Cluster Analysis of Opioid Accessibility in the Carolinas Using Data from the ARCOS Database and an Enhanced Two-Step Floating Catchment Area Method

This study takes advantage of transaction level data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration\u27s (DEA) Automation of Reports and Consolidated Orders System (ARCOS) database made newly available under court order by The Washington Post in July 2019. This data details individual shipments of pharmaceutical opioid analgesics from wholesalers to retail distributors. Using the Enhanced 2-Step Floating Catchment Area (E2SFCA) method, this study calculated access to opioid morphine milligram equivalents (MME) per capita for census tracts in North Carolina and South Carolina during the year 2009. This study demonstrated that outlier volumes of opioid analgesics at individual pharmacies are not always co-located with census tracts that have access to outlier per capita opioid volumes. In addition, this study used 5-year average American Community Survey (ACS) data to identify distinct populations and compare their access to opioid analgesics using a k-medoids clustering algorithm. While opioid access for most clusters corresponded to previous research, a rural, socially vulnerable African American population in the Low Country of both states was identified with high access to opioid analgesics. This finding is contrary to previous research, indicating the need for further investigation

Nonlethal Technology and Fourth Epoch War: A New Paradigm of Politico-Military Force

How politico-military force will be employed in future war is of major concern to U.S. national security and, because of its operational leadership in this area, to the Army\u27s Force XXI campaign plan. It is envisioned that such force will qualitatively change because of the introduction of advanced technology. This technology will extend the West\u27s continuing mastery of the application of political violence. No longer in war will the West have the capability to solely to kill; now, like a martial arts master, it will be able to reply upon nonlethal means to disarm an opponent. As a result, an effective national policy to deal with the appropriate employment of technologically advanced politico-military force will become a challenge of the first magnitude. How our policy makes use of this new method of waging war has far-reaching and potentially dangerous national security implications

XAFS Debye-Waller factors for deformed hemes and metal substituted hemes

We present an efficient and accurate method for calculating XAFS Debye-Waller factors for deformed active sites of hemoproteins and metal substituted hemes. Based on the Normal Coordinate Structural Decomposition scheme, the deformation of the porphyrin macrocycle is expressed as a linear combination of the normal modes of the planar species. In our approach, we identify the modes that contribute most to the deformation. Small metal-porphyrin structures which match the macrocycle structural deformation of the deformed hemoprotein site are used to calculate the Debye-Waller parameters at sample\u27s temperature. The Debye-Waller factors are directly obtained by calculating the normal mode spectrum of the corresponding metal-porphyrin structure using Density Functional Theory. Our method is tested on Ni-tetraadamantyl porphyrin and cytochrome c structures with more than 500 available scattering paths. © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd

Notations and conventions in molecular spectroscopy: part 1. General spectroscopic notation

The field of Molecular Spectroscopy was surveyed in order to determine a set of conventions and symbols which are in common use in the spectroscopic literature. This document, which is Part I in a series, establishes the notations and conventions used for general spectroscopic notations and deals with quantum mechanics, quantum numbers (vibrational states, angular momentum and energy levels), spectroscopic transitions, and miscellaneous notations (e.g. spectroscopic terms). Further parts will follow, dealing inter alia with symmetry notation, permutation and permutation-inversion symmetry notation, vibration-rotation spectroscopy and electronic spectroscopy

Notations and conventions in molecular spectroscopy: part 2. Symmetry notation

The field of Molecular Spectroscopy was surveyed in order to determine a set of conventions and symbols which are in common use in the spectroscopic literature. This document, which is Part 2 in a series, establishes the notations and conventions used for the description of symmetry in rigid molecules, using the Schoenflies notation. It deals firstly with the symmetry operators of the molecular point groups (also drawing attention to the difference between symmetry operators and elements). The conventions and notations of the molecular point groups are then established, followed by those of the representations of these groups as used in molecular spectroscopy. Further parts will follow, dealing inter alia with permutation and permutation-inversion symmetry notation, vibration-rotation spectroscopy and electronic spectroscopy

Integrating Learning And Visualization Technologies In Orthopaedics:- Establishing The Virtual Orthopaedic European University

Digital technologies offer a working environment for familiarisation with new surgical procedures and management of clinical case audit. Our aim is to provide a novel route for access to educational material that more closely resembles the working practice of the arthroscopist. This is to support higher surgical training and life long learning. The proof of concept has been the development of a shoulder arthroscopy simulation model as an interface for the surgical trainee to access multimedia based educational orthopaedic modules. This demonstrates a human-computer interface that more closely resembles the process of factual knowledge association during clinical procedures, moving toward the ultimate goal of seamless integration of knowledge repositories with clinical intervention operative video information, integrating the structured surgical course model with the multimedia educational orthopaedic modules, generated for the learning of shoulder surgery

Laser Induced Selective Alignment of Water Spin Isomers

We consider laser alignment of ortho and para spin isomers of water molecules by using strong and short off-resonance laser pulses. A single pulse is found to create a distinct transient alignment and antialignment of the isomeric species. We suggest selective alignment of one isomeric species (leaving the other species randomly aligned) by a pair of two laser pulses.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

Nonstatistical dynamics on potentials exhibiting reaction path bifurcations and valley-ridge inflection points

We study reaction dynamics on a model potential energy surface exhibiting post-transition state bifurcation in the vicinity of a valley ridge inflection point. We compute fractional yields of products reached after the VRI region is traversed, both with and without dissipation. It is found that apparently minor variations in the potential lead to significant changes in the reaction dynamics. Moreover, when dissipative effects are incorporated, the product ratio depends in a complicated and highly non-monotonic fashion on the dissipation parameter. Dynamics in the vicinity of the VRI point itself play essentially no role in determining the product ratio, except in the highly dissipative regime.Comment: 33 pages, 10 figures, corrected the author name in reference [6

Possible Detection of Cosmological Reionization Sources

We compare the available catalogs of $z\approx6$ galaxies in the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field (UDF) and in the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) with the expected properties of the sources of cosmological reionization from our previous theoretical study. Our approach is based on the mean surface brightness of the sources required for reionization and depends on relatively few undetermined parameters. We find that the observed mean surface brightness of galaxies at $z \approx 6$ is sufficient for reionization, provided that the sources are composed of hot metal-free or metal-poor stars, regardless of whether reionization occurs over a short or long interval of redshift. The broad agreement between the new observations and our predictions suggests that we may have detected the sources responsible for some or even all of the reionization of hydrogen.Comment: ApJL in press. Slightly revised version (mostly wording and some extra references). Original version submitted on 21-March-2004. 10 pages, 1 figur