Evaluation of a National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines-Based Decision Support Tool in Patients With Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer: A Nonrandomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: The association of guideline-based decision support with the quality of care in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is not known.

Objective: To evaluate the association of exposure to the National Comprehensive Cancer Center (NCCN) guidelines with guideline-concordant care and patients' decisional conflict.

Design, Setting, And Participants: A nonrandomized clinical trial, conducted at a tertiary care academic institution, enrolled patients from February 23, 2015, to September 28, 2017.

Certification of New Standard Reference Material 2806b Medium Test Dust in Hydraulic Fluid.

A new material has been certified to become Standard Reference Material (SRM) 2806b - Medium Test Dust in Hydraulic Fluid. SRM 2806b consists of trace polydisperse, irregularly shaped mineral dust particles suspended in hydraulic fluid. The certified values of SRM 2806b are the projected area circular-equivalent diameters of the collected dust particles from the hydraulic fluid.

Fiber Bragg Grating Based Thermometry.

In recent years there has been considerable interest in developing photonic temperature sensors such as the Fiber Bragg gratings (FBG) as an alternative to resistance thermometry. In this study we examine the thermal response of FBGs over the temperature range of 233 K to 393 K. We demonstrate, in hermetically sealed dry Argon environment, FBG devices show a quadratic dependence on temperature with expanded uncertainties (k=2) of ≈500 mK.

Long-Term Stability of One-Inch Condenser Microphones Calibrated at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The devices calibrated most frequently by the acoustical measurement services at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) over the 50-year period from 1963 to 2012 were one-inch condenser microphones of three specific standard types: LS1Pn, LS1Po, and WS1P. Due to its long history of providing calibrations of such microphones to customers, NIST is in a unique position to analyze data concerning the long-term stability of these devices. This long history has enabled NIST to acquire and aggregate a substantial amount of repeat calibration data for a large number of microphones that belong to various other standards and calibration laboratories.

A Case Study of Performance Degradation Attributable to Run-Time Bounds Checks on C++ Vector Access.

Programmers routinely omit run-time safety checks from applications because they assume that these safety checks would degrade performance. The simplest example is the use of arrays or array-like data structures that do not enforce the constraint that indices must be within bounds. This report documents an attempt to measure the performance penalty incurred by two different implementations of bounds-checking in C and C++ using a simple benchmark and a desktop PC with a modern superscalar CPU.

Gravimetric approach to the standard addition method in instrumental analysis. 1.

A mathematical formulation for a gravimetric approach to the univariate standard addition method (SAM) is presented that has general applicability for both liquids and solids. Using gravimetry rather than volumetry reduces the preparation time, increases design flexibility, and makes increased accuracy possible. SAM has most often been used with analytes in aqueous solutions that are aspirated into flames or plasmas and determined by absorption, emission, or mass spectrometric techniques.

Development of a nonrigid, durable calcium phosphate cement for use in periodontal bone repair.

Background: Calcium phosphate cement (CPC) hardens in situ to form hydroxyapatite and has been used in dental and craniofacial restorative applications. However, when CPC was used in periodontal osseous repair, tooth mobility resulted in the fracture and exfoliation of the brittle CPC implant. The objective of the authors' study was to develop a strong and nonrigid CPC to provide compliance for tooth mobility without fracturing the implant.

RM 8111: Development of a Prototype Linewidth Standard.

Staffs of the Semiconductor Electronics Division, the Information Technology Laboratory, and the Precision Engineering Laboratory at NIST, have developed a new generation of prototype Single-Crystal CD (Critical Dimension) Reference (SCCDRM) Materials with the designation RM 8111. Their intended use is calibrating metrology instruments that are used in semiconductor manufacturing. Each reference material is configured as a 10 mm × 11 mm silicon test-structure chip that is mounted in a 200 mm silicon carrier wafer.

Cell seeding into calcium phosphate cement.

To improve the effectiveness of calcium phosphate cement (CPC), we have developed a method to seed osteoblasts into the cement. CPC powder is mixed with water to form a paste that can be shaped to fit a bone defect in situ. The paste hardens in 30 min, reacts to form hydroxyapatite, and is replaced with new bone.

Radiochemical neutron activation analysis for certification of ion-implanted phosphorus in silicon.

A radiochemical neutron activation analysis procedure has been developed, critically evaluated, and shown to have the necessary sensitivity, chemical specificity, matrix independence, and precision to certify phosphorus at ion implantation levels in silicon. 32P, produced by neutron capture of 31P, is chemically separated from the sample matrix and measured using a beta proportional counter. The method is used here to certify the amount of phosphorus in SRM 2133 (Phosphorus Implant in Silicon Depth Profile Standard) as (9.

Detection limit of isotope dilution mass spectrometry.

The detection limit is an important figure of merit for evaluating instrumentation and analytical methods. While the detection limit for techniques using linear calibration functions has been studied extensively, this fundamental metric has rarely been discussed for mass spectrometry that bases the calibration on the principle of isotope dilution. We have developed a formulation for the detection limit for isotope dilution mass spectrometry (IDMS) after a thorough analysis of the uncertainty of IDMS measurements.

A Study on the Reuse of Plastic Concrete Using Extended Set-Retarding Admixtures.

The disposal of ready mixed concrete truck wash water and returned plastic concrete is a growing concern for the ready mixed concrete industry. Recently, extended set-retarding admixtures, or stabilizers, which slow or stop the hydration of portland cement have been introduced to the market. Treating truck wash-water or returned plastic concrete with stabilizing admixtures delays its setting and hardening, thereby facilitating the incorporation of these typically wasted materials in subsequent concrete batches.