Foundation Project Research Articles

Improving Manganese Removal Across Surface Water Biofilters

Key TakeawaysSince late 2012, Alameda County Water District (ACWD) has observed manganese breakthrough across its anthracite biofilters following winter shutdowns.Decreased manganese removal was observed across ACWD's biofilters when water temperatures dropped below 15 °C, even for biofilters that remained online.Source water quality, shutdown protocols, and empty bed contact time appeared to affect manganese removal across biofiltration at these lower temperatures.Utilities with measurable biofilter influent manganese should consider more frequent monitoring (e.g., at least weekly) and consult The Water Research Foundation Project 4749.

The Duncan-Chang statistical damage correction model of unsaturated soil considering matric suction

In order to reflect the whole deformation process of unsaturated foundation soil, the consolidated drained triaxial compression test is carried out on the unsaturated soil of a foundation project. It is found that the partial stress-strain curve of unsaturated soil is similar to hyperbola, and the matrix suction has an obvious influence on the mechanical behavior of soil. The greater the matrix suction, the higher the partial stress of soil. According to the deformation characteristics and engineering characteristics of unsaturated soil, the Duncan-Chang hyperbolic model is selected as the basic model, and the statistical damage theory is introduced. Assuming that the micro element strength of unsaturated soil obeys the Weibull probability density distribution, the Duncan-Chang statistical damage model is established. By establishing the relationship between the initial tangent modulus and matrix suction, a new Duncan-Chang statistical damage model of the unsaturated soil considering matrix suction is established. The parameter analysis method is given, and the empirical expression of the Weibull distribution parameters is obtained, which is used to modify the model. The damage accumulation law of unsaturated soil under different matrix suction conditions is analyzed, and the partial stress-strain test curve of unsaturated soil is compared with the traditional Duncan-Chang model, which proves the feasibility and rationality of the model. The research results provide a certain reference for the study of mechanical properties and identification simulation of unsaturated soil.

The role of epicardial adipose tissue and autonomic nervous system in pathophysiology of cardiac arrhythmias

The role of epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) in the pathogenesis and prognosis of cardiovascular diseases has been actively discussed. This review provides information regarding the main mechanisms by which EAT influences the pathophysiology of rhythm disturbances, such as atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmias, as well as their relationship with chronic heart failure. The pathogenesis of cardiac arrhythmias is exceedingly complex. As such, the mechanism by which EAT influences arrhythmias and heart failure can vary according to the anatomy and type of arrhythmia, one of which involves the autonomic nervous system (ANS). Some studies have shown a good treatment effects by targeting EAT in atrial fibrillation, whereas others have found that EAT volume can be used to predict the efficacy of radiofrequency ablation, a method for treating atrial fibrillation and ventricular arrhythmias. However, no standards have yet been established for the use of EAT visualisation. Fundamental, translational and clinical research are needed to study the role of EAT and ANS in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases.Received 15 March 2021. Revised 25 April 2021. Accepted 26 April 2021.Funding: The work is supported by a grant of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 17-75-20118).Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interests.Contribution of the authorsConception and study design: D.V. Losik, N.A. Nikitin, S.M. Minin, A.B. Romanov, A.M. ChernyavskiyDrafting the article: D.V. Losik, I.L. Mikheenko, E.V. Fisher, N.A. NikitinCritical revision of the article: D.V. Losik, I.L. Mikheenko, E.V. Fisher, N.A. NikitinFinal approval of the version to be published: D.V. Losik, N.A. Nikitin, S.M. Minin, E.V. Fisher, I.L. Mikheenko, A.M. Chernyavskiy, A.B. Romanov

Siglec-15 promotes progression of clear renal cell carcinoma.

Siglec-15 promotes progression of clear renal cell carcinoma.

Analogues of the Laplace Transform and Z-Transform with Piecewise Linear Kernels

Two new transforms with piecewise linear kernels are introduced. These transforms are analogues of the classical Laplace transform and Z-transform. Properties of these transforms are investigated and applications to ordinary differential equations and integral equations are provided. This article is ideal for study as a foundational project in an undergraduate course in differential and/or integral equations.

