When a Critical Vendor may be Insulated from Preference Liability

(Excerpt) Under Title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) a trustee or debtor in possession (“DIP”) may avoid certain payments made by the debtor to a creditor within ninety days prior to filing for bankruptcy, or one year if the creditor is an insider. The Bankruptcy Code contains certain defenses to preference claims. A court may also release a creditor from such claims. Such a release may be found in orders approving payment of pre-petition claims to a “critical vendor.” Absent such an express release, it is unclear whether a trustee or DIP is precluded from pursuing a preference claim against a critical vendor. This memorandum analyzes whether a critical vendor is immune from a preference claim under the Bankruptcy Code. Part I provides an overview of preference law and the critical vendor doctrine. Part II examines rules established through case law covering when a critical vendor designation will bar a preference claim

Thermal Testing and Integration: Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) Observatories with Digital 1-Wire Sensors

Thermocouples require two thin wires to be routed out of the spacecraft to connect to the ground support equipment used to monitor and record the temperature data. This large number of wires that exit the observatory complicates integration and creates an undesirable heat path during testing. These wires exiting the spacecraft need to be characterized as a thermal short that will not exist during flight. To minimize complexity and reduce thermal variables from these ground support equipment (GSE) wires, MMS pursued a hybrid path for temperature monitoring, utilizing thermocouples and digital 1-wire temperature sensors. Digital 1-wire sensors can greatly reduce harness mass, length and complexity as they can be spliced together. For MMS, 350 digital 1-wire sensors were installed on the spacecraft with only 18 wires exiting as opposed to a potential 700 thermocouple wires. Digital 1-wire sensors had not been used in such a large scale at NASAGSFC prior to the MMS mission. During the MMS thermal vacuum testing a lessons learned matrix was formulated that will assist future integration of 1-wires into thermal testing and one day into flight

Thermal Integration and Testing Magnetospheric MultiScale (MMS) Observatories Using Digital 1-wire Sensors

No abstract availabl

Immune-Mediated Dermatoses in Patients with Haematological Malignancies: A Comprehensive Review

Haematological malignancies induce important alterations of the immune system, which account for the high frequency of autoimmune complications observed in patients. Cutaneous immune-mediated diseases associated with haematological malignancies encompass a heterogeneous group of dermatoses, including, among others, neutrophilic and eosinophilic dermatoses, autoantibody-mediated skin diseases, vasculitis and granulomatous dermatoses. Some of these diseases, such as paraneoplastic pemphigus, are associated with an increased risk of death; others, such as eosinophilic dermatoses of haematological malignancies, run a benign clinical course but portend a significant negative impairment on a patient's quality of life. In rare cases, the skin eruption reflects immunological alterations associated with an unfavourable prognosis of the associated haematological disorder. Therapeutic management of immune-mediated skin diseases in patients with haematological malignancies is often challenging. Systemic corticosteroids and immunosuppressive drugs are considered frontline therapies but may considerably augment the risk of serious infections. Indeed, developing a specific targeted therapeutic approach is of crucial importance for this particularly fragile patient population. This review provides an up-to-date overview on the immune-mediated skin diseases most frequently encountered by patients with onco-haematological disorders, discussing new pathogenic advances and therapeutic options on the horizon

When a Critical Vendor may be Insulated from Preference Liability

(Excerpt) Under Title 11 of the United States Code (the “Bankruptcy Code”) a trustee or debtor in possession (“DIP”) may avoid certain payments made by the debtor to a creditor within ninety days prior to filing for bankruptcy, or one year if the creditor is an insider. The Bankruptcy Code contains certain defenses to preference claims. A court may also release a creditor from such claims. Such a release may be found in orders approving payment of pre-petition claims to a “critical vendor.” Absent such an express release, it is unclear whether a trustee or DIP is precluded from pursuing a preference claim against a critical vendor. This memorandum analyzes whether a critical vendor is immune from a preference claim under the Bankruptcy Code. Part I provides an overview of preference law and the critical vendor doctrine. Part II examines rules established through case law covering when a critical vendor designation will bar a preference claim

The study of burnout frequency and its association with job performance among healthcare staff

Background: Occurs as a result of long-term exposure to stress, job burnout threatens the health of personnel. Objectives: Considering the important role of healthcare personnel in maintaining and promoting people’s health, the current study investigated the job burnout frequency and its association with job performance among healthcare personnel. Methods: This correlational and cross-sectional study was conducted among all healthcare personnel of urban/rural healthcare centers in Health Office of Islam Abad-e-Gharb, Iran. A total of 136 personnel participated in this study. Data were collected using Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and Hersey and Goldsmith’s job performance scale. Descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Spearman correlation coefficient tests were used to analyze the data (p≤0.05). Results: The mean (SD) frequencies of job burnout and job performance were found to be 45.96±17.77 and 52.5±9, respectively. There was a significant inverse correlation between job burnout and job performance (p=0.000, r=-0.249). However, there was no significant association between job burnout and age, gender, marital status, education, and smoking factors (p≥0.05). Conclusion: The findings showed that most of the personnel experienced moderate to low levels of job burnout. Besides, job burnout was found to be a factor affecting job performance. Hence, this study calls for useful interventions to reduce job burnout and increase job performance consequently

