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The extreme temperature induced by fire and hot toxic smokes in tunnels threaten the trapped personnel and firefighters. To alleviate the potential casualties, fast while reasonable decisions should be made for rescuing, based on the timely prediction of fire development in tunnels. This paper targets to achieve a real-time prediction (within 1 s) of the spatial-temporal temperature distribution inside the numerical tunnel model by using artificial intelligence (AI) methods. A CFD database of 100 simulated tunnel fire scenarios under various fire location, fire size, and ventilation condition is established. The proposed AI model combines a Long Short-term Memory (LSTM) model and a Transpose Convolution Neural Network (TCNN). The real-time ceiling temperature profile and thousands of temperature-field images are used as the training input and output. Results show that the predicted temperature field 60 s in advance achieves a high accuracy of around 97%. Also, the AI model can quickly identify the critical temperature field for safe evacuation (i.e., a critical event) and guide emergency responses and firefighting activities. This study demonstrates the promising prospects of AI-based fire forecasts and smart firefighting in tunnel spaces.

In time driven data-gathering, sensor nodes generate periodic data which are gathered at the base-station. Whereas in event driven data gathering, sensors remain idle until a critical event occurs and then the event information is sent quickly to the central unit. In hybrid data-gathering, the nodes switches between time and event-driven strategy. In this paper, we propose a hybrid data-gathering protocol that minimizes the critical event reporting delay, using anycasting forwarding techniques, and maximizes the network lifetime using sleep/wake scheduling. In our protocol, the sensor nodes generate periodic events and if the nodes detect a critical event, the event information is sent quickly to the central unit. We estimate the expected critical event reporting delay using stochastic approach and validate the same in a Monte-Carlo simulation. We show the effectiveness of our protocol, that minimizes the critical event reporting delay, using ns2 simulation, and compare our protocol with existing hybrid data-gathering protocols.

An initial public offering (IPO) is a critical event in a firm’s life cycle which can reshape its innovation strategy. Research suggests that after going public firms experience an increase in patent productivity. Our paper explores perceived litigation risks as a determinant of this outcome by examining US semiconductor firms. Results show that perceived patent litigation risks are positively associated with patent productivity after the IPO. Interestingly, we also find that the amount of capital raised during the IPO is positively associated with patent productivity after the IPO, successfully replicating previous findings on this relationship. These results are robust to model specifications where we attempt to account for the dynamics of self-selection of firms into IPO by considering matched control firms with similar pre-IPO characteristics, but that never went public.

CEO turnover (or succession) is a critical event in an organization that influences organizational processes and performance. The objective of this study is to investigate whether workforce diversity (i.e., age, gender, and education-level diversity) might have a resilience effect on firm performance under the frequency of CEO turnover. Based on a sample of 409 Korean firms from 2010 to 2015, our results show that firms with more frequent CEO turnover have a lower firm performance. However, firms with more gender and education-level diversity could buffer the disruptive effect of frequent CEO turnover on firm performance to offer a benefit to the organization. Our theory and findings suggest that effectively managing diverse workforce can be a resilience factor in an uncertain organizational environment because diverse workforce has complementary skills and behaviors that can cope better with uncertainty and signals social inclusion of an organization, thus fostering a long-term exchange relationship. These findings contribute to the literature on CEO turnover (or succession) and diversity.

