Circuitous Route Research Articles

Utility of laryngeal electromyography for establishing prognosis and individualized treatment after laryngeal neuropathies.

Laryngeal electromyography (LEMG) is a technique used to characterize neuropathic injuries to the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) and superior laryngeal nerve (SLN). The RLN and SLN innervate the laryngeal muscles to produce vocal fold (VF) motion and elongation, respectively. VF motion deficiencies can affect voice, swallowing, and breathing, which can greatly affect a patient's quality of life. Neuropathy-related VF motion deficiencies most often result from surgical interventions to the skull base, neck, or chest likely due to the circuitous route of the RLN. LEMG is ideally conducted by an electromyographer and an otolaryngologist using a team-approach. LEMG is a powerful diagnostic tool to better characterize the extent of neuropathic injury and thus clarify the prognosis for VF motion recovery. This updated review discusses current techniques to improve the positive and negative predictive values of LEMG using laryngeal synkinesis and quantitative LEMG. Synkinesis can be diagnosed by comparing motor unit potential amplitude during vocalization and sniff maneuvers when recording within adductor muscles. Quantitative turns analysis can measure motor unit recruitment to avoid subjective descriptions of reduced depolarization during vocalization, and normal values are >400 turns/s. By integrating qualitative, quantitative, and synkinetic data, a robust prognosis can help clinicians determine if VF weakness will recover. Based on LEMG interpretation, patient-centered treatment can be developed to include watchful waiting, temporary VF augmentation, or definitive medialization procedures and laryngeal reinnervation.

An improved genetic algorithm for robot path planning

The conventional genetic algorithm (GA) for path planning exists several drawbacks, such as uncertainty in the direction of robot movement, circuitous routes, low convergence rates, and prolonged search time. To solve these problems, this study introduces an improved GA-based path-planning algorithm that adopts adaptive regulation of crossover and mutation probabilities. This algorithm uses a hybrid selection strategy that merges elite, tournament, and roulette wheel selection methods. An adaptive approach is implemented to control the speed of population evolution through crossover and mutation. Combining with a local search operation enhances the optimization capability of the algorithm. The proposed algorithm was compared with the traditional GA through simulations, demonstrating shorter path lengths and reduced search times.

Frictions and flows in Twitch’s platform economy: viewer spending, platform features and user behaviours

ABSTRACT In this article we introduce ‘capital flow’ and ‘capital friction’ as terms that characterize features and user behaviours on internet platforms which encourage and discourage spending, respectively. We explore these via leading live streaming platform Twitch, where numerous platform features and normative behaviours both promote and downplay spending. This makes it an ideal site for understanding conflicting economic and social platform dynamics, and the meta-friction between flows and frictions of capital on a platform. We examine these phenomena through three case studies: Channel Points, a non-monetary ‘currency’ exchangeable for in-stream rewards; Bits, a real-money platform currency for donating to streamers; and streamers’ performative and verbal responses to financial support. Through capital flow and capital friction we present Twitch’s platform economy as an ongoing negotiation both among users and between users and platform features, and one where capital friction does not necessarily lead to a reduction of income, but generates new streamer-spectator-platform relations and more circuitous routes for the flow of capital. Our theorization of capital flow and capital friction thus provides new insights into platform features, their uptake or resistance, and the frictions within platform designs and platform cultures.

Tohfeye Ziyarat (Souvenir of Pilgrimage): Religious Mobility and Public Health in Late Qajar Iran, c. 1890–1904

AbstractFollowing the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, long-distance pilgrimage to Islamic holy sites expanded and quickened, resulting in the spread of cholera among travelers. The necessity of taking circuitous routes to holy cities both inside and outside Iran significantly exacerbated the spread of cholera. Although potential factors such as inadequate public health infrastructure and ineffective quarantine measures contributed to the dissemination of cholera, overall religious mobility in the form of pilgrimage primarily factored behind cholera's spread. Analyzing the influence of religious mobility and rituals sheds light on how pilgrims, as contagions, dealt with the pandemic and the treatment they received from authorities, members of host societies, and individuals within and outside Iran during the cholera pandemics of the1890s and early 1900s.

