Alternative project delivery in rural Alaska: experiences, quality and claims

Master's Project (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2015The popularity of alternative project delivery systems has expanded beyond the private sector and into the public sector. Alaska embodies unique challenges that may present obstacles while using alternative project delivery systems. This analysis will provide an understanding of alternative project delivery systems in Alaska and how local experiences, quality and claims are affected. Alaska's unique characteristics present both challenges and opportunities for implementing alternative project delivery systems. This report begins with a discussion of experiences from several rural Alaska projects, and how alternative project delivery systems can be utilized. Some impacts that alternative project delivery systems have on quality are then presented, including a perspective on quality and recommendations for achieving customer satisfaction. A treatment of construction claims is then provided, followed by conclusions and recommendations for stakeholders in selecting an appropriate project delivery system. Alternative project delivery systems were researched by means of scholarly literature reviews, professional interviews and seminars. The report of these findings is intended to provide owners and contractors with a concise presentation of the challenges and advantages for using alternative project delivery systems in Alaska

Measurement of OH reactivity by laser flash photolysis coupled with laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy

OH reactivity (k’OH) is the total pseudo-first-order loss rate coefficient describing the removal of OH radicals to all sinks in the atmosphere, and is the inverse of the chemical lifetime of OH. Measurements of ambient OH reactivity can be used to discover the extent to which measured OH sinks contribute to the total OH loss rate. Thus, OH reactivity measurements enable determination of the comprehensiveness of measurements used in models to predict air quality and ozone production, and, in conjunction with measurements of OH radical concentrations, to assess our understanding of OH production rates. In this work, we describe the design and characterisation of an instrument to measure OH reactivity using laser flash photolysis coupled to laser-induced fluorescence (LFP-LIF) spectroscopy. The LFP-LIF technique produces OH radicals in isolation, and thus minimises potential interferences in OH reactivity measurements owing to the reaction of HO2 with NO which can occur if HO2 is co-produced with OH in the instrument. Capabilities of the instrument for ambient OH reactivity measurements are illustrated by data collected during field campaigns in London, UK, and York, UK. The instrumental limit of detection for k’OH was determined to be 1.0 s-1 for the campaign in London and 0.4 s-1 for the campaign in York. The precision, determined by laboratory experiment, is typically < 1 s-1 for most ambient measurements of OH reactivity. Total uncertainty in ambient measurements of OH reactivity is ~6 %. We also present the coupling and characterisation of the LFP-LIF instrument to an atmospheric chamber for measurements of OH reactivity during simulated experiments, and provide suggestions for future improvements to OH reactivity LFP-LIF instruments

Hypoglycemia and Diabetes: A Report of a Workgroup of the American Diabetes Association and The Endocrine Society

OBJECTIVE To review the evidence about the impact of hypoglycemia on patients with diabetes that has become available since the past reviews of this subject by the American Diabetes Association and The Endocrine Society and to provide guidance about how this new information should be incorporated into clinical practice. PARTICIPANTS Five members of the American Diabetes Association and five members of The Endocrine Society with expertise in different aspects of hypoglycemia were invited by the Chair, who is a member of both, to participate in a planning conference call and a 2-day meeting that was also attended by staff from both organizations. Subsequent communications took place via e-mail and phone calls. The writing group consisted of those invitees who participated in the writing of the manuscript. The workgroup meeting was supported by educational grants to the American Diabetes Association from Lilly USA, LLC and Novo Nordisk and sponsorship to the American Diabetes Association from Sanofi. The sponsors had no input into the development of or content of the report. EVIDENCE The writing group considered data from recent clinical trials and other studies to update the prior workgroup report. Unpublished data were not used. Expert opinion was used to develop some conclusions. CONSENSUS PROCESS Consensus was achieved by group discussion during conference calls and face-to-face meetings, as well as by iterative revisions of the written document. The document was reviewed and approved by the American Diabetes Association’s Professional Practice Committee in October 2012 and approved by the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors in November 2012 and was reviewed and approved by The Endocrine Society’s Clinical Affairs Core Committee in October 2012 and by Council in November 2012. CONCLUSIONS The workgroup reconfirmed the previous definitions of hypoglycemia in diabetes, reviewed the implications of hypoglycemia on both short- and long-term outcomes, considered the implications of hypoglycemia on treatment outcomes, presented strategies to prevent hypoglycemia, and identified knowledge gaps that should be addressed by future research. In addition, tools for patients to report hypoglycemia at each visit and for clinicians to document counseling are provided

Military objectives in cyber warfare

This Chapter discusses the possible problems arising from the application of the principle of distinction under the law of armed conflict to cyber attacks. It first identifies when cyber attacks qualify as ‘attacks’ under the law of armed conflict and then examines the two elements of the definition of ‘military objective’ contained in Article 52(2) of the 1977 Protocol I additional to the 1949 Geneva Conventions on the Protection of Victims of War. The Chapter concludes that this definition is flexible enough to apply in the cyber context without significant problems and that none of the challenges that characterize cyber attacks hinders the application of the principle of distinction

A self-consistent, multivariate method for the determination of gas-phase rate coefficients, applied to reactions of atmospheric VOCs and the hydroxyl radical