Dysfunctional beliefs are the central element in cognitive-behavioral conceptualizations of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). The purpose of this study was to further elucidate the etiological role of preexisting dysfunctional beliefs in the occurrence of unwanted intrusive thoughts and neutralizing behaviors after a critical event by examining their predictive value and specificity in a prospective study with undergraduate students. The dysfunctional belief domains importance/control of thoughts (ICT), responsibility/threat (RT), and perfectionism/certainty (PC) were assessed at baseline 8 weeks prior to the critical event “exam situation” in N = 169 students. Exam-related unwanted intrusive thoughts and neutralizing behaviors, anxiety, and depression were assessed during the week immediately before the exam. Complete data for both baseline and follow-up were available for 79 participants (46%). After controlling for baseline obsessive–compulsive symptoms, anxiety, and depression, ICT but not RT or PC prospectively predicted exam-related intrusive thoughts and neutralizing behaviors, ICT also prospectively predicted depressive symptoms but not anxiety, and RT and PC both prospectively predicted anxiety but not depressive symptoms. Findings are partially consistent with cognitive models of OCD. They support the idea that ICT is a cognitive vulnerability factor for unwanted intrusive thoughts and neutralizing behaviors during a stressful event. Its predictive power was small and not specific to unwanted intrusive thoughts and neutralizing behaviors.

Embryo implantation is one of the pivotal steps during mammalian pregnancy, since the quality of embryo implantation determines the outcome of ongoing pregnancy and fetal development. A large number of factors, including transcription factors, signalling transduction components, and lipids, have been shown to be indispensable for embryo implantation. Increasing evidence also suggests the important roles of epigenetic factors in this critical event. This review focuses on recent findings about the involvement of epigenetic regulators during embryo implantation.

Ferroptosis is a recently recognized cell death modality that is morphologically, biochemically and genetically distinct from other forms of cell death and that has emerged to play an important role in cancer biology. Recent discoveries have highlighted the metabolic plasticity of cancer cells and have provided intriguing insights into how metabolic rewiring is a critical event for the persistence, dedifferentiation and expansion of cancer cells. In some cases, this metabolic reprogramming has been linked to an acquired sensitivity to ferroptosis, thus opening up new opportunities to treat therapy-insensitive tumours. However, it is not yet clear what metabolic determinants are critical for therapeutic resistance and evasion of immune surveillance. Therefore, a better understanding of the processes that regulate ferroptosis sensitivity should ultimately aid in the discovery of novel therapeutic strategies to improve cancer treatment. In this Perspectives article, we provide an overview of the known mechanisms that regulate sensitivity to ferroptosis in cancer cells and how the modulation of metabolic pathways controlling ferroptosis might reshape the tumour niche, leading to an immunosuppressive microenvironment that promotes tumour growth and progression.

The critical event in KRAS signaling and oncogenic transformation is activation of the RAF–MEK–MAPK cascade. This requires assembly of a multiprotein–lipid complex on the plasma membrane. In a tour de force of modeling, Mysore et al. now provide the first glimpse of what this structure may actually look like.

In August 2007, western Greece suffered one of the most devastating wildfires that has ever happened on a European level. During the 4-year period post-fire, a series of shallow landslides triggered by rainfall occurred in fire-affected areas mainly covered by Neogene sediments (marls and sandstones), causing severe economic damage. Relationships between observed landslide events and associated rainfalls were established in order to define the type of situation favorable to landslide triggering and possible critical thresholds in the rain characteristics. In order to compare the rainfall amount for the possible landslide initiation during both pre-fire and post-fire conditions, rainfall thresholds for possible landslide initiation in the unburned slopes were also proposed using a landslide inventory derived from historical archives and past rainfall data. The results suggest that the critical event rainfall (E) and the rainfall intensity (I) for landslide activity initiation is 20–30 % lower in post-fire than in pre-fire conditions.

Submerged Floating Tunnels (SFT) for transportation must be designed to secure passengers’ safety in case of accidental events. Underwater explosion is the most critical event to long submerged structures. In this paper, first, shock waves and impulse pressures generated by an explosive away from the SFT are expressed by the formulas coming from the experimental results. Second, the SFT tethered by mooring lines and anchors is modeled as a simply supported uniform beam with continuous elastic springs. Finite element analysis for the beam model subjected to the impulse loading from the experimental formulas is conducted by using a commercial code so that the response of the SFT can be investigated. For design purpose, theoretical analysis is also conducted for the same model. Simple equations to show the response of the SFT due to underwater explosion attack were deduced. Time dependent displacements were calculated by these equations. The calculated results were compared with the previous numerical results and proved to give good agreement with them. Theoretical analysis using the simple equations yields solutions so

