Organ Donation

Organ transplantation is the only way of giving the gift of life to the patients with organ failure; however, the inadequate supply of organs, especially from deceased donors, has created a wide gap between organ supply and organ demand. Many organs from deceased donors are still not being used worldwide because of lack of information, education, and social system. Effective systems such as opt-out, donation after circulatory death, and donor action programs are needed to promote deceased donations. Counseling on organ donations must be an essential step of families of brain-dead patients. Standard practice should include that physicians call an Organ Procurement Organization coordinator before meeting with the families of potential donors. Tight screening for potential organ donor in intensive care unit, decoupling, and professional counseling are key components. The authorities have to consider the establishment of an opt-out system, and social systemic efforts are needed

Commutative Energetic Subsets of BCK-Algebras

The notions of a C-energetic subset and (anti) permeable C-value in BCK-algebras are introduced, and related properties are investigated. Conditions for an element t in [0, 1] to be an (anti) permeable C-value are provided. Also conditions for a subset to be a C-energetic subset are discussed. We decompose BCK-algebra by a partition which consists of a C-energetic subset and a commutative ideal

What predicts whether foreign doctorate recipients from U.S. institutions stay in the United States

This study examines the trend of foreign doctorate recipients from U.S. higher education institutions who decided to stay in the United States after their degree completion, and it explores individual, institutional, and country factors predicting whether the foreign doctorate recipients stay in the United States or return home. Analyzing data from the Survey of Earned Doctorates by the National Science Foundation, this study focuses on foreign doctorate recipients in science and engineering fields from 20 sending countries during 2000 to 2010. Whether or not a foreign doctorate recipient in science and engineering fields decides to stay in the United State significantly affects the economic performance, knowledge flow, and innovation of both the United States and sending countries. This study uses the push-pull theory of international migration with an economic perspective as a lens to understand individuals' decisions to stay in the United States. Approximately 81% of the study sample decided to stay in the United States after they earned their PhD degrees. Chinese doctorate recipients were most likely to stay; however, a slowdown of Chinese doctorate recipients' staying was detected in recent years. A series of logistic regressions show that while individual characteristics and their home country variables greatly predict foreign doctorate recipients' decisions to stay in the United States, where they earned their doctoral degrees does not significantly influence their decisions to stay in the United States, except in the most prestigious institutions. Foreign doctorate recipients who planned to work in industry were more likely to stay in the United States, while those who graduated from the most prestigious doctoral programs were more likely to leave the United States. The home country's high unemployment rate tended to increase the foreign doctorate recipients' odds of staying in the United States. The country of origin was an important predictor of the stay pattern. These findings suggest important implications for the U.S. visa policies regarding recruiting foreign-born highly skilled workers and international students. For sending countries, the findings imply that improving their higher education sector and creating R&D employment in their home countries would decrease the brain drain of their students over the long term

Optically pumped colloidal-quantum-dot lasing in LED-like devices with an integrated optical cavity.

Realization of electrically pumped lasing with solution processable materials will have a revolutionary impact on many disciplines including photonics, chemical sensing, and medical diagnostics. Due to readily tunable, size-controlled emission wavelengths, colloidal semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are attractive materials for attaining this goal. Here we use specially engineered QDs to demonstrate devices that operate as both a light emitting diode (LED) and an optically pumped laser. These structures feature a distributed feedback resonator integrated into a bottom LED electrode. By carefully engineering a refractive-index profile across the device, we are able to obtain good confinement of a waveguided mode within the QD medium, which allows for demonstrating low-threshold lasing even with an ultrathin (about three QD monolayers) active layer. These devices also exhibit strong electroluminescence (EL) under electrical pumping. The conducted studies suggest that the demonstrated dual-function (lasing/EL) structures represent a promising device platform for realizing colloidal QD laser diodes

A novel role of metal response element binding transcription factor 2 at the Hox gene cluster in the regulation of H3K27me3 by polycomb repressive complex 2

Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is known to play an important role in the regulation of early embryonic development, differentiation, and cellular proliferation by introducing methyl groups onto lysine 27 of histone H3 (H3K27me3). PRC2 is tightly associated with silencing of Hox gene clusters and their sequential activation, leading to normal development and differentiation. To investigate epigenetic changes induced by PRC2 during differentiation, deposition of PRC2 components and levels of H3K27me3 were extensively examined using mouse F9 cells as a model system. Contrary to positive correlation between PRC2 deposition and H3K27me3 level, down-regulation of PRC2 components by shRNA and inhibition of EZH1/2 resulted in unexpected elevation of H3K27me3 level at the Hox gene cluster despite its global decrease. We found that metal response element binding transcriptional factor 2 (MTF2), one of sub-stoichiometric components of PRC2, was stably bound to Hox genes. Its binding capability was dependent on other core PRC2 components. A high level of H3K27me3 at Hox genes in Suz12-knock out cells was reversed by knockdown of Mtf2.This shows that MTF2 is necessary to consolidate PRC2-mediated histone methylation. Taken together, our results indicate that expression of Hox gene clusters during differentiation is strictly modulated by the activity of PRC2 secured by MTF2.11Yscopu

Competing Perspectives on Water Pollution for High School Students: A Q-Method Approach and Extended AI-Based Responses

High school environmental education faces significant challenges from diverse competing perspectives, ranging from sustainability advocates to political conflicts and economic interests.  This study critiques existing research on environmental education based on two key points: First, the conventional approach to high school environmental education predominantly concentrates on nature-related aspects.  Past research tends to overlook political, economic, and community dimensions, essentially providing an incomplete view of environmental education education.  Secondly, little empirical research has compared human perspectives on environmental education with generative AI-based viewpoints.  This comparison can contribute to enhancing the holistic view of environmental education by incorporating diverse human perspectives alongside AI-generated responses.  This study employs the Q-methodology that can uncover latent viewpoints by analyzing diverse opinions.  Moreover, this study attempts to compare the differences and similarities of responses from generative AI chatbots and humans.  While some issues receive recognition from both humans and AI, others are acknowledged only by humans.  Combining the insights from the Q-methodology and the comparison of human  and AI chatbot responses, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of water-related environmental education and perspectives &nbsp

Study of the Top-quark Pair Production in Association with a Bottom-quark Pair from Fast Simulations at the LHC

A large number of top quarks will be produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for Run II period. This will allow us to measure the rare processes from the top sector in great details. We present the study of the top-quark pair production in association with a bottom-quark pair (ttbb) from fast simulations for the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment. The differential distributions of ttbb are compared with the top-quark pair production with two additional jets (ttjj) and with the production in association with the Higgs (ttH), where the Higgs decays to a bottom-quark pair. The significances of ttbb process in the dileptonic and semileptonic decay mode are calculated with the data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 10 fb-1, which is foreseen to be collected in the early Run II period. This study will be an important input in searching for new physics beyond the standard model as well as in searching for ttH process where the Yukawa coupling with the top quark can be directly measured.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure