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Drought and Wildfire Impacts on Air Quality and Public Health in Oregon
No full textDrought, a prolonged meteorological phenomenon characterized by deficits in precipitation, soil moisture, and water availability, poses significant environmental, economic, and health challenges. It is often exacerbated by elevated temperatures, which increase evaporation rates and reduce water retention in soils and reservoirs (Trenberth et al., 2014). The hydrological cycle, which describes the continuous movement of water between the atmosphere, land, and oceans, plays a crucial role in shaping drought conditions (Figure 1). Precipitation replenishes surface and groundwater supplies, while evaporation and transpiration return water to the atmosphere. However, disruptions to this cycle, such as decreased precipitation, excessive evaporation, and altered runoff patterns, can lead to prolonged dry periods and widespread water shortages.https://olathe.k-state.edu/research/one-health-newsletter/issues/vol17-iss1/drought-wildfire-impacts-on-air-quality-public-health-in-oregon.htm
Future of Tech Lunch & Learn: No AI Slop! Writing with Intention using Large Language Models.
No full textFuture of Tech Lunch & Learn Speaker Series: No AI Slop! Writing with Intention using Large Language Models. Recorded on Thursday, March 20, 2025.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFMg_rNkiN
Review of NASA Earth Observations, Recent Science, and Practical Applications
No full textFreely available government satellite observations enable scientists to monitor changes across the Earth system. Calibrated and validated global satellite data have advanced our understanding of interactions within and between the energy, carbon, and water cycles. In addition to answering fundamental science questions, these environmental indicators are also used to inform practical decisions relevant to agriculture, health, renewable energy, infrastructure, and more. Assimilating satellite observations into models fills data gaps and provides predictive tools. Partnering with other organizations to reach new communities and combining environmental data with sector-specific data increases its utility and societal benefit. Additionally, under the principles of open science, government agencies are working together to make useful information derived from global observations, both data and software tools, more easily accessible. This paper reviews recent NASA Earth satellite missions, highlights a few examples of science discoveries and practical applications, and describes new activities and directions.Funding from the NASA Applied Sciences Health and Air Quality Program and Water Resources Program, as well as support by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Division is gratefully acknowledged. This review was inspired by the invitation to present at the ASPRS Mid-South Regional Conference at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2024. The conclusions shared here are those of the authors at the time of writing and do not necessarily represent the official position of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/asprs/pers/pre-prints/content-25-00010
Predictors of Anemia Intolerance for Real-Time Transfusion Decision-Making During Resuscitation of Trauma Subjects: A Machine Learning Approach Using Heart Rate Variability
No full textOBJECTIVES: RBC transfusion in anemic patients with sustainable tolerance may cause harm, emphasizing the need for reliable metrics that quantify adequacy (oxygen delivery ≥ demand) and sustainability (oxygen delivery remains adequate without transfusion) of compensatory physiology. Our objective was to identify personalized predictors of anemia intolerance (inadequate and unsustainable physiologic compensation) that predict the likelihood of transfusion benefit. We studied adult trauma subjects at arrival to the emergency department, employing machine learning to evaluate ability of heart rate variability (HRV) to predict subsequent need for clinically indicated significant RBC transfusion. DESIGN: This single-center retrospective cohort study used electronic medical records data from patients admitted to a specialized trauma care hospital between January 2016 and December 2018. SETTING: Trauma resuscitation unit (TRU). PATIENTS: Adult trauma subjects with at least 3 hours of stay in the TRU, without RBC transfusion during the first hour at TRU but, with receipt or nonreceipt of transfusion in the second and/or third hour were included. Availability of electrocardiogram tracings for at least 50% of the first hour of stay in the TRU was also considered for inclusion in the study. