the main s-process component that takes place in thermally pulsing Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars. During this process about half of the heavy elements, mainly between 90<=A<=209 are synthesized. Improvements were made in stellar modeling as well as in measuring relevant nuclear data for a better description of the main s process. The weak s process, which contributes to the production of lighter nuclei in the mass range 56<=A<=90 operates in massive stars (M>=8Msolar) and is much less understood. A better characterization of the weak s component would help disentangle the various contributions to element production in this region. For this purpose, a series of measurements of neutron-capture cross sections have been performed on medium-mass nuclei at the 3.7-MV Van de Graaff accelerator at FZK using the activation method. Also, neutron captures on abundant light elements with A<56 play an important role for s-process nucleosynthesis, since they act as neutron poisons and affect the stellar neutron balance. New results are presented for the (n,g) cross sections of 41K and 45Sc, and revisions are reported for a number of cross sections based on improved spectroscopic information

Herbivore and Pathogen Damage on Grassland and Woodland Plants: A Test of The Herbivore Uncertainty Principle

Researchers can alter the behaviour and ecology of their study organisms by conducting such seemingly benign activities as non‐destructive measurements and observations. In plant communities, researcher visitation and measurement of plants may increase herbivore damage in some plant species while decreasing it in others. Simply measuring plants could change their competitive ability by altering the amount of herbivore damage that they suffer. Currently, however, there is only limited empirical evidence to support this `herbivore uncertainty principle\u27 (HUP). We tested the HUP by quantifying the amount of herbivore and pathogen damage in 13 plant species (\u3e 1400 individuals) at four different visitation intensities at Cedar Creek Natural History Area, Minnesota, USA. Altogether, we found very little evidence to support the HUP at any intensity of visitation. Researcher visitation did not alter overall plant herbivore damage or survival and we did not detect a significant visitation effect in any of the 13 species. Pathogen damage also did not significantly vary among visitation treatments, although there was some evidence that high visitation caused slightly higher pathogen damage. Based on our results, we question whether this phenomenon should be considered a `principle\u27 of plant ecology

Assimilation of pseudo-tree-ring-width observations into an atmospheric general circulation model

Paleoclimate data assimilation (DA) is a promising technique to systematically combine the information from climate model simulations and proxy records. Here, we investigate the assimilation of tree-ring-width (TRW) chronologies into an atmospheric global climate model using ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) techniques and a process-based tree-growth forward model as an observation operator. Our results, within a perfect-model experiment setting, indicate that the "online DA" approach did not outperform the "off-line" one, despite its considerable additional implementation complexity. On the other hand, it was observed that the nonlinear response of tree growth to surface temperature and soil moisture does deteriorate the operation of the time-averaged EnKF methodology. Moreover, for the first time we show that this skill loss appears significantly sensitive to the structure of the growth rate function, used to represent the principle of limiting factors (PLF) within the forward model. In general, our experiments showed that the error reduction achieved by assimilating pseudo-TRW chronologies is modulated by the magnitude of the yearly internal variability in the model. This result might help the dendrochronology community to optimize their sampling efforts

Second-order accurate ensemble transform particle filters

Particle filters (also called sequential Monte Carlo methods) are widely used for state and parameter estimation problems in the context of nonlinear evolution equations. The recently proposed ensemble transform particle filter (ETPF) (S.~Reich, {\it A non-parametric ensemble transform method for Bayesian inference}, SIAM J.~Sci.~Comput., 35, (2013), pp. A2013--A2014) replaces the resampling step of a standard particle filter by a linear transformation which allows for a hybridization of particle filters with ensemble Kalman filters and renders the resulting hybrid filters applicable to spatially extended systems. However, the linear transformation step is computationally expensive and leads to an underestimation of the ensemble spread for small and moderate ensemble sizes. Here we address both of these shortcomings by developing second-order accurate extensions of the ETPF. These extensions allow one in particular to replace the exact solution of a linear transport problem by its Sinkhorn approximation. It is also demonstrated that the nonlinear ensemble transform filter (NETF) arises as a special case of our general framework. We illustrate the performance of the second-order accurate filters for the chaotic Lorenz-63 and Lorenz-96 models and a dynamic scene-viewing model. The numerical results for the Lorenz-63 and Lorenz-96 models demonstrate that significant accuracy improvements can be achieved in comparison to a standard ensemble Kalman filter and the ETPF for small to moderate ensemble sizes. The numerical results for the scene-viewing model reveal, on the other hand, that second-order corrections can lead to statistically inconsistent samples from the posterior parameter distribution

Minimizing complications during retropubic radical prostatectomy - is ureteral stenting necessary?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objectives and aims</p> <p>To avoid damage to the ureters during bladder neck preparation in radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, it may be helpful to insert ureteral stents temporarily or to intravenously administer indigo carmine dye for enhanced visualisation of ureteric orifices. We evaluated our bladder neck preserving technique at radical prostatectomy with regard to ureteric injuries.</p> <p>Patients and methods</p> <p>We analysed 369 consecutive radical prostatectomies operated in our clinic in a bladder neck preserving technique. The following parameters were assessed in this retrospective study: number of prophylactic ureteric stent insertions, application of indigo carmine dye, observed injuries of the ureters by the surgeon, postoperative increase of serum creatinine and postoperative status of kidney ultrasound.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In 7/369 prostatectomies (1.90%) a ureteric stent insertion was performed, indigo carmine was not applied to any patient at all, yet no intraoperative injury of a ureter was observed by a surgeon. No revision was necessary due to a ureteral injury within the observation period of one year after surgery. In 17 patients with preoperative normal creatinine value a pathological value was observed on the first postoperative day (mean 1.4 mg/dl). In these patients no consecutive postrenal acute renal failure was observed, no hydronephrosis was monitored by ultrasound and no further intervention was necessary.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Bladder neck preserving operation technique does not implicate the need of prophylactic ureteric stent insertions and has no higher incidence of ureteric injuries.</p

Morbidity and mortality in premature or low birth weight patients with congenital heart disease in three European pediatric heart centers between 2016 and 2020

Background: The treatment of preterm and low birth weight (LBW) neonates born with congenital heart disease (CHD) requiring early cardiac intervention remains challenging. We aimed to analyze morbidity and mortality in this combined high-risk patient group. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted of preterm [&lt;37 weeks gestational age (GA)] and/or LBW neonates (&lt;2,500 g) born with a diagnosis of CHD, which requires invasive cardiac intervention (surgery or catheter) within their first year of life. Patients born between 2016 and 2020 and treated in three European pediatric heart centers were included.ResultsA total of 308 neonates (51% male) with CHD were included. Of those, 237 (77%) were born preterm, 259 (84%) were LBW, and 188 (61%) were both. The median GA was 35.4 weeks (interquartile range 33.3–36.9) and the mean birth weight was 2,016 ± 580 g. CHD was categorized as simple (12%), moderate (64%), or severe (24%). The overall complication rate was 45% and was highest in patients with severe CHD (p = 0.002). One-year mortality (19%) was associated with severe CHD, low relative birth weight in patients with genetic diagnoses, and low GA at birth, whereas GA at birth significantly impacted survival only after 3 months of life. Conclusions: The high morbidity and mortality in preterm and LBW neonates with CHD reflect their complexity and consequent limited treatment feasibility