Dermatology residency selection criteria with an emphasis on program characteristics: a national program director survey.

Background. Dermatology residency programs are relatively diverse in their resident selection process. The authors investigated the importance of 25 dermatology residency selection criteria focusing on differences in program directors' (PDs') perception based on specific program demographics. Methods. This cross-sectional nationwide observational survey utilized a 41-item questionnaire that was developed by literature search, brainstorming sessions, and online expert reviews. The data were analyzed utilizing the reliability test, two-step clustering, and K-means methods as well as other methods. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in PDs' perception regarding the importance of the selection criteria based on program demographics. Results. Ninety-five out of 114 PDs (83.3%) responded to the survey. The top five criteria for dermatology residency selection were interview, letters of recommendation, United States Medical Licensing Examination Step I scores, medical school transcripts, and clinical rotations. The following criteria were preferentially ranked based on different program characteristics: "advanced degrees," "interest in academics," "reputation of undergraduate and medical school," "prior unsuccessful attempts to match," and "number of publications." Conclusions. Our survey provides up-to-date factual data on dermatology PDs' perception in this regard. Dermatology residency programs may find the reported data useful in further optimizing their residency selection process

Hessian matrix, specific heats, Nambu brackets, and thermodynamic geometry

As an extension to our earlier work \cite{Mirza2}, we employ the Nambu brackets to prove that the divergences of heat capacities correspond to their counterparts in thermodynamic geometry. We also obtain a simple representation for the conformal transformations that connect different thermodynamics metrics to each other. Using our bracket approach, we obtain interesting exact relations between the Hessian matrix with any number of parameters and specific heat capacities. Finally, we employ this approach to investigate some thermodynamic properties of the Meyers-Perry black holes with three spins.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figure

Study of variances in some blood factors during sepsis diagnosis and their interrelations

Background and aims: Sepsis is one of the most common reasons of mortality among patients in intensive care unit, worldwide. Despite new supportive treatments and administration of high potent antibiotics, sepsis is overwhelmingly one of the risky factors in patient’s life. This study was carried out to compare values of some of the blood tests in sepsis diagnosis and to examine their interrelations in order to select a more practicable diagnosis method. Methods: In this descriptive-analytical study, 30 patients with sepsis, hospitalized at ICU were selected. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP), Platelet (PLT), and White blood cells (WBC) were measured in three stages: pre-sepsis, peri-sepsis, and post sepsis. Data analysis was conducted by SPSS using repeated measures ANOVA and paired t-test. Results: ESR, CRP, PLT, and WBC in peri sepsis were significantly higher than those in pre sepsis and post-sepsis (P<0.05). Comparing PCT mean level in post-sepsis was significantly lower than those in pre sepsis and post sepsis (P<0.05). Conclusion: Regarding the significant difference in ESR, CRP, and WBC in peri sepsis compared to pre - and post-sepsis in this study, these tests might be used as simple and inexpensive ones instead of PCT and C3 tests for the diagnosis of sepsis in ICU

Designing Precoding and Receive Matrices for Interference Alignment in MIMO Interference Channels

Interference is a key bottleneck in wireless communication systems. Interference alignment is a management technique that align interference from other transmitters in the least possibly dimension subspace at each receiver and provides the remaining dimensions for free interference signal. An uncoordinated interference is an example of interference which cannot be aligned coordinately with interference from coordinated part; consequently, the performance of interference alignment approaches are degraded. In this paper, we propose a rank minimization method to enhance the performance of interference alignment in the presence of uncoordinated interference sources. Firstly, to obtain higher multiplexing gain, a new rank minimization based optimization problem is proposed; then, a new class of convex relaxation is introduced which can reduce the optimal value of the problem and obtain lower rank solutions by expanding the feasibility set. Simulation results show that our proposed method can obtain considerably higher multiplexing gain and sum rate than other approaches in the interference alignment framework

Application of P300 Event-Related Potential in Brain-Computer Interface

The primary purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate one of the applications of P300 event-related potential (ERP), i.e., brain-computer interface (BCI). Researchers and students will find the chapter appealing with a preliminary description of P300 ERP. This chapter also appreciates the importance and advantages of noninvasive ERP technique. In noninvasive BCI, the P300 ERPs are extracted from brain electrical activities [electroencephalogram (EEG)] as a signature of the underlying electrophysiological mechanism of brain responses to the external or internal changes and events. As the chapter proceeds, topics are covered on more relevant scholarly works about challenges and new directions in P300 BCI. Along with these, articles with the references on the advancement of this technique will be presented to ensure that the scholarly reviews are accessible to people who are new to this field. To enhance fundamental understanding, stimulation as well as signal processing methods will be discussed from some novel works with a comparison of the associated results. This chapter will meet the need for a concise and practical description of basic, as well as advanced P300 ERP techniques, which is suitable for a broad range of researchers extending from today’s novice to an experienced cognitive researcher

Removal Performance of Powdered Activated Carbon (Pac) in Removing Selected Organic Priority Pollutants in an Activated Sludge Process

Civil Engineerin

Hybrid Brain-Computer Interface Systems: Approaches, Features, and Trends

Brain-computer interface (BCI) is an emerging field, and an increasing number of BCI research projects are being carried globally to interface computer with human using EEG for useful operations in both healthy and locked persons. Although several methods have been used to enhance the BCI performance in terms of signal processing, noise reduction, accuracy, information transfer rate, and user acceptability, the effective BCI system is still in the verge of development. So far, various modifications on single BCI systems as well as hybrid are done and the hybrid BCIs have shown increased but insufficient performance. Therefore, more efficient hybrid BCI models are still under the investigation by different research groups. In this review chapter, single BCI systems are briefly discussed and more detail discussions on hybrid BCIs, their modifications, operations, and performances with comparisons in terms of signal processing approaches, applications, limitations, and future scopes are presented