Cerebral microbleeds and cognitive decline in a hemodialysis patient: Case report and review of literature

Cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) are small hemosiderin deposits indicative of prior cerebral microscopic hemorrhage and previously thought to be clinically silent. Recent population‐based cross‐sectional studies and prospective longitudinal cohort studies have revealed association between CMB and cognitive dysfunction. In the general population, CMBs are associated with age, hypertension, and cerebral amyloid angiopathy. In the chronic kidney disease (CKD) population, diminished estimated glomerular filtration rate has been found to be an independent risk factor for CMB, raising the possibility that a uremic milieu may predispose to microbleeds. In the end‐stage renal disease (ESRD) population on hemodialysis, the incidence of microbleeds is significantly higher compared with a control group without history of CKD or stroke. We present an ESRD patient on chronic hemodialysis with a history of gradual cognitive decline and progressive CMBs. Through this case and literature review, we illustrate the need to develop detection and prediction models to treat this frequent development in ESRD patients.     

Developing social impact assessment guidelines in a pre-existing policy context

Few jurisdictions have translated internationally agreed social impact assessment (SIA) principles into statutory provisions. Governments and regulatory bodies tend to provide developers with high-level frameworks, or require that social impacts be ‘considered’, without specifying how this is to be done. In Australia, this lack of clarity leaves all parties uncertain about requirements for SIA. The New South Wales (NSW) Government’s 2017 release of the SIA guideline for State-significant mining, petroleum and extractive industry development represents an attempt to clarify requirements and provide guidance. In this paper, we describe the process of bringing this guideline to fruition from the perspective of being directly involved in its development, and highlight the challenges involved in integrating leading-practice principles into the state’s pre-existing policy framework. While the guideline represents a significant advance in policy-based SIA guidance, some aspects leave room for improvement. The real test of the guideline’s impact will lie in its influence on SIA practice in NSW, and ultimately in social outcomes for communities affected by resources projects.     

Word length and lexical activation: Longer is better.

Many models of spoken word recognition posit the existence of lexical and sublexical representations, with excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms used to affect the activation levels of such representations. Bottom-up evidence provides excitatory input, and inhibition from phonetically similar representations leads to lexical competition. In such a system, long words should produce stronger lexical activation than short words, for 2 reasons: Long words provide more bottom-up evidence than short words, and short words are subject to greater inhibition due to the existence of more similar words. Four experiments provide evidence for this view. In addition, reaction-time-based partitioning of the data shows that long words generate greater activation that is available both earlier and for a longer time than is the case for short words. As a result, lexical influences on phoneme identification are extremely robust for long words but are quite fragile and condition-dependent for short words. Models of word recognition must consider words of all lengths to capture the true dynamics of lexical activation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Simulated recruitment of riparian trees and shrubs under natural and regulated flow regimes on the Wisconsin River,USA

Models that link ecological responses to hydrologic changes are important for assessing the effects of flow regulation on aquatic and riparian ecosystems. Based on the Recruitment Box Model, a graphical model used to prescribe environmental flows for cottonwood (Populus spp.) recruitment, we designed a simulation model to represent the influence of river flow dynamics on seedling recruitment of riparian pioneer woody plants. The model simulates the influence of temporal patterns of river stage on dispersal, germination, initial recruitment and over‐winter survival of first‐year seedlings of riparian pioneer shrubs and trees. We used the model to simulate seedling recruitment patterns for five species (Acer saccharinum, Betula nigra, Populus deltoides, Salix nigra and Salix exigua) on the Wisconsin River (Wisconsin, USA) under three flow scenarios: historic (1935–2002), simulated natural (1915–1975) and simulated regulated flows (1915–1975). Simulation results agreed well with field‐observed relative differences among years (1997–2000) in seedling densities for the five focal species. Simulated successful recruitment years were highly synchronous among species, but species differed in their sensitivity to flows at different times during the growing season, consistent with among‐species differences in seed dispersal timing. Comparison of simulated natural and regulated flows for 1915–1975 showed that flow regulation decreased monthly flow variability, increased late summer to winter baseflow and reduced the magnitude of spring peaks. Simulated recruitment and over‐winter survival of tree seedlings of all species was enhanced under the regulated flow scenario, likely due to increased summer baseflow and reductions in peak flood magnitude. Our analyses show the utility of extending the Recruitment Box Model to include multiple species of riparian shrubs and trees, and the effects of post‐colonization flows on their recruitment success. However, some key functional relationships between flow patterns and woody seedling demography (e.g. shear stress thresholds for seedling mortality) have not been adequately quantified and merit further study. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Techniques for microstructural characterization of powder-processed nickel-based superalloys

Methods are described for sample preparation of polycrystalline Ni-based superalloys in order to perform a detailed microstructural characterization. Specific techniques for the precise definition of the various phases present are outlined and these are shown to be useful for the measurement of size, volume fractions and distribution. A number of optical, scanning and transmission microscopy techniques are used to provide the necessary information.     

如何用硅振荡器替代晶体和陶瓷谐振器

对于绝大多数微控制器时钟电路而言，硅振荡器是一种简单且有效的解决方案。与晶体和陶瓷谐振器不同，基于硅材料的定时器具有抗振动、抗撞击和抗电磁干扰的优点。同时，硅振荡器不需要严格匹配的定时元件和线路板走线。     

Robust crossfeed design for hovering rotorcraft

Control law design for rotorcraft fly-by-wire systems normally attempts to decouple the angular responses using fixed-gain crossfeeds. This approach can lead to poor decoupling over the frequency range of pilot inputs and increase the load on the feedback loops. In order to improve the decoupling performance, dynamic crossfeeds should be adopted. Moreover, because of the large changes that occur in the aircraft dynamics due to small changes about the nominal design condition, especially for near-hovering flight, the crossfeed design must be ‘robust’. A new low-order matching method is presented here to design robust crossfeed compensators for multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) systems. The technique minimizes cross-coupling given an anticipated set of parameter variations for the range of flight conditions of concern. Results are presented in this paper of an analysis of the pitch/roll coupling of the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter in near-hovering flight. A robust crossfeed is designed that shows significant improvement in decoupling perfomance and robustness over the fixed-gain or single point dynamic compensators. The design method and results are presented in an easily used graphical format that lends significant physical insight to the design procedure. This plant precompensation technique is an appropriate preliminary step to the design of robust feedback control laws for rotorcraft.