It even involves some serious dance moves at the end

Listen in as I use two calculators to track the difference in numbers of infections over a short period of time, depending on how many people each infected individual infects on average.

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 1, 2020 – 28 patient and consumer groups representing millions of people nationwide with pre-existing health conditions issued the following statement regarding the administration’s decision not to initiate a special enrollment...

Investigate the simmering tensions between groups of Australians that led to racially motivated violence at Sydney’s Cronulla Beach in December 2005.

DALLAS, 5 de mayo de 2020 — Diez estudiantes universitarios recibirán becas de US$10,000 dólares de la American Heart Association que servirán para favorecer el trabajo que desempeñan estos alumnos para cerrar las brechas de disparidad en el ámbito de la...

MARION — Marion’s 14-member COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force is beginning to work on recommendations of how to get people back to work, while keeping everyone...

MARION — While the Uptown Marion Market will continue to sell fresh produce, it will look a little different this year. The market will continue operating on the second Saturday of June, July...

MARION — Marion’s 14-member COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force is beginning to work on recommendations of how to get people back to work, while keeping everyone safe.

“It’s hard to know right now at the beginning the various outcomes that are going to come out of this,” Marion Mayor Nick AbouAssaly told task force members in a meeting held this week via Zoom.

“Community sectors will work independently and report to the steering committee with ideas, strategies or policy recommendations,” he said.

In turn, the task force will consider recommendations to the Marion City Council, and AbouAssaly said he will update the council on the task force meetings.

“Unfortunately, we have to accept that the virus is here to stay,” AbouAssaly said. “It’s part of our life for the time being. We have to be able to plan for getting back to doing things and leading our lives in a way that allows us to exist with the virus in our community.”

Elizabeth Cwik, a Marion resident who works for the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, said there’s a “strong interest” among task force members to provide accurate information to the public about the virus.

“I see clear, consistent messaging from a variety of sectors from the schools, government, businesses and nonprofits. Then that message gets through,” Cwik said. “If that message is, ‘We care, and we want you to come out whole, and we want there to be a vibrant economy to be continued with every citizen’s effort,’ I think that’s a valuable contribution to the recovery.”

In joining the task force, Dr. Jaclyn Price said she hopes to dispel inaccurate information about the coronavirus and help businesses find ways to safely bring their employees back to work.

“I anticipate businesses will be operating at reduced capacities,” she said. “Maybe doing appointments rather than walk-in business, and cleaning more routinely.”

If businesses require employees and customers to wear masks, it will protect others from asymptomatic spread of the virus, she said.

“We will still see virus activity until we get a vaccine or herd immunity,” Price said. “This is going to be a problem for months to come. We’re trying to find ways to open slowly, but also understanding if we reopen everything and have to close it again, that could be more detrimental to people’s psychology or finances of businesses.”

The Rev. Mike Morgan of Marion United Methodist Church said “greater conversation” with government, business, education and health care leaders will help.

“Marion has become a town that is proactive,” Morgan said. “We really seek to have good things happen to our citizenry rather than let things happen and we react to them. ... As a person in the faith community, it’s important for us to be tending to people’s emotional, psychological, spiritual and, to some degree, physical needs.”

Comments: (319) 368-8664; grace.king@thegazette.com

Those serving on the Marion COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force, all Marion residents and volunteers, are:

• Nick AbouAssaly, Marion mayor

• Jill Ackerman, president, Marion Chamber of Commerce

• Shannon Bisgard, Linn-Mar schools superintendent

• Amber Bisinger, communications officer for the city

• Elizabeth Cwik, Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation

• Lee Eilers, executive committee member, Marion Economic Development Corp.

• Nick Glew, president, Marion Economic Development Corp.

• Amber Hoff, marriage and family therapist

• Steve Jensen, Marion City Council member

• Mike Morgan, pastor, Marion United Methodist Church

• Brent Oleson, Linn County supervisor

Lon Pluckhahn, Marion city manager

• Jaclyn Price, M.D., Mercy Clinic-Marion

• Brooke Prouty, program director, Marion Chamber of Commerce

MARION — While the Uptown Marion Market will continue to sell fresh produce, it will look a little different this year.

The market will continue operating on the second Saturday of June, July and August with some adjustments.

But the city of Marion has canceled community events until at least early July because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Uptown market will run along Sixth Avenue instead of being held in City Square Park. It will be fenced and no more than 50 people will be let in at an time.

