Mark 4A DSN receiver-exciter and transmitter subsystems

The present configuration of the Mark 4A DSN Receiver-Exciter and Transmitter Subsystems is described. Functional requirements and key characteristics are given to show the differences in the capabilities required by the Networks Consolidation task for combined High Earth Orbiter and Deep Space Network tracking support

The microprocessor-based synthesizer controller

Implementation and performance of the microprocessor-based controllers and Dana Digiphase Synthesizer (DCO) installed in the Deep Space Network exciter in the 64-meter and 34-meter subnets to support uplink tuning required for the Voyager-Saturn Encounter is discussed. Test data in tests conducted during the production of the controllers verified the design objective for phase control accuracy of 10 to the - 12 power cycles in eight hours during ramping. Tests conducted require a phase error between a theoretical calculated value and the actual phase of no greater than + or - 1 cycle. Tests included (1) a ramp over a period of eight hours using a ramp rate which covers the synthesizer tuning range (40-51 MHz) and (2) a ramp sequence using the maximum rate (+ or kHz/s) over the tuning range

Information Extraction in Illicit Domains

Extracting useful entities and attribute values from illicit domains such as human trafficking is a challenging problem with the potential for widespread social impact. Such domains employ atypical language models, have `long tails' and suffer from the problem of concept drift. In this paper, we propose a lightweight, feature-agnostic Information Extraction (IE) paradigm specifically designed for such domains. Our approach uses raw, unlabeled text from an initial corpus, and a few (12-120) seed annotations per domain-specific attribute, to learn robust IE models for unobserved pages and websites. Empirically, we demonstrate that our approach can outperform feature-centric Conditional Random Field baselines by over 18\% F-Measure on five annotated sets of real-world human trafficking datasets in both low-supervision and high-supervision settings. We also show that our approach is demonstrably robust to concept drift, and can be efficiently bootstrapped even in a serial computing environment.Comment: 10 pages, ACM WWW 201

Classification and management of anaplastic gliomas

Purpose of review: To summarize findings, discuss problems and define new questions from the past phase III trials in anaplastic gliomas. Recent findings: The current standard of care for first-line treatment in anaplastic gliomas is radiotherapy or chemotherapy. The next steps are to define the role and optimal sequencing of combined modality treatment focusing on radiotherapy and temozolomide and to develop trials with novel targeted treatments. The feature of necrosis in oligodendroglial tumors needs to be further studied, and molecular prognosticators will take more room. These include O6-methylguanylmethyltransferase promoter methylation, isocitrate dehydrogenase mutations and epidermal growth factor receptor amplification. Further, the notion that all anaplastic oligodendroglial tumors with or without a relevant astrocytic component fall into the same prognostic category and the obvious difficulties to type and to grade anaplastic gliomas pose an enormous burden on local diagnosis. The current and upcoming trials including the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer 26053/22054 trial aim at solving some of these issues with an initial central pathology review. Summary: Anaplastic gliomas are an important group of brain tumors to develop future molecularly targeted therapies and should therefore be in the main focus of academic and industrial drug development, which aims at efficacy and avoiding long-term side effects

Motor neurons tune premotor activity in a vertebrate central pattern generator

journal articleCentral patterns generators (CPGs) are neural circuits that drive rhythmic motor output without sensory feedback. Vertebrate CPGs are generally believed to operate in a top-down manner in which premotor interneurons activate motor neurons that in turn drive muscles. In contrast, the frog (Xenopus laevis) vocal CPG contains a functionally unexplored neuronal projection from the motor nucleus to the premotor nucleus, indicating a recurrent pathway that may contribute to rhythm generation. In this study, we characterized the function of this bottom-up connection. The X. laevis vocal CPG produces a 50-60 Hz "fast trill" song used by males during courtship. We recorded "fictive vocalizations" in the in vitro CPG from the laryngeal nerve while simultaneously recording premotor activity at the population and single-cell level. We show that transecting the motor-to-premotor projection eliminated the characteristic firing rate of premotor neurons. Silencing motor neurons with the intracellular sodium channel blocker QX-314 also disrupted premotor rhythms, as did blockade of nicotinic synapses in the motor nucleus (the putative location of motor neuron-to-interneuron connections). Electrically stimulating the laryngeal nerve elicited primarily IPSPs in premotor neurons that could be blocked by a nicotinic receptor antagonist. Our results indicate that an inhibitory signal, activated by motor neurons, is required for proper CPG function. To our knowledge, these findings represent the first example of a CPG in which precise premotor rhythms are tuned by motor neuron activity

Rapid Response of an Academic Surgical Department to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Implications for Patients, Surgeons, and the Community.

