New cobalt(III) Schiff base complexes with antifungal activity against a range of fungal pathogens are reported in this work. In addition, these compounds showed no cytotoxicity against mammalian ...cells and no toxicity in vivo against Galleria mellonella at high concentrations. More information can be found in the Full Paper by A. Frei, M. A. T. Blaskovich, et al. on page 2021.
Critical incident reporting was introduced into the intensive care unit (ICU) as part of the development of a quality assurance programme within our department. Over a 3‐year period 281 critical ...incidents were reported. Factors relating to causation, detection and prevention of critical incidents were sought. Detection of a critical incident in over 50% of cases resulted from direct observation of the patient while monitoring systems accounted for a further 27%. No physiological changes were observed in 54% of critical incidents. The most common incidents reported concerned airway management and invasive lines, tubes and drains. Human error was a factor in 55% of incidents while violations of standard practice contributed to 28%. Critical incident reporting was effective in revealing latent errors in our ‘system’ and clarifying the role of human error in the generation of incidents. It has proven to be a useful technique to highlight problems previously undetected in our quality assurance programme. Improvements in quality of care following implementation of preventative strategies await further assessment.
We use EPRI's distribution power quality project data to characterize and predict voltage sags and momentary interruptions based on site characteristics. The quality of sites is widely dispersed. ...Rural sites have many more sags and momentary interruptions than suburban and urban sites. The strongest indicators of voltage sags are: 1) circuit exposure, 2) lightning, and 3) a term with transformer impedance and number of feeders. We develop a linear model for predicting sags and another for predicting momentary interruptions based on site characteristics. We also compare transmission-level power quality to distribution power quality.
Context . Parallaxes for 331 classical Cepheids, 31 Type II Cepheids, and 364 RR Lyrae stars in common between Gaia and the HIPPARCOS and Tycho-2 catalogues are published in Gaia Data Release 1 (DR1) ...as part of the Tycho-Gaia Astrometric Solution (TGAS). Aims. In order to test these first parallax measurements of the primary standard candles of the cosmological distance ladder, which involve astrometry collected by Gaia during the initial 14 months of science operation, we compared them with literature estimates and derived new period-luminosity (PL), period-Wesenheit (PW) relations for classical and Type II Cepheids and infrared PL, PL-metallicity (PLZ), and optical luminosity-metallicity (MV-Fe/H) relations for the RR Lyrae stars, with zero points based on TGAS.
Methods . Classical Cepheids were carefully selected in order to discard known or suspected binary systems. The final sample comprises 102 fundamental mode pulsators with periods ranging from 1.68 to 51.66 days (of which 33 with sigma(omega)/omega < 0 : 5). The Type II Cepheids include a total of 26 W Virginis and BL Herculis stars spanning the period range from 1.16 to 30.00 days (of which only 7 with sigma(omega)/omega 0 : 5). The RR Lyrae stars include 200 sources with pulsation period ranging from 0.27 to 0.80 days (of which 112 with sigma(omega)/omega < 0 : 5). The new relations were computed using multi- band (V; I; J; K-s) photometry and spectroscopic metal abundances available in the literature, and by applying three alternative approaches: (i) linear least-squares fitting of the absolute magnitudes inferred from direct transformation of the TGAS parallaxes; (ii) adopting astrometry-based luminosities; and (iii) using a Bayesian fitting approach. The last two methods work in parallax space where parallaxes are used directly, thus maintaining symmetrical errors and allowing negative parallaxes to be used. The TGAS-based PL; PW; PLZ, and MV Fe/H relations are discussed by comparing the distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud provided by different types of pulsating stars and alternative fitting methods.
Results . Good agreement is found from direct comparison of the parallaxes of RR Lyrae stars for which both TGAS and HST measurements are available. Similarly, very good agreement is found between the TGAS values and the parallaxes inferred from the absolute magnitudes of Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars analysed with the Baade-Wesselink method. TGAS values also compare favourably with the parallaxes inferred by theoretical model fitting of the multi-band light curves for two of the three classical Cepheids and one RR Lyrae star, which were analysed with this technique in our samples. The K-band PL relations show the significant improvement of the TGAS parallaxes for Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars with respect to the HIPPARCOS measurements. This is particularly true for the RR Lyrae stars for which improvement in quality and statistics is impressive.