Exacerbation is a critical event in asthma management. We investigated whether exacerbation of symptoms is associated with farming exposures among agricultural pesticide applicators with asthma.Participants were pesticide applicators with active asthma (wheezing and breathing problems in past 12 months) who completed enrollment questionnaires for the Agricultural Health Study (AHS). Exacerbation of asthma was defined as having visited a hospital emergency room or doctor for an episode of wheezing or whistling in the past 12 months. Exposures of interest were using 36 specific pesticides in the past 12 months and conducting various agricultural activities. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were estimated by logistic regression while controlling for potential confounders.The 926 AHS adult pesticide applicators with active asthma included 202 (22%) with exacerbation. Inverse associations with exacerbation were observed for two herbicides [glyphosate, odds ratio (OR) = 0.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.3, 0.8, and paraquat, OR = 0.3, 95% CI 0.1, 0.9] and several agricultural activities (repairing engines, grinding metal, driving diesel tractors, and performing veterinary procedures). Only asthma cases with allergies (i.e., doctor-diagnosed hay fever or eczema, 46%) had positive exacerbation-pesticide associations, with OR = 2.1 (95% CI 1.1, 4.1) for the herbicide pendimethalin and OR = 10.2 (95% CI 1.9, 55) for the insecticide aldicarb.The inverse associations with two pesticides and specific farm activities are consistent with the possibility that asthma cases prone to exacerbation may avoid exposures that trigger symptoms. Although limited by small sample size and a cross-sectional design, our study suggests that use of specific pesticides may contribute to exacerbation of asthma among individuals with allergies.

In this article, we describe a critical event which occurred in a simulation centre, and we also review possible safety issues for participants and staff involved in medical simulation training. The authors report an incident with the potential of harming trainees and staff which occurred during a full-scale simulation. The episode raised the question of training safety in simulation centres. In this instance, the computer program controlling the mannequin enabled a continuous and non-regulated outflow of carbon dioxide which led to an intense reaction in the soda lime canister. The absorbent canister became too hot to be touched (a temperature probe, later placed in the centre of the front canister, measured 53°C). All activities involving the mannequin and anesthesia machine were stopped immediately. Simulation in healthcare is a valuable educational tool to train for a variety of clinical encounters in a safe environment without harming a patient. Due to technological progress and the use of authentic equipment recreating near real environments, simulation training has become exceedingly realistic. The Society for Simulation in Healthcare (SSH) has published revised accreditation standards for simulation centres which incorporate training safety sub-criteria to address and manage. By highlighting recommendations of other high-risk industries on this issue, SSH proposes a possible approach to enhance safety in medical simulation.

Previous literature points to events during the transition to adulthood as important in understanding criminal offending over the life course. But youth in today’s inner cities are at high risk of experiencing periods of incarceration, which may compromise successful entry into adult roles. Indeed, incarceration has become so common among inner-city youth that it has been said to be a critical event during the transition to adulthood alongside transitions in education, employment, residence, marriage, and parenting. Drawing on data from the Pittsburgh Youth Study, this paper explores the place of incarceration in the transition to adulthood experiences of at-risk males. We offer a descriptive account of the relative frequency of incarceration vis-a-vis other, more traditional life events. Given the interrelationships between life events, we apply latent class cluster analysis to explore and identify typical combinations in which they occur. This allows us to present a “snapshot” of life trajectories among at-risk males at 25.

