Revitalization of the International Judicial Assistance Procedures of the United States: Service of Documents and Takings of Testimony

This comment will examine two aspects of such judicial assistance-service. of documents and taking of testimony-and it will analyze each from the viewpoint of assistance obtained abroad in aid of American litigation as well as assistance rendered within the United States in aid of foreign litigation. It will attempt to survey some of the problems involved in securing performance of these acts, indicate the changes in current practice which are likely to result from the revisions of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the proposed amendments to the Judicial Code, and, last, suggest some additional measures which might promote greater cooperation in this area between the United States and other countries

Atomic Hydrogen and Star Formation in the Bridge/Ring Interacting Galaxy Pair NGC 7714/7715 (Arp 284)

We present high spatial resolution 21 cm HI maps of the interacting galaxy pair NGC 7714/7715. We detect a massive (2 x 10**9 M(sun)) HI bridge connecting the galaxies that is parallel to but offset from the stellar bridge. A chain of HII regions traces the gaseous bridge, with H-alpha peaks near but not on the HI maxima. An HI tidal tail is also detected to the east of the smaller galaxy NGC 7715, similarly offset from a stellar tail. The strong partial stellar ring on the eastern side of NGC 7714 has no HI counterpart, but on the opposite side of NGC 7714 there is a 10**9 M(sun) HI loop 11 kpc in radius. Within the NGC 7714 disk, clumpy HI gas is observed associated with star formation regions. Redshifted HI absorption is detected towards the starburst nucleus. We compare the observed morphology and gas kinematics with gas dynamical models in which a low-mass companion has an off-center prograde collision with the outer disk of a larger galaxy. These simulations suggest that the bridge in NGC 7714/7715 is a hybrid between bridges seen in systems like M51 and the purely gaseous `splash' bridges found in ring galaxies like the Cartwheel. The offset between the stars and gas in the bridge may be due to dissipative cloud-cloud collisions occuring during the impact of the two gaseous disks.Comment: 31 pages, Latex, 11 figures, to be published in the July 10, 1997 issue of the Astrophysical Journa

A Melanin bleaching method to prevent non-specific immunostaining of chicken feathers

Melanin in pigmented organs like the skin is known to react with 3,3′-diaminobenzidine (DAB) to give a brown colour indistinguishable from the colour that DAB imparts to target antibodies bound to specific antigens. This can lead to false positives in chicken feathers during immunoperoxidase staining. Here, we present a simple, fast and practical method for bleaching chicken feathers which can be applied prior to immunohistochemistry staining without affecting specific antigen-antibody binding. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a melanin-bleaching technique prior to immunoperoxidase staining techniques of chicken feathers for detection of pathogens. Optimisations of the method include: • Removal of melanin from tissue sections using a short incubation with potassium permanganate followed by incubation with oxalic acid prior to immunostaining for improved specificity. • This technique did not affect the antigenicity of infectious laryngotracheitis virus antigen and did not cause damage or detachment of tissues from the slides

Role of anti-phase boundaries in the formation of magnetic domains in magnetite thin films

Anti-phase boundaries (APBs) are structural defects which have been shown to be responsible for the anomalous magnetic behaviour observed in different nanostructures. Understanding their properties is crucial in order to use them to tune the properties of magnetic materials by growing APBs in a controlled way since their density strongly depends on the synthesis method. In this work we investigate their influence on magnetite (Fe$_3$O$_4$) thin films by considering an atomistic spin model, focusing our study on the role that the exchange interactions play across the APB interface. We conclude that the main atypical features reported experimentally in this material are well described by the model we propose here, confirming the new exchange interactions created in the APB as the responsible for this deviation from bulk properties

Towards a Visual-Language Foundation Model for Computational Pathology

The accelerated adoption of digital pathology and advances in deep learning have enabled the development of powerful models for various pathology tasks across a diverse array of diseases and patient cohorts. However, model training is often difficult due to label scarcity in the medical domain and the model's usage is limited by the specific task and disease for which it is trained. Additionally, most models in histopathology leverage only image data, a stark contrast to how humans teach each other and reason about histopathologic entities. We introduce CONtrastive learning from Captions for Histopathology (CONCH), a visual-language foundation model developed using diverse sources of histopathology images, biomedical text, and notably over 1.17 million image-caption pairs via task-agnostic pretraining. Evaluated on a suite of 13 diverse benchmarks, CONCH can be transferred to a wide range of downstream tasks involving either or both histopathology images and text, achieving state-of-the-art performance on histology image classification, segmentation, captioning, text-to-image and image-to-text retrieval. CONCH represents a substantial leap over concurrent visual-language pretrained systems for histopathology, with the potential to directly facilitate a wide array of machine learning-based workflows requiring minimal or no further supervised fine-tuning

Association of acute myeloid leukemias most immature phenotype with risk groups and outcomes

The precise phenotype and biology of acute myeloid leukemia stem cells remain controversial, in part because the “gold standard” immunodeficient mouse engraftment assay fails in a significant fraction of patients and identifies multiple cell-types in others. We sought to analyze the clinical utility of a novel assay for putative leukemia stem cells in a large prospective cohort. The leukemic clone’s most primitive hematopoietic cellular phenotype was prospectively identified in 109 newly-diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia patients, and analyzed against clinical risk groups and outcomes. Most (80/109) patients harbored CD34+CD38− leukemia cells. The CD34+CD38− leukemia cells in 47 of the 80 patients displayed intermediate aldehyde dehydrogenase expression, while normal CD34+CD38− hematopoietic stem cells expressed high levels of aldehyde dehydrogenase. In the other 33/80 patients, the CD34+CD38− leukemia cells exhibited high aldehyde dehydrogenase activity, and most (28/33, 85%) harbored poor-risk cytogenetics or FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 internal tandem translocations. No CD34+ leukemia cells could be detected in 28/109 patients, including 14/21 patients with nucleophosmin-1 mutations and 6/7 acute promyelocytic leukemia patients. The patients with CD34+CD38− leukemia cells with high aldehyde dehydrogenase activity manifested a significantly lower complete remission rate, as well as poorer event-free and overall survivals. The leukemic clone’s most immature phenotype was heterogeneous with respect to CD34, CD38, and ALDH expression, but correlated with acute myeloid leukemia risk groups and outcomes. The strong clinical correlations suggest that the most immature phenotype detectable in the leukemia might serve as a biomarker for “clinically-relevant” leukemia stem cells. ClinicalTrials.gov: {"type":"clinical-trial","attrs":{"text":"NCT01349972","term_id":"NCT01349972"}}NCT01349972