Compiling Quantum Circuits for Dynamically Field-Programmable Neutral Atoms Array Processors

Dynamically field-programmable qubit arrays (DPQA) have recently emerged as a promising platform for quantum information processing. In DPQA, atomic qubits are selectively loaded into arrays of optical traps that can be reconfigured during the computation itself. Leveraging qubit transport and parallel, entangling quantum operations, different pairs of qubits, even those initially far away, can be entangled at different stages of the quantum program execution. Such reconfigurability and non-local connectivity present new challenges for compilation, especially in the layout synthesis step which places and routes the qubits and schedules the gates. In this paper, we consider a DPQA architecture that contains multiple arrays and supports 2D array movements, representing cutting-edge experimental platforms. Within this architecture, we discretize the state space and formulate layout synthesis as a satisfiability modulo theories problem, which can be solved by existing solvers optimally in terms of circuit depth. For a set of benchmark circuits generated by random graphs with complex connectivities, our compiler OLSQ-DPQA reduces the number of two-qubit entangling gates on small problem instances by 1.7x compared to optimal compilation results on a fixed planar architecture. To further improve scalability and practicality of the method, we introduce a greedy heuristic inspired by the iterative peeling approach in classical integrated circuit routing. Using a hybrid approach that combined the greedy and optimal methods, we demonstrate that our DPQA-based compiled circuits feature reduced scaling overhead compared to a grid fixed architecture, resulting in 5.1X less two-qubit gates for 90 qubit quantum circuits. These methods enable programmable, complex quantum circuits with neutral atom quantum computers, as well as informing both future compilers and future hardware choices.

Personal journeys to and in human genetics and dysmorphology.

Genetics has become a critical component of medicine over the past five to six decades. Alongside genetics, a relatively new discipline, dysmorphology, has also begun to play an important role in providing critically important diagnoses to individuals and families. Both have become indispensable to unraveling rare diseases. Almost every medical specialty relies on individuals experienced in these specialties to provide diagnoses for patients who present themselves to other doctors. Additionally, both specialties have become reliant on molecular geneticists to identify genes associated with human disorders. Many of the medical geneticists, dysmorphologists, and molecular geneticists traveled a circuitous route before arriving at the position they occupied. The purpose of collecting the memoirs contained in this article was to convey to the reader that many of the individuals who contributed to the advancement of genetics and dysmorphology since the late 1960s/early 1970s traveled along a journey based on many chances taken, replying to the necessities they faced along the way before finding full enjoyment in the practice of medical and human genetics or dysmorphology. Additionally, and of equal importance, all exhibited an ability to evolve with their field of expertise as human genetics became human genomics with the development of novel technologies.

A circuitous route for in vitro multi-enzyme cascade production of cytidine triphosphate to overcome the thermodynamic bottleneck

Cytidine triphosphate (CTP), as a substance involved in the metabolism of phospholipids, proteins and nucleic acids, has precise drug effects and is a direct precursor for the synthesis of drugs such as citicoline. In this study, we established an in vitro six-enzyme cascade system to generate CTP. To avoid thermodynamic bottlenecks, we employed a circuitous and two-stage reaction strategy. Using cytidine as the key substrate, the final product CTP is obtained via the deamination and uridine phosphorylation pathways, relying on the irreversible reaction of cytidine triphosphate synthase to catalyze the amination of uridine triphosphate. Several extremophilic microbial-derived deaminases were screened and characterized, and a suitable cytidine deaminase was selected to match the first-stage reaction conditions. In addition, directed evolution modification of the rate-limiting enzyme CTP synthetase in the pathway yielded a variant that successfully relieved the product feedback inhibition, along with a 1.7-fold increase in activity over the wild type. After optimizing the reaction conditions, we finally carried out the catalytic reaction at an initial cytidine concentration of 20 mM, and the yield of CTP exceeded 82% within 10.0 h.Graphical

Tattoo allergy—diagnosis on a circuitous route?

Tattoo allergy—diagnosis on a circuitous route?

Motivation moderates gender differences in navigation performance

Gender differences in navigation performance are a recurrent and controversial topic. Previous research suggests that men outperform women in navigation tasks and that men and women exhibit different navigation strategies. Here, we investigate whether motivation to complete the task moderates the relationship between navigation performance and gender. Participants learned the locations of landmarks in a novel virtual city. During learning, participants could trigger a top-down map that depicted their current position and the locations of the landmarks. During testing, participants were divided into control and treatment groups and were not allowed to consult the map. All participants were given 16 minutes to navigate to the landmarks, but those in the treatment group were monetarily penalized for every second they spent completing the task. Results revealed a negative relationship between physiological arousal and the time required to locate the landmarks. In addition, gender differences in strategy were found during learning, with women spending more time with the map and taking 40% longer than men to locate the landmarks. Interestingly, an interaction between gender and treatment group revealed that women in the control group required more time than men and women in the treatment group to retrieve the landmarks. During testing, women in the control group also took more circuitous routes compared to men in the control group and women in the treatment group. These results suggest that a concurrent and relevant stressor can motivate women to perform similarly to men, helping to diminish pervasive gender differences found in the navigation literature.

