Plasmas are an attractive medium for the next generation of particle accelerators because they can support electric fields greater than several hundred gigavolts per meter. These accelerating fields ...are generated by relativistic plasma waves-space-charge oscillations-that can be excited when a high-intensity laser propagates through a plasma. Large currents of background electrons can then be trapped and subsequently accelerated by these relativistic waves. In the forced laser wake field regime, where the laser pulse length is of the order of the plasma wavelength, we show that a gain in maximum electron energy of up to 200 megaelectronvolts can be achieved, along with an improvement in the quality of the ultrashort electron beam.
14-fs pulses at 1.3μm were generated by an all-solid-state, Kerr-lens mode-locked Crforsterite laser using double chirped mirrors. The spectral bandwidth (FWHM) was 250 mm with an 80 mW average power ...and 100 MHz repetition rate.
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) to support cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) has been shown to improve survival in children and adults. We describe outcomes after the use of ECMO to ...support CPR (E-CPR) in adults using multiinstitutional data from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO) registry.
Patients greater than 18 years of age using ECMO to support CPR (E-CPR) during 1992 to 2007 were extracted from the ELSO registry and analyzed.
Two hundred and ninety-seven (11% of 2,633 adult ECMO uses) reports of E-CPR use in 295 patients were analyzed. Median age was 52 years (interquartile range IQR, 35, 64) and most patients had cardiac disease (n = 221; 75%). Survival to hospital discharge was 27%. Brain death occurred in 61 (28%) of nonsurvivors. In a multivariate logistic regression model, pre-ECMO factors including a diagnosis of acute myocarditis (odds ratio OR: 0.18; 95% confidence interval CI: 0.05 to 0.69) compared with noncardiac diagnoses and use of percutaneous cannulation technique (OR: 0.42; 95% CI: 0.21 to 0.87) lowered odds of mortality, whereas a lower pre-ECMO arterial blood partial pressure of oxygen (Pao(2)) less than 70 mm Hg (OR: 2.7; 95% CI: 1.21 to 6.07) compared with a Pao(2)of 149 mm Hg or greater increased odds of mortality. The need for renal replacement therapy during ECMO increased odds of mortality (OR: 2.41; 95% CI: 1.34 to 4.34).
The use of E-CPR was associated with survival in 27% of adults with cardiac arrest facing imminent mortality. Further studies are warranted to evaluate and better define patients who may benefit from E-CPR.
The synthesis, characterization, and reactivity of a series of cobalt terminal imido complexes supported by an N-anchored tripodal tris(carbene) chelate is described, including a Co-supported ...singlet nitrene. Reaction of the CoI precursor (TIMMNmes)CoI(PF6) (TIMMNmes = tris-2-(3-mesityl-imidazolin-2-ylidene)-methylamine) with p-methoxyphenyl azide yields a CoIII imide (TIMMNmes)CoIII(NAnisole)(PF6) (1). Treatment of 1 with 1 equiv of FeCp2(PF6) at −35 °C affords a formal CoIV imido complex (TIMMNmes)Co(NAnisole)(PF6)2 (2), which features a bent Co–N(imido)–C(Anisole) linkage. Subsequent one-electron oxidation of 2 with 1 equiv of AgPF6 provides access to the tricationic cobalt imido complex (TIMMNmes)Co(NAnisole)(PF6)3 (3). All complexes were fully characterized, including single-crystal X-ray diffraction (SC-XRD) analyses, infrared (IR) vibrational, ultraviolet/visible (UV/vis) electronic absorption, multinuclear NMR, X-band electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), electron nuclear double resonance (ENDOR), and high-energy-resolution fluorescence-detected X-ray absorption spectroscopy (HERFD XAS). Quantum chemical calculations provide additional insight into the electronic structures of all compounds. The dicationic CoIV imido complex 2 exhibits a doublet ground state with considerable imidyl character as a result of covalent Co–NAnisole bonding. At room temperature, 2 readily converts to a CoII amine complex involving intramolecular C–H bond amination. Electronically, tricationic complex 3 can be understood as a singlet nitrene bound to CoIII with significant CoIV imidyl radical character. Verifying the pronounced electrophilicity, nucleophiles such as H2O and t BuNH2 add to 3analogous to the parent free nitrenein the para position of the aromatic substituent, thus, clearly corroborating singlet nitrene-type reactivity.
•LPIS data describe agricultural landscapes in most European countries.•We developed a tool to analyze the French LPIS, called RPG Explorer.•RPG Explorer describes farms, fields and crop proportion ...dynamics.•RPG Explorer also computes crop sequences and models crop rotations.
In the early 2000s a Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) was set up by each member state of the European Union, to manage agricultural subsidies. These databases describe field geometry and landcover, and provide information on farm characteristics. LPIS data could therefore be used to describe agricultural landscape dynamics, but are seldom put to this purpose by scientists and local stakeholders because it requires the use of GIS software and programming skills. The objective of this paper is thus to present RPG Explorer, a new tool that we developed to analyze agricultural landscape dynamics with LPIS data. RPG Explorer doesn’t require any specific skills in GIS and programming allowing non specialist to deal with complex data.