INTRODUCTION: The General Practice Airways Group's Professional Development programme promotes the evidence-based management of acute asthma in line with current guidelines. METHOD: 4 GP practices, 2 Out-of-Hours services and 2 nurse-run Walk-In Centres were recruited to this pilot study. Participants provided organisational data and undertook a critical event analysis of acute attacks. Results were fed back prior to attendance at the GPIAG/NRTC Congress. The audit was repeated after six months. Feasibility and acceptability were assessed with evaluation questionnaires. RESULTS: Baseline data from 7 centres (160 attacks) suggested that management guidelines are not being fully adhered to. For practical reasons only four of the organisations attended the Congress. Organisations successfully formulated their own development plans: one introduced a standard proforma, one commissioned in-service training and two acquired a supply of steroids. Follow-up data was submitted by 5 organisations. (98 attacks) Programme evaluations were generally positive: the audit protocol was practical in all three settings, the feedback was appreciated and the educational intervention was well received by those able to attend. CONCLUSION: This pilot study has provided useful information on which to base the future development of the GPIAG acute asthma professional development programme. The initiative has been well received and innovation has been facilitated. Future projects should consider more flexible, local provision of workshops.

This work reveals tht with increasing loading rate the critical event for cleavage fracture can be changed from a crack propagation-controlling model through a mixed controlling model of the propagation and nucleation then to a crack nucleation-controlling model.

The steroidogenesis in the granulosa-thecal layers of fish ovarian follicles undergo a distinct shift from the production of estradiol-17β (E2) to 17α,20β-dihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (17α,20β-DP, maturation-inducing hormone, MIH) prior to meiotic maturation. This review attempts to explain the underlying mechanisms of steroidogenic shift.

This review of the highly complex area of pediatric NIC allows several conclusions: 1. The relative importance of primary injury has probably been underestimated. Secondary, hypoxemicischemic injury was, incorrectly, thought to be easily managed with improvement in prognosis. For this reason equal or even more efforts should be put into prophylaxis rather than into highly sophisticated corrective measures after the insult. 2. Every method of monitoring the child in coma has its strong and weak points and may therefore give misleading data. For this reason a combination of inter-independent monitoring techniques has to be applied. 3. The main aim of NIC is to enable an injured child and his family to resume a normal and happy life. If, early after the critical event, there are signs of poor outcome, particularly of persistent vegetative state or severe disability, consideration should be given to early withdrawal of support, always in accordance to the local socio-ethical customs. The decision to stop vital support can be taken only after extremely careful and repeat, but speedy analysis of the case, using inter-independent and reliable methods of evaluation. 4. The history of NIC underlines again the need of carefully conducted, controlled and prospective clinical studies. Only in this way can swings of over-enthusiasm and disillusionment be avoided. This seems to be particularly important as there is a whole series of new concepts on the horizon ranging from calcium blocking agents to free radical scavengers (including 21-aminosteroids) and antagonists of excitatory neurotransmitters and excitotoxins [135].

Many anesthesiologists have come to depend on automatic noninvasive blood pressure monitoring to obtain blood pressure (BP) readings. A case is presented in which, during a critical phase of the anesthetic, an automatic noninvasive blood pressure (ANIBP) device not only failed to provide meaningful clinical data but, in fact, gave an error message that was misleading. At the time of the message, the patient was noted to be in ventricular trigeminy at a rate of 92 beats/min. It appears that the repetitive beat-to-beat fall in blood pressure due to the dysrhythmia "fooled" the automatic noninvasive blood pressure device's software algorithm into believing that there was an air leak in the system. Thus, in addition to pointing out an unappreciated and potentially troubling device-related critical event, the present case demonstrates the importance of good human factors design for medical devices used in the critical care setting. In particular, the issue is raised of how medical devices should deal with uncertain or potentially misleading data.

The microscopic fracture behaviors of a C-Mn steel plate and of two types of weld metal in Charpy V, crack tip opening displacement (COD), and precracked impact specimens have been studied by observations of the size distribution of the cleavage-initiating particles, the morphology of the fibrous crack zones, the microstructure in the region initiating the cleavage crack, and the size distribution of microcracks remaining in the specimens. It has been found that the different values of the microscopic cleavage fracture stress, σf, measured in notched and precracked specimens of the same metal result from the change in the critical event (critical length) in the fracture processes. The critical event in the Charpy V-notched specimens at —45 °C to —65 °C is the propagation of a ferrite grain-sized microcrack into the ferrite matrix; however, in the precracked COD specimens at —110 °C, it is the propagation of a second-phase particle-sized microcrack into the neighboring ferrite grain. The change of the critical event is considered to be related to the difference of effective shear stress ahead of a notch root or a crack tip. The different sensitivities to the notch acuity of the base and weld metal result from their micro-structures. Finally, the prerequisite for establishing a correlation between Charpy V and COD tests is analyzed.

