Recruitment of ethnic minority patients to a cardiac rehabilitation trial: The Birmingham Rehabilitation Uptake Maximisation (BRUM) study [ISRCTN72884263]

Background: Concerns have been raised about low participation rates of people from minority ethnic groups in clinical trials. However, the evidence is unclear as many studies do not report the ethnicity of participants and there is insufficient information about the reasons for ineligibility by ethnic group. Where there are data, there remains the key question as to whether ethnic minorities more likely to be ineligible (e.g. due to language) or decline to participate. We have addressed these questions in relation to the Birmingham Rehabilitation Uptake Maximisation (BRUM) study, a randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing a home-based with a hospital-based cardiac rehabilitation programme in a multi-ethnic population in the UK. Methods: Analysis of the ethnicity, age and sex of presenting and recruited subjects for a trial of cardiac rehabilitation in the West-Midlands, UK. Participants: 1997 patients presenting post-myocardial infarction, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty or coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Data collected: exclusion rates, reasons for exclusion and reasons for declining to participate in the trial by ethnic group. Results: Significantly more patients of South Asian ethnicity were excluded (52% of 'South Asian' v 36% 'White European' and 36% 'Other', p < 0.001). This difference in eligibility was primarily due to exclusion on the basis of language (i.e. the inability to speak English or Punjabi). Of those eligible, similar proportions were recruited from the different ethnic groups (white, South Asian and other). There was a marked difference in eligibility between people of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin

LUX -- A Laser-Plasma Driven Undulator Beamline

The LUX beamline is a novel type of laser-plasma accelerator. Building on the joint expertise of the University of Hamburg and DESY the beamline was carefully designed to combine state-of-the-art expertise in laser-plasma acceleration with the latest advances in accelerator technology and beam diagnostics. LUX introduces a paradigm change moving from single-shot demonstration experiments towards available, stable and controllable accelerator operation. Here, we discuss the general design concepts of LUX and present first critical milestones that have recently been achieved, including the generation of electron beams at the repetition rate of up to 5 Hz with energies above 600 MeV and the generation of spontaneous undulator radiation at a wavelength well below 9 nm.Comment: submitte

Conceptual Design of a High-Resolution, Low Cost Topographic Mapping Mission

There is a need for space-based topographic mapping missions which are an order-of-magnitude less costly than the $100M-class missions currently planned by NASA and the commercial community. The Stereo Imaging Long-Look Satellite (STILLSAT), having a mass of approximately 100 kg, is designed for 5m instantaneous field of view (IFOV) to meet most of the topographic requirements of both the science and cartography community. The resulting Digital Elevation Models (DEM) are predicted to have 10m (absolute) contour intervals, geo-corrected by ground datum. Frame and panoramic cameras from Apollo 15, 16, and 17, as well as ESA\u27s Metric Cameras and the U.S. Large Format Camera have been cited by photogrammetrists as advantageous for topographic map production. The use of a CCD framing camera for stereo imaging was discussed by JPL in 1979 but dismissed because CCD technology was not yet mature enough. By capitalizing on recent advances in CCD technology and instituting a concept of shared stability and pointing responsibility between the bus and payload, it is now possible to consider such an advanced mission. This paper will focus on the system engineering trades resulting from mission requirements that dictate earth/satellite motion compensation to achieve very high spatial resolution, as well as off-axis cross track imaging to maximize target acquisition. The mission is approached from an integrated design paradigm wherein science, instrument, bus, and ground operations objectives are simultaneously weighed to achieve extremely low cost, low power, and reliable mission elements. The initial STILLSAT mission operations plan is to obtain multiple stereo images at base height ratios of 1.0 within targets-of-opportunity of 100km in diameter to support specific science objectives. STILLSAT is designed for line-of-sight pointing to within 0.1 degree and can image off-axis up to 20 degrees in the cross track direction. The total spacecraft and mission operations cost is expected to be well under$5M (not including launch) and is being initially proposed as a Student Explorer Development Initiative (STEDI) project to the Universities Space Research Association\u27s Advanced Design Program. A launch could occur within 24 months of go-ahead. Progressively advanced concepts of this approach will be discussed, those which can map much larger regions of the Earth through use of larger detector arrays and mosaicked images. It is even conceivable that a STILLSAT-derived single global mapping satellite or constellation of simpler satellites could provide worldwide coverage. This approach holds promise for both scientific and commercial applications