ASCR/HEP Exascale Requirements Review Report

This draft report summarizes and details the findings, results, and recommendations derived from the ASCR/HEP Exascale Requirements Review meeting held in June, 2015. The main conclusions are as follows. 1) Larger, more capable computing and data facilities are needed to support HEP science goals in all three frontiers: Energy, Intensity, and Cosmic. The expected scale of the demand at the 2025 timescale is at least two orders of magnitude -- and in some cases greater -- than that available currently. 2) The growth rate of data produced by simulations is overwhelming the current ability, of both facilities and researchers, to store and analyze it. Additional resources and new techniques for data analysis are urgently needed. 3) Data rates and volumes from HEP experimental facilities are also straining the ability to store and analyze large and complex data volumes. Appropriately configured leadership-class facilities can play a transformational role in enabling scientific discovery from these datasets. 4) A close integration of HPC simulation and data analysis will aid greatly in interpreting results from HEP experiments. Such an integration will minimize data movement and facilitate interdependent workflows. 5) Long-range planning between HEP and ASCR will be required to meet HEP's research needs. To best use ASCR HPC resources the experimental HEP program needs a) an established long-term plan for access to ASCR computational and data resources, b) an ability to map workflows onto HPC resources, c) the ability for ASCR facilities to accommodate workflows run by collaborations that can have thousands of individual members, d) to transition codes to the next-generation HPC platforms that will be available at ASCR facilities, e) to build up and train a workforce capable of developing and using simulations and analysis to support HEP scientific research on next-generation systems.Comment: 77 pages, 13 Figures; draft report, subject to further revisio

LC-HRMS suspect screening to show spatial patterns of New Psychoactive Substances use in Australia

New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) are an ever-changing class of compounds designed to imitate the effects of current recreational drugs. Such a diverse market is difficult to assess by traditional means, while collected information can become obsolete before it is available. Wastewater-based epidemiology is one technique which can capture information on where and when NPS appear at the community level. The aim of this study was to identify NPS in wastewater samples using a suspect screening approach. Weekend samples were collected from 50 wastewater treatment plants from Australian capital cities and regional areas across all eight States and Territories and screened against a database containing almost 200 NPS. A total of 22 different NPS were found across all regional and metropolitan wastewater treatment plants. Results showed that the most detected compounds were of the cathinone class, with both Alpha-PVP and methcathinone found in every region. In addition, five different synthetic cannabinoids were detected, at least once in half of the regions analysed. Herein, we report the first comprehensive nationwide analysis of NPS and show the utility of liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry screening for delivering spatial information of the NPS being consumed in communities

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs during chemotherapy for preservation of ovarian function and fertility in premenopausal early breast cancer patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis of individual patient-level data

Purpose The role of temporary ovarian suppression with gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists (GnRHa) during chemotherapy as a strategy to preserve ovarian function and fertility in premenopausal women remains controversial. This systematic review and meta-analysis using individual patient\u2013level data was conducted to better assess the efficacy and safety of this strategy in patients with early breast cancer. Methods The trials in which premenopausal women with early breast cancer were randomly assigned to receive (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy alone or with concurrent GnRHa were eligible for inclusion. Primary end points were premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) rate and post-treatment pregnancy rate. Disease-free survival and overall survival were secondary end points. Because each study represents a cluster, statistical analyses were performed using a random effects model. Results A total of 873 patients from five trials were included. POI rate was 14.1% in the GnRHa group and 30.9% in the control group (adjusted odds ratio, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.26 to 0.57; P, .001). A total of 37 (10.3%) patients had at least one post-treatment pregnancy in the GnRHa group and 20 (5.5%) in the control group (incidence rate ratio, 1.83; 95% CI, 1.06 to 3.15; P = .030). No significant differences in disease-free survival (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.72 to 1.42; P = .999) and overall survival (adjusted hazard ratio, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.42 to 1.06; P = .083) were observed between groups. Conclusion Our findings provide evidence for the efficacy and safety of temporary ovarian suppression with GnRHa during chemotherapy as an available option to reduce the likelihood of chemotherapy-induced POI and potentially improve future fertility in premenopausal patients with early breast cancer

Search for composite and exotic fermions at LEP 2

A search for unstable heavy fermions with the DELPHI detector at LEP is reported. Sequential and non-canonical leptons, as well as excited leptons and quarks, are considered. The data analysed correspond to an integrated luminosity of about 48 pb^{-1} at an e^+e^- centre-of-mass energy of 183 GeV and about 20 pb^{-1} equally shared between the centre-of-mass energies of 172 GeV and 161 GeV. The search for pair-produced new leptons establishes 95% confidence level mass limits in the region between 70 GeV/c^2 and 90 GeV/c^2, depending on the channel. The search for singly produced excited leptons and quarks establishes upper limits on the ratio of the coupling of the excited fermio