BackgroundAs the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic continues to spread, swift actions and preparation are critical for ensuring the best outcomes for patients and providers. We aim to describe our hospital and Department of Surgery's experience in preparing for the COVID-19 pandemic and caring for surgical patients during this unprecedented time.Study designThis is a descriptive study outlining the strategy of a single academic health system for addressing the following 4 critical issues facing surgical departments during the COVID-19 pandemic: developing a cohesive leadership team and system for frequent communication throughout the department; ensuring adequate hospital capacity to care for an anticipated influx of COVID-19 patients; safeguarding supplies of blood products and personal protective equipment to protect patients and providers; and preparing for an unstable workforce due to illness and competing personal priorities, such as childcare.ResultsThrough collaborative efforts within the Department of Surgery and hospital, we provided concise and regular communication, reduced operating room volume by 80%, secured a 4-week supply of personal protective equipment, and created reduced staffing protocols with back-up staffing plans.ConclusionsBy developing an enabling infrastructure, a department can nimbly respond to crises like COVID-19 by promoting trust among colleagues and emphasizing an unwavering commitment to excellent patient care. Sharing principles and practical applications of these changes is important to optimize responses across the country and the world

Association of serum-soluble heat shock protein 60 with carotid atherosclerosis: clinical significance determined in a follow-up study

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Previous work has shown that soluble heat shock protein 60 (HSP60; sHSP60), present in circulating blood, is associated with carotid atherosclerosis. In the current evaluation, we tested the hypothesis that sHSP60 levels are associated with the progression of carotid arteriosclerosis, prospectively. METHODS: The association of sHSP60 with early atherogenesis (5-year development and progression of nonstenotic carotid plaques) was investigated as part of the population-based prospective Bruneck Study. The current study focused on the follow-up period between 1995 and 2000 and, thus, included 684 subjects. RESULTS: sHSP60 levels measured in 1995 and 2000 were highly correlated (r=0.40; P<0.001), indicating consistency over a 5-year period. Circulating HSP60 levels were significantly correlated with antilipopolysaccharide and anti-HSP60 antibodies. It was also elevated in subjects with chronic infection (top quintile group of HSP60, among subjects with and without chronic infection: 23.8% versus 17.0%; P=0.003 after adjustment for age and sex). HSP60 levels were significantly associated with early atherogenesis, both in the entire population (multivariate odds ratio, for a comparison between quintile group V versus I+II: 2.0 [1.2 to 3.5] and the subgroup free of atherosclerosis at the 1995 baseline: 3.8 [1.6 to 8.9]). The risk of early atherogenesis was additionally amplified when high-sHSP60 and chronic infection were present together. CONCLUSIONS: Our study provides the first prospective data confirming an association between high levels of sHSP60 and early carotid atherosclerosis. This possibly indicates an involvement of sHSP60 in activating proinflammatory processes associated with early vessel pathology

Piecewise moments method: Generalized Lanczos technique for nuclear response surfaces

For some years Lanczos moments methods have been combined with large-scale shell-model calculations in evaluations of the spectral distributions of certain operators. This technique is of great value because the alternative, a state-by-state summation over final states, is generally not feasible. The most celebrated application is to the Gamow-Teller operator, which governs β decay and neutrino reactions in the allowed limit. The Lanczos procedure determines the nuclear response along a line q = 0 in the (ω,q) plane, where ω and q are the energy and three-momentum transferred to the nucleus, respectively. However, generalizing such treatments from the allowed limit to general electroweak response functions at arbitrary momentum transfers seems considerably more difficult: The response function must be determined over the entire (ω,q) plane for an operator O(q) that is not fixed, but depends explicitly on q. Such operators arise in any semileptonic process in which the momentum transfer is comparable with (or larger than) the inverse nuclear size. Here we show, for Slater determinants built on harmonic-oscillator basis functions, that the nuclear response for any multipole operator O(q) can be determined efficiently over the full response plane by a generalization of the standard Lanczos moments method. We describe the piecewise moments method and thoroughly explore its convergence properties for the test case of electromagnetic responses in a full sd-shell calculation of ^(28)Si. We discuss possible extensions to a variety of electroweak processes, including charged- and neutral-current neutrino scattering