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The primary binary outcome variable, a clinically indicated significant transfusion, was if a subject received RBC transfusion or not during the second and third hour stay in the TRU (transfusion vs. no transfusion). Patient clinical information, and HRV parameters generated from a 5-minute electrocardiogram recording during the first hour of admission were used as predictors for predicting transfusion. We evaluated five predefined prediction models for transfusion using random forest algorithm, varying the inclusion of demographic, clinical, trauma, and HRV variables. Model predictive performance was assessed using area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC), sensitivity, specificity, and Shapley analysis was conducted to identify key contributing variables. The analysis included 269 patients (126: transfusion cohort and 133: no transfusion cohort), who met the inclusion criteria. The model, which included demographic, clinical laboratory, trauma, and HRV variables, had an AUROC of 0.86, a sensitivity of 78%, and a specificity of 75% in predicting transfusion throughout the 3-hour study period. The model with only HRV variables showed comparable predictive performance (AUROC: 0.72) compared with other models with less than 35% false positive and negative rates. Among HRV parameters, lower values of log-transformed very low frequency absolute power predicted transfusion consistently. CONCLUSIONS: HRV parameters collected during the first 5–10 minutes after admission, when combined with basic clinical information that is immediately available upon emergency admission, augmented ability to predict potential for RBC transfusion, suggesting this metric may be incorporated into structured approaches to personalized transfusion decision-making.https://journals.lww.com/ccejournal/fulltext/2025/10000/predictors_of_anemia_intolerance_for_real_time.2.aspx?context=latestarticle
Money Tales: Tangled Financial Socialization of US Immigrants’ Use of Rotating Savings and Credit Associations
No full textThis Money Tales project explores the financial socialization experiences of some Black immigrants from West African and Afro-Caribbean diasporas living in the United States, focusing on their participation in Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs)—informal, communal savings groups. While ROSCAs are globally practiced and culturally diverse, this study analyzes them through the interpretive lens of African Indigenous knowledge (AIK) to illuminate how relationality, mutual aid, and intergenerational learning can shape financial behavior among immigrant communities. Using life history calendar methodology with thirteen U.S.-based immigrants, the study explores money-related messages Money Tales storytellers received and how they inform their adult financial decisions, particularly their use of non-mainstream tools like ROSCAs. This research addresses key omissions in existing financial socialization literature, which often centers on white, middle-class young adults and formal banking systems, by amplifying the voices and strategies of often-overlooked populations. Although ROSCAs predate currencies, modern financial institutions, and are practiced across the globe, they remain marginalized within dominant financial discourses—often dismissed as relics of the Global South or tools for those excluded from the formal economy. This study challenges such assumptions by advocating for inclusive frameworks that recognize ROSCAs as legitimate, culturally grounded economic practices. Findings from the Money Tales storytellers’ stories reveal that financial knowledge was often absorbed through silent observation, communal obligations, and early-life exposure to ROSCAs—experiences rarely framed as “formal education” but quite impactful. Storytellers described reactivating these lessons in adulthood as strategies for achieving not only economic security but also relational accountability and cultural continuity. In centering their money message memories, the study positions ROSCAs as instruments not just of survival, but of communal stewardship, group prosperity, economic agency, and diasporic resilience
XRISM/Xtend Transient Search (XTS) detected an X-ray flare from a YSO
No full textAuthors: H. Sugai (Chuo U.), K. Fukushima, K. Hayashi, Y. Kanemaru, S. Ogawa, T. Yoshida (JAXA), M. Audard (U. de Geneve), E. Behar (Technion), S. Inoue (Kyoto U.), Y. Ishihara (Chuo U.), T. Kohmura (TUS), Y. Maeda (JAXA), M. Mizumoto (UTEF), N. Nagashima (Chuo U.), M. Nobukawa (NUE), K. Pottschmidt (UMBC, NASA GSFC, CRESST), M. Shidatsu (Ehime U.), Y. Terada (Saitama U.), Y. Terashima (Ehime U.), Y. Tsuboi (Chuo U.), H. Uchida (Kyoto U.), T. Yoneyama (Chuo U.), M. Yoshimoto (Ehime U.), Y. Fujita (TMU)XRISM/Xtend Transient Search (XTS) detected an X-ray flare from an X-ray source XRISM J1712-2310 on 2025-04-05 TT. The source position is determined to be (R.A., Dec.) = (258.042, -23.162), with a systematic error of ∼ 40 arcsec. A plausible counterpart is a YSO CD-23 13197, whose distance is 115 pc. CD-23 13197 is located ∼20 arcsec apart from the position of XRISM J1712-2310.
