cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
SU-D-207B-03: A PET-CT Radiomics Comparison to Predict Distant Metastasis in Lung Adenocarcinoma.

Purpose: Early prediction of distant metastasis may provide crucial information for adaptive therapy, subsequently improving patient survival. Radiomic features that extracted from PET and CT images have been used for assessing tumor phenotype and predicting clinical outcomes. This study investigates the values of radiomic features in predicting distant metastasis (DM) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: A total of 108 patients with stage II–III lung adenocarcinoma were included in this retrospective study. Twenty radiomic features were selected (10 from CT and 10 from PET). Conventional features (metabolic tumor volume, SUV, volume and diameter) were included for comparison. Concordance index (CI) was used to evaluate features prognostic value. Noether test was used to compute p-value to consider CI significance from random (CI = 0.5) and were adjusted for multiple testing using false rate discovery (FDR). Results: A total of 70 patients had DM (64.8%) with a median time to event of 8.8 months. The median delivered dose was 60 Gy (range 33–68 Gy). None of the conventional features from PET (CI ranged from 0.51 to 0.56) or CT (CI ranged from 0.57 to 0.58) were significant from random. Five radiomics features were significantly prognostic from random for DM (p-values < 0.05). Four were extracted from CT (CI = 0.61 to 0.63, p-value <0.01) and one from PET which was also the most prognostic (CI = 0.64, p-value <0.001). Conclusion: This study demonstrated significant association between radiomic features and DM for patients with locally advanced lung adenocarcinoma. Moreover, conventional (clinically utilized) metrics were not significantly associated with DM. Radiomics can potentially help classify patients at higher risk of DM, allowing clinicians to individualize treatment, such as intensification of chemotherapy) to reduce the risk of DM and improve survival. R.M. has consulting interests with Amgen.
Communication as the Interface Between Couples and Culture

Communication occurs at the intersection of multiple dimensions of social existence, where individuals, dyads, groups, and societies meet. This chapter examines the specific link between couples and culture as they engage in an ongoing negotiation to develop their identities vis-a-vis each other. The chapter describes communication messages by which couples and cultures assert their positions, specifically in relation to autonomy and connection; patterns that have emerged over the last few decades in those messages; and potential patterns accessible to couples and cultures as they negotiate their association.
Polybius and the Roman Constitution

When Pennsylvanian opponents of the Constitution of 1776 chose the name ‘Republican’ to describe their shared constitutional policies, Americans viewed Rome as ‘the wisest republic and... the noblest people, that ever entered on the stage of the world’.1 Moreover, the structure of the Roman constitution was known, and closely corresponded in several important aspects to the programme the Republican Society put forward in 1779. These included mixed government, the sovereignty of the people, the rule of law, and a system of checks and balances.
The Effect of Varying Data Rates and Coding on Groundwave Communications Ranges

Groundwave MF-lower HF communications is one candidate for communications between survivable mobile assets. This paper is an analysis of the capabilities of such a communications system in terms of effective communications range for various combinations of data rate, radiated power, error correction coding, and grade of service required.
No Panacea: Next-Gen Sequencing Will Not Mitigate Adoptees' Lack of Genetic Family Health History.

There are currently more than 2 million adopted children under the age of 18 years living in the United States (Kreider and Lofquist 2010) and many other adults who were themselves adopted as child...
Comparison of gene expression response to neutron and x-ray irradiation using mouse blood

In the event of an improvised nuclear device detonation, the prompt radiation exposure would consist of photons plus a neutron component that would contribute to the total dose. As neutrons cause more complex and difficult to repair damage to cells that would result in a more severe health burden to affected individuals, it is paramount to be able to estimate the contribution of neutrons to an estimated dose, to provide information for those making treatment decisions. Mice exposed to either 0.25 or 1 Gy of neutron or 1 or 4 Gy x-ray radiation were sacrificed at 1 or 7 days after exposure. Whole genome microarray analysis identified 7285 and 5045 differentially expressed genes in the blood of mice exposed to neutron or x-ray radiation, respectively. Neutron exposure resulted in mostly downregulated genes, whereas x-rays showed both down- and up-regulated genes. A total of 34 differentially expressed genes were regulated in response to all ≥1 Gy exposures at both times. Of these, 25 genes were consistently downregulated at days 1 and 7, whereas 9 genes, including the transcription factor E2f2, showed bi-directional regulation; being downregulated at day 1, while upregulated at day 7. Gene ontology analysis revealed that genes involved in nucleic acid metabolism processes were persistently downregulated in neutron irradiated mice, whereas genes involved in lipid metabolism were upregulated in x-ray irradiated animals. Most biological processes significantly enriched at both timepoints were consistently represented by either under- or over-expressed genes. In contrast, cell cycle processes were significant among down-regulated genes at day 1, but among up-regulated genes at day 7 after exposure to either neutron or x-rays. Cell cycle genes downregulated at day 1 were mostly distinct from the cell cycle genes upregulated at day 7. However, five cell cycle genes, Fzr1, Ube2c, Ccna2, Nusap1, and Cdc25b, were both downregulated at day 1 and upregulated at day 7. We describe, for the first time, the gene expression profile of mouse blood cells following exposure to neutrons. We have found that neutron radiation results in both distinct and common gene expression patterns compared with x-ray radiation.
Making the most of meetings