Understanding the Causal Pathway of Social Determinants of Psychosis: The Role of Social Functioning, Relevance of Animal Models, and Implications for Treatment.

There is mounting evidence that the social determinants of psychosis operate via a long and circuitous route. Here, we comment on the striking findings from a recent study by Ku et al., that area-level social environmental factors yield social disability and increased risk for schizophrenia through intervening variables and over a long time course. We discuss the relevance of animal models of social isolation to understand how environmental factors interrelate with individual-level mechanisms. We also discuss treatment implications, including the search for novel psychopharmacological treatments for reduced social motivation, and the need for a comprehensive prediction and prevention model.

A QCA placement and routing algorithm based on the SA algorithm

ABSTRACT In the Beyond Moore era, QCA (Quantum-dot Cellular Automata) has been widely studied because of its low power consumption and high device concentration. As the core of chip design, EDA technology has become an indispensable step in QCA research. It refers to the use of computer-aided design software to complete large-scale circuit function design, logic synthesis, placement and routing, design rule check and other processes. In the present study, there are still many defects in QCA placement and routing. The main problems it faces are low success rate, too large area and too many cross lines. To address these problems, our team had proposed a hybrid strategy based on the genetic algorithm and the improved A-star algorithm. But the running time of the previously proposed algorithm is not satisfying, besides it lacks self-adaption feature which is important as the problem size varies among different circuits. This paper replaces the genetic algorithm with a simulated annealing algorithm, and introduces a self-adaption strategy to better accommodate different circuit sizes. Experimental results show that the new algorithm combination possesses a higher success rate, lower running time and more intelligent adaption ability.

Consumer Electronics Product Manufacturing Time Reduction and Optimization Using AI-Based PCB and VLSI Circuit Designing

Circuit design plays an essential role in all consumer electronics products. Printed circuit board (PCB) and very-largescale integration (VLSI) circuit designing requires optimization of the electronic components placement and wire routing to connect the components. Currently, circuit routing processes have been performed manually by experts, which greatly increases the cost of human resources and time. Such heuristic circuit designs are not optimized and may have errors, which is why automated circuit routing algorithms are important. However, it is difficult to obtain an optimal solution in circuit routing as it is an NPhard problem. In addition, poor circuit routing increases the wire length of the circuit, which causes an increase in circuit cost and weight as well as performance degradation. In order to achieve routing optimization, many technologies have been proposed, in which some have applied artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the overall performance and reduce the designing time. Accordingly, in this paper, routing problems in PCB and VLSI are explained, and proposed technologies to solve these routing problems are introduced. Especially, a detailed investigation and analysis of AI technologies grafted into circuit routing algorithms are explained, and the considerations for AI-based routing algorithms are presented.

Sparrow's Nest Feeds Body & Spirit of Cancer Patients & Families

Sparrow's Nest Feeds Body & Spirit of Cancer Patients & Families

Mimetic Mechanicity: The Iron Foundry and Vernacular Internationalism in the 1930s

AbstractIn the 1930s, the Iron Foundry, a short orchestral piece by the Soviet composer Aleksandr Mosolov, became hugely popular with audiences across Europe, North America, and beyond. Reassembling the fragmented archives of its performance and reception histories, this article sets out to follow the work on the circuitous routes that ensued. Addressing issues including programmaticism, the reception of Soviet music, and the history of comedy, I show how Mosolov's composition became a lightning rod for larger debates about concert music's relationships with modernity, politics, and mass entertainment. The case of the Iron Foundry, I suggest, illustrates how the pleasures of machine aesthetics – and, more specifically, a stylized idiom of mechanized gesture distinctive to the period – became widely assimilated into what we might call the vernacular internationalism of the interwar middle classes.

Low loss SiN films for integrated photonics deposited by PVD at low temperature

Integration of SiN films with Si photonics platforms is attractive for the 3D integration of multiple waveguide levels in optical routing circuits. This paper reports on the optical characterization of SiN films deposited by PVD and PECVD with the STMicroelectronics 300 mm Photonic R&D platform at CMOS-compatible temperatures. SiN deposition was engineered to reduce the propagation losses caused by 2nd harmonic vibrational absorption of NH bonds.

