In her 2004 book Carol Gould addresses the fundamental issue of democratizing globalization, that is to say of finding ways to open transnational institutions and communities to democratic ...participation by those widely affected by their decisions. The book develops a framework for expanding participation in crossborder decisions, arguing for a broader understanding of human rights and introducing a new role for the ideas of care and solidarity at a distance. Reinterpreting the idea of universality to accommodate a multiplicity of cultural perspectives, the author takes up a number of applied issues, including the persistence of racism, cultural rights, women's human rights, the democratic management of firms, the use of the Internet to enhance political participation, and the importance of empathy and genuine democracy in understanding terrorism and responding to it. Accessibly written with a minimum of technical jargon this is a major contribution to political philosophy.
Within the natural world, organisms use information stored in their material structure to generate a physical response to a wide variety of environmental changes. The ability to program synthetic ...materials to intrinsically respond to environmental changes in a similar manner has the potential to revolutionize material science. By designing polymeric devices capable of responsively changing shape or behavior based on information encoded into their structure, we can create functional physical behavior, including a shape-memory and an actuation capability. Here we highlight the stimuli-responsiveness and shape-changing ability of biological materials and biopolymer-based materials, plus their potential biomedical application, providing a bioperspective on shape-memory materials. We address strategies to incorporate a shape-memory (actuation) function in polymeric materials, conceptualized in terms of its relationship with inputs (environmental stimuli) and outputs (shape change). Challenges and opportunities associated with the integration of several functions in a single material body to achieve multifunctionality are discussed. Finally, we describe how elements that sense, convert, and transmit stimuli have been used to create multisensitive materials.
The preparation of colloidally stable, self-assembled materials with tailorable solid or hollow two-dimensional (2D) structures represents a major challenge. We describe the formation of uniform, ...monodisperse rectangular platelet micelles of controlled size by means of seeded-growth methods that involve the addition of blends of crystalline-coil block copolymers and the corresponding crystalline homopolymer to cylindrical micelle seeds. Sequential addition of different blends yields solid platelet block comicelles with concentric rectangular patches with distinct coronal chemistries. These complex nano-objects can be subject to spatially selective processing that allows their disassembly to form perforated platelets, such as well-defined hollow rectangular rings. The solid and hollow 2D micelles provide a tunable platform for further functionalization and potential for a variety of applications.
We report on the scaling behavior of V-doped (Bi,Sb)_{2}Te_{3} samples in the quantum anomalous Hall regime for samples of various thickness. While previous quantum anomalous Hall measurements showed ...the same scaling as expected from a two-dimensional integer quantum Hall state, we observe a dimensional crossover to three spatial dimensions as a function of layer thickness. In the limit of a sufficiently thick layer, we find scaling behavior matching the flow diagram of two parallel conducting topological surface states of a three-dimensional topological insulator each featuring a fractional shift of 1/2e^{2}/h in the flow diagram Hall conductivity, while we recover the expected integer quantum Hall behavior for thinner layers. This constitutes the observation of a distinct type of quantum anomalous Hall effect, resulting from 1/2e^{2}/h Hall conductance quantization of three-dimensional topological insulator surface states, in an experiment which does not require decomposition of the signal to separate the contribution of two surfaces. This provides a possible experimental link between quantum Hall physics and axion electrodynamics.
Background
Worldwide, the annual number of robotic surgical procedures continues to increase. Robotic surgical skills are unique from those used in either open or laparoscopic surgery. The ...acquisition of a basic robotic surgical skill set may be best accomplished in the simulation laboratory. We sought to review the current literature pertaining to the use of virtual reality (VR) simulation in the acquisition of robotic surgical skills on the da Vinci Surgical System.
Materials and methods
A PubMed search was conducted between December 2014 and January 2015 utilizing the following keywords: virtual reality, robotic surgery, da Vinci, da Vinci skills simulator, SimSurgery Educational Platform, Mimic dV-Trainer, and Robotic Surgery Simulator. Articles were included if they were published between 2007 and 2015, utilized VR simulation for the da Vinci Surgical System, and utilized a commercially available VR platform.
Results
The initial search criteria returned 227 published articles. After all inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied, a total of 47 peer-reviewed manuscripts were included in the final review.
Conclusions
There are many benefits to utilizing VR simulation for robotic skills acquisition. Four commercially available simulators have been demonstrated to be capable of assessing robotic skill. Three of the four simulators demonstrate the ability of a VR training curriculum to improve basic robotic skills, with proficiency-based training being the most effective training style. The skills obtained on a VR training curriculum are comparable with those obtained on dry laboratory simulation. The future of VR simulation includes utilization in assessment for re-credentialing purposes, advanced procedural-based training, and as a warm-up tool prior to surgery.
Chronic diseases are the largest cause of death in the world. In 2002,
the leading chronic diseases—cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic
respiratory disease, and diabetes—caused 29 million deaths ...worldwide.
