Visible Pieces Research Articles

The advent of the first electric driven EUS-guided 17 gauge core needle biopsy – A pilot study on subepithelial lesions

Background and aims This pilot study aimed to evaluate safety and tissue sampling from subepithelial lesions (SEL) in the upper gastrointestinal tract with a novel electric motor driven endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS)-guided 17-gauge (G) size core needle biopsy (CNB) instrument. Methods An investigator-led prospective open label, performance and safety control study, including seven patients (female n = 4, median 71 y, range 28–75) with a determined SEL (median size 30 mm, range 17–150 mm) in the upper digestive tract (stomach n = 6, duodenum n = 1) were eligible and later followed up 14 days after index procedure. All investigations were completed according to protocol with three FNB 22-G passes with four fanning strokes and two EndoDrill® 17-G passes with three fanning strokes. Results Quality of samples as ‘visible pieces’ (>5 mm): FNB (n = 5/7) (fragmented/blood imbibed n = 1, poor tissue quantity n = 1) compared with 17-G CNB (n = 7/7). Histological result which led to final diagnosis (leiomyoma n = 2, adenocarcinoma n = 1, schwannoma n = 1, neuroendocrine tumour n = 1, desmoid tumour n = 1 and gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) n = 1) could be obtained with the 17-G CNB instrument in all seven patients. FNB technique reached correct diagnosis in six patients. No serious adverse event were recorded. Conclusions By using an electric driven 17-G biopsy device, a true cylinder of core tissue can be obtained in one single puncture from the area of interest reducing the need for a second sampling. The absolute benefit of EUS-guided CNB is that the sample can be handled and histologically prepared in the same manner as standard percutaneous core needle sample, e.g., breast and prostate cancer.

Assessing Agricultural Practices and Plant Protection Methods in Rupnagar District, Punjab, India

Aims: The purpose of this research is to analyze plant protection systems and agricultural practices in Punjab, India's Rupnagar District, in order to provide insights into nutrient management, seed rates, crop diversity, mechanization, and their implications.
 Conclusion: The study emphasizes the significance of improved mechanization, crop diversity, and sustainable farming techniques in Rupnagar, Punjab, to promote future agricultural development.
 Methodology: The study employed a mixed-methods approach, combining field surveys and structured interviews with 120 farmers across six villages in Rupnagar District, Punjab, India. Data on crop types, seed rates, machinery usage, and nutrient management were collected. Random sampling ensured representativeness, providing comprehensive insights into agricultural practices and challenges in the region.
 Place and Duration of Study: Villages of Rupnagar district, Punjab (Primary place) and Department of Agriculture sciences, Chandigarh university, Gharuan (Secondary place), between August 2023 and September 2023
 Results: According to the data, the two main crops grown in the research areas were rice and wheat. Among the various degrees of mechanization observed, tractors were the most frequently visible piece of equipment. Seed rate management varied, and some farmers used more seed than was recommended. The data revealed a diversity of nutrient management approaches, as well as a proclivity for urea overuse. These findings offer insight on how complex the farming methods in the area are.
 Study Design: A mixed-methods methodology is used in the study design. It combines field surveys, interviews, and data analysis to extensively analyze agricultural practices in Rupnagar District, Punjab, India, including crop diversification, mechanization, and the use of plant protection strategies.

Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma: Rare Case Reports with Middle Ear Location

Background: Patients with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (EMRS) are dominated by boys. The peak incidence occurs in the small age group from one year to 4 years. Approximately 35% of all pediatric RMS occur in the head and neck.
 Case presentation: A 3-year-old male patient came to the ear, nose, throat-head neck (ENT-HNS) polyclinic at Dr. M. Djamil General Hospital Padang on February 25th, 2021, with complaints of a lump appearing in his right ear canal for 4 months. The patient also complained of slanting on the right side of his face and pain in his right ear since 2 weeks ago. History of bleeding from the ear 1 week ago. On the examination of House-Brackmann, the patient obtained a category House-Brackmann V. Histopathological results, microscopically visible pieces of tissue with part of the surface covered with keratinized squamous epithelium, part of the surface not keratinized. There are dense groups consisting of a proliferation of cells with round, oval nuclei, small to medium size, little cytoplasm, some cells with pleomorphic nuclei, hyperchromatic, irregular nuclear membranes, lots of eosinophilic cytoplasms, with the appearance of "tadpole”, atypical mitoses may be found. The underlying tissue stroma appears myxoid. Among them, fibrotic connective tissue septa containing partially hyperemic capillaries are visible. Necrotic areas and clusters of PMN leukocytes and cellular debris were also seen. This description is consistent with EMRS.
 Conclusion: The patient was diagnosed with right middle ear EMRS stage III with right peripheral facial nerve paresis House-Brackmann V.

