Profitability Study of MPAA Rated Movies

Concerned with the limited number of family oriented films currently produced each year and an increase in the number of films containing sex and violence, The Dove Foundation is interested in determining which films, by MPAA rating, produce the greatest profits as well as the highest rates of return on investment (ROI)

Influence of biliary stents on the diagnostic outcome of endoscopic ultrasound–guided tissue acquisition from solid pancreatic lesions: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background/Aims This meta-analysis analyzed the effect of an indwelling biliary stent on endoscopic ultrasound (EUS)–guided tissue acquisition from pancreatic lesions. Methods A literature search was performed to identify studies published between 2000 and July 2022 comparing the diagnostic outcomes of EUS-tissue acquisition (TA) in patients with or without biliary stents. For non-strict criteria, samples reported as malignant or suspicious for malignancy were included, whereas for strict criteria, only samples reported as malignant were included in the analysis. Results Nine studies were included in this analysis. The odds of an accurate diagnosis were significantly lower in patients with indwelling stents using both non-strict (odds ratio [OR], 0.68; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.52–0.90) and strict criteria (OR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.46–0.74). The pooled sensitivity with and without stents were similar (87% vs. 91%) using non-strict criteria. However, patients with stents had a lower pooled sensitivity (79% vs. 88%) when using strict criteria. The sample inadequacy rate was comparable between groups (OR, 1.12; 95% CI, 0.76–1.65). The diagnostic accuracy and sample inadequacy were comparable between plastic and metal biliary stents. Conclusions The presence of a biliary stent may negatively affect the diagnostic outcome of EUS-TA for pancreatic lesions

Study protocol for a multicenter randomized controlled trial to compare radiofrequency ablation with surgical resection for treatment of pancreatic insulinoma

Background: Insulinoma is the most common functional pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor and treatment is required to address symptoms associated with insulin hypersecretion. Surgical resection is effective but burdened by high rate of adverse events (AEs). Endoscopic ultrasound-guided radiofrequency ablation (EUS-RFA) demonstrated encouraging results in terms of safety and efficacy for the management of these tumors. However, studies comparing surgery and EUS-RFA are lacking. Aims: The primary aim is to compare EUS-RFA with surgery in term of safety (overall rate of AEs). Secondary endpoints include: (a) severe AEs rate; (b) clinical effectiveness; (c) patient's quality of life; (d) length of hospital stay; (e) rate of local/distance recurrence; (f) need of reintervention; (g) rate of endocrine and exocrine pancreatic insufficiency; (h) factors associated with EUS-RFA related AEs and clinical effectiveness. Methods: ERASIN-RCT is an international randomized superiority ongoing trial in four countries. Sixty patients will be randomized in two arms (EUS-RFA vs surgery) and outcomes compared. Two EUS-RFA sessions will be allowed to achieve symptoms resolution. Randomization and data collection will be performed online. Discussion: This study will ascertain if EUS-RFA can become the first-line therapy for management of small, sporadic, pancreatic insulinoma and be included in a step-up approach in case of clinical failure. & COPY; 2023 Editrice Gastroenterologica Italiana S.r.l. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Polymeric drift control adjuvants for agricultural spraying

The movement of a pesticide or herbicide to an off-target site during agricultural spraying can cause injury to wildlife, plants and contamination of surface water. This phenomenon is known as spray drift and can be controlled by spraying during favorable environmental conditions, and by using low drift nozzles and drift control adjuvants (DCAs). Polymeric DCAs are the most common type of DCA and function by increasing the droplet size produced during spraying. There are, however, two main drawbacks of polymeric DCAs; they are prone to mechanical degradation during spraying which reduces their performance and they can produce oversized drops which reduces the efficacy of the spray. In this trend article, existing DCA technology is reviewed including the mechanism through which they function. This then provides a platform for the discussion of novel polymeric architectures which have currently not been applied in DCA formulations

The Gene Ontology knowledgebase in 2023

The Gene Ontology (GO) knowledgebase (http://geneontology.org) is a comprehensive resource concerning the functions of genes and gene products (proteins and noncoding RNAs). GO annotations cover genes from organisms across the tree of life as well as viruses, though most gene function knowledge currently derives from experiments carried out in a relatively small number of model organisms. Here, we provide an updated overview of the GO knowledgebase, as well as the efforts of the broad, international consortium of scientists that develops, maintains, and updates the GO knowledgebase. The GO knowledgebase consists of three components: (1) the GO-a computational knowledge structure describing the functional characteristics of genes; (2) GO annotations-evidence-supported statements asserting that a specific gene product has a particular functional characteristic; and (3) GO Causal Activity Models (GO-CAMs)-mechanistic models of molecular "pathways" (GO biological processes) created by linking multiple GO annotations using defined relations. Each of these components is continually expanded, revised, and updated in response to newly published discoveries and receives extensive QA checks, reviews, and user feedback. For each of these components, we provide a description of the current contents, recent developments to keep the knowledgebase up to date with new discoveries, and guidance on how users can best make use of the data that we provide. We conclude with future directions for the project

Fast Algorithms for NN-body Simulation

Many physical models require the simulation of a large number ($N$) of particles interacting through pair-wise inverse square law forces. $N$-body simulations are employed in fluid-dynamics, biochemistry, astrophysics, electrodynamics and molecular dynamics. The computational problem is intrinsically hard and these simulations are time-intensive. Existing algorithms exploit either the spatial proximity of particles or the temporal proximity of states. In this thesis, we formally combine the two approaches and present an algorithm with sequential time complexity $O(N^{4/3})$ to integrate $N$ uniformly distributed particles in 3D over one crossing time against the $O(N^{8/3})$ complexity of the direct method. Under reasonable assumptions, our algorithm is optimal. The core of the algorithm is the temporal multipole expansion of the field in terms of the space-time coordinates of the field-point. We also present efficient parallel algorithms on the 2D and 3D Mesh and Hypercube which amortize communication costs through temporal multipole expansions. The parallel algorithms offer an order of magnitude improvement over existing algorithms for even $10^{4}$ particles. A sequential implementation of the algorithm for two-dimensional $N$-body systems shows the predicted asymptotic scaling. A parallel version on a 16-processor Intel iPSC/860 machine is also in conformance with theoretical expectations