Pathologic diagnosis of malignant mesothelioma: chronological prospect and advent of recommendations and guidelines

Malignant mesothelioma is rare and difficult to diagnose. Its identification depends upon pathological investigation (cyto-histological assessment and immunohistochemistry) supported by clinical and radiological evidence. In the last decade, the standardization of diagnostic methods has become a major focus of debate among pathologists and clinicians. This has led to the writing of guidelines and recommendation for the diagnosis to achieve the goal of a standard diagnosis. In this article, a chronological view relating to the pathological diagnosis of MM is presented together with a review of guidelines/recommendation

Robust Simulation of a TaO Memristor Model

This work presents a continuous and differentiable approximation of a Tantalum oxide memristor model which is suited for robust numerical simulations in software. The original model was recently developed at Hewlett Packard labs on the basis of experiments carried out on a memristor manufactured in house. The Hewlett Packard model of the nano-scale device is accurate and may be taken as reference for a deep investigation of the capabilities of the memristor based on Tantalum oxide. However, the model contains discontinuous and piecewise differentiable functions respectively in state equation and Ohm's based law. Numerical integration of the differential algebraic equation set may be significantly facilitated under substitution of these functions with appropriate continuous and differentiable approximations. A detailed investigation of classes of possible continuous and differentiable kernels for the approximation of the discontinuous and piecewise differentiable functions in the original model led to the choice of near optimal candidates. The resulting continuous and differentiable DAE set captures accurately the dynamics of the original model, delivers well-behaved numerical solutions in software, and may be integrated into a commercially-available circuit simulator

Buoyancy-driven motion of a deformable drop toward a planar wall at low Reynolds number

The slow viscous motion of a deformable drop moving normal to a planar wall is studied numerically. In particular, a boundary integral technique employing the Green's function appropriate to a no-slip planar wall is used. Beginning with spherical drop shapes far from the wall, highly deformed and ‘dimpled’ drop configurations are obtained as the planar wall is approached. The initial stages of dimpling and their evolution provide information and insight into the basic assumptions of film-drainage theory

Demonstration of an electrostatic-shielded cantilever

The fabrication and performances of cantilevered probes with reduced parasitic capacitance starting from a commercial Si3N4 cantilever chip is presented. Nanomachining and metal deposition induced by focused ion beam techniques were employed in order to modify the original insulating pyramidal tip and insert a conducting metallic tip. Two parallel metallic electrodes deposited on the original cantilever arms are employed for tip biasing and as ground plane in order to minimize the electrostatic force due to the capacitive interaction between cantilever and sample surface. Excitation spectra and force-to-distance characterization are shown with different electrode configurations. Applications of this scheme in electrostatic force microscopy, Kelvin probe microscopy and local anodic oxidation is discussed.Comment: 4 pages and 3 figures. Submitted to Applied Physics Letter