Women @ Work Program

The St. Mary’s Women @ Work program partners with the Department of IT at UMass Boston to provide young women with a path to self sufficiency. It does so by placing these youth for a 3 month period, in a real-work environment where they get paid and receive hands-on practical training

YearUp – Empowering Urban Talent to Reach Their Potential

YearUp is a national program, that aims to educate and train “disconnected” young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 to enter the workforce with skills in desktop support, helpdesk and other technical areas where the demand for skilled labor is always high

Composite CDMA - A statistical mechanics analysis

Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) in which the spreading code assignment to users contains a random element has recently become a cornerstone of CDMA research. The random element in the construction is particular attractive as it provides robustness and flexibility in utilising multi-access channels, whilst not making significant sacrifices in terms of transmission power. Random codes are generated from some ensemble, here we consider the possibility of combining two standard paradigms, sparsely and densely spread codes, in a single composite code ensemble. The composite code analysis includes a replica symmetric calculation of performance in the large system limit, and investigation of finite systems through a composite belief propagation algorithm. A variety of codes are examined with a focus on the high multi-access interference regime. In both the large size limit and finite systems we demonstrate scenarios in which the composite code has typical performance exceeding sparse and dense codes at equivalent signal to noise ratio.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, Sigma Phi 2008 conference submission - submitted to J.Stat.Mec

Extranodal Natural-Killer/T-Cell Lymphoma, Nasal Type

The World Health Organization (WHO) classification recognizes 2 main categories of natural killer (NK) cell-derived neoplasms, namely, extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type, and aggressive NK-cell leukaemia. Extranodal nasal NK/T-cell lymphoma is more frequent in the Far East and Latin America. Histopathological and immunophenotypical hallmarks include angiocentricity, angiodestruction, expression of cytoplasmic CD3 epsilon (ε), CD56, and cytotoxic molecules and evidence of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection. Early stage disease, in particular for localized lesion in the nasal region, is treated with chemotherapy and involved-field radiotherapy. On the other hand, multiagent chemotherapy is the mainstay of treatment for advanced or disseminated disease. L-asparaginase-containing regimens have shown promise in treating this condition. The role of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is yet to be clearly defined. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, with the putative graft-versus-lymphoma effect, offers a potentially curative option in patients with advanced disease

Improvement of myocardial perfusion reserve detected by cardiovascular magnetic resonance after direct endomyocardial implantation of autologous bone marrow cells in patients with severe coronary artery disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Recent studies suggested that bone marrow (BM) cell implantation in patients with severe chronic coronary artery disease (CAD) resulted in modest improvement in symptoms and cardiac function. This study sought to investigate the functional changes that occur within the chronic human ischaemic myocardium after direct endomyocardial BM cells implantation by cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR).</p> <p>Methods and Results</p> <p>We compared the interval changes of left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), myocardial perfusion reserve and the extent of myocardial scar by using late gadolinium enhancement CMR in 12 patients with severe CAD. CMR was performed at baseline and at 6 months after catheter-based direct endomyocardial autologous BM cell (n = 12) injection to viable ischaemic myocardium as guided by electromechanical mapping. In patients randomized to receive BM cell injection, there was significant decrease in percentage area of peri-infarct regions (-23.6%, <it>P </it>= <it>0.04</it>) and increase in global LVEF (+9.0%, <it>P </it>= <it>0.02</it>), the percentage of regional wall thickening (+13.1%, <it>P= 0.04</it>) and MPR (+0.25%, <it>P </it>= <it>0.03</it>) over the target area at 6-months compared with baseline.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Direct endomyocardial implantation of autologous BM cells significantly improved global LVEF, regional wall thickening and myocardial perfusion reserve, and reduced percentage area of peri-infarct regions in patients with severe CAD.</p

PKR deficiency alters E. coli-induced sickness behaviors but does not exacerbate neuroimmune responses or bacterial load

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On-chip two-octave supercontinuum generation by enhancing self-steepening of optical pulses

Dramatic advances in supercontinuum generation have been made recently using photonic crystal fibers, but it is quite challenging to obtain an octave-spanning supercontinuum on a chip, partially because of strong dispersion in high-index-contrast nonlinear integrated waveguides. We show by simulation that extremely flat and low dispersion can be achieved in silicon nitride slot waveguides over a wavelength band of 500 nm. Different from previously reported supercontinua that were generated either by higher-order soliton fission in anomalous dispersion regime or by self phase modulation in normal dispersion regime, a two-octave supercontinuum from 630 to 2650 nm (360 THz in total) can be generated by greatly enhancing self-steepening in nonlinear pulse propagation in almost zero dispersion regime, when an optical shock as short as 3 fs is formed, which enables on-chip ultra-wide-band applications