Despite growing evidence of epidemiological and economic impact, the global
response to the problem remains inadequate. Stakeholders include governments,
the World Health Organization and other United Nations bodies, academic and
research groups, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector. Lack
of financial support retards capacity development for prevention, treatment,
and research in most developing countries. Reasons for this include that up-to-date
evidence related to the nature of the burden of chronic diseases is not in
the hands of decision makers and strong beliefs persist that chronic diseases
afflict only the affluent and the elderly, that they arise solely from freely
acquired risks, and that their control is ineffective and too expensive and
should wait until infectious diseases are addressed. The influence of global
economic factors on chronic disease risks impedes progress, as does the orientation
of health systems toward acute care. We identify 3 policy levers to address
these impediments elevating chronic diseases on the health agenda of key policymakers,
providing them with better evidence about risk factor control, and persuading
them of the need for health systems change. A more concerted, strategic, and
multisectoral policy approach, underpinned by solid research, is essential
to help reverse the negative trends in the global incidence of chronic disease.
Lateralization in the desynchronization of anticipatory occipitoparietal alpha (8-12 Hz) oscillations has been implicated in the allocation of selective visuospatial attention. Previous studies have ...demonstrated that small changes in the lateralization of alpha-band activity are predictive of behavioral performance but have not directly investigated how flexibly alpha lateralization is linked to top-down attentional goals. To address this question, we presented participants with cues providing varying degrees of spatial certainty about the location at which a target would appear. Time-frequency analysis of EEG data demonstrated that manipulating spatial certainty led to graded changes in the extent to which alpha oscillations were lateralized over the occipitoparietal cortex during the cue-target interval. We found that individual differences in alpha desynchronization contralateral to attention predicted reaction times, event-related potential measures of perceptual processing of targets, and beta-band (15-25 Hz) activity typically associated with response preparation. These results support the hypothesis that anticipatory alpha modulation is a plausible neural mechanism underlying the allocation of visuospatial attention and is under flexible top-down control.
Materials that crystallize in diamond-related lattices, with Si and GaAs as their prime examples, are at the foundation of modern electronics. Simultaneously, inversion asymmetries in their crystal ...structure and relativistic spinorbit coupling led to discoveries of non-equilibrium spin-polarization phenomena that are now extensively explored as an electrical means for manipulating magnetic moments in a variety of spintronic structures. Current research of these relativistic spinorbit torques focuses primarily on magnetic transition-metal multilayers. The low-temperature diluted magnetic semiconductor (Ga,Mn)As, in which spinorbit torques were initially discovered, has so far remained the only example showing the phenomenon among bulk non-centrosymmetric ferromagnets. Here we present a general framework, based on the complete set of crystallographic point groups, for identifying the potential presence and symmetry of spinorbit torques in non-centrosymmetric crystals. Among the candidate room-temperature ferromagnets we chose to use NiMnSb, which is a member of the broad family of magnetic Heusler compounds. By performing all-electrical ferromagnetic resonance measurements in single-crystal epilayers of NiMnSb we detect room-temperature spinorbit torques generated by eective elds of the expected symmetry and of a magnitude consistent with our ab initio calculations.
Primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) is confined to the brain, eyes, and cerebrospinal fluid without evidence of systemic spread. Rarely, PCNSL occurs in the context of immunosuppression ...(eg, posttransplant lymphoproliferative disorders or HIV AIDS-related PCNSL). These cases are poorly characterized, have dismal outcome, and are typically Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated (ie, tissue-positive). We used targeted sequencing and digital multiplex gene expression to compare the genetic landscape and tumor microenvironment (TME) of 91 PCNSL tissues all with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma histology. Forty-seven were EBV tissue-negative: 45 EBV− HIV− PCNSL and 2 EBV− HIV+ PCNSL; and 44 were EBV tissue-positive: 23 EBV+ HIV+ PCNSL and 21 EBV+ HIV− PCNSL. As with prior studies, EBV− HIV− PCNSL had frequent MYD88, CD79B, and PIM1 mutations, and enrichment for the activated B-cell (ABC) cell-of-origin subtype. In contrast, these mutations were absent in all EBV tissue-positive cases and ABC frequency was low. Furthermore, copy number loss in HLA class I/II and antigen-presenting/processing genes were rarely observed, indicating retained antigen presentation. To counter this, EBV+ HIV− PCNSL had a tolerogenic TME with elevated macrophage and immune-checkpoint gene expression, whereas AIDS-related PCNSL had low CD4 gene counts. EBV-associated PCNSL in the immunosuppressed is immunobiologically distinct from EBV− HIV− PCNSL, and, despite expressing an immunogenic virus, retains the ability to present EBV antigens. Results provide a framework for targeted treatment.
•EBV-associated PCNSL typically has absent MYD88, CD79B, and PIM1 mutations, is rarely ABC cell of origin, and has intact HLA class I/II.•The tumor microenvironment in EBV-associated PCNSL adapts to tolerate expression of an immunogenic virus.
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