Constraining Anisotropic Baryon Oscillations

We present an analysis of anisotropic baryon acoustic oscillations and elucidate how a mis-estimation of the cosmology, which leads to incorrect values of the angular diameter distance, d_A, and Hubble parameter, H, manifest themselves in changes to the monopole and quadrupole power spectrum of biased tracers of the density field. Previous work has focused on the monopole power spectrum, and shown that the isotropic "dilation" combination d_A^2/H is robustly constrained by an overall shift in the scale of the baryon feature. We extend this by demonstrating that the quadrupole power spectrum is sensitive to an anisotropic "warping" mode d_A H, allowing one to break the degeneracy between d_A and H. We describe a method for measuring this warping, explicitly marginalizing over the form of redshift space distortions. We verify this method on N-body simulations and estimate that d_A H can be measured with a fractional accuracy of ~ 3/sqrt(V) % where the survey volume is estimated in (Gpc/h)^3.Comment: 4 pages, 2 fig

Gastric Follicular Dendritic Cell Sarcoma: A Case Report of a Rare Entity

Follicular Dendritic cell sarcoma arises from the follicular dendritic cells present in the lymphnode.Though are commonly seen in head and neck area but are extremely rare in the abdomen. Less than eighty cases are reported in the indexed literature. We herein describe a case of follicular dendritic cell sarcoma arising from the stomach wall with infiltration into pancreas in an 85 year old patient

Engineering the microbiota to treat metabolic disorders

Inborn errors of metabolism (IEM) are a family of more than 500 potentially lethal congenital genetic disorders that cumulatively affect 1 in 1000 newborns. In many IEMs, pathologies manifest as a result of improper metabolism of nutrients in food. In Phenylketonuria (PKU) for example, elevated levels of phenylalanine and the accumulation of aberrant metabolic intermediates in the system lead to acute and chronic toxicities. Resultantly, many disorders within this group are generally treated through lifelong nutritional management due to the lack of alternative and pharmacological options. Longitudinal studies have indicated that even with strict adherence to a diet of synthetic supplements, patients experience chronic issues like frailty, delayed growth, and intellectual disabilities. Recently, enzyme-replacement therapies (ERT) have demonstrated promise in pre-clinical and clinical settings by providing a metabolic sink for phenylalanine in PKU. As an enhancement to traditional ERT, we are developing a novel therapeutic for IEMs associated with amino acids by expressing metabolic enzymes in lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that natively colonize the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Starting with an enzyme under clinical development for PKU, phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL), and by promoting the intestinal adhesion and colonization characteristics, the engineered LAB will intervene before amino acid absorption occurs in the small intestines during digestion. To engineer new enzymes with activities required for treating IEMs, we have developed a novel facile selection and screening methodology. This can potentially be utilized to enhance enzymatic properties or identify mutants with altered substrate specificity, creating a spectrum of PALs that can be used to treat IEMs associated with other amino acids. Here we describe the methodology, development, and optimization of this method. To characterize and engineer microbial adhesion to intestinal mucus, we developed a novel assay that is able to capture the quantitative and mechanistic binding thermodynamics of cells to mucus. We will discuss the development of this assay and its implementation for engineering improved mucus binding. The platform technologies discussed here will be instrumental in realizing microbiota-based therapeutics as an emerging and urgently-needed treatment for IEMs that currently have inadequate or no options

MODELLING AND ANALYSIS OF DC MOTOR ACTUATOR FOR AN ELECTRIC GRIPPER

Robot technology has seen developments to support both the needs of industry and human life. This paper presents a brief review on the modelling and simulation of robotic grippers. The design of two fingered electric gripper, actuated by a direct current motor, is described for pick and place of spark plug. Mathematical modelling of the motor is carried out to understand and relate the control parameters. Angular velocity and torque response of the motor for a step input are verified by simulation. Controlling the direct current motor with pulse width modulation technique gives gentle variation of velocity and relatively greater torque. Further, it results in quick response of motor torque

Practical and effective higher-order optimizations

Inlining is an optimization that replaces a call to a function with that function’s body. This optimization not only reduces the overhead of a function call, but can expose additional optimization oppor-tunities to the compiler, such as removing redundant operations or unused conditional branches. Another optimization, copy propaga-tion, replaces a redundant copy of a still-live variable with the origi-nal. Copy propagation can reduce the total number of live variables, reducing register pressure and memory usage, and possibly elimi-nating redundant memory-to-memory copies. In practice, both of these optimizations are implemented in nearly every modern com-piler. These two optimizations are practical to implement and effec-tive in first-order languages, but in languages with lexically-scoped first-class functions (aka, closures), these optimizations are no

Earthquake trend prediction using long short-term memory RNN

The prediction of a natural calamity such as earthquakes has been an area of interest for a long time but accurate results in earthquake forecasting have evaded scientists, even leading some to deem it intrinsically impossible to forecast them accurately. In this paper an attempt to forecast earthquakes and trends using a data of a series of past earthquakes. A type of recurrent neural network called Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is used to model the sequence of earthquakes. The trained model is then used to predict the future trend of earthquakes. An ordinary Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN) solution for the same problem was done for comparison. The LSTM neural network was found to outperform the FFNN. The R^2 score of the LSTM is better than the FFNN’s by 59%

Implications of pediatric extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation simulation for intensive care team confidence and coordination: A pilot study

Introduction Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) is associated with improved outcomes in select populations, however, crisis resource management (CRM) in this setting is logistically challenging. This study evaluates the impact of ECPR simulation on self-perceived confidence and collaboration of intensive care unit team members. Methods This is a prospective observational study analyzing data obtained between July 2018–December 2019. This study focused on non-surgical members of critical care team consisting of pediatric intensivists, resident physicians, registered nurses, respiratory therapists. Participants were expected to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) during the ECPR event, participate in code-team responsibilities and provide ancillary support during cannulation. Pre- and post-simulation surveys employed the Likert scale (1 = not at all confident, 5 = highly confident) to assess self-perceived scores in specified clinical competencies. Results Twenty-nine providers participated in the simulation; 38% had prior ECPR experience. Compared to mean pre-study Likert scores (2.4, 2.4, 2.5), post-simulation scores increased (4.2, 4.4, 4.3) when self-evaluating: confidence in assessing patients needing ECPR, confidence in participating in ECPR workflow and confidence in performing high-quality CPR, respectively. Post-simulation values of \u3e3 were reported by 100% of participants in all domains (p \u3c .0001). All participants indicated the clinical scenario and procedural environment to be realistic and appropriately reflective of situational stress. Additionally, 100% of participants reported the simulation to improve perceived team communication and teamwork skills. Conclusion This study demonstrated preliminary feasibility of pediatric ECPR simulation in enhancing independent provider confidence and team communication. This self-perceived improvement may establish a foundation for cohesive CRM, in preparation for a real life ECPR encounter