RPG Explorer includes a first module which computes the changes in crop proportions and farm characteristics (numbers of farm, farm area, farm type). A second module computes crop sequences on each farmer block of LPIS data. We also included a crop rotation model in a third module.
We illustrated the use of RPG Explorer for two example neighboring catchments located in western France, the Vivier catchment (16,000ha) and the Courance catchment (15,000ha). For example, RPG Explorer easily revealed the evolution of crop proportions, such as the increase of temporary grasslands in the Courance catchment (from 7.2% of the Utilized Agricultural Area (UAA) in 2007 to 11.7% in 2013). The number of farms was also shown to vary a lot: from 230 in 2007 to 207 in 2013 for the Vivier catchment, with a subsequent increase of their mean UAA (from 101ha to 119ha). RPG Explorer also showed that more than half of the Vivier catchment UAA (59%) was occupied by only 50 farms in 2013. Concerning crop sequences, the sunflower → winter wheat sequence was the most frequent 2-year sequence in both catchments, but some differences appeared with for example, a higher proportion of winter wheat → winter wheat sequence in the Courance catchment (7.2% against 3.6%). Crop rotation modeling indicated that the rapeseed → winter wheat → sunflower → winter wheat, sunflower → winter wheat and maize monoculture were the three main crop rotations.
Finally, these examples illustrate well the ability for scientist and local stakeholders to easily describe some major agricultural landscape dynamics with RPG Explorer.
Hybrid methods that combine quantum mechanics (QM) and molecular mechanics (MM) can be applied to studies of reaction mechanisms in locations ranging from active sites of small enzymes to multiple ...sites in large bioenergetic complexes. By combining the widely used molecular dynamics and visualization programs NAMD and VMD with the quantum chemistry packages ORCA and MOPAC, we created an integrated, comprehensive, customizable, and easy-to-use suite (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/qmmm). Through the QwikMD interface, setup, execution, visualization, and analysis are streamlined for all levels of expertise.
To determine whether a collaborative learning strategy-derived clinical practice guideline can reduce the duration of endotracheal intubation following infant heart surgery.
Prospective and ...retrospective data collected from the Pediatric Heart Network in the 12 months pre- and post-clinical practice guideline implementation at the four sites participating in the collaborative (active sites) compared with data from five Pediatric Heart Network centers not participating in collaborative learning (control sites).
Ten children's hospitals.
Data were collected for infants following two-index operations: 1) repair of isolated coarctation of the aorta (birth to 365 d) and 2) repair of tetralogy of Fallot (29-365 d). There were 240 subjects eligible for the clinical practice guideline at active sites and 259 subjects at control sites.
Development and application of early extubation clinical practice guideline.
After clinical practice guideline implementation, the rate of early extubation at active sites increased significantly from 11.7% to 66.9% (p < 0.001) with no increase in reintubation rate. The median duration of postoperative intubation among active sites decreased from 21.2 to 4.5 hours (p < 0.001). No statistically significant change in early extubation rates was found in the control sites 11.7% to 13.7% (p = 0.63). At active sites, clinical practice guideline implementation had no statistically significant impact on median ICU length of stay (71.9 hr pre- vs 69.2 hr postimplementation; p = 0.29) for the entire cohort. There was a trend toward shorter ICU length of stay in the tetralogy of Fallot subgroup (71.6 hr pre- vs 54.2 hr postimplementation, p = 0.068).
A collaborative learning strategy designed clinical practice guideline significantly increased the rate of early extubation with no change in the rate of reintubation. The early extubation clinical practice guideline did not significantly change postoperative ICU length of stay.
We conducted an exome-wide association study of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) among Hispanics to confirm and identify novel variants associated with disease risk in this population. We ...used a case-parent trio study design; unlike more commonly used case-control studies, this study design is ideal for avoiding issues with population stratification bias among this at-risk ethnic group. Using 710 individuals from 323 Guatemalan and US Hispanic families, two inherited SNPs in ARID5B reached genome-wide level significance: rs10821936, RR = 2.31, 95% CI = 1.70-3.14, p = 1.7×10-8 and rs7089424, RR = 2.22, 95% CI = 1.64-3.01, p = 5.2×10-8. Similar results were observed when restricting our analyses to those with the B-ALL subtype: ARID5B rs10821936 RR = 2.22, 95% CI = 1.63-3.02, p = 9.63×10-8 and ARID5B rs7089424 RR = 2.13, 95% CI = 1.57-2.88, p = 2.81×10-7. Notably, effect sizes observed for rs7089424 and rs10821936 in our study were >20% higher than those reported among non-Hispanic white populations in previous genetic association studies. Our results confirmed the role of ARID5B in childhood ALL susceptibility among Hispanics; however, our assessment did not reveal any strong novel inherited genetic risks for acute lymphoblastic leukemia among this ethnic group.
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