445 research outputs found
Competition of crystal field splitting and Hund's rule coupling in two-orbital magnetic metal-insulator transitions
Competition of crystal field splitting and Hund's rule coupling in magnetic
metal-insulator transitions of half-filled two-orbital Hubbard model is
investigated by multi-orbital slave-boson mean field theory. We show that with
the increase of Coulomb correlation, the system firstly transits from a
paramagnetic (PM) metal to a {\it N\'{e}el} antiferromagnetic (AFM) Mott
insulator, or a nonmagnetic orbital insulator, depending on the competition of
crystal field splitting and the Hund's rule coupling. The different AFM Mott
insulator, PM metal and orbital insulating phase are none, partially and fully
orbital polarized, respectively. For a small and a finite crystal
field, the orbital insulator is robust. Although the system is nonmagnetic, the
phase boundary of the orbital insulator transition obviously shifts to the
small regime after the magnetic correlations is taken into account. These
results demonstrate that large crystal field splitting favors the formation of
the orbital insulating phase, while large Hund's rule coupling tends to destroy
it, driving the low-spin to high-spin transition.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Patient/Family Education for Newly Diagnosed Pediatric Oncology Patients
There is a paucity of data to support evidence-based practices in the provision of patient/family education in the context of a new childhood cancer diagnosis. Since the majority of children with cancer are treated on pediatric oncology clinical trials, lack of effective patient/family education has the potential to negatively affect both patient and clinical trial outcomes. The Childrenâs Oncology Group Nursing Discipline convened an interprofessional expert panel from within and beyond pediatric oncology to review available and emerging evidence and develop expert consensus recommendations regarding harmonization of patient/family education practices for newly diagnosed pediatric oncology patients across institutions. Five broad principles, with associated recommendations, were identified by the panel, including recognition that (1) in pediatric oncology, patient/family education is family-centered; (2) a diagnosis of childhood cancer is overwhelming and the family needs time to process the diagnosis and develop a plan for managing ongoing life demands before they can successfully learn to care for the child; (3) patient/family education should be an interprofessional endeavor with 3 key areas of focus: (a) diagnosis/treatment, (b) psychosocial coping, and (c) care of the child; (4) patient/family education should occur across the continuum of care; and (5) a supportive environment is necessary to optimize learning. Dissemination and implementation of these recommendations will set the stage for future studies that aim to develop evidence to inform best practices, and ultimately to establish the standard of care for effective patient/family education in pediatric oncology
Empiricism Without the Senses: How the Instrument Replaced the Eye
On receiving news of Galileoâs observations of the four satellites of Jupiter and the rugged face of the moon through his newly invented perspicillum, Kepler in great excitement exclaimed: Therefore let Galileo take his stand by Keplerâs side. Let the former observe the moon with his face turned skyward, while the latter studies the sun by looking down at a screen (lest the lens injure his eyes). Let each employ his own device, and from this partnership may there some day arise an absolutely perfect theory of the distances. This Hollywood-like scene of the two astronomers marching hand in hand toward the dawn of a new scientific era was no attempt by Kepler to appropriate Galileoâs success or to diminish the novelty of the telescope. On the contrary, Kepler repeatedly asserted how short sighted he was in misjudging the potential for astronomical observations inherent in lenses, and how radically Galileoâs instrument transformed the science of astronomy. It was a deep sense of recognition that beyond their different scientific temperaments and projects, they shared a common agenda of a new mode of empirical engagement with the phenomenal world: the instrument. For Kepler and Galileo, empirical investigation was no longer a direct engagement with nature, but an essentially mediated endeavor. The new instruments were not to assist the human senses, but to replace them
An Integrated TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource to Drive High-Quality Survival Outcome Analytics
For a decade, The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) program collected clinicopathologic annotation data along with multi-platform molecular profiles of more than 11,000 human tumors across 33 different cancer types. TCGA clinical data contain key features representing the democratized nature of the data collection process. To ensure proper use of this large clinical dataset associated with genomic features, we developed a standardized dataset named the TCGA Pan-Cancer Clinical Data Resource (TCGA-CDR), which includes four major clinical outcome endpoints. In addition to detailing major challenges and statistical limitations encountered during the effort of integrating the acquired clinical data, we present a summary that includes endpoint usage recommendations for each cancer type. These TCGA-CDR findings appear to be consistent with cancer genomics studies independent of the TCGA effort and provide opportunities for investigating cancer biology using clinical correlates at an unprecedented scale. Analysis of clinicopathologic annotations for over 11,000 cancer patients in the TCGA program leads to the generation of TCGA Clinical Data Resource, which provides recommendations of clinical outcome endpoint usage for 33 cancer types
On a smoothed penalty-based algorithm for global optimization
This paper presents a coercive smoothed penalty framework for nonsmooth and nonconvex constrained global optimization problems. The properties of the smoothed penalty function are derived. Convergence to an Δ -global minimizer is proved. At each iteration k, the framework requires the Δ(k) -global minimizer of a subproblem, where Δ(k)âΔ . We show that the subproblem may be solved by well-known stochastic metaheuristics, as well as by the artificial fish swarm (AFS) algorithm. In the limit, the AFS algorithm convergence to an Δ(k) -global minimum of the real-valued smoothed penalty function is guaranteed with probability one, using the limiting behavior of Markov chains. In this context, we show that the transition probability of the Markov chain produced by the AFS algorithm, when generating a population where the best fitness is in the Δ(k)-neighborhood of the global minimum, is one when this property holds in the current population, and is strictly bounded from zero when the property does not hold. Preliminary numerical experiments show that the presented penalty algorithm based on the coercive smoothed penalty gives very competitive results when compared with other penalty-based methods.The authors would like to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable comments and
suggestions to improve the paper.
This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT
- Fundacžao para a Ci Ë encia e Tecnologia within the projects UID/CEC/00319/2013 and Ë
UID/MAT/00013/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
DBSolve Optimum: a software package for kinetic modeling which allows dynamic visualization of simulation results
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Systems biology research and applications require creation, validation, extensive usage of mathematical models and visualization of simulation results by end-users. Our goal is to develop novel method for visualization of simulation results and implement it in simulation software package equipped with the sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques for model development, verification and parameter fitting.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present mathematical simulation workbench DBSolve Optimum which is significantly improved and extended successor of well known simulation software DBSolve5. Concept of "dynamic visualization" of simulation results has been developed and implemented in DBSolve Optimum. In framework of the concept graphical objects representing metabolite concentrations and reactions change their volume and shape in accordance to simulation results. This technique is applied to visualize both kinetic response of the model and dependence of its steady state on parameter. The use of the dynamic visualization is illustrated with kinetic model of the Krebs cycle.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>DBSolve Optimum is a user friendly simulation software package that enables to simplify the construction, verification, analysis and visualization of kinetic models. Dynamic visualization tool implemented in the software allows user to animate simulation results and, thereby, present them in more comprehensible mode. DBSolve Optimum and built-in dynamic visualization module is free for both academic and commercial use. It can be downloaded directly from <url>http://www.insysbio.ru</url>.</p
Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas
This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing
molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin
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