Patient effort at a glance

A: Patient with little effort. Top: Volume Controlled Ventilation: airway pressure in cmH2O in yellow, constant flow in L/min in pink. Middle: Pressure controlled ventilation: airway pressure in cmH2O in yellow, decelerating flow in L/min in pink. Bottom: Esophageal pressure in cmH2O. B: Patient with high effort. Top: Volume Controlled Ventilation: airway pressure with convex negative deflection during trigger and first half of inspiration (blue arrow). Middle: Pressure controlled ventilation: airway pressure with negative deflection during the trigger (yellow arrow) and slight convex deflection (green arrow), concave deflection in the flow (orange arrow). Bottom: Convex deflection in esophageal pressure (grey arrow).

Aerodynamic Performance of the Inboard Elevon on a Blendedwing- Body Aircraf

The objectives of this research are to examine the effects of trailing edge modifications of the inboard elevon of a blended-wing-body (BWB) aircraft, the goal being to try and reduce the hinge moment of the inboard elevon through selective aerodynamic design. A computational model was built for 60⁰ and 70⁰ beveled trailing edge modifications, as well as no modification. The inboard elevon was deflected positive 5⁰ and negative 5⁰. The numerical solutions were obtained using an implicit solver and inviscid model. The results of this research showed that, through the use of a beveled trailing edge on the inboard elevon, a maximum of 112% reduction in the hinge moment could be achieved for the negative deflection case and a maximum of 88% reduction in the hinge moment for the positive deflection case. The results showed that there was a significant improvement in the hinge moments, with less that a 2% average change in the overall aerodynamic performance of the BWB for the inviscid models.

Aerodynamic Performance of the Inboard Elevon on a Blendedwing- Body Aircraf

The objectives of this research are to examine the effects of trailing edge modifications of the inboard elevon of a blended-wing-body (BWB) aircraft, the goal being to try and reduce the hinge moment of the inboard elevon through selective aerodynamic design. A computational model was built for 60⁰ and 70⁰ beveled trailing edge modifications, as well as no modification. The inboard elevon was deflected positive 5⁰ and negative 5⁰. The numerical solutions were obtained using an implicit solver and inviscid model. The results of this research showed that, through the use of a beveled trailing edge on the inboard elevon, a maximum of 112% reduction in the hinge moment could be achieved for the negative deflection case and a maximum of 88% reduction in the hinge moment for the positive deflection case. The results showed that there was a significant improvement in the hinge moments, with less that a 2% average change in the overall aerodynamic performance of the BWB for the inviscid models.

COVID-19 Pandemic, Personality and Geriatric Population: Proposed Pragmatism

The elderly population is a sensitive and delicate cohort of society who is being compelled to bear the significant smoulders of disruptive social behavior of humankind amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim for this review was (1) to find out the root of disruption of societal integrity and self-centeredness by analyzing the spokes of HEXACO; (2) to delineate their possible relationships with the formation of Neuroticism and eventually Psychopathy, which have endangered human civilization the most in this pandemic; and (3) to search for the potential ways to get rid of these dark times. The constellation of different negative human behaviors probably originate from the negative deflection of components of the HEXACO model of personality towards the genesis of the dark triad. COVID-19 pandemic and upsurge of the dark triad in the form of Neuroticism, Narcissism and Machiavellianism potentially portend major mental health threats. Cultivation and practice of positive emotions and triumph of honesty, humility and humanity are imperative to save the mankind from the savagery of this pandemic.

Influence of Imperfection on Dynamic Response of Cross-Stiffened Deck Subjected to In-Plane Impact

The motivation of this research is that the ship deck is subjected to uni-axial compression under sagging condition, when in the severe condition, the deck is dynamically loaded in nature, with impact type loads, which is the reason of deck collapse under severe condition. In addition, imperfection probably substantially influences the dynamic response of the impacted deck. Based on nonlinear explicit finite element method, the paper aims at studying the influence of three types of initial geometric imperfection on dynamic response of cross-stiffened deck subjected to in-plane impact. Three types of imperfection are local imperfection on deck plate between stiffeners, imperfection of overall positive deflection of the deck, and imperfection of overall negative deflection of the deck. Impact function is a half sine wave function with two parameters, impact duration and amplitude of the impact load. First order natural vibration period of the deck is selected as impact duration. Amplitude of the impact load is selected according to the value of ultimate strength of the deck, and varied by times of the ultimate strength. Strain rate effect and Strain hardening effect of the material are accounted in the analysis. Axial residual displacement of the end of the deck after impact is selected as dynamic response of the deck. The result shows that dynamic response of deck is sensitive to local imperfection, while not sensitive to overall imperfection under low or moderate level of imperfection magnitude. When imperfection is severe, residual axial displacement of the end of the deck is large, especially amplitude of impact load is somewhat larger than ultimate strength. Among 3 kinds of imperfection, dynamic response of overall negative deflection imperfection is the largest, followed by that of local imperfection, while that of overall positive deflection imperfection is the least.