The flare started at 2025-04-05 at ∼23:50 TT. The flare reached its peak on 2025-04-06 at ∼ 01:10. The flare was still ongoing at the end of the XRISM observation, but the e-folding time is estimated to be ∼ 20 ks. The peak flux is estimated as 1 × 10⁻¹² erg s⁻¹ cm⁻² (0.4 – 10.0 keV). Corresponding luminosity is 2 × D₁₂₀ₚ꜀ × 10³⁰ erg s⁻¹ by assuming the distance to XRISM J1712-2310 of D₁₂₀ₚ꜀.
We derived the above systematic error for the flux by comparing our derived values for the sources detected with XTS in several observations with those for the corresponding X-ray counterparts. We estimated the systematic error for the source position from the separations between the detected sources with the corresponding counterparts in the same field of view.https://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=1713
Identifying the chemical gel point of epoxy-fumed silica composites using optimally windowed chirp measurements
No full textThe chemical gel point that occurs in the resin matrix of thermoset composites is crucial to the design of manufacturing process parameters. However, the formation of a physical network of filler material can affect the viscoelastic response of the composite so strongly that conventional rheological indicators of the chemical gel point (like power-law stress relaxation) are no longer observed. Additionally, many industrially relevant thermoset composites have a small linear viscoelastic region, limiting the utility of the high-strain multiwave measurement approach that was developed to monitor the frequency-dependent behavior of rapidly evolving materials. Here, we pair frequency-dependent properties obtained by low-strain Optimally Windowed Chirp (OWCh) measurements with existing rheology-conversion relationships to apply time-cure superposition to the loss tangent of epoxy-amine resins filled with unreactive particles. We show that this advanced rheological approach allows us to track the relative change in the relaxation time, providing another way to identify the elusive chemical gel point of these thermoset composites. The results allow us to assess the applicability of several gel point criteria to crosslinking composites, including the G'-G'' crossover, frequency-independent tan δ, peak in tan δ, and divergence of the relaxation time. Investigation of a resin with a weak filler network reveals all of these gel point criteria, with the frequency-independent tan δ providing the best agreement with the easily identifiable gel point of the neat resin. For resins with a strong physical filler network, frequency independence of tan δ does not occur, but the divergence of the relaxation time matches the gel point of the neat resin and the peak in tan δ.This work was supported by a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship. S.K.R. thanks Emanuela Del Gado for generously participating in a thoughtful discussion about time-cure superposition. S.K.R. also thanks Jeremiah Woodcock for kindly sharing equipment, facilities, and knowledge.https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00397-025-01526-
Inductive Bias Extraction and Matching for LLM Prompts
No full textThe active research topic of prompt engineering makes it evident that LLMs are sensitive to small changes in prompt wording. A portion of this can be ascribed to the inductive bias that is present in the LLM. By using an LLM's output as a portion of its prompt, we can more easily create satisfactory wording for prompts. This has the effect of creating a prompt that matches the inductive bias in model. Empirically, we show that using this Inductive Bias Extraction and Matching strategy improves LLM Likert ratings used for classification by up to 19% and LLM Likert ratings used for ranking by up to 27%.http://arxiv.org/abs/2508.1029
Puzzling Variation of Gamma Rays from the Sun over the Solar Cycle Revealed with Fermi-LAT
No full textThe steady-state gamma-ray emission from the Sun is thought to consist of two emission components due to interactions with Galactic cosmic rays: (1) a hadronic disk component, and (2) a leptonic extended component peaking at the solar edge and extending into the heliosphere. The flux of these components is expected to vary with the 11 yr solar cycle, being highest during solar minimum and lowest during solar maximum, as it varies with the cosmic-ray flux. No study has yet analyzed the flux variation of each component over solar cycles. In this work, we measure the temporal variations of the flux of each component over 15 yr of Fermi Large Area Telescope observations and compare them with the sunspot number