Epoxidation of Strained Alkenes Catalysed by (1,2-dimethyl-4(1H)pyridinone-3-olate)2MnIIICl

The mild epoxidation of strained alkenes using (DMPO)2MnCl catalyst (DMPO = 1,2-dimethyl-4(1H)-pyridinone-3-olate) in the presence of various oxidants was studied. Hydrogen peroxide and monopersulfate were found to be the best oxidants when used with imidazole in acetonitrile at 4 °C, with up to 94% conversion. Dismutation of hydrogen peroxide was also observed when used as an oxidant. The epoxidation using hydrogen peroxide or monoperoxysulfate appears to be mild and very selective for strained alkenes. A mechanism is proposed where imidazole is required for activation of the oxidant and where a detected MnV = O species is proposed as the active species. Competitive reaction between H2O2 and the substrate for the active species is proposed and homolytic vs heterolytic scissions of the Osingle bondO bond of the oxidant are discussed

CREATING A SMARTPHONE APPLICATION FOR MEASURING RESPONSES OF AN EXPERIMENTAL STRUCTURE AT MULTIPLE LOCATIONS AND FOR K-12 STEM OUTREACH RELATED TO STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING

Structural health monitoring (SHM) systems are used to measure and analyze structure data (e.g., floor accelerations and strains in structural members) to identify damage (or structural changes) to a structure. With aging infrastructures and collapses of recent structures such as the 2007 I-35W Mississippi River Bridge and the 2013 clothing factory in Bangladesh, SHM can help address an important societal issue in structural safety and reliability. In the current practice, SHM systems include dedicated sensors linked (via wires or wirelessly) to data acquisition systems. These sensing systems are typically costly and impractical for many educational curriculums. A lack of exposures to college students limits applications and understanding of SHM in the practicing engineering industry. By replacing these dedicated sensing systems with a common technology such as smartphones, this thesis project aims to make SHM experiments inexpensive and practical to college students. Additionally, the project can assist in exposing K-12 students to SHM and the general field of structural engineering at a young age and increasing their interest in becoming engineers. This multidisciplinary research included developing a smartphone application using the JavaTM programming language on the Android platform. The application utilizes the phone’s user interface, internal accelerometer, internal storage, and Bluetooth to create a user friendly experience. One portion of the application is used for SHM purposes. It assists users in time-synchronizing multiple phones, recording acceleration data and detecting changes in structural properties. When compared to a dedicated sensing system used in a lab setting, data from the smartphones produced similar results. Another portion of the application, incorporated into an educational outreach program at a local middle school, was designed to help students understand the basic concepts of structural dynamics — more specifically, how stiffness and damping affect a structure’s motions. This interactive smartphone application, coupled with its ability to be a cost-effective system for measuring structural responses in classroom experiments, can get students excited about engineering

Accomplishing Technical and Investigative Expertise in Everyday Crime Scene Investigation

This research, situated at the intersection of sociology, science and technology studies and police studies, provides the first sociological account of Crime Scene Investigator (CSI) training in England and Wales. Focusing on the acquisition and everyday enactment of CSI expertise, this qualitative, ethnographic investigation asks (1) what are the roles, practices and expertise of the CSI and (2) how is the CSI’s expertise developed in training and enacted in everyday work. These questions are explored through participant observation at the main training centre for UK CSIs, observation at crime scenes, interviews with trainees during and after their training and visual methods. By unpicking the visible and invisible components of CSI work, I analyse how CSIs are trained to document crime scenes and explore the practices of transforming a potentially relevant object from these locations into artefacts that meet the requirements of courtroom scrutiny. I demonstrate how CSIs engage actively and reflexively with the requirements of different conceptions of objectivity and the changing demands placed on them. They continually and performatively negotiate and delimit multiple boundaries, from the very literal in demarcating a crime scene to claiming their position within the investigative hierarchy in each interaction. Unlike other discussions of boundary work, for the CSI this is iterative, requires constant effort and is embedded in their routine practice. Within police environments, the CSI has scope for such boundary work. In the courtroom, however, crime scene investigation is narrowly defined. This thesis develops our understanding of the CSI and crime scene investigation as a practice. It stresses the significance of taking this actor seriously in any account of forensic science and investigative practices. By viewing the CSI as simply an evidence collector, or not considering her work at all, the expertise and pivotal role of this actor in the meaningful and efficient use of science in policing is blackboxed. My detailed qualitative analysis of the CSI’s role, work and specialist expertise contributes a necessary account of a key actor in the police and criminal justice system.ESR

