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Purpose To assess the relationship between pre-operative psychological state, postoperative pain and function one year after total shoulder, hip or knee arthroplasty. Methods Patients undergoing shoulder, hip or knee arthroplasty between March 2014 and November 2015 were included. Pain catastrophizing score (PCS) was determined preoperatively, at six months and at one year follow-up. Joint pain at rest was quantified using a Visual Analogue Scale (0‒100). Depressive symptoms were measured using the Beck Depression Inventory or Geriatric Depression Score, situational anxiety and dispositional anxiety were measured using the State-Trait Inventory and joint function was assessed using the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index for the hip and knee and Oxford Shoulder Score for the shoulder. Results A total of 266 patients were included (65% female; mean (± SD) age: 71.8 ± 10.3 years; mean body mass index: 27.5 ± 5.0 kg/m2). Pre-operative PCS was significantly correlated with pain > 30/100 at one year and with functional scores, for all joints. Multivariate analysis identified the following variables as risk factors for pain intensity > 30/100 at one year: pre-operative PCS > 20/52 (OR = 3.5 ± 1.1 [95% CI: 1.9‒6.6]; p = 0.0001), trait-anxiety score ≥ 46 (OR = 2.4 ± 0.9 [95% CI: 1.1‒5.2]; p = 0.03), pre-operative pain ≥ 60/100 (OR = 3.2 ± 1 [95% CI: 1.8‒6.1]; p = 0.0001) and pain for at least 3 years (OR = 1.8 ± 0.6 [95% CI: 1‒3.4]; p = 0.04). Conclusion Pre-operative pain catastrophizing and trait-anxiety are risk factors for post-operative pain after shoulder, hip and knee arthroplasty. Trial registration number www.clinicaltrials.gov NCT02361359.

Thermal energy storage (TES) based on molten salts has been identified as a key player in the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Solar Salt, a mixture of NaNO3 (60 wt%) and KNO3 (40 wt%), is currently the most advanced heat transfer and storage material used in concentrating solar power (CSP) plants. Here, it is utilized to produce electricity via a Rankine cycle, with steam temperatures reaching 550 °C. The goal of this study is to increase the operating temperature of solar salt to over 600 °C, allowing it to be adapted for use in high-temperature Rankine cycles with steam temperatures greater than 600 °C. Yet, this goal is impaired by the lack of available thermodynamic data given the salt’s complex high-temperature decomposition and corrosion chemistry. The study explores the thermodynamics of the decomposition reactions in solar salt, with a focus on suppressing decomposition into corrosive oxide ions up to a temperature of 620 °C. The results provide a new understanding of the stabilization of solar salt at previously unexplored temperatures with effective utilization of gas management techniques.

Predictive Signal Phase and Timing (SPAT) message set is one fundamental building block for vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) applications such as Eco-Approach and Departure (EAD) at traffic signal controlled urban intersections. Among the two complementary communication methods namely short-range sidelink (PC5) and long-range cellular radio link (Uu), this paper documents the work with long-range link: the complete data chain includes connecting to the traffic signals via existing backhaul communication network, collecting the raw signal phase state data, predicting the signal state changes and delivering the SPAT data via a geofenced service to requests over HTTP protocols. An Application Programming Interface (API) library is developed to support various cellular data transmission reduction and latency improvement techniques. An emulation-based algorithm is applied to predict the traffic signal state changes to provide adequate prediction horizon (e.g., at minimum 2 minutes) for the cohort energy optimization. In fact, the same connectivity and SPAT delivery methodology has been applied to traffic signalized intersections nationwide in the United States upon public agency approvals for access to their firewalled traffic control network and signal control systems or directly to individual controllers. This methodology proves its effectiveness and potential for rapid growth of such SPAT deliveries at mass production scale without needing infrastructure hardware retrofit or excessive communication means. To support the energy optimization of light and heavy-duty vehicle cohorts of mixed automation and propulsion systems (EV, ICE and hybrid), the connection and SPAT deliveries at two sites were completed, including public roads in Washtenaw County, Michigan and closed track test sites at American Center for Mobility (ACM) in Ypsilanti, Michigan. However, only closed test track results at ACM will be presented in this paper. A neuroevolution based optimizer is developed and implemented to control the speed of a vehicle cohort with different propulsion systems and automation levels. Closed track tests showed significant energy savings of the cohort operation.

Number of samples used on different platforms for training and validation sets

Ranking of Nanostring Custom panel probes in nPNC classifier

Performance of the Pulmonary Nodule Classifier