Response to “Comment on ‘Elasticity of flexible and semiflexible polymers with extensible bonds in the Gibbs and Helmholtz ensembles”’ [J. Chem. Phys. 138, 157101 (2013)]

No abstract: this is a "response" to a Comment

Monte Carlo simulations of single polymer force-extension relations

We present Monte Carlo simulations for studying the statistical mechanics of arbitrarily long single molecules under stretching. In many cases in which the thermodynamic limit is not satisfied, different statistical ensembles yield different macroscopic force-displacement curves. In this work we provide a description of the Monte Carlo simulations and discuss in details the assumptions adopted

High-energy Pulsar Wind Nebulae and SuperNova Remnants

After the second year of Fermi orbiting, the number of galactic sources associated with Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe) and SuperNova Remnants (SNRs) has largely increased. For all these sources multi-wavelenghts spectral energy distributions have been investigated and information about acceleration mechanisms and interaction sites have been collected and studied. The GeV-TeV connection of some recently detected sources will be presented and different interpretation of the observed spectra will be discussed

IIR Adaptive Filters for Detection of Gravitational Waves from Coalescing Binaries

In this paper we propose a new strategy for gravitational waves detection from coalescing binaries, using IIR Adaptive Line Enhancer (ALE) filters. This strategy is a classical hierarchical strategy in which the ALE filters have the role of triggers, used to select data chunks which may contain gravitational events, to be further analyzed with more refined optimal techniques, like the the classical Matched Filter Technique. After a direct comparison of the performances of ALE filters with the Wiener-Komolgoroff optimum filters (matched filters), necessary to discuss their performance and to evaluate the statistical limitation in their use as triggers, we performed a series of tests, demonstrating that these filters are quite promising both for the relatively small computational power needed and for the robustness of the algorithms used. The performed tests have shown a weak point of ALE filters, that we fixed by introducing a further strategy, based on a dynamic bank of ALE filters, running simultaneously, but started after fixed delay times. The results of this global trigger strategy seems to be very promising, and can be already used in the present interferometers, since it has the great advantage of requiring a quite small computational power and can easily run in real-time, in parallel with other data analysis algorithms.Comment: Accepted at SPIE: "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation". 9 pages, 3 figure

Students with Learning Disabilities in a PostSecondary Education Setting: Identifying the Most Significant Supports

The purpose of this phenomenology was to understand the perceptions that postsecondary students with learning disabilities have in receiving academic supports and accommodations from their institutions in alignment with their educational goals. A significant disparity has occurred between the number of students with disabilities in higher education and the support services available to them. The central question of this study is: What are the experiences of students with learning disabilities in receiving academic support services from their institution? The theory that supports this central question and guided this study is Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory. The design of this study is a hermeneutical phenomenological design with various units of analysis. The data was collected through interviews, a focus group interview, and a series of journal prompts. The participants consisted of 10 postsecondary students with learning disabilities who all attended private universities in the northeastern United States. The research revealed the importance of postsecondary students with learning disabilities utilizing academic support centers to achieve academic success. A recommendation for future research is to explore the perceptions that professors have toward their students utilizing the academic support centers by employing a similar qualitative method

Mechanical ventilation and long-term neurocognitive impairment after acute respiratory distress syndrome

We read with great attention and interest the paper by Sasannejad et al. on long-term cognitive impairment after acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) [1]. In this comprehensive review, the authors report data that widely range from epidemiology and pathophysiology to possible therapies, from hypoxemia and delirium to mechanical ventilation (MV)

Perioperative neurocognitive disorder. Comment

We read with great interest the review article by Eckenhoff et al. on the different approaches used in preclinical perioperative neurocognitive disorder research.1 In this review, the authors provided data on the various preclinical models used in scientific literature to study perioperative neurocognitive disorder that include molecular, cell culture, brain slices, and animal models. Surprisingly, the possible role of mechanical ventilation as cause of perioperative neurocognitive disorder is not mentioned