Stay Home or Not? Modeling Individuals’ Decisions During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, staying home proved to be an effective way to mitigate the spread of the virus. Stay-at-home orders and guidelines were issued by governments across the globe and were followed by a large portion of the population in the early stages of the outbreak when there was a lack of COVID-specific medical knowledge. The decision of whether to stay home came with many trade-offs, such as risking personal exposure to the virus when leaving home or facing financial and mental health burdens when remaining home. In this research, we study how individuals make strategic decisions to balance these conflicting outcomes. We present a model to study individuals’ decision making based on decision and prospect theory, and we conduct sensitivity analysis to study the fluctuations in optimal strategies when there are changes made to the model’s parameters. A Monte Carlo simulation is implemented to further study the performance of our model, and we compare our simulation results with real data that captures individuals’ stay-at-home decisions. Overall, this research models and analyzes the behaviors of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic and can help support decision making regarding control measures and policy development when public health emergencies appear in the future. History: This article was accepted for the Decision Analysis Special Issue on Emerging Topics in Health. Funding: The first two authors’ efforts were supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 71971217 and 71671189], the Key Project of Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 71790615 and 91846301], and the Independent Exploration of Innovation Project for Postgraduate of Central South University [Grant 2019zzts843]. The third author’s effort was partially supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program [Grant 2043091].

On The Application of Cultivating Students' Creativity in Classroom Teaching

In the 21st century, with the rapid development of science and technology in the world, education has become an important foundation project. For education, it is very important to grasp the teaching methods in classroom teaching. One of the important links is to pay attention to the cultivation of students' creativity. Creativity is the premise of the development of all things and the key to improve students' hands-on and brain skills. This paper focuses on the application of creativity in classroom teaching and how to effectively cultivate students' creativity in classroom teaching, and discusses how to cultivate students' creativity from four aspects: creating a good teaching environment, establishing the idea of believing in students, promoting students' divergent thinking and cultivating students' imagination.

Unraveling the concepts of distress, burnout, and depression in type 1 diabetes: A scoping review.

BackgroundPsychological complications are frequent in type 1 diabetes (T1D) but they might be difficult to distinguish one from the other in clinical practice. Our objective was to study the distinguishing characteristics, overlaps and their use in the literature between three concepts of T1D: depression, diabetes distress (DD) and diabetes burnout (DB).MethodsA scoping review (PRISMA guidelines) performed in three databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, PsycInfo, Web of Science) with the keywords: T1D, depression, diabetes and burnout, from January 1990 to June 2021. We selected original studies with participants with T1D, which reported depression, DD, or DB. We extracted information about the concepts, their sub-concepts and screening tools.FindingsOf the 4763 studies identified, 201 studies were included in the study. Seventy-three percent, 57% and 45% of sub-concepts do not overlap in depression, DD, and DB, respectively. We observed overlap between depression (27%)/DD (27%) and between DD (20%)/DB (50%).InterpretationA number of sub-concepts distinguish depression and DD. Overlaps between concepts suggest that a more precise definition is still lacking. DB is still a relatively new concept and more research is needed to better understand how it can present itself differently, in order to personalize care in comparison to those having DD.FundingThis project was supported by the MSDAvenir Foundation (Project World Diabetes Distress Study).

Development and Evaluation of the Ancestry Informative Marker Panel of the VISAGE Basic Tool.

We detail the development of the ancestry informative single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) panel forming part of the VISAGE Basic Tool (BT), which combines 41 appearance predictive SNPs and 112 ancestry predictive SNPs (three SNPs shared between sets) in one massively parallel sequencing (MPS) multiplex, whereas blood-based age analysis using methylation markers is run in a parallel MPS analysis pipeline. The selection of SNPs for the BT ancestry panel focused on established forensic markers that already have a proven track record of good sequencing performance in MPS, and the overall SNP multiplex scale closely matched that of existing forensic MPS assays. SNPs were chosen to differentiate individuals from the five main continental population groups of Africa, Europe, East Asia, America, and Oceania, extended to include differentiation of individuals from South Asia. From analysis of 1000 Genomes and HGDP-CEPH samples from these six population groups, the BT ancestry panel was shown to have no classification error using the Bayes likelihood calculators of the Snipper online analysis portal. The differentiation power of the component ancestry SNPs of BT was balanced as far as possible to avoid bias in the estimation of co-ancestry proportions in individuals with admixed backgrounds. The balancing process led to very similar cumulative population-specific divergence values for Africa, Europe, America, and Oceania, with East Asia being slightly below average, and South Asia an outlier from the other groups. Comparisons were made of the African, European, and Native American estimated co-ancestry proportions in the six admixed 1000 Genomes populations, using the BT ancestry panel SNPs and 572,000 Affymetrix Human Origins array SNPs. Very similar co-ancestry proportions were observed down to a minimum value of 10%, below which, low-level co-ancestry was not always reliably detected by BT SNPs. The Snipper analysis portal provides a comprehensive population dataset for the BT ancestry panel SNPs, comprising a 520-sample standardised reference dataset; 3445 additional samples from 1000 Genomes, HGDP-CEPH, Simons Foundation and Estonian Biocentre genome diversity projects; and 167 samples of six populations from in-house genotyping of individuals from Middle East, North and East African regions complementing those of the sampling regimes of the other diversity projects.