Electrochemical Membrane Technology for Carbon Dioxide Capture from Flue Gas

© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. To address concerns about climate change resulting from emission of CO 2 by fossil-fuel power plants, FuelCell Energy, Inc. (FCE) has developed Combined Electric Power and Carbon-dioxide Separation (CEPACS) system concept. The CEPACS system utilizes Electrochemical Membrane (ECM) technology derived from the Company's Direct FuelCell ® products. The system separates the CO 2 from the flue gas of other plants and produces electric power using a supplementary fuel. FCE is currently evaluating the use of ECM to cost effectively separate CO 2 from the flue gas of Pulverized Coal (PC) power plants under a U.S. Department of Energy contract. The overarching objective of the project is to verify that the ECM can achieve at least 90% CO 2 capture from the flue gas with no more than 35% increase in the cost of electricity. The project activities have included: 1) techno-economic analysis for an ECM-based CO 2 capture system applied to a 550 MW existing PC plant, 2) laboratory scale operational and performance tests of a membrane assembly, 3) performance tests of the membrane to evaluate the effects of impurities present in the coal plant flue gas, and 4) bench scale testing of an ECM-based CO 2 separation and purification system

The Deep Poincare Map: A Novel Approach for Left Ventricle Segmentation

Precise segmentation of the left ventricle (LV) within cardiac MRI images is a prerequisite for the quantitative measurement of heart function. However, this task is challenging due to the limited availability of labeled data and motion artifacts from cardiac imaging. In this work, we present an iterative segmentation algorithm for LV delineation. By coupling deep learning with a novel dynamic-based labeling scheme, we present a new methodology where a policy model is learned to guide an agent to travel over the image, tracing out a boundary of the ROI – using the magnitude difference of the Poincaré map as a stopping criterion. Our method is evaluated on two datasets, namely the Sunnybrook Cardiac Dataset (SCD) and data from the STACOM 2011 LV segmentation challenge. Our method outperforms the previous research over many metrics. In order to demonstrate the transferability of our method we present encouraging results over the STACOM 2011 data, when using a model trained on the SCD dataset

Bifurcations in annular electroconvection with an imposed shear

We report an experimental study of the primary bifurcation in electrically-driven convection in a freely suspended film. A weakly conducting, submicron thick smectic liquid crystal film was supported by concentric circular electrodes. It electroconvected when a sufficiently large voltage $V$ was applied between its inner and outer edges. The film could sustain rapid flows and yet remain strictly two-dimensional. By rotation of the inner electrode, a circular Couette shear could be independently imposed. The control parameters were a dimensionless number ${\cal R}$, analogous to the Rayleigh number, which is $\propto V^2$ and the Reynolds number ${\cal R}e$ of the azimuthal shear flow. The geometrical and material properties of the film were characterized by the radius ratio $\alpha$, and a Prandtl-like number ${\cal P}$. Using measurements of current-voltage characteristics of a large number of films, we examined the onset of electroconvection over a broad range of $\alpha$, ${\cal P}$ and ${\cal R}e$. We compared this data quantitatively to the results of linear stability theory. This could be done with essentially no adjustable parameters. The current-voltage data above onset were then used to infer the amplitude of electroconvection in the weakly nonlinear regime by fitting them to a steady-state amplitude equation of the Landau form. We show how the primary bifurcation can be tuned between supercritical and subcritical by changing $\alpha$ and ${\cal R}e$.Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. E. Minor changes after refereeing. See also http://mobydick.physics.utoronto.c

Giant Coulomb broadening and Raman lasing on ionic transitions

CW generation of anti-Stokes Raman laser on a number of blue-green argon-ion lines (4p-4s, 4p-3d) has been demonstrated with optical pumping from metastable levels 3d'^2G, 3d^4F. It is found, that the population transfer rate is increased by a factor of 3-5 (and hence, the output power of such Raman laser) owing to Coulomb diffusion in the velocity space. Measured are the excitation and relaxation rates for the metastable level. The Bennett hole on the metastable level has been recorded using the probe field technique. It has been shown that the Coulomb diffusion changes shape of the contour to exponential cusp profile while its width becomes 100 times the Lorentzian one and reaches values close to the Doppler width. Such a giant broadening is also confirmed by the shape of the absorption saturation curve.Comment: RevTex 18 pages, 5 figure