Surgical Outcomes Following Posterior Spinal Fusion For Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis

Surgical Outcomes Following Posterior Spinal Fusion for Adolescent Idiopathic ScoliosisWyatt B. David and Michael DiLuna. Section of Pediatric Neurosurgery, Department of Neurosurgery, Yale University, School of Medicine, New Haven, CT. Hospital size has previously been shown to impact outcomes in adult spine surgery. However, there is a paucity of studies assessing the impact of hospital size on outcomes in adolescent spine surgery. Furthermore, gender-based differences have been suggested in disease progression and outcomes of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), though only a few studies have investigated these disparities. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of hospital size and gender on length of hospital stay (LOS), complication rate, and costs of admission following posterior spinal fusion (PSF) for AIS. A retrospective cohort study was performed using the 2016-2019 National Inpatient Sample database. Patients 10-17 years old with a primary diagnosis of AIS undergoing elective thoracic PSF were identified using ICD-10-CM diagnostic and procedural coding. Patients were categorized by treating hospital size (Small, Medium, and Large), which incorporates hospital location and teaching status. Patients were also categorized on gender. Patient demographics, comorbidities, intraoperative procedures, postoperative adverse events (AE), length of stay (LOS), discharge disposition and hospital costs were assessed. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify the impact of gender and hospital size on extended LOS (defined as \u3e75th percentile of LOS), total cost, and postoperative AEs. Of the 17,740 patients identified, 5,165 (29.1%) were in the Small cohort, 3,995 (22.5%) were in the Medium cohort, and 8,580 (48.4%) were in the Large cohort. Patients at Large hospitals generally had more comorbidities than patients at Small and Medium hospitals (p=0.006). Number of thoracic fusion levels were similar among the hospital size cohorts (p=0.648). A greater proportion of patients at Large hospitals experienced ≥1 adverse events (≥1 AE: Small: 23.3% vs. Medium: 32.1% vs. Large: 38%, p=0.009). LOS (p=0.956) and discharge disposition (p=0.380) were similar across all hospitals. Hospital costs were significantly lower at Large, and highest in Medium-size hospitals (Small: $53,381±26,900 vs. Medium:$65,445±29,170 vs. Large: $49,732±20,101,

Discovery of halloysite books in a ~270,000 year-old buried tephra deposit in northern New Zealand

As part of a wider study examining the geomechanical properties, especially sensitivity, of sequences of Quaternary pyroclastic and associated deposits and buried soils in the landslide-prone western Bay of Plenty area near Tauranga, eastern North Island, we examined the mineralogy of a pale pinkish-grey tephra deposit directly beneath non-welded, siliceous Te Ranga Ignimbrite (~2 m thick) in a ~25 m high cutting at Tauriko.http://www.smectech.com.au/ACMS/ACMS_Conferences/ACMS21/ACMS%202010%20Abstracts/ACMS%202010%20S1A6_Wyatt%20et%20al%20(Lowe).pd

A manifesto for a socio-technical approach to NHS and social care IT-enabled business change - to deliver effective high quality health and social care for all

80% of IT projects are known to fail. Adopting a socio-technical approach will help them to succeed in the future. The socio-technical proposition is simply that any work system comprises both a social system (including the staff, their working practices, job roles, culture and goals) and a technical system (the tools and technologies that support and enable work processes). These elements together form a single system comprising interacting parts. The technical and the social elements need to be jointly designed (or redesigned) so that they are congruent and support one another in delivering a better service. Focusing on one aspect alone is likely to be sub-optimal and wastes money (Clegg, 2008). Thus projects that just focus on the IT will almost always fail to deliver the full benefits