The history of the founding of the Cuban Skull Base Surgery Group is reported. Under the author's supervision and coordination, the group has managed more than 100 major skull base cases over a 6-year period. The mortality rate was 13% and the rate of permanent morbidity was 23%. In the last 2 years, the mortality rate decreased to 8%. These results reflect the group's enthusiasm pitted against...

While research on the spatial representation of number has provided substantial evidence for a horizontally oriented mental number line, recent studies suggest vertical organization as well. Directly comparing the relative strength of horizontal and vertical organization, however, we found no evidence of spontaneous vertical orientation (upward or downward), and horizontal trumped vertical when...

Hollow/porous nanoparticles, including nanocarriers, nanoshells, and mesoporous materials have applications in catalysis, photonics, biosensing, and delivery of theranostic agents. Using a hierarchical template synthesis scheme, we have synthesized a nanocarrier mimicking a golf ball, consisting of (i) solid silica core with a pitted gold surface and (ii) a hollow/porous gold shell without sili...

In human language technology, it is becoming more and more common to run systematic evaluations in which two or more systems, or two or more versions of the same system, are pitted one against the other. We propose the binomial cumulative distribution function as a way to assess the cumulative effect of the measures collected in such evaluations. We present an application of this measure to the...

Growing high-quality crystals is a bottleneck in the determination of protein structures by x-ray diffraction. Experiments find that materials with a disordered pitted surface seed the growth of protein crystals. Here we report computer simulations of rapid crystal nucleation in nanoscale pits. Nucleation is rapid, as the crystal forms in pits that have filled with liquid via capillary condensa...

A new Eleutherodactylus, E. ernesti, is described from the peak (3900 m) of Volcan Sumaco, Napo Province, Ecuador. This species is characterized by a glandular, pitted dorsal skin with heavy, glandular dorsolateral ridges, densely-warted flanks, small circular patches of glands in the axilla, groin, and on the rear thigh, a concave canthus and loreal region, a snout in profile that is dorsally ...

A microstructural model is presented to assess pit-to-crack transition and corrosion fatigue strength in pitted components different environments. The first validated using available experimental data the literature for pitting S-N curves both carbon stainless steels. value of method proposed its applicability then shown by development knock down factor maps in-air curve. Finally, influence pit...

This article summarizes six lessons that can be learned from over a half century of scientific research on the placebo effect. These lessons are that the placebo response is not the placebo effect, it is meaningless to ask what the magnitude of the placebo effect is, it is easy to be fooled by regression artifacts, expectancy and conditioning are not conflicting processes that can be pitted aga...