Jill Ackerman, president of the Marion Chamber of Commerce, said there are usually between 50 and 60 vendors at each market, but she expects only 15 to 25 at this summer’s markets.

“The main thing here is safety,” Ackerman said. “We want to make sure people have opportunities to buy fresh produce from our local growers, but we’re going to ask patrons to only spend 30 minutes inside the market.”

Vendors will sell produce and some plants, but artisan items will not be available.

While there will be summer events through the Chamber of Commerce, Ackerman said, they will be fewer and look a little different than they usually do.

Free community concerts and movie nights are canceled until July by the city, according to a news release.

The Marion Farmers Market, held at Taube Park, is expected to resume May 16.

Officials hope to have smaller-scale events throughout the summer like performances in the Uptown Artway, Messy Art Days and the Tiny Fair series as restrictions ease.

Sunrise Yoga at the Klopfenstein Amphitheater at Lowe Park is expected to take place every Saturday from June to August.

“Unfortunately, given our current reality, we know that 2020 will be far from normal,” said Marion Mayor Nicolas AbouAssaly. “After careful consideration and consultation with event organizers and sponsors, we have made the collective decision to cancel the free community concerts, events and movie nights originally planned for our outdoor public venues through early-July.”

Comments: (319) 368-8664; grace.king@thegazette.com

Bricks are better black. ◾️ (at Toronto, Ontario)

Environmental activist and Academy Award®-winning actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Fisher Stevens premier their documentary film, Before the Flood, a compelling account of the powerful changes occurring on our planet due to climate change. Before the Flood will … Continue reading →

Usability tests are unique. We ask people to do real tasks with the system and watch. As the person completes the task, we watch their behaviour and listen to their stream-of-consciousness narrative. But what makes a good usability task scenario?

A couple of mysterious sharks have caught the fancy of the town. Maybe it's the cabin fever finally setting in, or perhaps this is what happens when you go too long without washing your mask, but Bethelites are going wild for two people in inflatable shark suits who pop up randomly around town.

With the coronavirus pandemic, many folks switched to working online. Things like teaching, business meetings and other face-to-face activities have been replaced with video calls. Home has become both home and workplace, and admit it: your wardrobe totally reflects this. Creative duo The Workmans shows this “fashion crossover” in their latest photo series #COVIDwear. The […]

The post #COVIDwear: a hilarious photo series showing quarantine fashion of remote workers appeared first on DIY Photography.

In this paper, for a family of second-order parabolic equation with rapidly oscillating and time-dependent periodic coefficients, we are interested in an approximate two-sphere one-cylinder inequality for these solutions in parabolic periodic homogenization, which implies an approximate quantitative propagation of smallness. The proof relies on the asymptotic behavior of fundamental solutions and the Lagrange interpolation technique.

In this paper, we mainly establish the existence and uniqueness theorem for solutions of the exterior Dirichlet problem for a class of fully nonlinear second-order elliptic equations related to the eigenvalues of the Hessian, with prescribed generalized symmetric asymptotic behavior at infinity. Moreover, we give some new results for the Hessian equations, Hessian quotient equations and the special Lagrangian equations, which have been studied previously.

It is well-known that a celebrated J"{o}rgens-Calabi-Pogorelov theorem for Monge-Amp`ere equations states that any classical (viscosity) convex solution of $det(D^2u)=1$ in $mathbb{R}^n$ must be a quadratic polynomial. Therefore, it is an interesting topic to study the existence and uniqueness theorem of such fully nonlinear partial differential equations' Dirichlet problems on exterior domains with suitable asymptotic conditions at infinity. As a continuation of the works of Caffarelli-Li for Monge-Amp`ere equation and of Bao-Li-Li for $k$-Hessian equations, this paper is devoted to the solvability of the exterior Dirichlet problem of Hessian quotient equations $sigma_k(lambda(D^2u))/sigma_l(lambda(D^2u))=1$ for any $1leq l<kleq n$ in all dimensions $ngeq 2$. By introducing the concept of generalized symmetric subsolutions and then using the Perron's method, we establish the existence theorem for viscosity solutions, with prescribed asymptotic behavior which is close to some quadratic polynomial at infinity.