The development of jaws was a critical event in vertebrate evolution because it ushered in a transition to a predatory lifestyle, but how this innovation came about has been a mystery. In the embryos of jawed vertebrates (gnathostomes), the jaw cartilage develops from the mandibular arch, where none of the Hox genes is expressed; if these are expressed ectopically, however, jaw development is inhibited1,2,3. Here I show that in the lamprey, a primitively jawless (agnathan) fish that is a sister group to the gnathostomes4, a Hox gene is expressed in the mandibular arch of developing embryos. This finding, together with outgroup comparisons, suggests that loss of Hox expression from the mandibular arch of gnathostomes may have facilitated the evolution of jaws.

Pre-hospital emergency anaesthesia (PHEA) is a high-risk activity. Recent guidelines suggest that providers consider using pre-procedure checklists [1]. We applied the principles of checklist development and design to our PHEA practice, developed a pre-anaesthetic checklist and introduced it to our service.

To the Editor: Mardirosoff et al. describe the occurrence of convulsions after the administration of high dose ropivacaine following an interscalene block.1 This interesting case merits further documentation and comments to increase its educational value. The delay of 20 min between the end of the administration of ropivacaine and the convulsions argues against an iv injection. Therefore, it will be interesting to know if the authors observed premonitory signs (such as dizziness or incoherent speech) before convulsions. Indeed, it seems the sequence of the different phases of central nervous system intoxication are better individualized with ropivacaine,2 which is usually not the case with bupivacaine. Furthermore, did the authors make a second blood drug measurement in order to build a pharmacokinetic model and, by extrapolation, estimate the ropivacaine blood concentration at the time of the convulsions? In a case reported previously with severe cardiac toxicity after sciatic block with ropivacaine,3 we evaluated by extrapolation the total and unbound plasma concentration of ropivacaine to be 8.8 and 1.8 mg·L–1 respectively, at the time of the critical event. Indeed, a “grey” zone remains between the appearance of central nervous system toxicity and slight changes in EEG recordings with venous total plasma concentration of ropivacaine of 2.2 mg·L–1 (range 0.5–3.2) as reported by Knudsen et al.4 and the development of severe cardiac toxicity. The ropivacaine plasma concentrations in Mardirosoff’s case together with ours3 and those known in the literature4 , 5could add valuable information.

The time course of recovery in UV- or gamma-irradiated wild-type Schizosaccharomyces pombe has been determined by fractionated dose experiments and by measuring the rate at which the "resistant shoulder" of the survival curve was regained during post-irradiation incubation in growth medium. The kinetics of recovery after UV-irradiation were different from those after gamma-irradiation, and may be described as due to a fasy gamm-repair and a relatively slow UV-repair process. In fractionated dose experiments, for single exposures which gave about 10% survival, gamma-repair was rapid (t1/2 congruent to 2 h), began immediately, and was essentially complete within 3 h. UV-repair, in contrast, showed a lag of about 5h and was relatively show (t1/2 congruent to 10h). The nature of the recovery response was analyzed from the survival curves at intermediate times; recovery was evident as the reappearance of a shoulder. A heterogenous recovery was evident after UV-irradiation; after a 5 h lag, a progressively increasing fraction of the survivors regained UV-resistance, which suggested that some critical event or rate-limiting step was involved. A requirement for post-irradiation protein synthesis for activity of a recombinational repair pathway on UV-damage may be a factor in the UV-recovery lag. A homogeneous recovery response, however, was observed in gamma-irradiaged cells.

