Academic literature on the topic 'Gun acquisition rates'

Injuries and fatalities due to firearms are a major burden on public health in the US. The rise in gun violence in popular movies has been suggested as a potential cultural influence on this behavior. Nevertheless, homicide rates have not increased over recent decades in the US, suggesting that media portrayals have had little influence on gun violence. Here we challenge this interpretation by examining trends in the proportion of violence that are attributable to firearms, a measure that should be more sensitive to media violence. In addition, we examine trends in the portrayal of guns in popular television (TV) dramas, which are viewed more frequently than movies. We ask (a) whether gun violence has increased in these TV shows not only on an absolute basis but also as a proportion of violent scenes and (b) whether trends in gun portrayal on these shows are associated with corresponding trends in the proportion of real-world violence attributable to firearms in the US from 2000 to 2018. To answer these questions, we coded annual instances of violence, gun violence, and proportion of violence involving guns for each 5-minute segment of 33 popular TV dramas in the police, medical, and legal genres from 2000 to 2018. Trends in annual rates of violence, gun violence and proportion of violence involving guns were determined over the study period and were compared to annual rates of homicide attributable to firearms in three age groups: 15–24, 25–34 and 35 and older. Although violence on TV dramas peaked in 2011, gun use steadily increased over the study period both in absolute terms and in relation to other violent methods. The latter metric paralleled trends in homicides attributable to firearms for all three age groups, with the strongest relationship for youth ages 15–24 (R2 = .40, P = .003). The positive relation between relative amount of TV violence involving guns and actual homicides due to firearms, especially among youth, is consistent with the hypothesis that entertainment media are contributing to the normative acceptance of guns for violent purposes. Future research is needed to study the influence of media violence on gun acquisition at the individual level.

AbstractBackgroundAlthough the majority of Australian intensive care paramedics use the manual intraosseous infusion technique (MAN-IO), several other semiautomatic devices now are available, such as the bone injection gun (BIG) and the semiautomatic intraosseous infusion system (EZ-IO). Given the choice of devices now available, questions have been raised regarding success rates, accuracy, decay of skills, and adverse events.ObjectivesReview the literature regarding the use of intraosseous (IO) devices in the prehospital setting.MethodsSelected electronic databases (Medline, Embase, and CINAHL) were searched, and a hand search was conducted for grey-literature that included studies from the commencement of the process to the end of May 2010. Inclusion criteria were any study reporting intraosseous insertion and/or infusion (adult and pediatric) by paramedics in the prehospital setting.FindingsThe search located 2,100 articles; 20 articles met the inclusion criteria. The review also noted that use of IO access (regardless of technique) offers a safe and simple method for gaining access to the patients’ vascular system. A number of studies found that the use of semiautomatic devices offers better and faster intraosseous access compared with the use of manual devices, and also were associated with fewer complications. The findings also suggest that the use of semiautomatic devices can reduce insertion times and the number of insertion attempts when contrasted with the use of manual insertion techniques. Despite these findings, statistically no specific IO device has proven clinical superiority.ConclusionWhile manual IO techniques currently are used by the majority of Australian paramedics, the currently available evidence suggests that semiautomatic devices are more effective. Further research, including cost-benefit analyses, is required at a national level to examine skill acquisition, adverse effects, and whether comparative devices offer clinically significant advantages.OlaussenA, WilliamsB. Intraosseous access in the prehospital setting: literature review. Prehosp Disaster Med.2012;27(5):1-5.

The use of deep learning models as priors for compressive sensing tasks presents new potential for inexpensive seismic data acquisition. Conventional recovery usually suffers from undesired artifacts, such as oversmoothing, and high computational cost. Generative adversarial networks (GANs) offer promising alternative approaches that can improve quality and reveal finer details. An appropriately designed Wasserstein GAN trained on several historical surveys and capable of learning the statistical properties of the seismic wavelet's architecture is proposed. The efficiency and precision of this model at compressive sensing are validated in three steps. First, the existence of a sparse representation with different compression rates for seismic surveys is studied. Then, nonuniform samplings are studied using the proposed methodology. Finally, a recommendation is proposed for a nonuniform seismic survey grid based on the evaluation of reconstructed seismic images and metrics. The primary goal of the proposed deep learning model is to provide the foundations of an optimal design for seismic acquisition without a loss in imaging quality. Along these lines, a compressive sensing design of a nonuniform grid over an asset in the Gulf of Mexico, versus a traditional seismic survey grid that collects data uniformly every few feet, is suggested, leveraging the proposed method.

