A New Look at Hard Labor Creek Observatory

This document presents a study of astronomical observing conditions of Hard Labor Creek Observatory. Analysis of factors such as sky brightness, astonomical seeing, and patterns in the level of cloudiness at the site are presented. Characteristics of the observatory\u27s Apogee Alta U230 camera are also measured and calculated. These characteristics include loss of linearity in the CCD\u27s response to light, read noise, gain, dark current, and stability in the camera\u27s bias levels. The camera is also used in conjunction with the 20-inch RC Optics telescope to determine the system\u27s pixel scale and a set of limiting magnitudes for the Johnson-Cousins photometric filters that are used with the camera. Observations of a transit of known transiting exoplanet Qatar-2 b as well as observations of the open cluster Messier 29 are also performed to demonstrate the ability of the equipment to perform precise photometric observations

Vaginal Repair of Cystocele with Anterior Wall Mesh via Transobturator Route: Efficacy and Complications with Up to 3-Year Followup

Study Objective. The objective of this study was to report on the safety and efficacy of cystocele repair with anterior wall mesh placed via a transobturator route (Perigee system, AMS, Minnetonka, MN). Design. Single center retrospective study. Setting. Single center hospital setting and Urogynecology practice in the United States. Patients. 77 women presenting with symptomatic anterior wall prolapse. Intervention. Repair of cystocele with an anterior wall Type I soft-polypropylene mesh placed via a transobturator approach. Concomitant procedures in other compartment were also completed as indicated. Measurements and Main Results. 77 women underwent the Perigee procedure at our institution over a 2-year period. The mesh was attached to the pelvic sidewalls at the level of the bladder neck and near the ischial spine apically with needles passed through the groins and obturator space. Mean follow-up was 18.2 months (range 3–36 months). Objective cure rate was 93%. Subjectively only two patients have had recurrent symptoms of prolapse, and only 1 of these has required repeat surgery for cystocele. Mesh exposure vaginally occurred in 5 patients (6.5%); however all were treated with estrogen and/or local excision of exposed mesh and had no further sequelae. There were no incidences of chronic pain, infection, or abscess, and no patient required complete mesh removal for infection, pain, or extrusion. Conclusion. In select patients with anterior wall prolapse, repair with mesh augmentation via the transobturator route is a safe and effective procedure with up to 3 years of follow-up

Incidence of Extrusion Following Type I Polypropylene Mesh “Kit” Repairs in the Correction of Pelvic Organ Prolapse

Introduction and Hypothesis. We sought to determine the mesh extrusion (vaginal exposure) rates and subject outcomes following IntePro (Type I polypropylene) mesh “kit” repairs for vaginal prolapse. Methods. Data were pooled from two prospective multicenter studies evaluating the safety and efficacy of the Perigee and Apogee (American Medical Systems, Minnetonka, Minn, USA) to treat anterior and posterior/apical prolapses, respectively. Extrusions involving the anterior compartment (AC) or posterior compartment/apex (PC/A) were recorded. Results. Two hundred sixty women underwent mesh placement, with a total of 368 mesh units inserted (173 in the AC and 195 in the PC/A). Extrusions were noted in 13 (7.5%) of AC implants and 27 (13.8%) of PC/A implants through 12 months. No difference was seen between those with and without extrusion in regard to anatomic cure, postoperative painor quality of life at 1 year. Conclusions. Extrusion had no apparent effect on short-term outcomes. Given the unknown long-term sequellae of vaginal mesh exposure, a thorough assessment of risks and benefits of transvaginal mesh placement should be considered at the time of preoperative planning

An Energy and Performance Exploration of Network-on-Chip Architectures

In this paper, we explore the designs of a circuit-switched router, a wormhole router, a quality-of-service (QoS) supporting virtual channel router and a speculative virtual channel router and accurately evaluate the energy-performance tradeoffs they offer. Power results from the designs placed and routed in a 90-nm CMOS process show that all the architectures dissipate significant idle state power. The additional energy required to route a packet through the router is then shown to be dominated by the data path. This leads to the key result that, if this trend continues, the use of more elaborate control can be justified and will not be immediately limited by the energy budget. A performance analysis also shows that dynamic resource allocation leads to the lowest network latencies, while static allocation may be used to meet QoS goals. Combining the power and performance figures then allows an energy-latency product to be calculated to judge the efficiency of each of the networks. The speculative virtual channel router was shown to have a very similar efficiency to the wormhole router, while providing a better performance, supporting its use for general purpose designs. Finally, area metrics are also presented to allow a comparison of implementation costs

LRH-1 mitigates intestinal inflammatory disease by maintaining epithelial homeostasis and cell survival.

Epithelial dysfunction and crypt destruction are defining features of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, current IBD therapies targeting epithelial dysfunction are lacking. The nuclear receptor LRH-1 (NR5A2) is expressed in intestinal epithelium and thought to contribute to epithelial renewal. Here we show that LRH-1 maintains intestinal epithelial health and protects against inflammatory damage. Knocking out LRH-1 in murine intestinal organoids reduces Notch signaling, increases crypt cell death, distorts the cellular composition of the epithelium, and weakens the epithelial barrier. Human LRH-1 (hLRH-1) rescues epithelial integrity and when overexpressed, mitigates inflammatory damage in murine and human intestinal organoids, including those derived from IBD patients. Finally, hLRH-1 greatly reduces disease severity in T-cell-mediated murine colitis. Together with the failure of a ligand-incompetent hLRH-1 mutant to protect against TNFα-damage, these findings provide compelling evidence that hLRH-1 mediates epithelial homeostasis and is an attractive target for intestinal disease

Skill and self-knowledge:Empirical refutation of the dual-burden account of the Dunning-Kruger effect

For many intellectual tasks, the people with the least skill overestimate themselves the most, a pattern popularly known as the Dunning–Kruger effect (DKE). The dominant account of this effect depends on the idea that assessing the quality of one's performance (metacognition) requires the same mental resources as task performance itself (cognition). Unskilled people are said to suffer a dual burden: they lack the cognitive resources to perform well, and this deprives them of metacognitive insight into their failings. In this Registered Report, we applied recently developed methods for the measurement of metacognition to a matrix reasoning task, to test the dual-burden account. Metacognitive sensitivity (information exploited by metacognition) tracked performance closely, so less information was exploited by the metacognitive judgements of poor performers; but metacognitive efficiency (quality of metacognitive processing itself) was unrelated to performance. Metacognitive bias (overall tendency towards high or low confidence) was positively associated with performance, so poor performers were appropriately less confident—not more confident—than good performers. Crucially, these metacognitive factors did not cause the DKE pattern, which was driven overwhelmingly by performance scores. These results refute the dual-burden account and suggest that the classic DKE is a statistical regression artefact that tells us nothing much about metacognition