Neutrons from an atmospheric nuclear explosion can be detected by sensors in orbit. Current tools for characterizing the neutron energy spectrum assume a known source and use forward transport to ...recreate the detector response. In realistic scenarios the true source is unknown, making this an inefficient, iterative approach. In contrast, the adjoint approach directly solves for the source spectrum, enabling source reconstruction. The time–energy fluence at the satellite and adjoint transport equation allow a Monte Carlo method to characterize the neutron source’s energy spectrum directly in a new model: the Space to High-Altitude Region Adjoint (SAHARA) model. A new adjoint source event estimator was developed in SAHARA to find feasible solutions to the neutron transport problem given the constraints of the adjoint environment. This work explores SAHARA’s development and performance for mono-energetic and continuous neutron energy sources. In general, the identified spectra were shifted towards energies approximately 5% lower than the true source spectra, but SAHARA was able to capture the correct spectral shapes. Continuous energy sources, including real-world sources Fat Man and Little Boy, resulted in identifiable spectra that could have been produced by the same distribution as the true sources as demonstrated by two-dimensional (2D) Kolmogorov–Smirnov tests.
Type 2 diabetes and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are frequently comorbid conditions. OSA is associated with increased insulin resistance, but studies of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) ...have shown inconsistent effects on glycemic control. However, endpoints such as hemoglobin A1c and insulin sensitivity might not reflect short-term changes in glycemic control during sleep.
We used a continuous glucose-monitoring system to measure interstitial glucose every 5 minutes during polysomnography in 20 patients with type 2 diabetes and newly diagnosed OSA. The measurements were repeated after an average of 41 days of CPAP (range 26-96 days). All patients were on a stable diet and medications. Each 30-second epoch of the polysomnogram was matched with a continuous glucose-monitoring system reading, and the sleeping glucose level was calculated as the average for all epochs scored as sleeping.
The mean sleeping glucose decreased from untreated (122.0 +/- 61.7 mg/dL) to treated (102.9 +/- 39.4 mg/dL; p = 0.03 by Wilcoxon paired rank test). The sleeping glucose was more stable after treatment, with the median SD decreasing from 20.0 to 13.0 mg/dL (p = 0.005) and the mean difference between maximum and minimum values decreasing from 88 to 57 mg/dL (p= 0.003). The change in the mean hemoglobin A1c from 7.1% to 7.2% was not significant.
Our study is limited by the lack of a control group, but the results suggest that sleeping glucose levels decrease and are more stable after patients with type 2 diabetes and OSA are treated with CPAP.
Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening condition with a known effective prehospital intervention: parenteral epinephrine. The National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) advocates for emergency ...medical services (EMS) providers to be allowed to carry and administer epinephrine. Some states constrain epinephrine administration by basic life support (BLS) providers to administration using epinephrine auto-injectors (EAIs), but the cost and supply of EAIs limits the ability of some EMS agencies to provide epinephrine for anaphylaxis. This literature review and consensus report describes the extant literature and the practical and policy issues related to non-EAI administration of epinephrine for anaphylaxis, and serves as a supplementary resource document for the revised NAEMSP position statement on the use of epinephrine in the out-of-hospital treatment of anaphylaxis, complementing (but not replacing) prior resource documents. The report concludes that there is some evidence that intramuscular injection of epinephrine drawn up from a vial or ampule by appropriately trained EMS providers-without limitation to specific certification levels-is safe, facilitates timely treatment of patients, and reduces costs.
On 2010 January 18-19 and June 28-29, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft imaged the Rosetta mission target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. We present a preliminary analysis ...of the images, which provide a characterization of the dust environment at heliocentric distances similar to those planned for the initial spacecraft encounter, but on the outbound leg of its orbit rather than the inbound. Broadband photometry yields low levels of CO sub(2) production at a comet heliocentric distance of 3.32 AU and no detectable production at 4.18 AU. We find that at these heliocentric distances, large dust grains with mean grain diameters on the order of a millimeter or greater dominate the coma and evolve to populate the tail. This is further supported by broadband photometry centered on the nucleus, which yield an estimated differential dust particle size distribution with a power-law relation that is considerably shallower than average. We set a 3sigma upper limit constraint on the albedo of the large-grain dust at < or =, slant0.12. Our best estimate of the nucleus radius (1.82 + or - 0.20 km) and albedo (0.04 + or - 0.01) are in agreement with measurements previously reported in the literature.
We report results based on mid-infrared photometry of five active main belt objects (AMBOs) detected by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft. Four of these bodies, P/2010 R2 (La ...Sagra), 133P/Elst-Pizarro, (596) Scheila, and 176P/LINEAR, showed no signs of activity at the time of the observations, allowing the WISE detections to place firm constraints on their diameters and albedos. Geometric albedos were in the range of a few percent, and on the order of other measured comet nuclei. P/2010 A2 was observed on 2010 April 2-3, three months after its peak activity. Photometry of the coma at 12 and 22 mu m combined with ground-based visible-wavelength measurements provides constraints on the dust particle mass distribution (PMD), dlog n/dlog m, yielding power-law slope values of alpha = -0.5 + or - 0.1. This PMD is considerably more shallow than that found for other comets, in particular inbound particle fluence during the Stardust encounter of comet 81P/Wild 2. It is similar to the PMD seen for 9P/Tempel 1 in the immediate aftermath of the Deep Impact experiment. Upper limits for CO sub(2) and CO production are also provided for each AMBO and compared with revised production numbers for WISE observations of 103P/Hartley 2.
We report results based on mid-infrared photometry of comet 103P/Hartley 2 taken during 2010 May 4-13 (when the comet was at a heliocentric distance of 2.3 AU, and an observer distance of 2.0 AU) by ...the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer. Photometry of the coma at 22 Delta *mm and data from the University of Hawaii 2.2 m telescope obtained on 2010 May 22 provide constraints on the dust particle size distribution, d log n/d log m, yielding power-law slope values of alpha = --0.97 ? 0.10, steeper than that found for the inbound particle fluence during the Stardust encounter of comet 81P/Wild 2. The extracted nucleus signal at 12 Delta *mm is consistent with a body of average spherical radius of 0.6 ? 0.2 km (one standard deviation), assuming a beaming parameter of 1.2. The 4.6 Delta *mm band signal in excess of dust and nucleus reflected and thermal contributions may be attributed to carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide emission lines and provides limits and estimates of species production. Derived carbon dioxide coma production rates are 3.5(? 0.9) X 1024 molecules per second. Analyses of the trail signal present in the stacked image with an effective exposure time of 158.4 s yields optical-depth values near 9 X 10--10 at a delta mean anomaly of 0.2 deg trailing the comet nucleus, in both 12 and 22 Delta *mm bands. A minimum chi-squared analysis of the dust trail position yields a beta-parameter value of 1.0 X 10--4, consistent with a derived mean trail-grain diameter of 1.1/ Delta *r cm for grains of Delta *r g cm--3 density. This leads to a total detected trail mass of at least 4 X 1010 Delta *r kg.
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