How can states credibly commit to peace and assure other countries? One source of credible assurance identified in previous studies is the cost to a state’s international reputation. When a state violates a prior commitment to peace, it suffers reputational damage, which can be costly in various ways. These reputational costs, in turn, serve as a tying-hands signal that enhances the credibility of peaceful commitments. Nonetheless, empirical research on whether and under what conditions such reputation costs arise remains limited. To address this gap, this study conducts a preregistered survey experiment in the United States, using a hypothetical scenario involving military buildups by China and Japan. The results indicate that violating commitments to peace undermines the credibility of future commitments, particularly when the violator is a rival country. These findings suggest that, with some limitations, international reputation costs can serve as a reliable mechanism for ensuring the credibility of assurances.

Gut and Stadmüller (2021, 2022) initiated the study of the elephant random walk with limited memory. Aguech and El Machkouri (2024) published a paper in which they discuss an extension of the results by Gut and Stadtmüller (2022) for an ‘increasing memory’ version of the elephant random walk without stops. Here we present a formal definition of the process that was hinted at by Gut and Stadtmüller. This definition is based on the triangular array setting. We give a positive answer to the open problem in Gut and Stadtmüller (2022) for the elephant random walk, possibly with stops. We also obtain the central limit theorem for the supercritical case of this model.

Although the initial specimen diversion device (ISDD) has been shown to reduce blood culture contamination (BCC) rates, its impact on clinical outcomes remains unclear. This multicenter study showed that ISDD significantly decreased BCC. However, there was no reduction in length of stay, days of therapy, or central line-associated bloodstream infections.

Subcutaneous treprostinil is commonly used to improve idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension in children. However, its effectiveness has not been reported in trisomy 21. We report the case of 9-year-old boy in trisomy 21 with CHD-pulmonary artery hypertension after surgical correction of CHD. Haemodynamics and exercise capacity dramatically improved with a transition from oral selexipag to subcutaneous treprostinil.

Mammalian sperm have to undergo capacitation to be fertilization competent. Capacitated sperm in vitro show hyperpolarization of the membrane potential. It has been reported that in mouse membrane hyperpolarization is necessary for the acrosome reaction. We recently found that the fluid of the hamster oviduct, where fertilization occurs, contained a high potassium (K+) concentration (~20 mEq/l). This high K+ concentration could depolarize the membrane potential and prevent the acrosome reaction/fertilization. Conversely, some beneficial effects on capacitation of high K+ concentration or a high K/Na ratio were also reported. In the present study, we investigated the effects of oviduct high K+ concentration on hamster sperm capacitation-associated events and fertilization. The present study confirmed that, in hamster sperm, membrane potential was hyperpolarized upon in vitro capacitation, indicating that capacitation-associated hyperpolarization is a universal phenomenon among mammalian species. An increase in KCl concentration in the medium to 20 mM significantly depolarized the membrane potential and suppressed hyperpolarization when in the presence of >101 mM NaCl. However, an increase in the KCl concentration to 20 mM did not significantly affect the percentage of motile sperm, hyperactivation or the acrosome reaction. No effect of 20 mM KCl on in vitro fertilization was observed. In addition, no correlative changes in hyperactivation and the acrosome reaction with K/Na ratio were observed. These results suggested that in hamsters the oviduct K+ concentration suppressed hyperpolarization but had no effect on capacitation and in vitro fertilization. Our results raised a question over the physiological significance of capacitation-associated hyperpolarization.