In this paper, we study the regularity criterion of weak solutions to the three-dimensional (3D) MHD equations. It is proved that the solution $(u,b)$ becomes regular provided that one velocity and one current density component of the solution satisfy% egin{equation} u_{3}in L^{frac{30alpha }{7alpha -45}}left( 0,T;L^{alpha ,infty }left( mathbb{R}^{3} ight) ight) ext{ with }frac{45}{7}% leq alpha leq infty , label{eq01} end{equation}% and egin{equation} j_{3}in L^{frac{2eta }{2eta -3}}left( 0,T;L^{eta ,infty }left( mathbb{R}^{3} ight) ight) ext{ with }frac{3}{2}leq eta leq infty , label{eq02} end{equation}% which generalize some known results.

The problem of minimizing an entropy functional subject to linear constraints is a useful example of partially finite convex programming. In the 1990s, Borwein and Lewis provided broad and easy-to-verify conditions that guarantee strong duality for such problems. Their approach is to construct a function in the quasi-relative interior of the relevant infinite-dimensional set, which assures the existence of a point in the core of the relevant finite-dimensional set. We revisit this problem, and provide an alternative proof by directly appealing to the definition of the core, rather than by relying on any properties of the quasi-relative interior. Our approach admits a minor relaxation of the linear independence requirements in Borwein and Lewis' framework, which allows us to work with certain piecewise-defined moment functions precluded by their conditions. We provide such a computed example that illustrates how this relaxation may be used to tame observed Gibbs phenomenon when the underlying data is discontinuous. The relaxation illustrates the understanding we may gain by tackling partially-finite problems from both the finite-dimensional and infinite-dimensional sides. The comparison of these two approaches is informative, as both proofs are constructive.

How to generate testing scenario libraries for connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) is a major challenge faced by the industry. In previous studies, to evaluate maneuver challenge of a scenario, surrogate models (SMs) are often used without explicit knowledge of the CAV under test. However, performance dissimilarities between the SM and the CAV under test usually exist, and it can lead to the generation of suboptimal scenario libraries. In this paper, an adaptive testing scenario library generation (ATSLG) method is proposed to solve this problem. A customized testing scenario library for a specific CAV model is generated through an adaptive process. To compensate the performance dissimilarities and leverage each test of the CAV, Bayesian optimization techniques are applied with classification-based Gaussian Process Regression and a new-designed acquisition function. Comparing with a pre-determined library, a CAV can be tested and evaluated in a more efficient manner with the customized library. To validate the proposed method, a cut-in case study was performed and the results demonstrate that the proposed method can further accelerate the evaluation process by a few orders of magnitude.

We introduce $Psimathrm{ec}$, a local spectral exterior calculus for the two-sphere $S^2$. $Psimathrm{ec}$ provides a discretization of Cartan's exterior calculus on $S^2$ formed by spherical differential $r$-form wavelets. These are well localized in space and frequency and provide (Stevenson) frames for the homogeneous Sobolev spaces $dot{H}^{-r+1}( Omega_{ u}^{r} , S^2 )$ of differential $r$-forms. At the same time, they satisfy important properties of the exterior calculus, such as the de Rahm complex and the Hodge-Helmholtz decomposition. Through this, $Psimathrm{ec}$ is tailored towards structure preserving discretizations that can adapt to solutions with varying regularity. The construction of $Psimathrm{ec}$ is based on a novel spherical wavelet frame for $L_2(S^2)$ that we obtain by introducing scalable reproducing kernel frames. These extend scalable frames to weighted sampling expansions and provide an alternative to quadrature rules for the discretization of needlet-like scale-discrete wavelets. We verify the practicality of $Psimathrm{ec}$ for numerical computations using the rotating shallow water equations. Our numerical results demonstrate that a $Psimathrm{ec}$-based discretization of the equations attains accuracy comparable to those of spectral methods while using a representation that is well localized in space and frequency.

One of the main open problems in the qualitative theory of real planar differential systems is the study of limit cycles. In this article, we present an algorithmic approach for detecting how many limit cycles can bifurcate from the periodic orbits of a given polynomial differential center when it is perturbed inside a class of polynomial differential systems via the averaging method. We propose four symbolic algorithms to implement the averaging method. The first algorithm is based on the change of polar coordinates that allows one to transform a considered differential system to the normal form of averaging. The second algorithm is used to derive the solutions of certain differential systems associated to the unperturbed term of the normal of averaging. The third algorithm exploits the partial Bell polynomials and allows one to compute the integral formula of the averaged functions at any order. The last algorithm is based on the aforementioned algorithms and determines the exact expressions of the averaged functions for the considered differential systems. The implementation of our algorithms is discussed and evaluated using several examples. The experimental results have extended the existing relevant results for certain classes of differential systems.