Running a meeting can seem difficult at first, but there a simple, basic steps you can take to ensure your meetings run smoothly and professionally-and are effective. Meetings are a key factor in moving a project or initiative forward. Good, well-organized meetings move things forward; poorly-organized meetings can set things back by days, weeks, or worse. There are some foundational elements that underpin an effective meeting. They are easy to master and, once you have, your meetings will be among the best-run in your organization.
Track and Field Performance Data and Prediction Models: Promises and Fallacies

Prediction is always a fascinating obsession no matter what we predict. We predict what tomorrow’s weather will be, which team will win the game, who will be the next president of the United States, how fast one will run and how high one will jump, and even how much money we will make next year. Mathematical and statistical models have been used to predict future events in different disciplines. Some prediction models can be used to predict spe-cific magnitudes of an event in the future. For example, because of the high technology development in the last two decades, the models used for weather forecasting became more and more accurate. In some other fields, the predic-tion models are actually not for a specific magnitude of an event in the future but for predicting various developmental trends in the future. For example, statistical models are commonly used for predicting the developmental trends in stocks but not for predicting specific values of the stocks.
Patient Safety in Burn Care: Application of Evidence-based Medicine to Improve Outcomes

This article reviews 5 areas in burn care that increasingly use evidence-based medicine to optimize quality and safety: resuscitation protocols, transfusion practices, vascular access, venous thromboembolic prophylaxis, and rational use of antibiotics.
Targeting Translocator Protein (TSPO) with GE-180: Imaging brain inflammation and reactive gliosis

1032 Objectives Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an increasingly prevalent health issue and one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In the US alone over 2.5 million TBIs were reported in 2010 (CDC.gov). Neuroinflammation is an important pathological response to brain injury with associated glial cell activation. Translocator protein (TSPO) levels have been shown to increase in the CNS in response to neuronal damage and inflammation. Several TSPO PET tracers, including archetype [11C](R)-PK11195, [11C]PBR28 and [18F]DPA-714, among others, have highlighted neuroinflammation and reactive gloss associated with traumatic brain injury. The objective of the present study was to demonstrate [18F]GE-180 ( (4S)-N,N-diethyl-9-(2-fluoroethyl)-5-methoxy-2,3,4,4a,9,9a-hexahydro-1H-carbazole-4-carboxamide; Wadsworth et al., Bioorg Med Chem Lett, 2011), uptake in response to TSPO expression following an experimentally induced focal contusion. Methods [18F]GE-180 was prepared in a single step from the corresponding mesylate precursor. The tracer was purified by HPLC, concentrated on a C18 SepPak® and formulated in 5% ethanol/saline for injection. Male Long-Evans rats were anesthetized and a 6 mm craniectomy was produced in the skull (Sham). A controlled cortical impact was produced using a Leica ImpactOne device to induce traumatic brain injury (TBI). Rats were injected with 150-250 μCi of [18F]GE-180 and imaged 45-75 minutes post-injection using a Siemens InVeon microPET/CT. Control , sham and TBI rats (n=3) were evaluated at 1, 7 and 31 days post injury. Small animal 7T MR was performed to confirm the injury. Results [18F]GE-180 was prepared in ~25% radiochemical yield (NDC), with >99% radiochemical and >95% chemical purity and specific activity of 400-800 Ci/mmol. [18F]GE-180 synthesis has been automated on two commercial systems. There was no CNS accumulation of [18F]GE-180 in the control or sham animals at all time points. There was a small amount of uptake in the inflamed scar tissue near the craniectomy site in the sham and TBI rats. Uptake and retention of [18F]GE-180 was clearly visible in the MRI confirmed rat TBI at day 7 and day 31 after injury. Conclusions [18F]GE-180 accumulates in rat brain tissue following traumatic injury to the site corroborating an earlier report with [18F]DPA-714 in a similar model (Wang et al., EJNMMI 2014). This study demonstrates the potential of [18F]GE-180 as a sensitive imaging agent for TBI and response to therapeutic intervention.
Seasonal trends in honey bee pollen foraging revealed through DNA barcoding of bee-collected pollen