Widespread Pb contamination in urban backyard soils for >100 years identified in soil cores constrained by 210Pb and 137Cs

Contaminated soil in urban residential areas is often overlooked as a source of childhood exposure to toxic levels of lead (Pb). We document mean Pb concentrations of 1200 ± 1000 mg/kg, three times the now outdated EPA soil hazard standard of 400 mg/kg, for 370 surface soils collected from 76 homes in the boroughs of Brooklyn and Manhattan of New York City. The mean Pb content of 250 ± 290 mg/kg Pb for 571 surface soils collected from tree pits and public parks was much lower. A subset of 22 surface samples analyzed by EPA Method 1340 extracted 86 ± 21 % (±1SD) of total soil Pb, indicating that it the Pb was highly bioavailable. To investigate the origin of backyard contamination, 49 cores were collected to an average depth of 30 cm from a subset of 27 homes. Twelve soil cores were analyzed for 210Pb and 137Cs to constrain processes that impact contaminant distribution and inventories (particle focusing, soil accumulation, loss, and mixing). Concentrations of Pb declined with depth in 60 % of the cores but usually did not reach background. Mean uncorrected Pb inventories of 340 ± 210 g/m2 Pb (mean ± 1SD, n = 12) were more than five times higher than the radionuclide corrected inventory of 57 g/m2 from Central Park soil cores. Average inventories of 210Pbxs (3.5 ± 0.9 kBq/m2) and 137Cs (0.9 ± 0.6 kBq/m2) corresponded to 71 ± 19 % and 50 ± 30 % of the predicted atmospheric inventories. Elevated Pb concentrations were found both in the fine (<1 mm) and coarse (>1 mm) fractions, the latter suggesting a local non-atmospheric source. This was confirmed by individual grains containing up to 6 % Pb and visible pieces of coal, bricks, and ash. Regardless of the source of contamination in backyard soils, systematic testing is needed to identify contaminated areas and reduce child exposure.

Reclaiming Placemaking for an Alternative Politics of Legitimacy and Community in Homelessness.

This study is about the struggle for legitimacy in place among a group of people often assumed to have neither. It examines the roll of informal placemaking and community building in struggles for settlement among people experiencing homelessness. It does so through ethnographic observation, photo-documentation, and participatory action research at three sites in Oakland, California, on which unhoused people (and some housed members of the surrounding community) have demonstrated bold forms of grassroots placemaking on public land. The first site, which came to be known as Housing and Dignity Village, was a small intentionally organized community of unhoused women and families that existed for 41 politically charged days in a low-income residential neighborhood before being cleared by authorities in 2018. The second, a highly visible piece of desirable city-owned land, has been occupied by unhoused people to varying degrees since 2016 while being considered for various housing development proposals. The third is the Wood Street Encampment, Oakland’s largest encampment and one of its longest standing, which has survived numerous partial evictions and a web of jurisdictional authority to become home to an extensive and innovative informal community-building effort. Despite their differences, each offers a powerful case of place-based bottom-up community organizing among unhoused people, in which placemaking becomes part of a subtle politics of visibility, being, and legitimacy. The study argues that these instances and others not only demonstrate a different sort of placemaking, but demand that we reconsider and reclaim the concept itself.