In this paper, we study the problem of fair classification in the presence of prior probability shifts, where the training set distribution differs from the test set. This phenomenon can be observed in the yearly records of several real-world datasets, such as recidivism records and medical expenditure surveys. If unaccounted for, such shifts can cause the predictions of a classifier to become unfair towards specific population subgroups. While the fairness notion called Proportional Equality (PE) accounts for such shifts, a procedure to ensure PE-fairness was unknown.

In this work, we propose a method, called CAPE, which provides a comprehensive solution to the aforementioned problem. CAPE makes novel use of prevalence estimation techniques, sampling and an ensemble of classifiers to ensure fair predictions under prior probability shifts. We introduce a metric, called prevalence difference (PD), which CAPE attempts to minimize in order to ensure PE-fairness. We theoretically establish that this metric exhibits several desirable properties.

We evaluate the efficacy of CAPE via a thorough empirical evaluation on synthetic datasets. We also compare the performance of CAPE with several popular fair classifiers on real-world datasets like COMPAS (criminal risk assessment) and MEPS (medical expenditure panel survey). The results indicate that CAPE ensures PE-fair predictions, while performing well on other performance metrics.

Real-world application scenarios like modern Internet services consist of diversity of AI and non-AI modules with very long and complex execution paths. Using component or micro AI benchmarks alone can lead to error-prone conclusions. This paper proposes a scenario-distilling AI benchmarking methodology. Instead of using real-world applications, we propose the permutations of essential AI and non-AI tasks as a scenario-distilling benchmark. We consider scenario-distilling benchmarks, component and micro benchmarks as three indispensable parts of a benchmark suite. Together with seventeen industry partners, we identify nine important real-world application scenarios. We design and implement a highly extensible, configurable, and flexible benchmark framework. On the basis of the framework, we propose the guideline for building scenario-distilling benchmarks, and present two Internet service AI ones. The preliminary evaluation shows the advantage of scenario-distilling AI benchmarking against using component or micro AI benchmarks alone. The specifications, source code, testbed, and results are publicly available from the web site url{this http URL}.

Bob Duncan talks about what happened to his son when he returned to college and to his midterm exams only 24 hours after his concussion.

The present disclosure involves systems, software, and computer-implemented methods for providing process intelligence by correlating events from multiple business process systems to a single business scenario using configurable correlation strategies. An example method includes identifying a raw event associated with a sending business process and a receiving business process, identifying a sending business process attribute associated with the sending business process and a receiving business process attribute associated with the receiving business process, determining a correlation strategy for associating the raw event with a business scenario instance, the determination based at least in part on the sending business process attribute and the receiving business process attribute, and generating a visibility scenario event from the raw event according to the correlation strategy, the visibility scenario event associated with the business scenario instance.

A system and method is described for use with a data grid cluster, which uses cluster quorum to prevent split brain scenario. The data grid cluster includes a plurality of cluster nodes, each of which runs a cluster service. Each cluster service collects and maintains statistics regarding communication flow between its cluster node and the other cluster nodes in the data grid cluster. The statistics are used to determine a status associated with other cluster nodes in the data grid cluster whenever a disconnect event happens. The data grid cluster is associated with a quorum policy, which is defined in a cache configuration file, and which specifies a time period that a cluster node will wait before making a decision on whether or not to evict one or more cluster nodes from the data grid cluster.

A non-skid coating described herein attempts to overcome the deficiencies of the conventional coatings with improved external durability and color retention, a reduced level of VOCs, and direct-to-metal (DTM) adhesion using organo-siloxane chemistry. The non-skid coating has a first component having an amino-functional siloxane resin; a second component having a non-aromatic epoxy resin; a spherical filler for lowering viscosity; a pigment; a coarse aggregate; and a thixotropic agent. The amino-functional siloxane resin can be an amino-functional methyl phenyl polysiloxane, diphenyl polysiloxane or silsesquioxane-based resin. The non-aromatic epoxy resin can be cycloaliphatic or aliphatic. The first component is about 5% to 20% weight of the coating, and the second component is about 80% to 95% weight of the coating.

