Search

Abstract The observation of a weak proton-emission branch in the decay of the 3174-keV 53mCo isomeric state marked the discovery of proton radioactivity in atomic nuclei in 1970. Here we show, based on the partial half-lives and the decay energies of the possible proton-emission branches, that the exceptionally high angular momentum barriers, $${{{{{{\mathcal{l}}}}}}}_{{{{{{\rm{p}}}}}}}=9$$ l p = 9 and $${{{{{{\mathcal{l}}}}}}}_{{{{{{\rm{p}}}}}}}=7$$ l p = 7 , play a key role in hindering the proton radioactivity from 53mCo, making them very challenging to observe and calculate. Indeed, experiments had to wait decades for significant advances in accelerator facilities and multi-faceted state-of-the-art decay stations to gain full access to all observables. Combining data taken with the TASISpec decay station at the Accelerator Laboratory of the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and the ACTAR TPC device on LISE3 at GANIL, France, we measured their branching ratios as bp1 = 1.3(1)% and bp2 = 0.025(4)%. These results were compared to cutting-edge shell-model and barrier penetration calculations. This description reproduces the order of magnitude of the branching ratios and partial half-lives, despite their very small spectroscopic factors.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data in medicine has increased in recent years. Indeed, the use of AI in mobile health (mHealth) apps could considerably assist both individuals and health care professionals in the prevention and management of chronic diseases, in a person-centered manner. Nonetheless, there are several challenges that must be overcome to provide high-quality, usable, and effective mHealth apps. Here, we review the rationale and guidelines for the implementation of mHealth apps and the challenges regarding quality, usability, and user engagement and behavior change, with a special focus on the prevention and management of noncommunicable diseases. We suggest that a cocreation-based framework is the best method to address these challenges. Finally, we describe the current and future roles of AI in improving personalized medicine and provide recommendations for developing AI-based mHealth apps. We conclude that the implementation of AI and mHealth apps for routine clinical practice and remote health care will not be feasible until we overcome the main challenges regarding data privacy and security, quality assessment, and the reproducibility and uncertainty of AI results. Moreover, there is a lack of both standardized methods to measure the clinical outcomes of mHealth apps and techniques to encourage user engagement and behavior changes in the long term. We expect that in the near future, these obstacles will be overcome and that the ongoing European project, Watching the risk factors (WARIFA), will provide considerable advances in the implementation of AI-based mHealth apps for disease prevention and health promotion.

Abstract Background The electronic health record is expected to improve the quality and efficiency of health care. Many novel functionalities have been introduced in order to improve medical decision making and communication between health care personnel. There is however limited evidence on whether these new functionalities are useful. The aim of our study was to investigate how well the electronic health record system supports physicians in performing basic clinical tasks. Methods Physicians of three prominent Norwegian hospitals participated in the survey. They were asked, in an online questionnaire, how well the hospital’s electronic health record system DIPS supported 49 clinical tasks as well as how satisfied they were with the system in general, including the technical performance. Two hundred and eight of 402 physicians (52%) submitted a completely answered questionnaire. Results Seventy-two percent of the physicians had their work interrupted or delayed because the electronic health record hangs or crashes at least once a week, while 22% had experienced this problem daily. Fifty-three percent of the physicians indicated that the electronic health record is cumbersome to use and adds to their workload. The majority of physicians were satisfied with managing tests, e.g., requesting laboratory tests, reading test results and managing radiological investigations and electrocardiograms. Physicians were less satisfied with managing referrals. There was high satisfaction with some of the decision support functionalities available for prescribing drugs. This includes drug interaction alerts and drug allergy warnings, which are displayed automatically. However, physicians were less satisfied with other aspects of prescribing drugs, including getting an overview of the ongoing drug therapy. Conclusions In the survey physicians asked for improvements of certain electronic health record functionalities like medication, clinical workflow support including planning and better overviews. In addition, there is apparently a need to focus on system stability, number of logins, reliability and better instructions on available electronic health record features. Considerable development is needed in current electronic health record systems to improve usefulness and satisfaction.

Entanglement swapping in high dimensions requires large numbers of entangled photons and consequently suffers from low photon flux. Here the authors demonstrate entanglement swapping of multiple spatial modes of light simultaneously, without the need for increasing the photon numbers with dimension.

In the weak field limit, boson star evolution is governed by the Newton-Schrödinger equation. Here the authors report an optical setup that provides a formal analogue of such dynamics via the interaction between vortex beams and a medium with positive thermo-optical nonlinearity.