Inverse Design of Terahertz Optical Power Splitters Using the Particle Swarm Optimization Method

This letter proposes 50:50 TE terahertz power splitters based on digitized metamaterials. The components are optimized using the particle swarm optimization algorithm. The digitized metamaterials are formed as a silicon slab with circular air holes atop a silicon dioxide substrate. The insertion losses of optimized structures containing air holes with a radius of 9 μm and air holes with different radii (9 μm and 7 μm) are less than 3.9 dB and 3.65 dB, respectively, over a frequency range of 0.87–1.09 THz. The footprint of the proposed devices is 400 μm × 350 μm. The devices have excellent characteristics, such as compactness, efficiency, all-dielectric properties, and compatibility with CMOS fabrication technologies, and can become vital components of most terahertz-wave routing circuits.

ThermoFit

Smart orthoses hold great potential for intelligent rehabilitation monitoring and training. However, most of these electronic assistive devices are typically too difficult for daily use and challenging to modify to accommodate variations in body shape and medical needs. For existing clinicians, the customization pipeline of these smart devices imposes significant learning costs. This paper introduces ThermoFit, an end-to-end design and fabrication pipeline for thermoforming smart orthoses that adheres to the clinically accepted procedure. ThermoFit enables the shapes and electronics positions of smart orthoses to conform to bodies and allows rapid iteration by integrating low-cost Low-Temperature Thermoplastics (LTTPs) with custom metamaterial structures and electronic components. Specifically, three types of metamaterial structures are used in LTTPs to reduce the wrinkles caused by the thermoforming process and to permit component position adjustment and joint movement. A design tool prototype aids in generating metamaterial patterns and optimizing component placement and circuit routing. Three applications show that ThermoFit can be shaped on bodies to different wearables. Finally, a hands-on study with a clinician verifies the user-friendliness of thermoforming smart orthosis, and technical evaluations demonstrate fabrication efficiency and electronic continuity.

Distinct Wolbachia localization patterns in oocytes of diverse host species reveal multiple strategies of maternal transmission.

A broad array of endosymbionts radiate through host populations via vertical transmission, yet much remains unknown concerning the cellular basis, diversity, and routes underlying this transmission strategy. Here, we address these issues, by examining the cellular distributions of Wolbachia strains that diverged up to 50 million years ago in the oocytes of 18 divergent Drosophila species. This analysis revealed 3 Wolbachia distribution patterns: (1) a tight clustering at the posterior pole plasm (the site of germline formation); (2) a concentration at the posterior pole plasm, but with a significant bacteria population distributed throughout the oocyte; and (3) a distribution throughout the oocyte, with none or very few located at the posterior pole plasm. Examination of this latter class indicates Wolbachia accesses the posterior pole plasm during the interval between late oogenesis and the blastoderm formation. We also find that 1 Wolbachia strain in this class concentrates in the posterior somatic follicle cells that encompass the pole plasm of the developing oocyte. In contrast, strains in which Wolbachia concentrate at the posterior pole plasm generally exhibit no or few Wolbachia in the follicle cells associated with the pole plasm. Taken together, these studies suggest that for some Drosophila species, Wolbachia invade the germline from neighboring somatic follicle cells. Phylogenomic analysis indicates that closely related Wolbachia strains tend to exhibit similar patterns of posterior localization, suggesting that specific localization strategies are a function of Wolbachia-associated factors. Previous studies revealed that endosymbionts rely on 1 of 2 distinct routes of vertical transmission: continuous maintenance in the germline (germline-to-germline) or a more circuitous route via the soma (germline-to-soma-to-germline). Here, we provide compelling evidence that Wolbachia strains infecting Drosophila species maintain the diverse arrays of cellular mechanisms necessary for both of these distinct transmission routes. This characteristic may account for its ability to infect and spread globally through a vast range of host insect species.

