A Galois connection approach to superposition and inaccessibility

Working in a quantum logic framework and using the idea of Galois connections, we give a natural sufficient condition for superposition and inaccessibility to give the same closure map on sets of states.     

Direct-flow microfiltration of aquasols: II. On the role of colloidal natural organic matter

Natural organic matter (NOM) has been considered a major contributor to the fouling of microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) membranes employed in water treatment. However, the fouling potential of NOM has often been assessed in terms of its size or chemical composition. The colloid’s chemical properties have often been ignored. In this study, a chemical attachment-based (CAB) model established previously was used in conjunction with a variety of analytical techniques to investigate the existence of three major components of an aquatic NOM and their role in the fouling of a polyvinylidene fluoride MF membrane. The results suggest that colloidal NOM relevant to membrane fouling has a broader size distribution and variations in chemical properties than proposed previously. For the model aquatic NOM used in this research, fouling was primarily contributed by both non-humic and humic colloidal fractions. The non-humic colloids were larger in size and probably adhered to the membrane regardless of the solution chemistry, while humic colloids had variable size and stickiness depending on solution chemistry. The fouling caused by organic colloids was mostly hydraulically irreversible, as a consequence of favorable surface interactions. The CAB model provided a useful way to understand the role of organic colloids in membrane fouling.     

A novel application of NMR microscopy: measurement of water diffusion inside bioadhesive bonds.

The self-diffusion coefficient of water (D) inside bioadhesive bonds formed by dry and prehydrated hydrophilic matrices has been spatially resolved using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) microscopy. One-dimensional profiles showing the variation of D inside bioadhesive bonds were calculated from nine diffusion-weighted profiles obtained immediately after bond formation and every 5 min for 30 min. The resulting data indicated that the hydration state of a hydrophilic matrix can significantly and dramatically influence the dynamics of water movement inside a bioadhesive bond.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">W</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">W</Emphasis><Superscript>+</Superscript> plus dijet production in the <Emphasis FontCategory="NonProportional">POWHEG BOX</Emphasis>

We present an implementation of the calculation of the production of W ⁺ W ⁺ plus two jets at hadron colliders, at next-to-leading order (NLO) in QCD, in the POWHEG framework, which is a method that allows the interfacing of NLO calculations to shower Monte Carlo programs. This is the first 2→4 process to be described to NLO accuracy within a shower Monte Carlo framework. The implementation was built within the POWHEG BOX package. We discuss a few technical improvements that were needed in the POWHEG BOX to deal with the computer intensive nature of the NLO calculation, and argue that further improvements are possible, so that the method can match the complexity that is reached today in NLO calculations. We have interfaced our POWHEG implementation with PYTHIA and HERWIG, and present some phenomenological results, discussing similarities and differences between the pure NLO and the POWHEG+PYTHIA calculation both for inclusive and more exclusive distributions. We have made the relevant code available at the POWHEG BOX web site.     

Upright MRI of glenohumeral dysplasia following obstetric brachial plexus injury

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of upright magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) shoulder scanning in the diagnosis of glenohumeral deformity following obstetric brachial plexus injury (OBPI). Eighty-nine children (ages 0.4 to 17.9 years) with OBPI who have medial rotation contracture and reduced passive and active lateral rotation of the shoulder were evaluated via upright MRI of the affected glenohumeral joint. Qualitative impressions of glenoid form were recorded, and quantitative measurements were made of glenoid version and posterior subluxation. Glenoid version of the affected shoulder averaged -16.8 +/- 11.0 degrees (range, -55 degrees to 1 degrees ), and percentage of the humeral head anterior to the glenoid fossa (PHHA) averaged 32.6 +/- 16.5% (range, -17.8% to 52.4%). The glenoid form was normal in 43 children, convex in 19 children and biconcave in 27 children. Standard MRI protocols were used to obtain bilateral images from 14 of these patients. Among the patients with bilateral MR images, glenoid version and PHHA were significantly different between the involved and uninvolved shoulders (P<.000). Glenoid version in the involved shoulder averaged -19.0 +/- 13.1 degrees (range, -52 degrees to -3 degrees ), and PHHA averaged 29.7 +/- 18.4% (range, -16.2% to 48.7%). In the uninvolved shoulder, the average glenoid version and PHHA were -5.2 +/- 3.7 degrees (range, -12 degrees to -1 degrees ) and 47.7 +/- 3.0% (range, 43% to 54%), respectively. The relative beneficial aspects of upright MRI include lack of need for sedation, low claustrophobic potential and, most important, natural, gravity-influenced position, enabling the surgeon to visualize the true preoperative picture of the shoulder. It is an effective tool for demonstrating glenohumeral abnormalities resulting from brachial plexus injury worthy of surgical exploration.     

Cosmological tests with strong gravitational lenses using Gaussian processes

Strong gravitational lenses provide source/lens distance ratios \({\mathcal {D}}_{\mathrm{obs}}\) useful in cosmological tests. Previously, a catalog of 69 such systems was used in a one-on-one comparison between the standard model, \(\varLambda \)CDM, and the \(R_{\mathrm{h}}=ct\) universe, which has thus far been favored by the application of model selection tools to many other kinds of data. But in that work, the use of model parametric fits to the observations could not easily distinguish between these two cosmologies, in part due to the limited measurement precision. Here, we instead use recently developed methods based on Gaussian Processes (GP), in which \({\mathcal {D}}_{\mathrm{obs}}\) may be reconstructed directly from the data without assuming any parametric form. This approach not only smooths out the reconstructed function representing the data, but also reduces the size of the \(1\sigma \) confidence regions, thereby providing greater power to discern between different models. With the current sample size, we show that analyzing strong lenses with a GP approach can definitely improve the model comparisons, producing probability differences in the range \(\sim \) 10–30%. These results are still marginal, however, given the relatively small sample. Nonetheless, we conclude that the probability of \(R_{\mathrm{h}}=ct\) being the correct cosmology is somewhat higher than that of \(\varLambda \)CDM, with a degree of significance that grows with the number of sources in the subsamples we consider. Future surveys will significantly grow the catalog of strong lenses and will therefore benefit considerably from the GP method we describe here. In addition, we point out that if the \(R_{\mathrm{h}}=ct\) universe is eventually shown to be the correct cosmology, the lack of free parameters in the study of strong lenses should provide a remarkably powerful tool for uncovering the mass structure in lensing galaxies.