Conclusions . TGAS parallaxes bring a significant added value to the previous HIPPARCOS estimates. The relations presented in this paper represent the first Gaia-calibrated relations and form a work-in-progress milestone report in the wait for Gaia-only parallaxes of which a first solution will become available with Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) in 2018.
Precise mass measurements of the neutron-rich 125–130In isotopes have been performed with the TITAN Penning trap mass spectrometer. TITAN's electron beam ion trap was used to charge breed the ions to ...charge state q = 13+ thus providing the necessary resolving power to measure not only the ground states but also isomeric states at each mass number. Here, the properties of the ground states are investigated through a series of mass differentials, highlighting trends in the indium isotopic chain as compared to its proton-magic neighbor, tin (Z = 50). In addition, the energies of the indium isomers are presented. The (8-) level in 128In is found to be 78 keV lower than previously thought and the (21/2-) isomer in 127In is shown to be lower than the literature value by more than 150 keV.
Immortalized rat fibroblasts, genetically altered to secrete NGF, BDNF, and bFGF, were implanted in rat brain near the striatum 7 days before striatal infusion of excitotoxic quantities of an ...NMDA-receptor agonist. Analysis of striatal damage 7 days after lesioning revealed that implantation of NGF-secreting cells reduced the size of the excitotoxic lesions by more than 80% when compared with control cells, while implanting of bFGF-secreting cells caused a 30% decrease in excitotoxic lesion size. BDNF-secreting fibroblasts caused no protective sparing in the striatum in this lesion model. This finding shows that biological delivery of NGF and bFGF by grafting of genetically altered cells protects against glutamate toxicity in the adult striatum while grafting of BDNF-producing cells does not. Such observations begin to define a spectrum of neurotrophic agents able to mitigate the cell loss seen in neurodegeneration.
Selective estrogen receptor modulators are an emerging class of pharmaceutically important molecules. Many compounds in this class contain an aminoethoxyaryl moiety attached to a polycyclic framework ...at an asymmetric carbon atom. To assess whether this carbon atom can be replaced by nitrogen, we have employed a Ninomiya enamide photocyclization for the rapid synthesis of a novel N-arylbenzophenanthridine framework, 4. Further elaboration of 4 into a new structural class of achiral, nonsteroidal estrogen receptor modulators is described.
Rocket triggered lightning flashes were triggered near a de-energized experimental distribution line while simultaneous measurements of the induced phase to neutral voltage were performed. Electric ...field, magnetic field and lightning stroke current characteristics associated with the triggered flashes were also measured. Analysis of 63 stroke currents and corresponding induced voltages reveals that the peak induced voltages are roughly 63% larger than predicted by the commonly used Rusck theory but in fairly good agreement with modern coupling theory using measured electric and magnetic fields as inputs. The induced voltages had peak magnitudes between about 8 and 100 kV for stroke magnitudes ranging from a few kiloamperes up to about 44 kA. The vertical electric field resulting from the lightning flash was found to play a dominant role in the induction process, but the magnetic field also contributed significantly to the total induced voltage. These measurements suggest that induced voltages on distribution lines are larger than expected and may lead to more flashovers than expected.
During this demonstration project, an overhead portion of a four-wire power distribution circuit was converted to a five-wire system. The fifth wire is an isolated neutral that carries all of the ...unbalanced return current. The measurements suggested that a ground relay could be set much lower on a live-wire system than a comparable four-wire system for improved high-impedance fault detection. Stray voltage was also much lower when the circuit was operated as a five-wire configuration. Magnetic fields were generally lower on the five-wire circuit than at the same locations during four-wire operation. Conversion of an existing four-wire system to a five-wire system presented several unique concerns including fifth-wire placement, crew safety and operations, and how to interface the five-wire system with the existing four-wire distribution system.
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