Ultrastructural and immunocytochemical features of a case of neuroendocrine carcinoma developing in a prior ileostomy site

A patient who developed a mixed neuroendocrine carcinoma and adenocarcinoma at the site of a previous long-standing ileostomy is reported. The neuroendocrine features are documented by both ultrastructural and immunocytochemical findings. Carcinoma arising in an ileostomy site is rare but has been recorded in patients with long-standing ileostomies after colectomy for chronic inflammatory bowel disease, as in this patient. Neuroendocrine carcinoma developing in this setting apparently has not been described before, however.     

Teaching critical thinking for transfer across domains: Disposition, skills, structure training, and metacognitive monitoring.

Advances in technology and changes in necessary workplace skills have made the ability to think critically more important than ever before, yet there is ample evidence that many adults consistently engage in flawed thinking. Numerous studies have shown that critical thinking, defined as the deliberate use of skills and strategies that increase the probability of a desirable outcome, can be learned in ways that promote transfer to novel contexts. A 4-part empirically based model is proposed to guide teaching and learning for critical thinking: (a) a dispositional component to prepare learners for effortful cognitive work, (b) instruction in the skills of critical thinking, (c) training in the structural aspects of problems and arguments to promote transcontextual transfer of critical-thinking skills, and (d) a metacognitive component that includes checking for accuracy and monitoring progress toward the goal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of short-term lipid infusion on liver function and biliary secretion in rats

This study was undertaken to determine the effect of various lipid emulsions on the hepato-biliary system in rats. Rats were randomly divided into six groups and infused continuously for 48 hr with either long-chain triglycerides (LCT), medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) or a mixture of MCT and LCT. One group infused with physiological saline solution served as controls. Throughout this period the rats received a fat free dietad libitum. During the last hour of lipid infusion bile was collected for determination of bile flow and composition. Subsequently, the rats were sacrificed and the morphology and lipid content of the liver determined. Only LCT lipid emulsions induced morphological changes and increased liver cholesterol content. In two rats infused with radiolabeled LCT, no labeled cholesterol was found in the liver, indicating that the excess hepatic cholesterol level may originate from enhanced cholesterol mobilization to the liver. Biliary cholesterol and phospholipid concentrations in LCT-treated rats were also elevated, as was the lithogenic index, whereas the other emulsions had no such effects. None of the emulsions affected the plasma liver function tests or bile flow. We therefore conclude that the lithogenicity of the bile in rats is directly related to the lipid components of the total parenteral nutrition and the type of triglyceride infused.     

A knowledge-based analysis of global function computation

Consider a distributed system N in which each agent has an input value and each communication link has a weight. Given a global function, that is, a function f whose value depends on the whole network, the goal is for every agent to eventually compute the value f (N). We call this problem global function computation. Various solutions for instances of this problem, such as Boolean function computation, leader election, (minimum) spanning tree construction, and network determination, have been proposed, each under particular assumptions about what processors know about the system and how this knowledge can be acquired. We give a necessary and sufficient condition for the problem to be solvable that generalizes a number of well-known results (Attyia et al. in J ACM 35(4):845–875, 1988; Yamashita and Kameda in IEEE Trans Parallel Distrib Syst 7(1):69–89, 1996; Yamashita and Kameda in IEEE Trans Parallel Distrib Syst 10(9):878–887, 1999). We then provide a knowledge-based (kb) program (like those of Fagin et al. (Reasoning about knowledge, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1995, Distrib Comput 10(4):199–225, 1997)) that solves global function computation whenever possible. Finally, we improve the message overhead inherent in our initial kb program by giving a counterfactual belief-based program (Halpern and Moses in Distrib Comput 17(2):91–106, 2004) that also solves the global function computation whenever possible, but where agents send messages only when they believe it is necessary to do so. The latter program is shown to be implemented by a number of well-known algorithms for solving leader election.     

Dealing with logical omniscience: Expressiveness and pragmatics

We examine four approaches for dealing with the logical omniscience problem and their potential applicability: the syntactic approach, awareness, algorithmic knowledge, and impossible possible worlds. Although in some settings these approaches are equi-expressive and can capture all epistemic states, in other settings of interest (especially with probability in the picture), we show that they are not equi-expressive. We then consider the pragmatics of dealing with logical omniscience—how to choose an approach and construct an appropriate model.     

l/sub 1/-suboptimal pole placement design

We incorporate an arbitrary number of "candidate" positive distinct poles into the scalar l/sub 1/ optimization framework in order to obtain low-order rational suboptimal solutions to constrained l/sub 1/ optimization problems. Our approach uses a single linear program to minimize an upper bound on the l/sub 1/ norm and gives a solution which uses only the best out of the prespecified poles. Rational suboptimal solutions to a scalar two-block problem are obtained similarly.     

Keyboard design through physiological strain measurements

The physiologically tolerable range of positions for the joints of the upper extremities have been investigated for typing tasks by recording the myoelectric activities of the involved muscles. For long-term typing tasks a split keyboard is recommended allocating a key field to each hand. The fields should be rotated against each other in the horizontal plane and inclined laterally.     

Gossip-based ad hoc routing

Many ad hoc routing protocols are based on some variant of flooding. Despite various optimizations of flooding, many routing messages are propagated unnecessarily. We propose a gossiping-based approach, where each node forwards a message with some probability, to reduce the overhead of the routing protocols. Gossiping exhibits bimodal behavior in sufficiently large networks: in some executions, the gossip dies out quickly and hardly any node gets the message; in the remaining executions, a substantial fraction of the nodes gets the message. The fraction of executions in which most nodes get the message depends on the gossiping probability and the topology of the network. In the networks we have considered, using gossiping probability between 0.6 and 0.8 suffices to ensure that almost every node gets the message in almost every execution. For large networks, this simple gossiping protocol uses up to 35% fewer messages than flooding, with improved performance. Gossiping can also be combined with various optimizations of flooding to yield further benefits. Simulations show that adding gossiping to AODV results in significant performance improvement, even in networks as small as 150 nodes. Our results suggest that the improvement should be even more significant in larger networks.     

Psychology at the Intersection of Work and Family: Recommendations for Employers, Working Families, and Policymakers.

Demographic data show that major changes have been occurring in the everyday lives of families over the last generation, with the majority of mothers of young children in the workforce and an increasing number of men and women assuming caregiving responsibilities for older relatives. Thus, the 2 primary identities of most adults, defined by their multiple family and work roles, need to be coordinated in ways that promote positive family outcomes, returns on investments for employers, and societal values. Despite changes in the workforce, the world of work is still largely organized for a family model that is increasingly rare--one with a stay-at-home caregiver. Recommendations based on psychological and other social science research are offered to align the needs of working families and employers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)