Optimal learning addresses the problem of efficiently collecting information with which to make decisions. These problems arise in both offline settings (making a series of measurements, after which a decision is made) and online settings (the process of making a decision results in observations that change the distribution of belief about future observations). Optimal learning is an issue prim...

The potential for contamination of compounded products and the resulting infections are a serious threat to patient safety. Immediate use products are used frequently in the perioperative department, and perioperative nurses should be familiar with the guidelines and practices that aim to reduce the contamination that can occur during the sterile compounding process. Four common themes lead to ...

Gossiping refers to the following task: In a group of individuals connected by a communication network, every node has a piece of information and needs to transmit it to all the nodes in the network. The networks are modeled by graphs, where the vertices represent the nodes, and the edges, the communication links. In this paper, we concentrate on minimum gossip graphs of even order, that is, gr...

PREFACE Iontophoresis is a process which involves increased transport of solute molecules into a tissue using an electric current. This technique has been employed for the delivery of ionic drugs for local and systemic therapeutic effects in clinical settings. Iontophoresis is becoming more widespread today with many pharmacists compounding solutions for this mode of administration. Iontophores...

PREFACE Iontophoresis is a process which involves increased transport of solute molecules into a tissue using an electric current. This technique has been employed for the delivery of ionic drugs for local and systemic therapeutic effects in clinical settings. Iontophoresis is becoming more widespread today with many pharmacists compounding solutions for this mode of administration. Iontophores...

Several months have passed since news broke of a horrific compounding tragedy at the New England Compounding Center (NECC) in Framingham, Massachusetts. An outbreak of fungal meningitis in fall 2012 was traced to contaminated methylprednisolone acetate prepared by the NECC. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as of May 11, 2013, 55 deaths and a total case count...

Effects of spatial compounding on image resolution and speckle noise are studied. Using computer simulation, it is shown that spatial compounding using averaged reconstruction can significantly improve lateral resolution while slightly deteriorate axial resolution. The amount of net resolution improvement depends mainly on the compound angle, but is insensitive to the number of component images...