Abstract. Soil-borne amino acids may constitute a source of nitrogen (N) for plants in various terrestrial ecosystems but their importance for total N nutrition is unclear, particularly in nutrient-rich arable soils. One reason for this uncertainty is lack of information on how the absorption of amino acids by plant roots is affected by the simultaneous presence of inorganic N forms. The objective of the present study was to study absorption of glycine (Gly) and glutamine (Gln) by wheat roots and their interactions with nitrate (NO3−) and ammonium (NH4+) during uptake. The underlying hypothesis was that amino acids, when present in nutrient solution together with inorganic N, may lead to down-regulation of the inorganic N uptake, thereby resulting in similar total N uptake rates. Amino acids were enriched with double-labelled 15N and 13C, while NO3− and NH4+ acquisition was determined by their rate of removal from the nutrient solution surrounding the roots. The uptake rates of NO3− and NH4+ did not differ from each other and were generally about twice as high as the uptake rate of organic N when the different N forms were supplied separately in concentrations of 2 mM. Nevertheless, replacement of 50% of the inorganic N with organic N was able to restore the N uptake to the same level as that in the presence of only inorganic N. Co-provision of NO3− did not affect glycine uptake, while the presence of glycine down-regulated NO3− uptake. The ratio between 13C and 15N were lower in shoots than in roots and also lower than the theoretical values, reflecting higher C losses via respiratory processes compared to N losses. It is concluded that organic N can constitute a significant N-source for wheat plants and that there is an interaction between the uptake of inorganic and organic N.

Abstract. Soil-borne amino acids may constitute a nitrogen (N) source for plants in various terrestrial ecosystems but their importance for total N nutrition is unclear, particularly in nutrient-rich arable soils. One reason for this uncertainty is lack of information on how the absorption of amino acids by plant roots is affected by the simultaneous presence of inorganic N forms. The objective of the present study was to study absorption of glycine (Gly) and glutamine (Gln) by wheat roots and their interactions with nitrate (NO3–) and (NH4+) during uptake. The underlying hypothesis was that amino acids, when present in nutrient solution together with inorganic N, may lead to down-regulation of the inorganic N uptake. Amino acids were enriched with double-labelled 15N and 13C, while NO3– and NH4+ acquisition was determined by their rate of removal from the nutrient solution surrounding the roots. The uptake rates of NO3– and NH4+ did not differ from each other and were about twice as high as the uptake rate of organic N when the different N forms were supplied separately in concentrations of 2 mM. Nevertheless, replacement of 50 % of the inorganic N with organic N was able to restore the N uptake to the same level as that in the presence of only inorganic N. Co-provision of NO3– did not affect glycine uptake, while the presence of glycine down-regulated NO3– uptake. The ratio between 13C and 15N were lower in shoots than in roots and also lower than the theoretical values, reflecting higher C losses via respiratory processes compared to N losses. It is concluded that organic N can constitute a significant N-source for wheat plants and that there is an interaction between the uptake of inorganic and organic nitrogen.

Abstract Background Comprehensive background check (CBC) laws extend background check requirements to private party firearm transfers to prevent firearm acquisitions by prohibited persons. The aim of our study was to estimate the association between CBC policies and changes in background check rates for firearm acquisition in two states (Oregon and Washington) that have newly-enacted CBC policies. Methods We used data on handgun background checks from January 1999 to December 2018 from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Observed trends in exposed states were contrasted with counterfactual trends estimated with the synthetic control group method. Findings CBC policies were associated with increases in background checks in Oregon (by 18.0%; p = 0.074), but not in Washington (4%; p = 0.321). A gradual increase in private party checks was seen following enactment in Washington; however, firearm transactions coded as “private” represent less than 5% of total background checks in that state. Conclusions Comprehensive background check policies appear to be effective in increasing pre-firearm-sale background checks in Oregon but not in Washington. Differences appear to be related to variations in the proportion of firearm sales that are private party transfers and to gradual adaptation to the new law by private gun sellers.

During acquisition, due to economic and natural reasons, irregular missing seismic data are always observed. To improve accuracy in subsequent processing, the missing data should be interpolated. A conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN) consisting of two networks, a generator and a discriminator, is a deep learning model that can be used to interpolate the missing data. However, because cGAN is typically dataset-oriented, the trained network is unable to interpolate a dataset from an area different from that of the training dataset. We design a cGAN based on Pix2Pix GAN to interpolate irregular missing seismic data. A synthetic dataset synthesized from two models is used to train the network. Further, we add a Gaussian-noise layer in the discriminator to fix a vanishing gradient, allowing us to train a more powerful generator. Two synthetic datasets synthesized by two new geological models and two field datasets are used to test the trained cGAN. The test results and the calculated recovered signal-to-noise ratios indicate that although the cGAN is trained using synthetic data, the network can reconstruct irregular missing field seismic data with high accuracy using the Gaussian-noise layer. We test the performances of cGANs trained with different patch sizes in the discriminator to determine the best structure, and we train the networks using different training datasets for different missing rates, demonstrating the best training dataset. Compared with conventional methods, the cGAN based interpolation method does not need different parameter selections for different datasets to obtain the best interpolation data. Furthermore, it is also an efficient technique as the cost is because of the training, and after training, the processing time is negligible.

