In-flight crew training

The Helmet Mounted Display system and Part Task Trainer are two projects currently underway that are closely related to the in-flight crew training concept. The first project is a training simulator and an engineering analysis tool. The simulator's unique helmet mounted display actually projects the wearer into the simulated environment of 3-D space. Miniature monitors are mounted in front of the wearers eyes. Partial Task Trainer is a kinematic simulator for the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System. The simulator consists of a high end graphics workstation with a high resolution color screen and a number of input peripherals that create a functional equivalent of the RMS control panel in the back of the Orbiter. It is being used in the training cycle for Shuttle crew members. Activities are underway to expand the capability of the Helmet Display System and the Partial Task Trainer

Likelihood of death among hospital inpatients in New Zealand: prevalent cohort study

Objectives: (1) To establish the likelihood of dying within 12 months for a cohort of hospital inpatients in New Zealand (NZ) on a fixed census date; (2) to identify associations between likelihood of death and key sociodemographic, diagnostic and service-related factors and (3) to compare results with, and extend findings of, a Scottish study undertaken for the same time period and census date. National databases of hospitalisations and death registrations were used, linked by unique health identifier. Participants: 6074 patients stayed overnight in NZ hospitals on the census date (10 April 2013), 40.8% of whom were aged ≥65 years; 54.4% were women; 69.1% of patients were NZ European; 15.3% were Maori; 7.6% were Pacific; 6.1% were Asian and 1.9% were ‘other’. Setting: All NZ hospitals. Results: 14.5% patients (n=878) had died within 12 months: 1.6% by 7 days; 4.5% by 30 days; 8.0% by 3 months and 10.9% by 6 months. In logistic regression models, the strongest predictors of death within 12 months were: age ≥80 years (OR=5.52(95% CI 4.31 to 7.07)); a history of cancer (OR=4.20(3.53 to 4.98)); being Māori (OR=1.62(1.25 to 2.10)) and being admitted to a medical specialty, compared with a surgical specialty (OR=3.16(2.66 to 3.76)). Conclusion: While hospitals are an important site of end of life care in NZ, their role is less significant than in Scotland, where 30% of an inpatient cohort recruited using similar methods and undertaken on the same census date had died within 12 months. One reason for this finding may be the extended role of residential long-term care facilities in end of life care provision in NZ

Unbound Universe

Astronom

Likelihood of death within one year among a national cohort of hospital inpatients in Scotland

No abstract available

Flexion and Skewness in Map Projections of the Earth

Tissot indicatrices have provided visual measures of local area and isotropy distortions. Here we show how large scale distortions of flexion (bending) and skewness (lopsidedness) can be measured. Area and isotropy distortions depend on the map projection metric, flexion and skewness, which manifest themselves on continental scales, depend on the first derivatives of the metric. We introduce new indicatrices that show not only area and isotropy distortions but flexion and skewness as well. We present a table showing error measures for area, isotropy, flexion, skewness, distances, and boundary cuts allowing us to compare different world map projections. We find that the Winkel-Tripel projection (already adopted for world maps by the National Geographic), has low distortion on most measures and excellent quality overall.Comment: 31 pages, including 27 postscript figures. Accepted to Cartographica. Detailed discussion and code at http://www.physics.drexel.edu/~goldberg/projection

Galaxy Clustering Topology in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Main Galaxy Sample: a Test for Galaxy Formation Models

We measure the topology of the main galaxy distribution using the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, examining the dependence of galaxy clustering topology on galaxy properties. The observational results are used to test galaxy formation models. A volume-limited sample defined by $M_r<-20.19$ enables us to measure the genus curve with amplitude of $G=378$ at $6h^{-1}$Mpc smoothing scale, with 4.8\% uncertainty including all systematics and cosmic variance. The clustering topology over the smoothing length interval from 6 to $10 h^{-1}$Mpc reveals a mild scale-dependence for the shift ($\Delta\nu$) and void abundance ($A_V$) parameters of the genus curve. We find substantial bias in the topology of galaxy clustering with respect to the predicted topology of the matter distribution, which varies with luminosity, morphology, color, and the smoothing scale of the density field. The distribution of relatively brighter galaxies shows a greater prevalence of isolated clusters and more percolated voids. Even though early (late)-type galaxies show topology similar to that of red (blue) galaxies, the morphology dependence of topology is not identical to the color dependence. In particular, the void abundance parameter $A_V$ depends on morphology more strongly than on color. We test five galaxy assignment schemes applied to cosmological N-body simulations of a $\Lambda$CDM universe to generate mock galaxies: the Halo-Galaxy one-to-one Correspondence model, the Halo Occupation Distribution model, and three implementations of Semi-Analytic Models (SAMs). None of the models reproduces all aspects of the observed clustering topology; the deviations vary from one model to another but include statistically significant discrepancies in the abundance of isolated voids or isolated clusters and the amplitude and overall shift of the genus curve. (Abridged)Comment: 24 pages, 19 figures, 10 tables, submitted to ApJS. Version with full resolution images is available at http://astro.kias.re.kr/~cbp/doc/dr7Topo.pd