Sound Archives and Musical Representations of Modern India: The Case of the Felix van Lamsweerde Collection (1963-2005)

This essay presents a critical social history of the context in which the Felix van Lamsweerde Collection came together. Felix van Lamsweerde (b. 1934), a Dutch collector, cultural anthropologist and impresario, extensively recorded Indian expressive cultures in the Netherlands and India between 1963 and 2005. This collection was digitised and catalogued between 2017 and 2020 at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv in Germany as part of a German Research Foundation (DFG) project. It includes a wide range of first-hand and commercial audio/video recordings of music, dance and theatre genres from across India along with accompanying notes, photographs, and a vast collection of books, magazines and journals. Van Lamsweerde’s journey into studying musics of India and the collection itself points to how India’s cultural politics evolved in the immediate decades following its independence from the British in 1947. Whilst historicising the colonial, oriental and nationalist legacies of music collection in India, this essay examines the Van Lamsweerde Collection and archival projects at large through a source critical approach. It attempts to demonstrate the ways in which caste, class, gender and racialisation processes and the sound archive shaped one another in the formation of transnational cultural representations of India. Drawing on discussions in ethnomusicology, social theory and archival studies, this essay offers an interpretation of how musical knowledge and a homogenous construct of Indian culture has taken shape in Western European and American academe.

Effect of organic matter content on Atterberg limits and undrained shear strength of river sediment

The Atterberg limits and the undrained shear strength are crucial soil properties in the preloading design of reclamation foundation projects using dredged river sediment. These properties can be significantly affected by the presence of organic matter in the sediment. This study investigates the physical properties and undrained shear strength of river sediment, based on data from a series of fall cone tests performed on river sediment with different organic matter contents, and undrained shear strength data for reconstituted clay collected from the literature. It was found that the liquid limit, plastic limit, and plasticity index increase with an increase in organic matter content. The effect of organic matter on the undrained shear strength of remolded soil at a given water content can be attributed to the effect of organic matter on the liquid and plastic limits. The undrained shear strength is a function of the liquid and plastic limits; it can be normalized by the liquidity index, irrespective of the organic matter content. Highlights Investigating role of organic matter in the Atterberg limits Investigating role of organic matter in shear strength Understanding key factors of controlling shear strength Establishing organic matter–liquidity index–shear strength interrelations

Assessment Principles for the Mechanical Behavior of Clay Soils

The factors that determine the geotechnical behavior of soils are mainly their composition, the size of their grains and their moisture content. The design of a soil structure or foundation project must ensure the shear adequacy of the soil in all phases of construction and throughout the life of the project. However, the shear strength, in general, of the soil is not "constant" but depends on key external factors such as the prehistory of loads, the time and succession of load states, the overpressure of the pore water as well as other factors such as relative density, or any preload, the pressure field, the rate of change of the intensive state, etc. The influence of the deformations as well as the change of the intensive state during the sampling should not be ignored. Unlike other materials, in clay materials the determination of shear strength and its interpretation is a very complex problem. The aim of this article is to search for the mechanical behavior of clay soils (lignite, kaolinite, marl) as shown by the laboratory illustration related with the problems on shear strength of materials, based on the results of experimental research

Improving Compliance with a Rounding Checklist through Low- and High-technology Interventions: A Quality Improvement Initiative.