This study is aim to be programmed the simulation which is available for real-time performance analysis so that is to be developed gas turbine engine’s condition monitoring system with analyzing difference between performance analysis results and measuring data from test cell. In addition, test cell created by this study have been developed to use following applications: to use for learning principals and mechanism of gas turbine engine in school, and to use performance test and its further research for variable operating conditions in associated institutes. The maximum thrust of the micro turbojet engine is 137 N (14 kgf) at 126,000 rpm of rotor rotational speed if the Jet A1 kerosene fuel is used. The air flow rate is measured by the inflow air speed of duct, and the fuel flow is measured by a volumetric fuel flowmeter. Temperatures and pressures are measured at the atmosphere, the compressor inlet and outlet and the turbine outlet. The thrust stand was designed and manufactured to measure accurately the thrust by the load cell. All measuring sensors are connected to a DAQ (Data Acquisition) device, and the logging data are used as function parameters of the program, LabVIEW. The LabVIEW is used to develop the engine condition monitoring program. The proposed program can perform both the reference engine model performance analysis at an input condition and the real-time performance analysis with real-time variables. By comparing two analysis results the engine condition can be monitored. Both engine performance analysis data and monitoring results are displayed by the GUI (Graphic User Interface) platform.

In the framework of the European Commission MAXSIMA project, a large-scale test section, aiming to experimentally investigate the Steam Generator Tube Rupture (SGTR) postulated event, in a relevant configuration for Gen IV MYRRHA reactor, was implemented in the large pool CIRCE facility at ENEA CR Brasimone. The test section is mainly composed by four tube bundles of 31 tubes. Each one of which constitutes a full scale portion of the tube bundle of the Primary Heat eXchanger (PHX) of MYRRHA plant. The bundles are set in 6 inch tubes with a lower and upper tube plate, absolving structural tasks. Water flows upwards in the central tube at 200°C, 16 bar and about 0.1 kg/s, the first rank of six tubes is pressurized at 16 bar by argon for feedbacks on possible domino effect and the outer ranks are composed by opened tubes at the lower and upper end. Lead Bismuth Eutectic alloy (LBE), at 350°C under a cover gas of argon at about 1 bar, flows downwards shell side of the bundle, pushed by a pumping system composed by centrifugal and jet pumps connected in series, for reaching about 80 kg/s. Water tube is fed by external tank and supply line. Two regulation valves and one isolation valve are set for water pressure and mass flow rate regulation and interruption, respectively. Reached the water and LBE stationary conditions of MYRRHA PHX, in terms of pressure, temperature and mass flow rate, the central water tube is pulled upwards by an external hydraulic jack, realizing the tube rupture. Its position is well defined on the tube by a notch worked with machine tools. Four SGTR tests are foreseen to be carried out, one at a time, in the four tube bundles, excluding the necessity to extract the test section from CIRCE main vessel after each test. This paper presents the overall components implemented for carrying out the tests. In particular, the assembling of the whole test section, gas line for pressurizing the water tank and supply line and depressurization line of CIRCE cover gas. It discharges into a 1500 L tank, for collecting possible discharged LBE particulate. The Data acquisition and Control System (DACS) is realized in LabVIEW environment. It allows the remote control of the facility during the preparation phases, tests execution and safe shutdown. PID controllers are implemented for water heating and pressurization and water and LBE mass flow rate regulation. The main commissioning tests carried out and acquired variables by DACS, aiming to check the suitable functioning of all components, are presented. The pre-test numerical analysis of the SGTR experiments in CIRCE facility is performed by 3D Cartesian SIMMER-IV code. The obtained results show that the developed model is able to reach the initial condition of the tests in agreement with MYRRHA stationary conditions. Once reached, the water injection into LBE pool was numerically simulated. The pressure in CIRCE cover gas increased up to the opening rupture disk value of 6 bar in about 10 s, providing a grace period more than enough for carrying out the tests (3 or 5 s) in safe conditions.