and Galactic cosmic-ray flux from AMS-02 near Earth. We find that the flux variation of the disk anticorrelates with the sunspot number and correlates with cosmic-ray protons, as expected, confirming its emission mechanism. In contrast, the extended component exhibits a more complex variation: despite an initial anticorrelation with the sunspot number, we find neither anticorrelation with the sunspot number nor correlation with cosmic-ray electrons over the full 15 yr period. This most likely suggests that cosmic-ray transport and modulation in the inner heliosphere are unexpectedly complex and may differ for electrons and protons or, alternatively, that there is an additional, unknown component of gamma rays or cosmic rays. These findings impact space weather research and emphasize the need for close monitoring of Cycle 25 and the ongoing polarity reversal.The Fermi-LAT Collaboration acknowledges generous ongoing support from a number of agencies and institutes that have supported both the development and the operation of the LAT as well as scientific data analysis. These include the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Department of Energy in the United States, the Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules in France, the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana and the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Italy, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in Japan, and the K. A. Wallenberg Foundation, the Swedish Research Council and the Swedish National Space Board in Sweden. Additional support for science analysis during the operations phase is gratefully acknowledged from the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica in Italy and the Centre National d’Études Spatiales in France. This work was performed, in part, under DOE Contract DE-AC02-76SF00515. Also, partial support from NASA grant Nos. 80NSSC20K1558 and 80NSSC22K0495 is acknowledged.https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adef4
Assessing Fab-Functionalized Gold Nanoparticles-Mediated Thermal Enhancement during High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Ablation in a Mouse Tumor Model
No full textHigh-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) stands out as a noninvasive modality that is gaining prominence for the localized treatment of malignant tumors. A mouse tumor model was used to assess the level of thermal enhancement afforded by Fab-functionalized gold nanoparticles (gNPs) during HIFU treatment. Prostate cancer cells (PC3) were used to grow tumors on the right flank of immunodeficient NSG mice. Three levels of gNPs concentrations (0%, 0.019%, and 0.125%) were injected directly into the tumors. HIFU sonication was performed at acoustic power levels of 30W, 40W, and 50W for the duration of 16 s inside a 1.5 T magnetic resonance system. Temperature rise data were recorded for each power level and gNPs concentration during the experiment and analyzed. Tumors were harvested 4 h after the sonication for a histopathology study. A histopathology study was conducted using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) as well as cleaved caspase 3 (CC3) staining. For an acoustic power of 50W, temperature increases of 16.77 ± 2.33 °C, 19.95 ± 2.98 °C, and 27.78 ± 5.31 °C were recorded for gNPs concentrations of 0%, 0.019%, and 0.125%, respectively. Also, for an acoustic power of 50W, thermal doses of 0.08, 282.87, and 31563.70 min were obtained for gNPs concentrations of 0%, 0.019%, and 0.125%, respectively. Cellular damage around the focus was observed in histopathology studies using H&E staining in HIFU-treated tumors.The authors wish to acknowledge and thank the Imaging Research Center (IRC), the Comprehensive Rodent and Radiation Facility, and the Division of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC). We are thankful to Matthew Lanier’s technical assistance with the HIFU system, Victoria Summey and Jeffrey Bailey’s assistance with managing animals, and Chris Woods for technical assistance with digitally scanned slides. We are also very grateful for the HIFU data postprocessing suggestions provided to us by Ari Partanen of Profound Medical. We are also thankful to Dr. Marepalli Rao at the Department of Biostats, Health Information and Data Science, University of Cincinnati, for his assistance with statistical analysis. In addition, we are also thankful to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for supporting this research through the grant #NSF CBET 2045234.https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsabm.5c0087