Introduction:Checklists aid in ensuring consistency and completeness in medical care delivery. However, using an improvement and safety checklist during rounds was variable in our neonatology intensive care unit (NICU), and completion was not tracked sustainably. This quality improvement (QI) initiative’s primary aim was to increase compliance with checklist completion from 31% to >75% within 1 year.Methods:A multidisciplinary QI team identified barriers to checklist completion and implemented a human factors-focused low-technology intervention (redesign of a hard-copy checklist) and later a high-technology clinical decision support tool within the electronic health record. The primary outcome measure was percent compliance with the use of the checklist. Process metrics included the duration of checklist completion. Balancing measures included staff perceptions of work burden and question relevance.Results:Major barriers to checklist utilization were inability to remember, rounding interruptions, and perceived lack of question relevance to patients. Average biweekly checklist compliance improved from 31% before interventions to 80% after interventions. Average checklist completion time decreased from 46 to 11 seconds. Follow-up surveys demonstrated more respondents found questions “completely relevant” (34% pre versus 43% post) but perceived increased work burden (26% pre versus 31% post).Conclusions:Using QI methodology, human factors-based interventions, and a novel clinical decision support tool, we significantly improved efficiency and checklist compliance and created an automated, sustainable method for monitoring completion and responses. This foundational project provides an infrastructure broadly applicable to QI work in other healthcare settings.

Polarity Reversal of Terahertz Electric Field from Heavily p-Doped Silicon SurfacesSupported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFA0307704), the NSAF Joint Fund (Grant No. U1830206), the Major Research Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 91850201), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11974426, 11974425, 11874425, 11774428, and

Above-band-gap optical excitation of electron-hole pairs screens the doping-induced surface electric field and generates terahertz (THz) pulses via free-carrier transport. THz emission from a heavily doped silicon surface is much weaker than that of lightly doped samples. A polarity reversal of the THz electric field is observed in heavily doped p-type silicon, indicating that the doping related and carrier induced surface electric fields oppose each other. By comparing the penetration depth of the excitation laser with the thickness of the depletion layer for the doped silicon, it is shown that competition between diffusion and drift current causes the polarity reversal.

Urban Conservation in International Charters: From the Athens Charter to the Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation

The Interreg CE project “RUINS. Sustainable re-use, preservation and modern management of historical ruins in Central Europe - elaboration of integrated model and guidelines based on the synthesis of the best European experiences” has implemented cultural development strategies through knowledges exchange developed within a local and regional context and suitable to be applied at a wider European level.
 The project has applied an empowering bottom-up approach, in which local and regional stakeholders have been actively engaged throughout the project’s running time.
 Cooperation of 6 countries with various traditions and experiences resulted in the development of universal models that could be applied for management, use and protection of medieval ruins all over Europe, providing European added value. The comprehensive management plans elaborated, help owners and managers of historical ruins to exploit economic potential of this heritage in economic development of regions, and to preserve value of medieval ruins as cultural heritage.
 Due to the transnational character, the project has contributed to create a common European identity, strengthen cooperation between international, national and local stakeholders both vertically and horizontally, and promote exchanges between boundaries.
 The paper aims to present the results and the experience gained during RUINS project implementation by LINKS Foundation (project partner), focusing on the inclusive and shared approaches carried out. A summary of goals and recommendations achieved within the discussion panels/seminars arranged by LINKS Foundation as well as objectives and structure of the Output O.T2.1 “BEST PRACTICES HANDBOOK - Transnational model form of socially useful use of medieval ruins" will be provide.

Improvement of the fine coking coal flotation technolgy

The paper presents data on the development of a reagent regime for the flotation of fine coal fractions of –0.5+0 mm. The study focuses on coking coal from the Butovskaya mine (Kemerovo coal deposit, Russia). The ash content in the rock mass mined ranges from 23 to 30 %. Using the methods of optical microscopy, the presence of rock-forming minerals in the flotation feed, mainly represented by silicates (quartz), was established, which supports the addition of liquid glass to the process as a depressant for silicates. The study of the flotation kinetics allowed establishing the coal flotation time for a more complete recovery of the combustible matter. The paper compares the basic and alternative reagent regimes. The basic regime is represented by an apolar collector in the form of a mixture of hydrocarbon liquids of petroleum origin and a frother containing oxygen-bearing chemical compounds of various molecular structures in its group chemical composition. The alternative regime includes a depressant (liquid glass), an apolar collector (diesel fuel), and a frother represented by a mixture of aliphatic alcohols, ethers, and esters. Using the technology developed, coal flotation concentrate was obtained with the mass fraction of ash of 7.36 % and recovery of 9.78 %, allowing to generate a product meeting the requirements of GOST R 51588-2000.The work was carried out with the support of the Russian Science Foundation (project No. 19-17-00096).