Chromosomal Rearrangement and Bioinformatic Studies of the Involved Genes in DMBA-Induced Breast Cancer in SD Rat Strains and Verification of their Syntenic Segments in Human Chromosoms

Abstract: Background & Aims: Breast cancer is the most common malignant neoplasm in women and has an increasing rate in both developed and developing countries. According to Iranian National Cancer Registration report, breast cancer has the first rank in women. Breast cancer is the major cause of mortality in women under 55 years old. The present study was performed to find the most probable involved genes in breast cancer. Methods: In this work, we have gavaged 10 mg DMBA solved in 0.5 ml sesame oil to the DMBA-treated SD rat strains. Before proceeding to cell culture, samples were verified in pathological and immunohistochemistry approaches, and then we performed metaphase chromosomal preparations and finally performed G-banding staining. The most common chromosomal changes were recorded and genes in affected area were determined and a genes-list by comparing genome of rat and human in chromosomal changed segments were prepared. Results: Our data showed a wide range of numerical and structural changes in different chromosomes. We found recurrently gain in chromosomes no. 1, 3, 9 and loss in chromosomes no. 8 and 15 and also deletion in chromosomes no. 2, 5, 8, 16, 19 and addition in chromosome no. 2, 12 and 19. Conclusion: According to these chromosomal changes and based on bio-informatics studies we predicted that the DAB2, KLF4, HSPA8, CDKN2A, CALB2, HPR, CHFR, ALDH2, AQP3, ABCA1, ALDOB, ASH2L, LSM1, FGFR1, HSPA8, ZFHX3 and SFRP1 are probably involved in the development of breast cancer. Keywords: Breast neoplasms, chromosome Aberrations, Chromosome – banding, DMBA, Rats, Inbred strain

Preparing PCL/PLGA Hybrid Nanofiber Scaffold Capable of Controlled Releasing of Insulin for Cartilage Tissue Engineering Application

Introduction: Poly lactic co- glycolic acid (PLGA) and poly caprolacton (PCL) are highly applicable polymers in the field of drug delivery and tissue engineering scaffolds. Therefore, this study aimed to design an insulin-loaded PCL/PLGA hybrid nanofiber scaffold in order to be applied in attachment and growth of chondrocytes. Moreover, it can provide a vehicle for the controlled release of active insulin in a certain time period. Methods: Chondrocyte cells were isolated from septum cartilage tissue utilizing collagenase and were also cultured in monolayer, then the third-passage cells were seeded on the scaffolds. Insulin release from the PCL/PLGA hybrid nanofiber scaffold was examined by Radio Immuno Metric Assay (RIMA) during 22 days. Adherence, distribution and morphology of cells were observed by H&E and alcian blue staining. Results: PCL/PLGA hybrid nanofiber scaffold revealed a slow and sustain release of insulin within three weeks. Chondrocytes were distributed evenly throughout the scaffolds. In addition, they sank into the pores of scaffold and maintained their rounded morphology. Conclusion: Biological activity of insulin has been maintained during 22 days of controlled release from hybrid nanofiber PCL/PLGA scaffold. Chondrocytes were distributed evenly throughout the scaffold and revealed a rounded morphology. Therefore, this scaffold provides a suitable carrier for chondrocyte growth as well as formation of tissue engineered cartilage

Detection of tomato plant phenotyping traits using YOLOv5-based single stage detectors

Plant phenotyping is the study of complex plant traits to evaluate its status depending on the life-cycle conditions. Often, these evaluations are carried out by human operators, and the accuracy could be biased by their experience and skill, especially when dealing with huge amounts of data produced by high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) platforms. With the rapid development of key enabling technologies, HTP is only made possible by the vast amounts of data made available by computer vision systems. In this scenario, artificial intelligence algorithms play a key role in the automation, standardization, and quantitative analysis of large data. This paper focuses on detecting tomato plants phenotyping traits using single-stage detectors (either stand-alone or ensemble) based on YOLOv5, aiming to effectively identify nodes, fruit, and flowers on a challenging dataset acquired during a stress experiment conducted on multiple tomato genotypes. Results demonstrate that the models achieve relatively high scores, considering the particular challenges of the input images in terms of object size, similarity between objects, and their color