Barriers to Participation

Despite the nation\u27s founding commitment to participatory democracy, many barriers to candidate and public participation in the electoral process are damaging the public\u27s confidence that our elections are fair and open to full participation by candidates and voters. The nominating processes created by the two major parties mainly serve the goals of party insiders and the more politically extreme factions, at the expense of competition and public confidence in the two-party system. At the same time, barriers to minor party and independent candidates-closed primaries, excessive early-voter registration requirements and complicated state primary and general ballot access requirements-operate to foreclose the possibility of a meaningful multiparty system. This Article will evaluate these and other legal and political barriers, and discuss the cost that such practices impose upon the nation\u27s civic life

Daily bathing with chlorhexidine-based soap and the prevention of Staphylococcus aureus transmission and infection

OBJECTIVE: Determine if daily bathing with chlorhexidine-based soap decreased methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) transmission and ICU-acquired S. aureus infection among ICU patients. DESIGN: Prospective pre-post-intervention study with control unit SETTING: 1,250 bed tertiary-care teaching hospital PATIENTS: Medical and surgical intensive care unit (ICU) patients METHODS: Active surveillance for MRSA colonization was performed in both ICUs. In June 2005, a chlorhexidine bathing protocol was implemented in the surgical ICU. Changes in S. aureus transmission and infection rate before and after implementation were analyzed using time-series methodology. RESULTS: The intervention unit had a 20.68% decrease in MRSA acquisition after institution of the bathing protocol [pre-intervention 12.64 vs. post-intervention 10.03 cases/1000 patient-days-at-risk (95% CI: −5.19 – −0.04, p = 0.046)]. There was no significant change in MRSA acquisition in the control ICU during the study period [10.97 pre-June 2005 vs. 11.33/1000 patient-days at risk post-June 2005 (95% CI −37.40 – 15.19, p = 0.40)]. There was a 20.77% decrease in all S. aureus (including MRSA) acquisition in the intervention ICU from 2002-2007 [19.73 pre-intervention to 15.63 cases per 1000 patient-days at risk post-intervention (95% CI −7.25 – −0.95, p=0.012)]. The incidence of ICU-acquired MRSA infections decreased by 41.37% in the intervention ICU (1.96 pre-intervention vs. 1.15 infections per 1000 patient-days at risk post-intervention; p=0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Institution of daily chlorhexidine bathing in an ICU resulted in a decrease in the transmission of S. aureus, including MRSA. These data support the use of routine daily chlorhexidine baths to decrease rates of S. aureus transmission and infections

Deep Interactive Learning: An Efficient Labeling Approach for Deep Learning-Based Osteosarcoma Treatment Response Assessment

Osteosarcoma is the most common malignant primary bone tumor. Standard treatment includes pre-operative chemotherapy followed by surgical resection. The response to treatment as measured by ratio of necrotic tumor area to overall tumor area is a known prognostic factor for overall survival. This assessment is currently done manually by pathologists by looking at glass slides under the microscope which may not be reproducible due to its subjective nature. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) can be used for automated segmentation of viable and necrotic tumor on osteosarcoma whole slide images. One bottleneck for supervised learning is that large amounts of accurate annotations are required for training which is a time-consuming and expensive process. In this paper, we describe Deep Interactive Learning (DIaL) as an efficient labeling approach for training CNNs. After an initial labeling step is done, annotators only need to correct mislabeled regions from previous segmentation predictions to improve the CNN model until the satisfactory predictions are achieved. Our experiments show that our CNN model trained by only 7 hours of annotation using DIaL can successfully estimate ratios of necrosis within expected inter-observer variation rate for non-standardized manual surgical pathology task.Comment: Accepted at MICCAI 202

Challenges and opportunities in mixed method data collection on mental health issues of health care workers during COVID-19 pandemic in India

Background: The present paper describes the key challenges and opportunities of mixed method telephonic data collection for mental health research using field notes and the experiences of the investigators in a multicenter study in ten sites of India. The study was conducted in public and private hospitals to understand the mental health status, social stigma and coping strategies of different healthcare personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic in India.Methods: Qualitative and quantitative interviews were conducted telephonically. The experiences of data collection were noted as a field notes/diary by the data collectors and principal investigators.Results: The interviewers reported challenges such as network issues, lack of transfer of visual cues and sensitive content of data. Although the telephonic interviews present various challenges in mixed method data collection, it can be used as an alternative to face-to-face data collection using available technology.Conclusions: It is important that the investigators are well trained keeping these challenges in mind so that their capacity is built to deal with these challenges and good quality data is obtained

Variability of Bio-Clinical Parameters in Chinese-Origin Rhesus Macaques Infected with Simian Immunodeficiency Virus: A Nonhuman Primate AIDS Model

BACKGROUND: Although Chinese-origin Rhesus macaques (Ch RhMs) infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) have been used for many years to evaluate the efficacy of AIDS vaccines and therapeutics, the bio-clinical variability of such a nonhuman primate AIDS model was so far not established. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: By randomizing 150 (78 male and 72 female) Ch RhMs with diverse MHC class I alleles into 3 groups (50 animals per group) challenged with intrarectal (i.r.) SIVmac239, intravenous (i.v.) SIVmac239, or i.v. SIVmac251, we evaluated variability in bio-clinical endpoints for 118 weeks. All SIV-challenged Ch RhMs became seropositive for SIV during 1-2 weeks. Plasma viral load (VL) peaked at weeks 1-2 and then declined to set-point levels as from week 5. The set-point VL was 30 fold higher in SIVmac239 (i.r. or i.v.)-infected than in SIVmac251 (i.v.)-infected animals. This difference in plasma VL increased overtime (>100 fold as from week 68). The rates of progression to AIDS or death were more rapid in SIVmac239 (i.r. or i.v.)-infected than in SIVmac251 (i.v.)-infected animals. No significant difference in bio-clinical endpoints was observed in animals challenged with i.r. or i.v. SIVmac239. The variability (standard deviation) in peak/set-point VL was nearly one-half lower in animals infected with SIVmac239 (i.r. or i.v.) than in those infected with SIVmac251 (i.v.), allowing that the same treatment-related difference can be detected with one-half fewer animals using SIVmac239 than using SIVmac251. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: These results provide solid estimates of variability in bio-clinical endpoints needed when designing studies using the Ch RhM SIV model and contribute to the improving quality and standardization of preclinical studies

Barriers to Participation

Despite the nation\u27s founding commitment to participatory democracy, many barriers to candidate and public participation in the electoral process are damaging the public\u27s confidence that our elections are fair and open to full participation by candidates and voters. The nominating processes created by the two major parties mainly serve the goals of party insiders and the more politically extreme factions, at the expense of competition and public confidence in the two-party system. At the same time, barriers to minor party and independent candidates-closed primaries, excessive early-voter registration requirements and complicated state primary and general ballot access requirements-operate to foreclose the possibility of a meaningful multiparty system. This Article will evaluate these and other legal and political barriers, and discuss the cost that such practices impose upon the nation\u27s civic life

Experiments in time shift keying in data communications.

A communication system based on Time Shift Keying (TSK) that allows for file transfer between two computers through a coaxial cable. The system consists of a source computer interfaced to a transmitter and a receiving computer interface to a receiver. The system operates in simplex mode. The transmit side of the system uses a microcontroller to control the frequency that represents logic \u27I\u27 and logic \u27O\u27. The receive side also uses a microcontroller to determine the time differences in the carrier signal and translates these differences into either logic \u27I\u27 or logic \u27O\u27. A Graphical User Interface (GUI) based software controls the opening and closing of the source and receive computer. The software allows the user to send or receive files