A diagnostic miRNA signature for pulmonary arterial hypertension using a consensus machine learning approach.

BackgroundPulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a rare but life shortening disease, the diagnosis of which is often delayed, and requires an invasive right heart catheterisation. Identifying diagnostic biomarkers may improve screening to identify patients at risk of PAH earlier and provide new insights into disease pathogenesis. MicroRNAs are small, non-coding molecules of RNA, previously shown to be dysregulated in PAH, and contribute to the disease process in animal models.MethodsPlasma from 64 treatment naïve patients with PAH and 43 disease and healthy controls were profiled for microRNA expression by Agilent Microarray. Following quality control and normalisation, the cohort was split into training and validation sets. Four separate machine learning feature selection methods were applied to the training set, along with a univariate analysis.Findings20 microRNAs were identified as putative biomarkers by consensus feature selection from all four methods. Two microRNAs (miR-636 and miR-187-5p) were selected by all methods and used to predict PAH diagnosis with high accuracy. Integrating microRNA expression profiles with their associated target mRNA revealed 61 differentially expressed genes verified in two independent, publicly available PAH lung tissue data sets. Two of seven potentially novel gene targets were validated as differentially expressed in vitro in human pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells.InterpretationThis consensus of multiple machine learning approaches identified two miRNAs that were able to distinguish PAH from both disease and healthy controls. These circulating miRNA, and their target genes may provide insight into PAH pathogenesis and reveal novel regulators of disease and putative drug targets.

Conceptual ethics, metaepistemology, and normative epistemology

ABSTRACT This paper advertises the importance of distinguishing three different foundational projects about epistemic thought and talk, which we call “systematic normative epistemology”, “metaepistemology”, and “the conceptual ethics of epistemology”. We argue that these projects can be distinguished by their contrasting constitutive success conditions. This paper is motivated by the idea that the distinctions between these three projects matter for epistemological theorizing in ways that have been underappreciated in philosophical discussion. We claim that attention to the threefold distinction we advance allows us to better understand and evaluate existing views and debates in the field; identify and appreciate new or underexplored theoretical options in the field; and avoid important defects and ambiguities in our research on epistemic topics.

Optimized growth of compensated ferrimagnetic insulator Gd3Fe5O12 with a perpendicular magnetic anisotropy* *Project supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant Nos. 2017YFA0206200 and 2016YFA0302300), the Basic Science Center Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51788104), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11774194, 11804182, 51831005, and 11811082), Beijing Natural Science

Compensated ferrimagnetic insulators are particularly interesting for enabling functional spintronic, optical, and microwave devices. Among many different garnets, Gd3Fe5O12 (GdIG) is a representative compensated ferrimagnetic insulator. In this paper, we will study the evolution of the surface morphology, the magnetic properties, and the magnetization compensation through changing the following parameters: the annealing temperature, the growth temperature, the annealing duration, and the choice of different single crystalline garnet substrates. Our objective is to find the optimized growth condition of the GdIG films, for the purpose of achieving a strong perpendicular magnetic anisotropy (PMA) and a flat surface, together with a small effective damping parameter. Through our experiments, we have found that the surface roughness approaching 0.15 nm can be obtained by choosing the growth temperature around 700 °C, together with an enhanced PMA. We have also found the modulation of magnetic anisotropy by choosing different single crystalline garnet substrates which change the tensile strain to the compressive strain. A measure of the effective magnetic damping parameter (α eff = 0.04±0.01) through a spin pumping experiment in a GdIG/Pt bilayer is also made. Through optimizing the growth dynamics of GdIG films, our results could be useful for synthesizing garnet films with a PMA, which could be beneficial for the future development of ferrimagnetic spintronics.

An Extrinsic Faradaic Layer on CuSn for High-Performance Electrocatalytic CO 2 Reduction

An Extrinsic Faradaic Layer on CuSn for High-Performance Electrocatalytic CO ₂ Reduction