Design of fully differential fast SCL Schmitt-trigger delay element with tunable delay and hysteresis in design and run-time

Tuning the delay of the circuit during the circuit performance can give a chance to a circuit to reduce Process, Voltage and Temperature (PVT) effects on delay and frequency by resetting its delay in feedback. This paper presented a full differential Schmitt-trigger (ST) with tunable delay and hysteresis. The delay-hysteresis setting is done in the design phase by tuning the biasing current, sizing, bias voltage and also during the execute phase (run time) by a digital bit and restructuring the circuit and delay route. The presented ST can have high and low delays with different frequencies using a digital bit in the circuit. This can help the band selection for multi-band applications. A Flip Voltage Follower (FVF) circuit is used for the current tail to increase the current and increase the frequency bands. In this Schmitt-trigger delay changes associated with restructuring result in a 40 % power reduction. A circuit analysis for the equivalent circuit of the presented circuit has also been done and the factors affecting the frequency and delay change have been analyzed and investigated in the simulation. Monte Carlo and PVT analysis have also been performed for circuit accuracy. Power changing with an incremental delay in CMOS is improved and almost monotonous by designing Source-Coupled-Logic (SCL) Schmitt-trigger.

True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction by Clayton J. Butler

Reviewed by: True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction by Clayton J. Butler Jonathan A. Noyalas (bio) True Blue: White Unionists in the Deep South during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Clayton J. Butler. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022. ISBN 978-0-8071-7662-7. 248 pp., cloth, $45.00. On August 29, 1866, a newspaper correspondent in Madison, Wisconsin, reflected on the critical role Southern unionists played and the sacrifices they endured to ensure [End Page 110] the Union’s restoration. “What men merit more the esteem . . . of the country than these tried Unionists of the South,” the journalist pondered in the Wisconsin State Journal. While the experiences of Southern unionists largely fell into obscurity for more than a century after the Civil War’s guns fell silent, historians since the turn of the twenty-first century have made significant strides in chronicling the experiences and contributions of those who resided in the Confederacy, but ardently supported the Union. Clayton Butler’s recent volume, prodigiously researched and eloquently crafted, adds significantly to that historiography. Butler’s study explores the lives of unconditional white unionists in the Deep South, primarily through the service and experiences of three US regiments organized in the Confederacy—the First Louisiana Cavalry, First Alabama Cavalry, and Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry. The author freely admits that while this methodology excludes certain groups, namely white Southern unionist women, a close examination of the troops who served in these regiments reveals much about what fueled unconditional unionists’ allegiance, how they asserted themselves, how they were perceived in the Confederacy, and how Northerners regarded them. While the author addresses the complex factors that prompted individuals to unconditional unionism—class resentment, disagreement with secession’s legitimacy, economic factors, political considerations, and the belief that loyalty to the Union presented the best opportunity to safeguard slavery—much of this study’s core focuses on the challenges those unconditional unionists confronted. Butler cogently chronicles how some white unconditional unionists, such as those in New Orleans, maintained a low profile while Confederates occupied the city—out of a fear of reprisals. Others, particularly after Confederate conscription went into effect in the spring of 1862, believed the only way they could protect themselves and their families was to report for duty, thus creating the illusion of Confederate loyalty. The author rightly contends that this proved not only a useful mode of survival but offered unionists who resided in more remote parts of the Deep South an opportunity to get closer to Union lines, desert, and then offer their services to the United States. Other unionists, such as a contingent that resided in Texas and enlisted in the First Louisiana Cavalry, took a circuitous route through Mexico to reach New Orleans to join the regiment. Butler’s analysis of how unionists prior to enlistment balanced survival with allegiance is quite powerful. Hindrances, as the author clearly asserts, did not diminish once in the United States’ service. Union soldiers, such as those in the Thirteenth Tennessee Cavalry, were massacred because of their unconditional unionism, along with US Colored Troops, at Fort Pillow in the spring of 1864. While Butler vividly recounts the many ways Confederates violently lashed out against Southern unionist soldiers, he states that although much admired by Northerners, at times Southern [End Page 111] unionists became the target of scorn from white Northern soldiers. For instance, when veterans of the Second Rhode Island Cavalry were ordered to merge with the First Louisiana Cavalry in the summer of 1863, some Rhode Islanders protested: they despised the idea of belonging to a regiment from a state that contributed so much to the Confederacy. Numerous trials, as the author notes in the book’s final two chapters, faced unconditional white unionists in the Civil War’s immediate aftermath. Some confronted attacks and destruction of property from former Confederates. On various occasions these reprehensible activities compelled some to move west and begin life anew. Butler also explores the divisions that formed among white unconditional unionists as to the merits of disenfranchising former Confederates and the necessity of suffrage for African Americans. Additionally, the author investigates how unionists in the period...