A population-based study of patients in Danish hospitals who are in their last year of life

Introduction: Little is known about the prevalence and distribution in Denmark of hospital inpatients who are in their last year of life. Knowledge about these patients could attract attention towards needs for their identification and for optimisation of end-of-life care initiatives. The aims of this study were to determine the proportion of prevalent in-patients who died during the following 12 months, to present characteristics among deceased and survivors, and to identify in which hospitals, departments or specialities imminently dying patients appear most frequently. Methods: This was a record-linkage cohort study of all patients, who were in public somatic hospitals in Denmark on 10 April 2013. Patients were followed for one year. Results: A total of 13,412 inpatients were resident in 26 Danish hospitals on 10 April 2013 (range: 1,173-106 patients per hospital). 22% died during the one-year follow-up (range: 17-37% per hospital. 24% men, 20% women); 27% in medical, 15% in surgical and 50% in oncological/haematological departments. The median time to death was 59 days (54/66 days for women/men). 61% died in hospital. Deceased patients were older than survivors (76 versus 64 years, median) and had longer hospital index-stays (13 versus six days, median). 25% of the deceased (n = 740) died during the index episode, corresponding to 5.5% of all the prevalent inpatients. Conclusions: More than one in five inpatients in Danish hospitals are imminently dying or in their last year of life. Knowledge of the patients’ uneven distribution in the hospital system can underpin organisational strategies to focus on end-of-life care provision

A population-based study of patients in Danish hospitals who are in their last year of life

Introduction: Little is known about the prevalence and distribution in Denmark of hospital inpatients who are in their last year of life. Knowledge about these patients could attract attention towards needs for their identification and for optimisation of end-of-life care initiatives. The aims of this study were to determine the proportion of prevalent in-patients who died during the following 12 months, to present characteristics among deceased and survivors, and to identify in which hospitals, departments or specialities imminently dying patients appear most frequently. Methods: This was a record-linkage cohort study of all patients, who were in public somatic hospitals in Denmark on 10 April 2013. Patients were followed for one year. Results: A total of 13,412 inpatients were resident in 26 Danish hospitals on 10 April 2013 (range: 1,173-106 patients per hospital). 22% died during the one-year follow-up (range: 17-37% per hospital. 24% men, 20% women); 27% in medical, 15% in surgical and 50% in oncological/haematological departments. The median time to death was 59 days (54/66 days for women/men). 61% died in hospital. Deceased patients were older than survivors (76 versus 64 years, median) and had longer hospital index-stays (13 versus six days, median). 25% of the deceased (n = 740) died during the index episode, corresponding to 5.5% of all the prevalent inpatients. Conclusions: More than one in five inpatients in Danish hospitals are imminently dying or in their last year of life. Knowledge of the patients’ uneven distribution in the hospital system can underpin organisational strategies to focus on end-of-life care provision

Virtual reality applications in robotic simulations

Virtual reality (VR) provides a means to practice integrated extravehicular activities (EVA)/remote manipulator system (RMS) operations in the on-orbit configuration with no discomfort or risk to crewmembers. VR afforded the STS-61 crew the luxury of practicing the integrated EVA/RMS operations in an on-orbit configuration prior to the actual flight. The VR simulation was developed by the Automation and Robotics Division's Telepresence/Virtual Reality Lab and Integrated Graphics, Operations, and Analysis Lab (IGOAL) at JSC. The RMS Part Task Trainer (PTT) was developed by the IGOAL for RMS training in 1988 as a fully functional, kinematic simulation of the shuttle RMS and served as the RMS portion of the integrated VR simulation. Because the EVA crewmember could get a realistic view of the shuttle and payload bay in the VR simulation, he/she could explore different positions and views to determine the best method for performing a specific task, thus greatly increasing the efficiency of use of the neutral buoyancy facilities

Episodic memories among irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients: An important aspect of the IBS symptom experience

Objective: Some IBS patients possess detailed memories of the events surrounding their bowel symptom onset ( episodic memories ). In this exploratory study we sought to: (1) examine memory relationship with gastrointestinal (GI) symptom severity, extraintestinal symptoms, and mood; (2) qualitatively explore memory valence and content in IBS patients with or without episodic memories. Methods: Referral IBS patients Results: 14/29 (48.3%) of IBS subjects endorsed episodic memories of IBS symptom onset, often GI infections/enteritis (35.7%). Recall of the exact year (69%) and month (60%) of symptom onset were common. Episodic memories were associated with greater IBS symptom severity/bother, higher anxiety/depression, and poorer HRQOL. Though AMT and SCEPT memory specificity were not different based on episodic memories, overgeneralization to negatively-valenced cues in the AMT was associated with more severe IBS in those without episodic memory. Qualitative analysis revealed no observable differences in topic focus of IBS patients with and without episodic memories. Conclusions: IBS patients often endorse episodic memories associated with symptom onset, and this recall seems to associate with more severe symptoms. Overgeneralization responses to negative stimuli may lead to worse bowel symptoms in those without episodic memories. IBS memory specificity may associate with qualitative differences in processing psychosocial experiences and might be important to IBS pathophysiology