Negative Additive Manufacturing of Complex Shaped Boron Carbides.

Boron carbide (B4C) is one of the hardest materials in existence. However, this attractive property also limits its machineability into complex shapes for high wear, high hardness, and lightweight material applications such as armors. To overcome this challenge, negative additive manufacturing (AM) is employed to produce complex geometries of boron carbides at various length scales.

Adoption of a Portal for the Primary Care Management of Pediatric Asthma: A Mixed-Methods Implementation Study.

Background: Patient portals may improve communication between families of children with asthma and their primary care providers and improve outcomes. However, the feasibility of using portals to collect patient-reported outcomes from families and the barriers and facilitators of portal implementation across diverse pediatric primary care settings have not been established.

Objective: We evaluated the feasibility of using a patient portal for pediatric asthma in primary care, its impact on management, and barriers and facilitators of implementation success.

The ACA's pediatric essential health benefit has resulted in a state-by-state patchwork of coverage with exclusions.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) establishes essential health benefits as the coverage standard for health plans sold in the individual and small-group markets for all fifty states and the District of Columbia, including the health insurance Marketplaces. "Pediatric services" is one of the required classes of coverage under the ACA. However, other than oral health and vision care, neither the act nor the regulations for implementing it define what these services should be.

Second-generation antipsychotic use among stimulant-using children, by organization of medicaid mental health.

Objective: Reducing overuse of second-generation antipsychotics among Medicaid-enrolled children is a national priority, yet little is known about how service organization affects use. This study compared differences in second-generation antipsychotic utilization among Medicaid-enrolled children across fee-for-service, integrated managed care, and managed behavioral health carve-out organizational structures.

Methods: Organizational structures of Medicaid programs in 82 diverse counties in 34 states were categorized and linked to child-level cross-sectional claims data from the Medicaid Analytic Extract covering fiscal years 2004, 2006, and 2008.

A procurement-based pathway for promoting public health: innovative purchasing approaches for state and local government agencies.

Through their purchasing powers, government agencies can play a critical role in leveraging markets to create healthier foods. In the United States, state and local governments are implementing creative approaches to procuring healthier foods, moving beyond the traditional regulatory relationship between government and vendors. They are forging new partnerships between government, non-profits, and researchers to increase healthier purchasing.

Eclampsia characteristics and outcomes: a comparison of two eras.

Objective: To describe the trends in incidence, characteristics, and outcomes of women with eclampsia.

Methods: We reviewed and abstracted data from medical records of all women diagnosed with eclampsia in our institution from August 1998 to April 2011. In addition to overall characteristics and outcomes, the cases were stratified by onset: antenatal versus postnatal and early (<32 weeks of gestation) versus late antenatal cases (≥32 weeks of gestation).

Medication-associated diethylene glycol mass poisoning: a review and discussion on the origin of contamination.

Diethylene glycol (DEG), an extremely toxic chemical, has been implicated as the etiologic agent in at least 12 medication-associated mass poisonings over the last 70 years. Why DEG mass poisonings occur remains unclear. Most reports do not contain detailed reports of trace-back investigations into the etiology.

Charge and temperature dependence of biomolecule conformations: K+ tryptamine(H2O)(n=0-1)Ar(m=0-1) cluster ions.

The impact of temperature and charge on the conformation of tryptamine (Tryp) is examined in the gas phase by infrared laser-vibrational predissociation spectroscopy in the 2800-3800 cm(-1) region. Previous studies of neutral Tryp(H(2)O)(n) clusters showed preferential stabilization of specific tryptamine conformers through hydrogen bonding. When complexed with the biologically significant potassium ion, the only conformers found to form under these experimental conditions are built on hitherto unobserved neutral Tryp conformers.

Hydrated alkali-metal cations: infrared spectroscopy and ab initio calculations of M+(H2O)(x=2-5)Ar cluster ions for M = Li, Na, K, and Cs.

A delicate balance between competing and cooperating noncovalent interactions determines the three-dimensional structure of hydrated alkali-metal ion clusters. With a single water molecule hydrating an ion, the electrostatic ion..

Entropic effects on hydrated alkali-metal cations: infrared spectroscopy and ab initio calculations of M+(H2O)(x=2-5) cluster ions for M = Li, Na, K, and Cs.

A delicate balance between competing and cooperating noncovalent interactions determines the three-dimensional structure of hydrated alkali-metal ion clusters. A critical factor influencing the balance reached is the internal energy content (or effective temperature) of the ion cluster. Cold cluster ions (approximately 50-150 K) have little internal energy, and enthalpic contributions have a greater influence on the relative population of low-lying minima.

Modeling competitive interactions in proteins: vibrational spectroscopy of M+(n-methylacetamide)1(H2O)n=0-3, M=Na and K, in the 3 microm region.

To properly understand the preferred structures and biological properties of proteins, it is important to understand how they are influenced by their immediate environment. Competitive intrapeptide, peptide..

Structures, energetics, and spectra of aqua-cesium (I) complexes: an ab initio and experimental study.

The design of cesium-selective ionophores must include the nature of cesium-water interactions. The authors have carried out extensive ab initio and density functional theory calculations of hydrated cesium cations to obtain reasonably accurate energetics, thermodynamic quantities, and IR spectra. An extensive search was made to find the most stable structures.

Tizanidine is effective in the treatment of myofascial pain syndrome.

Myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) is difficult to treat. The efficacy and safety of tizanidine, an alpha2-adrenergic agent with effects on spasticity and pain, in treating MPS was evaluated. Female subjects (n = 29) with MPS of 9 to > 52 weeks' duration and mean age 37.

Hydration of ion-biomolecule complexes: ab initio calculations and gas-phase vibrational spectroscopy of K+ (indole)m(H2O)n.

In recent years neutral indole(H2O)n clusters have been used to model the hydration of biomolecules containing an indole moiety. Both experimental and theoretical studies of the binary indole..

Mimicking solvent shells in the gas phase. II. Solvation of K+.

The observed gas-phase coordination number of K+ in K+(H2O)m clusters is smaller than that observed in bulk solution, where the coordination number has been reported to be between 6 and 8. Both theoretical and gas-phase studies of K+(H2O)m cluster ions point to a coordination number closer to 4. In the gas phase, the coordination number is determined by a variety of factors-the most critical being the magnitude of the K+.