Gas-phase rate coefficients are fundamental to understanding atmospheric chemistry, yet experimental data are not available for the oxidation reactions of many of the thousands of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) observed in the troposphere. Here, a new experimental method is reported for the simultaneous study of reactions between multiple different VOCs and OH, the most important daytime atmospheric radical oxidant. This technique is based upon established relative rate concepts but has the advantage of a much higher throughput of target VOCs. By evaluating multiple VOCs in each experiment, and through measurement of the depletion in each VOC after reaction with OH, the OH + VOC reaction rate coefficients can be derived. Results from experiments conducted under controlled laboratory conditions were in good agreement with the available literature for the reaction of 19 VOCs, prepared in synthetic gas mixtures, with OH. This approach was used to determine a rate coefficient for the reaction of OH with 2,3-dimethylpent-1-ene for the first time; k =  5.7 (±0.3)  ×  10⁻¹¹ cm³ molecule⁻¹ s⁻¹. In addition, a further seven VOCs had only two, or fewer, individual OH rate coefficient measurements available in the literature. The results from this work were in good agreement with those measurements. A similar dataset, at an elevated temperature of 323 (±10) K, was used to determine new OH rate coefficients for 12 aromatic, 5 alkane, 5 alkene and 3 monoterpene VOC + OH reactions. In OH relative reactivity experiments that used ambient air at the University of York, a large number of different VOCs were observed, of which 23 were positively identified. Due to difficulties with detection limits and fully resolving peaks, only 19 OH rate coefficients were derived from these ambient air samples, including 10 reactions for which data were previously unavailable at the elevated reaction temperature of T =  323 (±10) K

Optical techniques for 3D surface reconstruction in computer-assisted laparoscopic surgery

One of the main challenges for computer-assisted surgery (CAS) is to determine the intra-opera- tive morphology and motion of soft-tissues. This information is prerequisite to the registration of multi-modal patient-specific data for enhancing the surgeon’s navigation capabilites by observ- ing beyond exposed tissue surfaces and for providing intelligent control of robotic-assisted in- struments. In minimally invasive surgery (MIS), optical techniques are an increasingly attractive approach for in vivo 3D reconstruction of the soft-tissue surface geometry. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art methods for optical intra-operative 3D reconstruction in laparoscopic surgery and discusses the technical challenges and future perspectives towards clinical translation. With the recent paradigm shift of surgical practice towards MIS and new developments in 3D opti- cal imaging, this is a timely discussion about technologies that could facilitate complex CAS procedures in dynamic and deformable anatomical regions

Comparison of OH reactivity measurements in the atmospheric simulation chamber SAPHIR

Hydroxyl (OH) radical reactivity (kOH) has been measured for 18 years with different measurement techniques. In order to compare the performances of instruments deployed in the field, two campaigns were conducted performing experiments in the atmospheric simulation chamber SAPHIR at Forschungszentrum Jülich in October 2015 and April 2016. Chemical conditions were chosen either to be representative of the atmosphere or to test potential limitations of instruments. All types of instruments that are currently used for atmospheric measurements were used in one of the two campaigns. The results of these campaigns demonstrate that OH reactivity can be accurately measured for a wide range of atmospherically relevant chemical conditions (e.g. water vapour, nitrogen oxides, various organic compounds) by all instruments. The precision of the measurements (limit of detection  < 1 s−1 at a time resolution of 30 s to a few minutes) is higher for instruments directly detecting hydroxyl radicals, whereas the indirect comparative reactivity method (CRM) has a higher limit of detection of 2 s−1 at a time resolution of 10 to 15 min. The performances of the instruments were systematically tested by stepwise increasing, for example, the concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO), water vapour or nitric oxide (NO). In further experiments, mixtures of organic reactants were injected into the chamber to simulate urban and forested environments. Overall, the results show that the instruments are capable of measuring OH reactivity in the presence of CO, alkanes, alkenes and aromatic compounds. The transmission efficiency in Teflon inlet lines could have introduced systematic errors in measurements for low-volatile organic compounds in some instruments. CRM instruments exhibited a larger scatter in the data compared to the other instruments. The largest differences to reference measurements or to calculated reactivity were observed by CRM instruments in the presence of terpenes and oxygenated organic compounds (mixing ratio of OH reactants were up to 10 ppbv). In some of these experiments, only a small fraction of the reactivity is detected. The accuracy of CRM measurements is most likely limited by the corrections that need to be applied to account for known effects of, for example, deviations from pseudo first-order conditions, nitrogen oxides or water vapour on the measurement. Methods used to derive these corrections vary among the different CRM instruments. Measurements taken with a flow-tube instrument combined with the direct detection of OH by chemical ionisation mass spectrometry (CIMS) show limitations in cases of high reactivity and high NO concentrations but were accurate for low reactivity (< 15 s−1) and low NO (< 5 ppbv) conditions

Fenamate NSAIDs inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome and protect against Alzheimer's disease in rodent models.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) inhibit cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) and COX-2 enzymes. The NLRP3 inflammasome is a multi-protein complex responsible for the processing of the proinflammatory cytokine interleukin-1β and is implicated in many inflammatory diseases. Here we show that several clinically approved and widely used NSAIDs of the fenamate class are effective and selective inhibitors of the NLRP3 inflammasome via inhibition of the volume-regulated anion channel in macrophages, independently of COX enzymes. Flufenamic acid and mefenamic acid are efficacious in NLRP3-dependent rodent models of inflammation in air pouch and peritoneum. We also show therapeutic effects of fenamates using a model of amyloid beta induced memory loss and a transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease. These data suggest that fenamate NSAIDs could be repurposed as NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitors and Alzheimer's disease therapeutics