Background: Personal protective equipment (PPE) is defined by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration as specialized clothing or equipment worn by an employee for protection against infectious materials. They include gloves, gowns, masks, respirators, googles and face shields. The CDC has issued guidelines on appropriateness of when, what, and how to use PPE. Despite these guidelines, compliance with PPE remains challenging. Methods: We implemented a massive hospital-wide rapid education program on PPE donning and doffing of all employees and staff. This program included an online video, return demonstration and just-in-time training. To develop the program, we recorded PPE training video, reviewed PPE validation checklist, developed new isolation precaution signage with quick response (QR) code to video, developed a nutrition tray removal video and a equipment cleaning video, developed family and visitor guidelines for isolation precautions, and created an audit tool for PPE donning and doffing practices. The program required interdisciplinary collaboration including administration, infection prevention, nursing education, central supply, environmental services, facility maintenance, and security. Results: The first phase of the program was implemented through 30 separate 4-hour PPE skills fair offered over 48 hours. In total, 500 staff members were trained in the first 48 hours; 6 additional 3-hour sessions were provided on site in the following 3 month. Additionally, training was provided in off-site clinics, physician leadership meetings, new-hire orientation for nursing staff, and monthly resident and fellow training through graduate medical education. As needed, training was provided by infection prevention, nursing education, and floor nurses. In total, 5,237 staff members were trained within 3 months after implementation. Actual audit results (50 audits per week) showed improved and sustained compliance to >94%. Conclusions: A massive hospital-wide educational program including online video, return demonstration, and just-in-time training is a feasible and very effective method to improve compliance with PPE donning and doffing. A multidisciplinary team approach, administration support, and continuous education and audits are key factors in successful implementation.

Funding: None

Disclosures: None

First admission psychiatric patients born in England and Wales between 1938 and 1963, and discharged from hospitals in England and Wales between 1976 and 1986, were examined. Using logistic regression, we tested the hypothesis that the risk of shizophrenia varies by place, and season of birth. Persons born in city areas showed a 12% greater risk of schizophrenia (odds ratio 1.12; 95% confidence interval 1.06 to 1.19) than those born in non-city areas, when compared with other psychiatric patients. The increase in risk was particularly high for individuals born in city areas in winter (21%, ie odds ratio 1.21 and confidence interval 1.08 to 1.36). These findings suggest that the factor(s) responsible for the season-of-birth effect preferentially affects city born schizophrenics.

Previous studies have shown that schizophrenic patients are more likely to be born in winter or early spring months than the general population. Data on 4,207 patients with a hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia were obtained from a mailed survey to public departments of adult psychiatry in metropolitan France. For each year from 1900 to 1965, the expected monthly number of schizophrenic births was calculated and any seasonal variation of live births in the general population was taken into account. Cumulative distributions of the observed and expected number of schizophrenic births were compared using a Kolmogorov-Smirnov type statistic. The seasonal distribution of schizophrenic births was significantly different from that of the general population (P < 0.01). An excess of schizophrenic births was found in the first half of the year, with a peak in April (+ 13%).

We investigated research activities on schizophrenia in 17 non-English speaking (13 European: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden and 4 Asian: China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan) countries via a MEDLINE database survey. Despite the handicap of language, a reassuringly large number of English-written papers in research into schizophrenia have been reported; 892 papers from these countries appeared over the period 1990–1994. Among the countries investigated, Scandinavian countries in particular were found to have produced more communicable papers after taking into account the number of psychiatrists.

A large number of studies have been made on denoising of a digital noisy image. In regression filters, a convolution kernel was determined based on the spatial distance or the photometric distance. In non-local mean (NLM) filters, pixel-wise calculation of the distance was replaced with patch-wise one. Later on, NLM filters have been developed to be adaptive to the local statistics of an image with introduction of the prior knowledge in a Bayesian framework. Unlike those existing approaches, we introduce the prior knowledge, not on the local patch in NLM filters but, on the noise bias (NB) which has not been utilized so far. Although the mean of noise is assumed to be zero before tone mapping (TM), it becomes non-zero value after TM due to the non-linearity of TM. Utilizing this fact, we propose a new denoising method for a tone mapped noisy image. In this method, pixels in the noisy image are classified into several subsets according to the observed pixel value, and the pixel values in each subset are compensated based on the prior knowledge so that NB of the subset becomes close to zero. As a result of experiments, effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed.