Desvelamiento de la novela total en “Conversación en La Catedral”: Artificios y falsificaciones

La presente investigación analiza la representación de la novela total en la obra Conversación en La Catedral de Mario Vargas Llosa a través de las nociones de oposiciones y realidades quebradizas. Para ello, se propone la categoría de “cristales quebrados” para entender un poco mejor el hecho de que la destrucción de los esquemas culturales se realiza a manera de la partición de trozos más o menos visibles; y que, por más que configuren una nueva estética y que hayan explosionado en el centro mismo de su eje, restan trozos de momentos climáticos de la historia del arte, permanentes y vigentes en cualquier nueva estética. A partir de esta concepción, la investigación abordará el aprovechamiento que hizo Vargas Llosa del realismo, la literatura norteamericana, europea, el cine, entre otros. Asimismo, en esta reconstrucción de una totalidad, se observará que ésta en realidad es aparente, ya que resultará en esencia escindida. A pesar de ello, se reconocerá el aporte y virtuosismo narrativo que el autor legó en los años notables del Boom latinoamericano.

A Space-Optimal Hidden Surface Removal Algorithm for Iso-Oriented Rectangles

We investigate the problem of finding the visible pieces of a scene of objects from a specified viewpoint. In particular, we are interested in the design of an efficient hidden surface removal algorithm for a scene comprised of iso-oriented rectangles. We propose an algorithm where given a set of [Formula: see text] iso-oriented rectangles we report all visible surfaces in [Formula: see text] time and linear space, where [Formula: see text] is the number of surfaces reported. The previous best result by Bern [Journal of Computer and System Sciences 40 (1990) 49–69], has the same time complexity but uses [Formula: see text] space.

A rapid approach for isolating a single fungal spore from rice blast diseased leaves

Single spore isolation is a fundamental approach in plant pathology and mycology to isolate and identify plant fungal pathogens from diseased samples. However, routine single spore isolation procedure is time-consuming and has a high risk of contamination by other microorganisms. In this study, we developed a rapid approach for isolating a single spore of the fungal pathogen, Pyricularia oryzae, from rice blast diseased leaves in the paddy field with low potential of contamination. First, rice blast leaves with single lesions were selected in the paddy field, and a single lesion was cut out and pressed and dragged gently across the surface of water agar. Next, a germinated single spore with a barely visible piece of agar was cut out of water agar with a dissecting needle under a stereomicroscope at approximately 120-fold magnification. Last, the germinated single spore with water agar was transferred onto oatmeal tomato agar for growth and preservation. Based on our experience, a skilled technician or student can successfully isolate single spore from over 150 independent diseased samples with nearly no contaminations in a single working day. This approach is also suitable for isolating single spore from other fungal disease samples that produce abundant aerial conidia.

R.I.P. Shirts or Shirts of the Movement: Reading the Death Paraphernalia of Black Lives

This article presents a study of R.I.P. (rest in peace) shirts, also known as memorial shirts, which are significant and visible pieces in the Movement for Black Lives. While it is true that many people are "being memorialized by a hashtag," the shirts, which are wearable memorials, are ever-present in the movement as well. Whether displaying the name or face of the deceased person, or a quotation from a famous ancestor like Martin Luther King, Jr., these shirts exert great power. In fact, many people ask how these memorial shirts can simultaneously evoke joy and pain. Just as some see wearing a memorial shirt as a way to honor the memory of a person no longer physically with us, others view it as a trigger that reignites the trauma associated with the person's death. Hence, the study of memorial shirts necessarily includes an analysis of death, trauma, justice, and spirituality. In this article, I argue that the memorial shirts, or what I call the "shirts of the movement," operate as a form of visual life writing; the shirts collectively (in reference to the larger movement) and individually (in reference to the deceased person) tell a story. I discuss how shirts of the movement preserve memories and call for action. More specifically, I contend that these shirts are not only symbols of grief, expressions of empathy, and coping mechanisms, but are also a public stance against racial injustice and anti-Black racial terror.

Waiting for what comes later: capuchin monkeys show self-control even for nonvisible delayed rewards.