In one embodiment, the invention provides a method of managing a computing job based on a job priority and a submitter quota.

Methods include receiving at a receiving device a plurality of reports, each corresponding to at least one item and comprising data associated with one or more performance metrics. The methods further include identifying events for each report corresponding to at least one item using the data in the report. In addition, the methods include determining a report score for each report based on a number and type of the identified events. The methods also include outputting the report scores.

A video player instance may be prioritized and decoding and rendering resources may be assigned to the video player instance accordingly. A video player instance may request use of a resource combination. Based on a determined priority a resource combination may be assigned to the video player instance. A resource combination may be reassigned to another video player instance upon detection that the previously assigned resource combination is no longer actively in use.

A method of reducing the downward flow of air currents on the leeward side of an emissions emitting structure including the step of using a system that includes components chosen from the group consisting of one or more mechanical air moving devices; physical structures; and combinations thereof to create an increase in the air pressure within a volume of air on the leeward side of an emissions emitting structure having emissions that become airborne. The increased air pressure prevents or lessens downward flow of emissions that would occur without the use of the system and increases the safety by which one can travel a road or other transportation route that might otherwise be visually obscured by the emissions and the safety of the property and those within the area where emissions occur.

An additive manufacturing method for forming nearly monolithic SRF niobium cavities and end group components of arbitrary shape with features such as optimized wall thickness and integral stiffeners, greatly reducing the cost and technical variability of conventional cavity construction. The additive manufacturing method for forming an SRF cavity, includes atomizing niobium to form a niobium powder, feeding the niobium powder into an electron beam melter under a vacuum, melting the niobium powder under a vacuum in the electron beam melter to form an SRF cavity; and polishing the inside surface of the SRF cavity.

The present invention provides a process for preparing triorgano borates with low alcohol content.

The present invention is directed to L-proline and citric acid co-crystals of (2S,3R,4R,5S,6R)-2-(3-((5-(4-fluorophenyl)thiophen-2-yl)methyl)-4-methylphenyl)-6-(hydroxymethyl)tetrahydro-2H-pyran-3,4,5-triol, pharmaceutical compositions containing said co-crystals and their use in the treatment glucose-related disorders such as Type 2 diabetes mellitus and Syndrome X.

The present invention relates to novel 4-pregenen-11β-17-21-triol-3,20-dione derivatives, processes for preparing them, pharmaceutical compositions containing them and their use as pharmaceuticals, as modulators of glucocorticoid or mineralocorticoid receptors. The invention relates specifically to the use of these compounds and their pharmaceutical compositions to treat disorders associated with glucocorticoid or mineralocorticoid receptor modulation.

In various embodiments, the present invention provides zwitterionic lipids, encapsulants incorporating these zwitterionic lipids and such encapsulants encapsulating one or more bioactive agent. An exemplary bioactive agent is a nucleic acid. Also provided are pharmaceutical formulations of the encapsulants and methods of using such formulations to deliver a bioactive agent to a subject in treating or diagnosing disease in that subject.

This invention relates to film composites with a single coating of hard coat material which have a significant improved adhesion together with improved weather resistance while also increasing resistance to abrasion and cracking. In one embodiment, this film composite is comprised of a transparent base sheet having on one side thereof a weather resistant hard coat comprised of: at least one multifunctional acrylate monomer or oligomer; a dual-curable resin comprising an aliphatic urethane acrylate resin having isocyanate functional groups and an aliphatic urethane acrylate having hydroxyl functional groups; an ultraviolet (UV) stabilizer; and a photoinitiator.

A method and a system for producing a change in a medium disposed in an artificial container. The method places in a vicinity of the medium at least one of a plasmonics agent and an energy modulation agent. The method applies an initiation energy through the artificial container to the medium. The initiation energy interacts with the plasmonics agent or the energy modulation agent to directly or indirectly produce the change in the medium. The system includes an initiation energy source configured to apply an initiation energy to the medium to activate the plasmonics agent or the energy modulation agent.

A method and a system for producing a change in a medium. The method places in a vicinity of the medium at least one energy modulation agent. The method applies an initiation energy to the medium. The initiation energy interacts with the energy modulation agent to directly or indirectly produce the change in the medium. The system includes an initiation energy source configured to apply an initiation energy to the medium to activate the energy modulation agent.