Physical understanding of crack propagation is a fundamental issue in the industry. In the literature, crack velocities of polymer materials are strongly dependent on their visco-elastic properties and energy release rates. Recently, numerical and theoretical studies have proposed that structural sizes in polymers also influence on crack propagation. Here, using polymer sheets with similar visco-elastic properties but with different pore sizes, we vary explicitly the representative structural size and examine the effect of the size on crack propagation. Findings in this work help us to understand crack propagation in polymer materials and bio-inspired materials which have porous structures.

We analyse the chemical abundances of stars in the local group dwarf galaxies using the SAGA database. The inspection of the relationship between Eu and Ba abundances confirms an anomalously Ba-rich population in Fornax, which indicates a pre-enrichment of interstellar gas with r-process elements.

Mechanical properties of snow were investigated by means of a vibration response technique in a frequency range from 10Hz to 1MHz and a temperature range from –15° to –0.1°C with heating and cooling processes. The response signals were divided into two kinds of propagation, transverse and longitudinal waves through the snow sample. The temperature dependence of elastic-wave velocities showed a large decrease above –0.6°C. Poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus of snow samples were derived from the longitudinal and transverse wave velocities. Poisson’s ratio of snow samples showed a value of 0.35 ± 0.01 below –0.6°C, and dropped to 0.29 or less at –0.1°C. Young’s modulus of snow samples at –0.1°C showed values seven-tenths as large as (25–34%less than) those below –0.6°C. These phenomena suggest weakening and slipping of boundaries between ice particles in snow samples near the melting temperature. The elastic-wave velocities and Young’s modulus change with the density of samples and with time and temperature cycling. These changes are related to the number and state of bonds between ice particles in snow samples.

Dielectric measurements of snow were carried out in the temperature range –15° to 0°C and in the frequency range 50 Hz to 5 MHz. The snow samples (about 400 kg m–3 density) used were stored snow (average particle size: 2 mm) and hoar-frost (particle size: <1 to 5 mm). The frequency characteristics of dielectric parameters showed a dielectric dispersion (Davidson-Cole type) around 30 kHz and a low-frequency dielectric dispersion (Cole-Cole circular law type). The a.c. conductivity showed a dielectric dispersion around 30 kHz and two characteristic constant values in the frequency ranges above 1 MHz and below 100 Hz (the high-frequency conductivity σ∞ and the low-frequency conductivity σLOW). The low-frequency conductivity σLOW showed a peak at about –2°C. This behavior has never been noted by previous researchers. The σLOW showed an activation energy of about 1 eV below –5°C. This means that the σLOW is mainly caused by a surface conduction. The activation energy increased with increasing temperature above –5°C. This means that the σLOW in this temperature range is affected by the quasi-liquid layer on ice surfaces. The σLOW above –2°C decreased with increasing temperature. The apparently curious behavior near the melting temperature is attributed to the numerous free ice surfaces within the porous snow. This conclusion was reached because our measurements without the free ice surfaces showed no such conductivity peaks for solid polycrystalline ice samples and for snow samples soaked with kerosene in the cooling process.

Blowing snow was produced artificially in a cold wind-tunnel, and various measurements were conducted including particle diameters, concentrations, saltation lengths heat transport and electric charge. The mean diameter of blowing snow particles decreased only slightly with increasing height; in the saltation layer, standard deviation was large and velocities were scattered in a wide range, suggesting the complex dynamic process on taking-off. The mean saltation length ranged from a few cm to 40 cm increasing with wind velocity.

When wind blew without snow drifting, the static air pressure on the snow surface was smaller at higher levels, the vertical pressure gradient being negative. The pressure gradient became positive when blowing snow was initiated eg +9.6 Pa/m at 11.2 m/s and -8.3 °C. The magnitude of à downward force acting on a saltating snow partice caused by the pressure gradient was not large enough to explain the downward acceleration found from photographic analyses of particle trajectories.

Blowing snow particles were charged negatively the magnitude of charge increased with lowering temperature. Increase in vertical heat transfer was found in blowing snow by measuring the temperature of the air at various levels; the increase is reflected on that in the apparent turbulent diffusion coefficient.