Interferometric effects between two counter-propagating beams incident on an optical system can lead to a coherent modulation of the absorption of the total electromagnetic radiation with 100% efficiency even in deeply subwavelength structures. Coherent perfect absorption (CPA) rises from a resonant solution of the scattering matrix and often requires engineered optical properties. For instance, thin film CPA benefits from complex nanostructures with suitable resonance, albeit at a loss of operational bandwidth. In this work, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate a broadband CPA based on light-with-light modulation in epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) subwavelength films. We show that unpatterned ENZ films with different thicknesses exhibit broadband CPA with a near-unity maximum value located at the ENZ wavelength. By using Kerr optical nonlinearities, we dynamically tune the visibility and peak wavelength of the total energy modulation. Our results based on homogeneous thick ENZ media open a route towards on-chip devices that require efficient light absorption and dynamical tunability.

Este artigo evoca o contexto histórico da criação da Justiça do Trabalho, no Brasil, e conta a história de uma parceria inovadora para o salvamento dos arquivos do Tribunal Regional do Trabalho 6a Região, forjada entre esta instituição e a Universidade Federal de Pernambuco. Ele aborda também questões metodológicas a respeito do uso destes casos apresentados nas Juntas de Conciliação e Julgamento, ao revisar algo da literatura acadêmica baseada nestas fontes, assim como descrever projetos de pesquisa em andamento. Pernambuco tem fortes laços históricos com a indústria açucareira e, já que a história da força de trabalho neste setor é nosso campo de pesquisa, o presente artigo foca a atenção sobre a relevância dos casos apresentados nas JCJ para o estudo da região canavieira.

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a mediator with demonstrated protective effects for the cardiovascular system. On the other hand, prostaglandin (PG)E2 is involved in vascular wall remodeling by regulating matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) activities. We tested the hypothesis that endogenous H2S may modulate PGE2, MMP-1 activity and endogenous tissue inhibitors of MMPs (TIMP-1/-2). This regulatory pathway could be involved in thinning of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) and thickening of saphenous vein (SV) varicosities. The expression of the enzyme responsible for H2S synthesis, cystathionine-γ-lyase (CSE) and its activity, were significantly higher in varicose vein as compared to SV. On the contrary, the endogenous H2S level and CSE expression were lower in AAA as compared to healthy aorta (HA). Endogenous H2S was responsible for inhibition of PGE2 synthesis mostly in varicose veins and HA. A similar effect was observed with exogenous H2S and consequently decreasing active MMP-1/TIMP ratios in SV and varicose veins. In contrast, in AAA, higher levels of PGE2 and active MMP-1/TIMP ratios were found versus HA. These findings suggest that differences in H2S content in AAA and varicose veins modulate endogenous PGE2 production and consequently the MMP/TIMP ratio. This mechanism may be crucial in vascular wall remodeling observed in different vascular pathologies (aneurysm, varicosities, atherosclerosis and pulmonary hypertension).

Conservation of a patient’s residual hearing and prevention of fibrous tissue/new bone formation around an electrode array are some of the major challenges in cochlear implant (CI) surgery. Although it is well known that fibrotic tissue formation around the electrode array can interfere with hearing performance in implanted patients, and that associated intracochlear inflammation can initiate loss of residual hearing, little is known about the molecular and cellular mechanisms that promote this response in the cochlea. In vitro studies in neonatal rats and in vivo studies in adult mice were performed to gain insight into the pro-inflammatory, proliferative, and remodeling phases of pathological wound healing that occur in the cochlea following an electrode analogue insertion. Resident Schwann cells, macrophages/microglia, and fibroblasts had a prominent role in the inflammatory process in the cochlea. Leukocytes were recruited to the cochlea following insertion of a nylon filament in adult mice, where contributed to the inflammatory response. The reparative stages in wound healing are characterized by persistent neuro-inflammation of spiral ganglion neurons and expression of regenerative macrophages in the cochlea. Accordingly, genes involved in extracellular matrix deposition and remodeling were up-regulated in implanted cochleae.Maturation of scar tissue occurs in the remodeling phase of wound healing in the cochlea. Similar to other damaged peripheral nerves, M2 macrophages and de-differentiated Schwann cells were observed in damaged cochleae and may play a role in cell survival and axonal regeneration. In conclusion, the insertion of an electrode analogue into the cochlea is associated with robust early and chronic inflammatory responses characterized by recruitment of leukocytes and expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines that promote intracochlear fibrosis and loss of auditory hair cells and spiral ganglion neurons important for hearing after CI surgery.