Self-control tasks used with nonhuman animals typically involve the choice between an immediate option and a delayed, but more preferred option. However, in many self-control scenarios, not only does the more impulsive option come sooner in time, it is often more concrete than the delayed option. For example, studies have presented children with the option of eating a visible marshmallow immediately, or foregoing it for a better reward that can only be seen later. Thus, the immediately available option is visible and concrete, whereas the delayed option is not visible and more abstract. We tested eight capuchin monkeys to better understand this potential effect by manipulating the visibility of the response options and the visibility of the baiting itself. Monkeys observed two food items (20 or 5g pieces of banana) each being placed either on top of or inside of one of the two opaque containers attached to a revolving tray apparatus, either in full view of monkeys or occluded by a barrier. Trials ended when monkeys removed a reward from the rotating tray. To demonstrate self-control, monkeys should have allowed the smaller piece of food to pass if the larger piece was forthcoming. Overall, monkeys were successful on the task, allowing a smaller, visible piece of banana to pass from reach in order to access the larger, nonvisible banana piece. This was true even when the entire baiting process took place out of sight of the monkeys. This finding suggests that capuchin monkeys succeed on self-control tasks even when the delayed option is also more abstract than the immediate one-a situation likely faced by primates in everyday life.

250-word abstracts

The abstract is the most visible piece of an article and is freely available to everyone, regardless of whether a user has a subscription to a journal. The word count of abstracts has become an interesting topic of debate over the years. Some believe that the abstract should include as much information as possible, and others expect it to be brief and succinct. To provide authors with the opportunity to include more information (eg, frame the question, what is new, study limitations) without adding too much bulk (eg, background information), The Journal has decided to increase the maximum word count of abstracts for Original Articles from 200 words to 250 words. As always, your feedback is welcome and appreciated. Please e-mail your thoughts about abstract length to [email protected]

Digital Dark Matter

Economists need a label for some important building blocks of the digital economy that we do not measure using standard tools. Many indirect symptoms indicate their growth and importance. Many labels have been proposed-invisible infrastructure and private provision of public goods. Most digital dark matter does not show up in GDP because it is not part of a pecuniary transaction-namely, any trade denominated in currency. Consider two rather visible examples, Linux and Apache. These save on the expense that would have otherwise gone to a software license. There are tens of millions of copies of Apache in use and it substitutes for software with a serious price tag. Same goes for Linux. The unseen savings in licensing fees exceeds tens of billions of dollars.Wikipedia is also another visible piece of digital dark matter. US house holds spend more than half of 1 percent of their time online at Wikipedia. The site produces nothing pecuniary owing to its ban on advertising. Yet, it is clearly preferred by many readers, at least judging by the declines in both MSN's Encarta and traditional encyclopedias.

Conceptualizing Innovation Clusters and Networks

The academic interest in innovation clusters and networks has given rise to a vast stream of works in recent years. Besides defining the notions of clusters and innovation clusters or networks, a core topic within the literature relates to the analysis of the logics underlying the emergence, the structuring and the evolution of innovative activities within various geographic areas. But despite the large amount of efforts deployed, there are no consensual views amongst academics on various conceptual and analytical key issues, especially as regarding the spatial/geographical boundaries of an innovation cluster and the nature and intensity of the actors interaction that characterize it. The whole picture is also blurred as a persistent disciplinary segregation prevent from integrating the most valuable and converging insights that could be drawn from various yet complementary social sciences perspectives. The paper offers a critical survey of the most visible pieces of the literature and suggests some possible pathways for a better grounding for the analysis of clustering and networking phenomena within innovative or creative fields.

Quantification and Classification of Marine Litter on Beaches along Armação dos Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Anthropogenic debris constitutes a significant threat to the marine environment, representing a hazard not only for marine and terrestrial animals but also for human activities, health, and tourism. This study provided the first assessment of the type and quantity of marine litter at Armação dos Búzios, Brazil. Búzios is a popular tourist resort, which attracts visitors because of its proximity to Rio de Janeiro City. Sampling was conducted in belt transects of 4-m width, parallel to the coastline. To evaluate the composition and abundance of beach litter, all visible pieces of man-made debris (the number of items) found on each belt transect were identified in situ and recorded. Nearly 16,000 items of litter, belonging to seven categories were counted. An overall mean litter density of 13.76 items /100 m2 was quantified on the Armação dos Búzios beaches. Paper was the most abundant litter item, in particular, represented by cigarette butts. Much of the litter items are discarded by visitors to the beach. Nearshore, hard-bottom litter was also investigated at all beaches. Plastic was the most abundant submerged marine debris observed. Our results indicated that marine debris, particularly fishery-related debris (46% of marine litter) was most commonly found in the subtidal benthic environment. The abundance and distribution of litter through the Armação dos Búzios region seems to be especially influenced by recreational visitors, reflecting inadequate disposal practices.