Perception of long-distance coarticulation: An event-related potential and behavioral study

ABSTRACTIn this study we explore listeners' sensitivity to vowel to vowel (VV) coarticulation, using both event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral methodologies. The stimuli used were vowels “colored” by the coarticulatory influence of other vowels across one, three or five intervening segments. The paradigm used in the ERP portion of the study was intended to elicit the mismatch-negativity (MMN) component, a negative deflection typically seen at central midline scalp sites about 200 ms after the presentation of a “deviant” acoustic stimulus occurring among a train of “standard” acoustic stimuli. VV coarticulation at near and medium distances was associated with significant MMN-like effects, which however were not observed in response to the longest distance coarticulatory contrasts. Subjects' ERP results did not predict their performance on the behavioral task, which found evidence of listener sensitivity to even the furthest distance coarticulatory effects. Although the MMN has previously been shown to be sensitive to phonemic contrasts, this is the first study using ERP methodology to investigate the subphonemic processing associated with the perception of coarticulation.

Understanding irony: an ERP analysis on the elaboration of acoustic ironic statements

Irony is part of our daily experience, that is probably the reason why a lot of studies have been trying to define its nature and the way we are able to understand the pragmatic intentions lying behind ironic communication. This study addresses the issue of pragmatic comprehension of language by analysing the differences or similarities in processing ironical and non-ironical language. The aim of the study is specifically to explore neuropsychological correlates (ERPs) of irony decoding. 10 subjects listened to 240 sentences presenting a counterfactual vs. non-counterfactual content (counterfactual modality) and spoken with ironical vs. neutral prosody (prosody modality). ERPs analysis showed a negative deflection peaking at about 460ms post stimulus onset (N400) for all the conditions. Statistical analyses (repeated measures ANOVA) applied to peak amplitudes showed no statistically significant differences between the conditions as a functions of the type of sentence (ironical vs. non ironical) and the content of ironical sentences (counterfactual vs. non counterfactual). An increase of N400 related to ironical sentences was observed although no statistical significant differences between ironical and non ironical sentences were found. The absence of an N400 effect may indicate that irony is not treated as a semantic anomaly, thus rejecting the standard pragmatic hypothesis. The observed differences in amplitude could be probably attributed to a higher requirement for the cognitive resources in order to integrate contrasting and complex lexical, prosodic and contextual cues.

Effect of Synchronized Intermittent Mandatory Ventilation on Respiratory Workload in Infants after Cardiac Surgery

Background Synchronized intermittent mandatory ventilation (SIMV) is commonly used in infants and adults. However, few investigations have examined how SIMV reduces respiratory workload in infants. The authors evaluated how infants' changing respiratory patterns when reducing SIMV rate increased respiratory load. The authors also investigated whether SIMV reduces infant respiratory workload in proportion to the rate of mandatory breaths and which rate of SIMV provides respiratory workloads similar to those after tracheal extubation. Methods When 11 post-cardiac surgery infants aged 2-11 months were to be weaned with SIMV, the authors randomly applied five levels of mandatory breathing: 0, 5, 10, 15, and 20 breaths/min. All patients underwent ventilation with SIMV mode: pressure control ventilation, 16 cm H2O; inspiratory time, 0.8 s; triggering sensitivity, 0.6 l/min; and positive endexpiratory pressure, 3 cm H2O. After establishing steady-state conditions at each SIMV rate, arterial blood gases were analyzed, and esophageal pressure, airway pressure, and airflow were measured. Inspiratory work of breathing, pressure-time products, and the negative deflection of esophageal pressure were calculated separately for assisted breaths, for spontaneous breaths, and for total breaths per minute. Measurements were repeated after extubation. Results As the SIMV rate decreased, although minute ventilation and arterial carbon dioxide tension were maintained at constant values, spontaneous breathing rate and tidal volume increased. Work of breathing, pressure-time products, and negative deflection of esophageal pressure increased as the SIMV rate decreased. Work of breathing and pressure-time products after extubation were intermediate between those at a SIMV rate of 5 breaths/min and those at 0 breaths/min. Conclusion When the load to breathing was increased progressively by decreasing the SIMV rate in post-cardiac surgery infants, tidal volume and spontaneous respiratory rate both increased. In addition, work of breathing and pressure-time products were increased depending on the SIMV rate.