An anatomical study of the tympanic branch of the glossopharyngeal nerve (nerve of Jacobson)

OBJECTIVE: To examine physician characteristics associated with being a high prescriber of antibiotics for pediatric upper respiratory tract infections (URIs). DESIGN AND SETTING: Analysis of 34624 episodes of care for URIs in children (younger than 18 years) in the Kentucky Medicaid program from July 1, 1995, to June 30, 1996. PARTICIPANTS: Primary care physicians with at least 25 episodes of care (n=205). The proportion of patients with URIs receiving antibiotics stratified the sample into low (< or =25th percentile) and high (> or =75th percentile) antibiotic prescribers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Bivariate analyses were computed comparing the high and low prescribers. A logistic regression model was computed for likelihood of being a high prescriber by number of URI episodes, proportion of patients receiving antibiotics that were broad spectrum, years since medical school graduation, physician gender, rural/urban practice, and specialty. RESULTS: The high prescriber group (n=52) included data from 11899 episodes of care, with a mean prescribing rate of 80%. The low prescriber group (n=55) included data from 5396 episodes, with a mean prescribing rate of 16%. High prescribers were significantly more years away from medical school graduation (27 vs 19 years; P<.001) and had managed significantly more URI episodes than low prescribers (229 vs 98; P=.001). In the logistic regression, compared with pediatricians, the odds ratios of being a high prescriber were 409 (95% confidence interval [CI], 29-7276) for family practitioners and 318 (95% CI, 17-6125) for other primary care physicians. CONCLUSION: With the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, more focused training regarding treatment of URIs is warranted in residency and in continuing medical education forums.     

Hydrothermal synthesis of dy-doped BaTiO3 powders

Submicron-sized (∼200 nm), monodisperse, and spherical powders of pure and dysprosium (Dy)-doped (0.8 at. pct) BaTiO₃ have been prepared by “hydrothermal synthesis” at 90 °C in an air atmosphere. The powder preparation procedure developed in this work did not necessitate the use of strict and expensive processes, which were commonly required for the removal of free CO₂ present in the atmosphere. The prepared powders were found to be crystalline, pure, and contained no BaCO₃ as an impurity phase. Pure and Dy-doped BaTiO₃ powders synthesized at 90 °C had the pseudocubic (space group: Pm-3m) crystal structure. Grain growth characteristics of pure and Dy-doped BaTiO₃ pellets were compared during sintering in air over the temperature range from 1200 °C to 1500 °C. The Dy doping was found to be significantly effective in inhibiting the anomalous grain growth in BaTiO₃ samples heated at or above 1200 °C.     

Fe3O4 nanoparticle decorated novel magnetic metal oxide microcomposites for the catalytic degradation of 4-nitrophenol for wastewater cleaning applications

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics - Co3O4, NiO and ZnO microparticles were decorated with Fe3O4 nanoparticles where novel Co3O4@Fe3O4, NiO@Fe3O4 and ZnO@Fe3O4 microcomposites...     

Learning a Generative Model for Multi‐Step Human‐Object Interactions from Videos

Creating dynamic virtual environments consisting of humans interacting with objects is a fundamental problem in computer graphics. While it is well‐accepted that agent interactions play an essential role in synthesizing such scenes, most extant techniques exclusively focus on static scenes, leaving the dynamic component out. In this paper, we present a generative model to synthesize plausible multi‐step dynamic human‐object interactions. Generating multi‐step interactions is challenging since the space of such interactions is exponential in the number of objects, activities, and time steps. We propose to handle this combinatorial complexity by learning a lower dimensional space of plausible human‐object interactions. We use action plots to represent interactions as a sequence of discrete actions along with the participating objects and their states. To build action plots, we present an automatic method that uses state‐of‐the‐art computer vision techniques on RGB videos in order to detect individual objects and their states, extract the involved hands, and recognize the actions performed. The action plots are built from observing videos of everyday activities and are used to train a generative model based on a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The network learns the causal dependencies and constraints between individual actions and can be used to generate novel and diverse multi‐step human‐object interactions. Our representation and generative model allows new capabilities in a variety of applications such as interaction prediction, animation synthesis, and motion planning for a real robotic agent.     

The role of inhibitory processes in part-list cuing.

Providing a subset of studied items as retrieval cues can have detrimental effects on recall of the remaining items. In 2 experiments, the authors examined such part-list cuing impairment in a repeatedtesting situation. Participants studied exemplars from several semantic categories and were given 2 successive cued-recall tests separated by a distractor task of several minutes. Part-list cues were provided in the 1st test but not the 2nd. Noncue item recall was tested with the studied category cues (same probes) in the 1st test, but novel, unstudied retrieval cues (independent probes) in the 2nd test. The authors found detrimental effects of part-list cues in both the 1st (same-probe) test and the 2nd (independent-probe) test. These results show that part-list cuing impairment can be lasting and is not eliminated with independent probes. The findings support the view that the impairment was caused by retrieval inhibition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Corrosion,Wear and Mechanical Properties of Boron Added Cast 304 Stainless Steel

Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - The main objective of this research was to examine the effect adding B at 0, 100, 170 ppm had on the mechanical properties, wear and...     

Thermal behavior and shape memory properties of PCL blends film with PVC and PMMA polymers

Iranian Polymer Journal - Shape memory polymers have attracted extensive attention attributable to their characteristics and abundant applications. In this study, shape memory behavior and...     

Poly(vinyl phosphonic acid) (PVPA)–BaFe12O19 Nanocomposite

We present a method for the fabrication of PVPA/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ nanocomposite by in-situ polymerization of vinyl phosphonic acid, VPA in the presence of synthesized BaFe₁₂O₁₉ NPs. Nanoparticles and the nanocomposite were analyzed by XRD, FTIR, TGA, SEM, TEM, VSM, and conductivity techniques for structural and physicochemical characteristics. Nanoparticles, identified as BaFe₁₂O₁₉ from XRD analysis, were successfully coated with PVPA and the linkage was assessed to be via P?CO bonds. Electron microscopy analysis revealed aggregation of BaFe₁₂O₁₉ particles and dominantly platelet morphology upon composite formation. TGA analysis revealed the composition of the nanocomposite as 65% BaFe₁₂O₁₉ and 35% polymer. Magnetic evaluation revealed that adsorption of PVPA anions during the preparation of the nanocomposite strongly influenced the magnetic properties resulting in much lower saturation magnetization values. DC conductivity measurements were used to calculate activation energy of PVPA/BaFe₁₂O₁₉ nanocomposite and it was obtained as 0.37?eV.