According to media accounts of the events leading up to the apparent vigilante-style murder, McElroy had been arrested at least eighteen times in the area for offenses including the shooting of a local farmer, rape, arson, and theft of livestock. Each time he was arrested, with the aid of lawyers from nearby Kansas City, McElroy was able to escape conviction and usually a trial would not even occur. McElroy allegedly terrorized those who were to appear in court to testify against him, leaving the prosecutor without witnesses and without a case. The critical event for the community occured when McElroy allegedly shot the loca170-year-old grocer after the latter had accused McElroy's daughter of stealing a piece of candy from the store. The grocer survived after a lengthy hospital stay. Because the local minister had visted the grocer in the hospital, McElroy had telephoned him and threatened to maim his children and rape his wife. These phoned threats were nothing new for McElroy for he had frequently threatened local women with rape. In the case of shooting the grocer, as had happened orten in the past, McElroy threatened all potential witnesses; and almost a year later at the trial, the only witnesses were McElroy and the grocer. McElroy admitted shooting the grocer, but claimed that he had done

Gertrude and Rubin Blanck (1979), drawing on Freud's discovery that a dream may lead to the recovery of forgotten childhood experiences, have shown how certain dreams may provide access to the pattern of the early mother-child relationship and to critical events that occur before the ego is capable of processing experience adequately. Drawing from their considerations, this paper demonstrates how a dream was employed to reconstruct a pattern of early chronic stress trauma which had contributed to a repetitive pattern of self destructive behavior in a depressed woman. This reconstructive effort helped start the difficult work of diminishing the painful impact of the traumatic past and paved the way for a beginning identification with a protective object, the therapist.

This paper presents the application of an overlapping sampling technique used with a fast Fourier transform on electroencephalographic data. The use of this sampling and analysis technique is demonstrated on data in which steady state, rate of change, and critical event hypotheses are tested. The benefit of applying computer-generated three-dimensional graphics to the results of using this innovative sampling and analysis technique is emphasized.

A total of 182 Americans and 215 Canadians were asked to remember what they were doing 12 years earlier when they learned that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Subjects rated the clarity of these memories and their recollections for events which occurred close in time to this incident. Results showed that Canadians (84% recall) remembered their activities equally as well as did the Americans (90% recall). The only significant difference in stated recall between Americans and Canadians occurred in the reports of the youngest Americans (18-22 years) over their Canadian counterparts. No differences in clarity of recall were found among subjects for recollections of such contextual factors as place, time, or company. All subjects reported clearer memories for personal activities closest in time to learning of the critical event. However, respondents 23-27 years old, in contrast to younger and older subjects, suggested a decrement in clarity of memory for activities 1 h or more removed from the critical news event relative to their high clarity of recollection for activities at the moment of hearing about the assassination.

THE movement of pollen is a critical event in the population genetics of wind-pollinated plants. Neighbourhood size and potential for genetic differentiation, for example, are significantly influenced by pollen flight distances1,2. The evolution of phenological and morphological mechanisms that enhance wind pollination is well studied3,4, but the actual distance of pollen flight in natural populations is less clearly documented. Pollen movements have been estimated by using genetic markers in field plots5, trapping pollen with artificial barriers6, and catching radioisotope- and chemically-marked pollen of conifers7–9. I report the successful measurement of wind-dispersed pollen in natural populations of woodland herbs, using neutron-activation analysis of surface-treated pollen. Preliminary results suggest highly restricted pollen movement in these herbs.

This study tested the prediction, derived from the goal-setting hypothesis, that the facilitating effects of knowledge of results (KR) in a simple vigilance task should be related directly to the level of the performance standard used to regulate KR. Two groups of Ss received dichotomous KR in terms of whether Ss response times (RTs) to signal detections exceeded a high or low standard of performance. The aperiodic offset of a visual signal was the critical event for detection. The vigil was divided into a training phase followed by testing, during which KR was withdrawn. Knowledge of results enhanced performance in both phases. However, the two standards used to regulate feedback contributed little to these effects.