Extragenital Blaschkoid lichen sclerosus et atrophicus in a child

Lichen sclerosus et atrophicus is a chronic inflammatory skin disease that typically affects prepubertal girls and peri- or post-menopausal women in genital and perineal areas. In some cases, it can also manifest as extragenital lesions. Extragenital Blaschkoid lesions have infrequently been reported. Here, we report a case of extragenital Blaschkoid lichen sclerosus et atrophicus in a child

An Atypical Presentation of a Rare Disease

A 76-year-old white woman presented for evaluation of asymptomatic skin lesions on her right shin, right buttock, and left arm. All lesions initially underwent slow growth and plateaued and then remained stable in size. A complete review of systems revealed normal results. She had 3 well-demarcated erythematous round plaques ranging from 1.5 to 3 cm, all with a central depression, yellow hue, and prominent telangiectasias (Figs 1 and 2). An excisional biopsy was performed. Histologically, there were palisading granulomas within the papillary and reticular dermis, predominantly composed of a histiocytic cell population with multiple large giant cells (S100-; Fig 3)

Rapid Determination of Receiver Sensitivity via Integral Search

Receiver sensitivity is a measure of the lowest signal strength that a receiver can detect. Receiver sensitivity is typically measured by linearly incrementing the received power level until a target packet error rate (PER) is reached. Linear search is slow and can occupy substantial test resources such as test stations and instruments. This disclosure describes techniques to rapidly determine the receiver sensitivity of a device-under-test (DUT) by learning the ensemble characteristics of devices under test, building a packet error rate (PER) model, performing limited-range measurements of the DUT, and using the PER model and the results of the measurements to predict the sensitivity of the DUT. By speeding up the determination of receiver sensitivity, the described techniques reduce test cycle times and enable improvement of the units per hour (UPH) of a factory, resulting in a lower cost of owning and operating test stations and instruments

Implementing Enterprise Resource Planning Systems: A Study of Benefits and Concerns

In the 1990\u27s information technology and business process re-engtneermg have combined to provide organizations a competitive advantage. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems were particularly considered examples representing such development. This paper reports the results of a survey on ERF implementation to explore its benefits and concerns. Our results show companies can expect more intrafirm benefits, such as reduced inventory, improved quality, and shortened cycle time, than interfirm benefits from current ERP technology. Existing ERP technology is not yet capable of handling the complexity of the whole supply chain. More supplier relationship management functionalities need to be integrated. Our results also suggest that so-called best practices of current ERP technology fit financial processes better than manufacturing and operational processes in today\u27s business environment. Hence business process reengineering efforts are necessary but not sufficient to the success of an ERP system implementation

Sparse Approximate Multifrontal Factorization with Butterfly Compression for High Frequency Wave Equations

We present a fast and approximate multifrontal solver for large-scale sparse linear systems arising from finite-difference, finite-volume or finite-element discretization of high-frequency wave equations. The proposed solver leverages the butterfly algorithm and its hierarchical matrix extension for compressing and factorizing large frontal matrices via graph-distance guided entry evaluation or randomized matrix-vector multiplication-based schemes. Complexity analysis and numerical experiments demonstrate $\mathcal{O}(N\log^2 N)$ computation and $\mathcal{O}(N)$ memory complexity when applied to an $N\times N$ sparse system arising from 3D high-frequency Helmholtz and Maxwell problems

Generalizing abstractions in form-based visual programming languages : from direct manipulation to static representation

We believe concreteness, direct manipulation and responsiveness in a visual programming language increase its usefulness. However, these characteristics present a challenge in generalizing programs for reuse, especially when concrete examples are used as one way of achieving concreteness. In this thesis, we present a technique to solve this problem by deriving generality automatically through the analysis of logical relationships among concrete program entities from the perspective of a particular computational goal. Use of this technique allows a fully general form-based program with reusable abstractions to be derived from one that was specified in terms of concrete examples and direct manipulation. Also addressed in this thesis is how to statically represent the generalized programs. In general, we address how to design better static representations. A weakness of many interactive visual programming languages is their static representations. Lack of an adequate static representation places a heavy cognitive burden on a VPL's programmers, because they must remember potentially long dynamic sequences of screen displays in order to understand a previously-written program. However, although this problem is widely acknowledged, research on how to design better static representations for interactive VPLs is still in its infancy. Building upon the cognitive dimensions developed for programming languages by cognitive psychologists Green and others, we have developed a set of concrete benchmarks for VPL designers to use when designing new static representations. These benchmarks provide design-time information that can be used to improve a VPL's static representation

A Parallel Hierarchical Blocked Adaptive Cross Approximation Algorithm

This paper presents a hierarchical low-rank decomposition algorithm assuming any matrix element can be computed in $O(1)$ time. The proposed algorithm computes rank-revealing decompositions of sub-matrices with a blocked adaptive cross approximation (BACA) algorithm, followed by a hierarchical merge operation via truncated singular value decompositions (H-BACA). The proposed algorithm significantly improves the convergence of the baseline ACA algorithm and achieves reduced computational complexity compared to the full decompositions such as rank-revealing QR decompositions. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency, accuracy and parallel efficiency of the proposed algorithm

Physical appearance perfectionism explains variance in eating disorder symptoms above general perfectionism

Physical appearance perfectionism is a domain-specific form of perfectionism comprising two components: hope for perfection and worry about imperfection (Yang & Stoeber, 2012). Previous studies found that physical appearance perfectionism is related to eating disorder symptoms, particularly the worry about imperfection component, but did not address the question of whether physical appearance perfectionism explains variance in eating disorder symptoms above general perfectionism. The present study investigated the question examining 559 female university students. Physical appearance perfectionism explained an additional 9-17% of variance in eating disorder symptoms above the 11-20% variance explained by general perfectionism. The findings suggest that physical appearance perfectionism plays an important role in disordered eating beyond general perfectionis