Guardians Ad Litem as Surrogate Parents: Implication for Role Definition and Confidentiality

SALMON (Scalable Ab-initio Light–Mattersimulator for Optics and Nanoscience, http://salmon-tddft.jp) is a software package for the simulation of electron dynamics and optical properties of molecules, nanostructures, and crystalline solids based on first-principles time-dependent density functional theory. The core part of the software is the real-time, real-space calculation of the electron dynamics induced in molecules and solids by an external electric field solving the time-dependent Kohn–Sham equation. Using a weak instantaneous perturbing field, linear response properties such as polarizabilities and photoabsorptions in isolated systems and dielectric functions in periodic systems are determined. Using an optical laser pulse, the ultrafast electronic response that may be highly nonlinear in the field strength is investigated in time domain. The propagation of the laser pulse in bulk solids and thin films can also be included in the simulation via coupling the electron dynamics in many microscopic unit cells using Maxwell’s equations describing the time evolution of the electromagnetic fields. The code is efficiently parallelized so that it may describe the electron dynamics in large systems including up to a few thousand atoms. The present paper provides an overview of the capabilities of the software package showing several sample calculations. Program summary Program Title: SALMON: Scalable Ab-initio Light–Matter simulator for Optics and Nanoscience Program Files doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/8pm5znxtsb.1 Licensing provisions: Apache-2.0 Programming language: Fortran 2003 Nature of problem: Electron dynamics in molecules, nanostructures, and crystalline solids induced by an external electric field is calculated based on first-principles time-dependent density functional theory. Using a weak impulsive field, linear optical properties such as polarizabilities, photoabsorptions, and dielectric functions are extracted. Using an optical laser pulse, the ultrafast electronic response that may be highly nonlinear with respect to the exciting field strength is described as well. The propagation of the laser pulse in bulk solids and thin films is considered by coupling the electron dynamics in many microscopic unit cells using Maxwell’s equations describing the time evolution of the electromagnetic field. Solution method: Electron dynamics is calculated by solving the time-dependent Kohn–Sham equation in real time and real space. For this, the electronic orbitals are discretized on a uniform Cartesian grid in three dimensions. Norm-conserving pseudopotentials are used to account for the interactions between the valence electrons and the ionic cores. Grid spacings in real space and time, typically 0.02 nm and 1 as respectively, determine the spatial and temporal resolutions of the simulation results. In most calculations, the ground state is first calculated by solving the static Kohn–Sham equation, in order to prepare the initial conditions. The orbitals are evolved in time with an explicit integration algorithm such as a truncated Taylor expansion of the evolution operator, together with a predictor–corrector step when necessary. For the propagation of the laser pulse in a bulk solid, Maxwell’s equations are solved using a finite-difference scheme. By this, the electric field of the laser pulse and the electron dynamics in many microscopic unit cells of the crystalline solid are coupled in a multiscale framework

A Phase II Trial of Combined Treatment of Endoscopic Mucosal Resection and Chemoradiotherapy for Clinical Stage I Esophageal Carcinoma: Japan Clinical Oncology Group Study JCOG0508

Standard treatment for clinical stage I esophageal cancer with submucosal invasion (T1b) has been surgical resection. We conducted a Phase II trial to evaluate the efficacy and the safety of combined treatment of endoscopic mucosal resection (EMR) and chemoradiotherapy for clinical stage I (T1b) esophageal cancer. Patients diagnosed as having clinical stage I (T1b) esophageal cancer which is considered to be resectable by EMR are eligible. When pathological examination of the EMR specimen confirms T1b tumor with negative or positive resection margin, the patient undergoes chemoradiotherapy. The study continues until 82 patients with T1b tumor with negative resection margin are enrolled from 20 institutions. The primary endpoint is 3-year overall survival (OS) in pT1b cases with negative resection margin. The secondary endpoints are 3-year OS and progression-free survival in all eligible cases, OS in pT1a-MM cases with margin-negative, complications of EMR and adverse events of chemoradiotherapy. The data from this trial will be expected to provide a non-surgical treatment option to the patients with clinical stage I (T1b) esophageal cancer

Physical Point Simulation in 2+1 Flavor Lattice QCD

We present the results of the physical point simulation in 2+1 flavor lattice QCD with the nonperturbatively $O(a)$-improved Wilson quark action and the Iwasaki gauge action at $\beta=1.9$ on a $32^3 \times 64$ lattice. The physical quark masses together with the lattice spacing is determined with $m_\pi$, $m_K$ and $m_\Omega$ as physical inputs. There are two key algorithmic ingredients to make possible the direct simulation at the physical point: One is the mass-preconditioned domain-decomposed HMC algorithm to reduce the computational cost. The other is the reweighting technique to adjust the hopping parameters exactly to the physical point. The physics results include the hadron spectrum, the quark masses and the pseudoscalar meson decay constants. The renormalization factors are nonperturbatively evaluated with the Schr{\"o}dinger functional method. The results are compared with the previous ones obtained by the chiral extrapolation method.Comment: 20 pages, 17 figures, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

The role of S-1 in the treatment of gastric cancer

S-1 is a potent antitumour drug in gastric cancer. After years of disagreement about the utility of chemotherapy for advanced gastric cancer, several studies have recently demonstrated the efficacy of S-1 in both the adjuvant and primary settings. In this Minireview, the value of S-1 in the treatment of gastric cancer is discussed

Using electronic syndromic surveillance system to collect animal health and meat inspection records in Marsabit County, Kenya

Introduction: An electronic syndromic surveillance system for collecting, collating and analysing animal health and meat inspection records in Marsabit County, Kenya has been developed. Architecture: The system comprises a cloud server linked to a series of data collection phones operated by field veterinarians based at the sub-county locations and meat inspectors in abattoirs. Animal health data are collected by sub-county veterinarians during their routine active surveillance missions or via telephone contacts with community disease reporters (CDRs) who are based at the village; these CDRs have been trained on disease recognition and reporting. Each veterinarian is expected to make weekly phone calls to each CDR to check whether there has been any incident that needs to be reported during the intervening period. However, when there is an outbreak, the CDRs from affected village call the veterinarian to whom they report to provide the data. Sub-county veterinarians upload the syndromic reports to the online server at the end of each day. Abattoir data on the other hand are uploaded by the meat inspectors to the database directly at the end of each day. The server has scripts written in Java language for automated data management and analysis. Descriptive results produced include trend graphs, heat maps and word clouds on reported syndromes. Initial observations: For livestock diseases and syndromes, the system currently indicates that a total of 130 reports have been made over the last six months. The number of reports by sub-county varies from 65 in Laisamis, 46 from Moyale, 14 from Saku and 5 from North Horr. The common syndromes captured in the word cloud include coughing, mucoid nasal discharge, severe breathing difficulties and thickening of the skin. The numbers of cattle slaughtered and inspected in the County abattoirs in the months of September, October and November 2017 were 178, 212 and 203 cattle, respectively. The combined numbers of sheep and goats slaughtered at the same period were 989, 1078 and 1011, respectively. Cases reported from post mortem inspections in the abattoirs included facioliasis, pneumonic lungs, abscesses and cysts. Conclusion: The system improves the capacity of the department to collect and manage data that could have otherwise been keep in paper forms. The analyses conducted also show a good level of agreement between animal health data and post mortem findings. This is because the common animal health syndromes reported by CDRs were coughing and severe breathing problems, while a high proportion of post mortem cases observed were pneumonic lesions. This demonstrates the utility of using multiple sources of data for triangulation purposes