Goats' behaviour in a competitive food paradigm: Evidence for perspective taking?

Many mammalian species are highly social, creating intra-group competition for such things as food and mates. Recent research with nonhuman primates indicates that in competitive situations individuals know what other individuals can and cannot see, and they use this knowledge to their advantage in various ways. In the current study, we extended these findings to a non-primate species, the domestic goat, using the conspecific competition paradigm developed by Hare et al. (2000). Like chimpanzees and some other nonhuman primates, goats live in fission-fusion societies, form coalitions and alliances, and are known to reconcile after fights. In the current study, a dominant and a subordinate individual competed for food, but in some cases the subordinate could see things that the dominant could not. In the condition where dominants could only see one piece of food but subordinates could see both, subordinates' preferences depended on whether they received aggression from the dominant animal during the experiment. Subjects who received aggression preferred the hidden over the visible piece of food, whereas subjects who never received aggression significantly preferred the visible piece. By using this strategy, goats who had not received aggression got significantly more food than the other goats. Such complex social interactions may be supported by cognitive mechanisms similar to those of chimpanzees. We discuss these results in the context of current issues in mammalian cognition and socio-ecology.

Electricity Market Design: An Integrated Approach to Reliability Assurance

System reliability is an integral part of a properly designed deregulated electricity market, even though wholesale energy prices are its most visible piece. This paper discusses the resources, collectively known as the ancillary services, in a power system for maintaining reliability. It then discusses an integrated approach in systematically determining and securing the needed ancillary services and system configuration across multiple time spans, culminating in the cooptimization of energy and ancillary services for security-constrained generator unit commitment in the day-ahead market and security-constrained economic dispatch of the generators in real-time operation. The paper also provides a summary of the ancillary services market in several U.S. power markets and proposes several technical issues for further discussion and research.

Identification of possible artifacts in the association of official analytical chemists sporicidal test

Two laboratories tested four different brands of alkaline 2% glutaraldehyde sterilants by the Association of Official Analytical Chemists sporicidal test. Each laboratory found survival of Clostridium sporogenes spores on spore-labeled unglazed porcelain penicylinders (cylinders) to vary from test to test, and survival did not always correlate with increasing sterilant exposure time. These results were consistent with a theory that there may be random conditions within the test that prevent the sterilant from contacting all spores. Further studies indicated that the prior history of the unglazed porcelain cylinders and whether the C. sporogenes culture grown in egg-meat media had been processed (homogenized) to eliminate visible pieces of egg-meat media were important factors affecting the results and repeatability of this test.

A linear time exact hidden surface algorithm

This paper presents a new hidden surface algorithm. Its output is the set of the visible pieces of edges and faces, and is as accurate as the arithmetic precision of the computer. Thus calculating the hidden surfaces for a higher resolution device takes no more time. If the faces are independently and identically distributed, then the execution time is linear in the number of faces. In particular, the execution time does not increase with the depth complexity. This algorithm overlays a grid on the screen whose fineness depends on the number and size of the faces. Edges and faces are sorted into grid cells. Only objects in the same cell can intersect or hide each other. Also, if a face completely covers a cell then nothing behind it in the cell is relevant. Three programs have tested this algorithm. The first verified the variable grid concept on 50,000 intersecting edges. The second verified the linear time, fast speed, and irrelevance of depth complexity for hidden lines on 10,000 spheres. This also tested depth complexities up to 30, and showed that perspective scenes with the farther objects smaller are even faster to calculate. The third verified this for hidden surfaces on 3000 squares.