The present disclosure includes methods, systems, and devices for prioritization of three dimensional dental elements. One method for prioritizing three dimensional dental elements includes receiving a virtual initial dental data set (IDDS) of teeth having spatial information regarding the positions of a number of teeth in the virtual IDDS with respect to each other for presentation of the teeth in a virtual three dimensional space to be viewed on a user interface, setting prioritization values of a number of elements of one or more of the number of teeth, and prioritizing the number of elements to be selected by a user based upon their prioritization values.

Embodiments of the present concept are directed to medical devices having features that prevent contaminants from infiltrating the housing of the device while providing a mechanism to provide clear auditory sounds to aid a rescuer in providing care to a patient. In one example, a medical device includes a housing having a transmission area associated with an enclosed voice coil. An exterior diaphragm formed integrally with the housing surrounds the transmission area and provides a watertight seal of the transmission area. In addition, the diaphragm is structured to generate a sound that can be heard by the rescuer from the voice coil.

A method of managing content format conversion for transmission of converted content to a mobile device includes retrieving initial content, which includes video content, having a first format over a data communications network. The retrieved initial content is analyzed based on an identification of data delivery parameters relating to potential delivery of converted content and a determination is made as to whether or not the data delivery parameters meet predetermined criteria. The format of the initial content is converted to a second format only in response to a determination that the data delivery parameters meet the predetermined criteria. The converted content forms a message body of a message. A conversion management system configured to manage content format conversion for transmission of converted content to a mobile device, and a computer program for performing the method, are also provided.

Systems and methods provide a parameterized scheduling system that incorporates end-user application awareness and can be used with scheduling groups that contain data streams from heterogeneous applications. Individual data queues within a scheduling group can be created based on application class, specific application, individual data streams or some combination thereof. Application information and Application Factors (AF) are used to modify scheduler parameters such as weights and credits to differentiate between data streams assigned to a scheduling group. Dynamic AF settings may adjust relative importance of user applications to maximize user Quality of Experience (QoE) in response to recurring network patterns, one-time events, application characteristics, protocol characteristics, device characteristics, service level agreements, or combinations thereof. Scheduling parameters may be dynamic and incorporate the notions of “duration neglect” and “recency effect” in an end-user's perception of video quality in order to optimally manage video traffic during periods of congestion.

In the present invention, one or both of an active wheel or a passive wheel is composed of an eccentric transmission wheel and is combined with a synchronous transmission belt for forming an eccentric wheel transmission wheel series, so that when the feet input forces at different angles from the treadle shafts of the treadles to an active wheel shaft combined on the active wheel through cranks, the active wheel forms different transmission speed ratios relative to the passive wheel according to the treadle angle, and random inward packing is performed to the transmission belt (100) of the engage end of the eccentric passive wheel (413) during the transmission for stabling the operation.

The present invention is structured by using one or both of an active wheel and a passive wheel being composed of an eccentric transmission wheel and being combined with a synchronous transmission belt for forming an eccentric wheel transmission wheel series, so that in the reciprocal treadle performed by the human's feet, when the feet input forces at different angles from the treadle shafts of the treadles to an active wheel shaft combined on the active wheel through cranks, the active wheel forms different transmission speed ratios relative to the passive wheel according to the treadle angle.

A device and method for using the device arranged to maintain anatomical alignment between a joint by creating a dynamic load around the joint to restore and maintain the anatomical alignment. The orthotic device uses a hinge to create a directed force on a tibia by maintaining misalignment of an instant center of rotation (ICoR) of the hinge at a position relative to an anatomical knee joint.

The invention is directed to an adhesive strip, particularly an adhesive strip or bandage for use in periodontal treatments. The biocompatible adhesive strip comprises a flexible barrier with a biocompatible adhesive for use in an oral environment, wherein the adhesive is in a non-tacky state when dry and becomes adherent upon contact with liquids.

A spinal fixation device includes a housing and a plurality of blades. Each blade includes a body having a central opening configured to rotate on a shaft within the housing. Control openings on opposing sides of the central opening are sized to engage prongs of a rotating tool. At least one cutting extension with a sharp leading edge extends from the body in an orientation about an axis of the shaft. Upon rotation of the blade by the rotating tool about the shaft in a direction in which the at least one cutting extension is oriented, the at least one cutting extension will break an endplate of a vertebra and hook into the vertebra.