Oyster population maintenance and growth require a sufficient larval supply competent for metamorphosis and settlement. Larval performance, in terms of growth, development, survival, and metamorphic success, determines the capacity for a larval cohort to effectively settle and establish into an existing population. Exogenous factors influencing larval development include temperature, salinity, food quantity, and food quality. A sufficient diet, composed of balanced protein, lipids, and carbohydrates to meet larval nutritional demands, is required to promote successful metamorphosis. To evaluate the influence of these exogenous factors on oyster settlement potential in Delaware Bay, a well-established biochemically based Crassostrea gigas (Thunberg, 1793) larval model was adapted to simulate Crassostrea virginica (Gmelin, 1791) larval performance under in situ environmental conditions measured during the 2009 to 2011 reproductive seasons at 10 sites across the salinity gradient of Delaware Bay. Variation in the initial egg size and lipid content, and larval food assimilation efficiency was incorporated into the model to represent potential within-cohort phenotypic variability. The middle portion of Delaware Bay along the New Jersey shoreline, bridging the 15-salinity line, generated the most successful larvae each year, whereas the low-salinity reach, on the Delaware side, and Nantuxent Point Reef had more variable success. Survivorship was a function of adequate temperatures and salinities, sufficient food quantity, and favorable food quality defined in part by the protein-to-(lipid-plus-carbohydrate) ratio. Most settlement was predicted by the model to occur between July and September of each year. To validate the model, estimated settlement windows were compared with calculated settlement windows derived from recruitment observations on yearly shell plants. Modeled and recruitment-derived settlement windows agreed well with each other and verified the capacity of the model to accurately forecast in situ larval performance. The oyster larval model, based on measures of lipid, protein, and carbohydrate, successfully passed an important field test, demonstrating the potential of such biochemically based models to reliably evaluate larval performance under real-world conditions. KEY WORDS: Crassostrea virginica, larvae, eastern oyster, performance model, settlement window, biochemical, food, INTRODUCTION Successful oyster population maintenance and growth require a consistent larval supply capable of settlement onto existing beds over time (Coen & Luckenbach 2000, Mann & Powell 2007, Lipcius et [...]

Large-scale development-led archaeology has changed the very nature of archaeological datasets. In addition to the familiar positive evidence of structures and deposits, there is now a wealth of 'true-negative' evidence: the confirmed absence of archaeological remains. Making good use of such data presents a challenge and demands new ways of thinking. Using case studies based on recent developer-led work in the UK, the authors suggest that focusing on 'fingerprints' of past human activity at a landscape scale provides a useful approach. The results argue in favour of changes to existing recording systems, as well as the need to integrate more fully both positive and negative evidence in archaeological interpretation. Keywords: Development-led archaeology, archaeological fingerprints, interpretation, negative evidence, positive evidence, Introduction Suggesting to an archaeological readership that 'finding nothing' can be interesting might seem surprising. Here, though, we argue that 'negative' evidence is actually an important category of archaeological information, [...]

In 1933, two factors resulted in Florene Mary Young (1903-1994) and Margaret May Zeigler (1882-1976) concurrently becoming the first female tenured faculty members in the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia (UGA). The first was the onset of the Great Depression in 1929, and the second was the legislative creation of the Board of Regents in 1932, established to oversee the University System of Georgia legislatively in 1933. For financial reasons the Regents closed the Georgia State Teachers College, where Young and Zeigler were employed, in Athens, also home of UGA. Young and Zeigler were offered and accepted tenured faculty positions at UGA. Before presenting biographical information about Young and Zeigler, I will present an overview of the history of psychology at UGA before their arrival and the status of women as students and faculty members at UGA before their arrival to provide useful background and context. Young was 21 years younger than Zeigler, earned the PhD in 1938, and had 36 years at UGA. Far more biographical information is available about Young than about Zeigler. Before the Closing Remarks I will consider Young and Zeigler in the context of other women psychologists of their generation., In 1891, the Georgia State Normal School (GSNS) was established in Athens, Georgia (Sells, 1923; Thomas, 2009). Normal schools in Georgia and elsewhere were designed to prepare certified school teachers. [...]

There have been three significant breakaways from the American Psychological Association (APA) as a result of its emphasis on professional practice as opposed to 'pure' or scientific psychology. In the first, Titchener organized 'the Experimentalists' in 1904 (renamed 'Society of Experimentalists,' 1929) as an alternative to APA. Following that, the Psychonomic Society (1959) and American Psychological Society (1989; renamed Association for Psychological Science, 2006) broke away from APA. Titchener's conflict with Ludwig Geissler might be read as a case study of some of the early issues associated with such breakaways. For better understanding of Titchener and Geissler, biographical sections are included with more about Titchener as he is more prominent in the history of psychology literature. Their primary conflict, a private one, was revealed in 14 extant letters between Titchener and Geissler. Titchener was persistently critical of applied psychology. Geissler, Titchener's student, was the principal founder of the Journal of Applied Psychology. A secondary conflict involved Titchener's persistent effort to convince Geissler to leave his position in Virginia and return 'East, up into the center of things again.' Geissler (1923) eventually responded with a critique of Titchener's structuralism. In spite of several longstanding disagreements, the two maintained a cordial professional relationship, and in the end, Titchener showed increasing respect for applications of psychology. Keywords Applied Psychology * Journal Applied Psychology * Pure Psychology * Theoretical Psychology, Introduction This article emphasizes the conflict between the pioneering American psychologist, Edward B. Titchener, who strongly advocated 'pure' scientific psychology as he perceived it while strongly opposing applications of psychology [...]