Is osteoporosis screening in postmenopausal women effective?

No single study evaluates the effectiveness of osteoporosis screening. However, screening women over the age of 65 years -- or those between 60-64 years with certain risk factors -- is recommended based on available evidence. First, osteoporosis is common, and its prevalence increases with age (strength of recommendation [SOR]: A - prospective cohort studies). Second, low bone mineral density predicts fracture risk (SOR: A - prospective cohort studies). Finally, the likelihood of osteoporotic fracture is reduced with therapy, such as alendronate 10 mg/day or risedronate 5 mg/day plus adequate daily calcium and vitamin D (SOR: A - meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials). Women under 60 years should not be screened (SOR: B--clinical decision rule). There is no evidence to guide decisions about screening interval or at what age to stop screening. The long-term risks of newer medications used for osteoporosis are unknown

The Thermal Properties of Solar Flares Over Three Solar Cycles Using GOES X-ray Observations

Solar flare X-ray emission results from rapidly increasing temperatures and emission measures in flaring active region loops. To date, observations from the X-Ray Sensor (XRS) onboard the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) have been used to derive these properties, but have been limited by a number of factors, including the lack of a consistent background subtraction method capable of being automatically applied to large numbers of flares. In this paper, we describe an automated temperature and emission measure-based background subtraction method (TEBBS), which builds on the methods of Bornmann (1990). Our algorithm ensures that the derived temperature is always greater than the instrumental limit and the pre-flare background temperature, and that the temperature and emission measure are increasing during the flare rise phase. Additionally, TEBBS utilizes the improved estimates of GOES temperatures and emission measures from White et al. (2005). TEBBS was successfully applied to over 50,000 solar flares occurring over nearly three solar cycles (1980-2007), and used to create an extensive catalog of the solar flare thermal properties. We confirm that the peak emission measure and total radiative losses scale with background subtracted GOES X-ray flux as power-laws, while the peak temperature scales logarithmically. As expected, the peak emission measure shows an increasing trend with peak temperature, although the total radiative losses do not. While these results are comparable to previous studies, we find that flares of a given GOES class have lower peak temperatures and higher peak emission measures than previously reported. The resulting TEBBS database of thermal flare plasma properties is publicly available on Solar Monitor (www.solarmonitor.org/TEBBS/) and will be available on Heliophysics Integrated Observatory (www.helio-vo.eu)

Impact of hull propeller rudder interaction on ship powering assessment

It is the complex flow at the stern of a ship that controls the overall propulsive efficiency of the hull-propeller-rudder system. This work investigates the different analysis methodologies that can be applied for computing hull-propeller-rudder interaction. The sensitivity into which the interaction between the propeller and rudder downstream of a skeg is resolved as well as varying the length of the upstream skeg are also discussed including techniques to consider in such computations. Throughout the work, the importance of hull-propeller-rudder interaction for propulsive power enhancement is demonstrated. A final case study examines the performance of a twin skeg, twin screw arrangement

On the K-theory of twisted higher-rank-graph C*-algebras

We investigate the K-theory of twisted higher-rank-graph algebras by adapting parts of Elliott's computation of the K-theory of the rotation algebras. We show that each 2-cocycle on a higher-rank graph taking values in an abelian group determines a continuous bundle of twisted higher-rank graph algebras over the dual group. We use this to show that for a circle-valued 2-cocycle on a higher-rank graph obtained by exponentiating a real-valued cocycle, the K-theory of the twisted higher-rank graph algebra coincides with that of the untwisted one.Comment: 15 pages; four diagrams prepared in Tik

Evaluation of terrain collision risks for flight style autonomous underwater vehicles

Photographic surveys of the seafloor with flight style autonomous underwater vehicles are a very effective tool for discovery and exploration. Due to the high terrain collision risk for the survey vehicle, they are employed with caution. The extent of this risk remains unquantified. For mission planning, researchers and vehicle operators have to rely on their experience.This paper introduces measures for vehicle risk and success and analyses how previously mapped terrains and artificially generated terrain maps can be used to categorize terrains. The developed measures are applied to a simulation of the Autosub6000 flight style AUV terrain following system. Based on quantitative parameters, changes to the obstacle avoidance system and survey mission plans can be better informed

A Crop Yield Change Emulator for Use in GCAM and Similar Models: Persephone v1.0

Future changes in Earth system state will impact agricultural yields and, through these changed yields, can have profound impacts on the global economy. Global gridded crop models estimate the influence of these Earth system changes on future crop yields but are often too computationally intensive to dynamically couple into global multisector economic models, such as the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) and other similar-in-scale models. Yet, generalizing a faster site-specific crop models results to be used globally will introduce inaccuracies, and the question of which model to use is unclear given the wide variation in yield response across crop models. To examine the feedback loop among socioeconomics, Earth system changes, and crop yield changes, rapidly generated yield responses with some quantification of crop response uncertainty are desirable. The Persephone v1.0 response functions presented in this work are based on the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP) Coordinated Climate-Crop Modeling Project (C3MP) sensitivity test data set and are focused on providing GCAM and similar models with a tractable number of rapid to evaluate dynamic yield response functions corresponding to a range of the yield response sensitivities seen in the C3MP data set. With the Persephone response functions, a new variety of agricultural impact experiments will be open to GCAM and other economic models: for example, examining the economic impacts of a multi-year drought in a key agricultural region and how economic changes in response to the drought can, in turn, impact the drought