Recent declines in the abundance and diversity of wild bee species have made it important to understand how introduced species such as honey bees contribute to pollinating native plants. In this study, we decoded the waggle dances of Apis mellifera pollen foragers and used DNA barcoding of bee-collected pollen over 17 months to characterize spatio-temporal patterns in recruitment behavior and dietary breadth in a diverse yet fragmented Mediterranean scrub environment. Foragers danced for small, nearby patches of pollen resources during the cool dormant season but danced for 1.6–2.7-fold more distant and more widely dispersed resources during the hot dry season, a time of seasonal drought and floral dearth. Individual foragers collected pollen from a wide variety of species, but colonies focused recruitment on a small subset of common species in flower during each season: 2.7, 6.3, and 10% of all species in bloom during the dormant, growth, and dry seasons, respectively. Pollen foragers danced almost exclusively for cold-adapted native species during the dormant season, equally for native and non-native plants during the short growth season, and primarily for non-native ornamental species during the dry season. Our results suggest that honey bee recruitment behavior and dietary breadth may be influenced by seasonal changes in pollen resources. Furthermore, they indicate that honey bees may be useful in pollinating common native plants, and that non-native ornamental species can provide a major source of colony protein during a seasonal dearth of flowering native species.
Optimizing chromatographic resolution for simultaneous quantification of long chain alkenones, alkenoates and their double bond positional isomers

Abstract We report here our latest attempt to optimize gas chromatographic (GC) separation of long chain alkenones and alkenoates from haptophyte cultures and sediments. Building upon the previously reported separation using VF-200 ms column (60 m × 250 μm × 0.1 μm) (Longo et al., 2013), we tested multiple GC columns with different column length, film thickness and variable loadings of poly(trifluoropropylmethylsiloxane) stationary phase from two separate manufacturers (Agilent and Restek). We show that Rtx-200 (105 m × 250 μm × 0.25 μm) GC column completely eliminates the co-elution between long chain alkenones and alkenoates, fully resolves the previously partially co-eluting alkenones (e.g., C 38:2 ethyl and C 38:4 methyl alkenones) and improves the resolution of alkenone and alkenoate double bond positional isomers. Since the debut of the alkenone paleothermometer three decades ago, long chain alkenoates have always been considered an annoyance for paleotemperature reconstructions and are routinely removed by saponification. Our new separation method simplifies the sample preparation for alkenone analysis and improves the application of alkenone/alkenoate proxies, which opens the door for paleoclimate application of alkenoate-based paleothermometers alongside alkenones. We also report the structure determination of new alkenoate isomers using dimethyl disulfide derivatization.
Secondary school chemistry teacher's current use of laboratory activities and the impact of expense on their laboratory choices

In the United States with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)'s emphasis on learning science while doing science, laboratory activities in the secondary school chemistry continues to be an important component of a strong curriculum. Laboratory equipment and consumable materials create a unique expense which chemistry teachers and schools must deal with if laboratory activities are part of the chemistry curriculum. While other barriers impacting teachers' use of laboratory activities have been researched, the impact of expense on teachers' choices is not as clear. This study sought to understand secondary school chemistry teachers' current laboratory practices and the impact expense has on their use of laboratory activities in their classroom. Using an online survey and follow-up interviews, the study found that a majority of secondary chemistry teachers surveyed use laboratory activities, though not always including scientific practices advocated by NGSS. The frequency of laboratory activities used by teachers was not statistically impacted by school type, available funds for materials, or processes to obtain funds, but was impacted by teachers' personal ideas. Interviews provided more information about the teachers using laboratory activities regularly and those not. While most teachers are using laboratory activities regularly at the current funding levels, expense, in terms of monetary and time expenses, was shown to impact the specific choice of laboratory activity. Implications for chemistry curriculum reform including the usage of laboratory activities in chemistry courses are discussed along with implications for chemistry teacher professional development.
Teach and Playback Training Device for Minimally Invasive Surgery.

Recent technological progress offers the opportunity to significantly transform conventional open surgical procedures in ways that allow minimally invasive surgery (MIS) to be accomplished by specific operative instruments’ entry into the body through key-sized holes rather than large incisions. Although MIS offers an opportunity for less trauma and quicker recovery, thereby reducing length of hospital stay and attendant costs, the complex nature of this procedure makes it difficult to master, not least because of the limited work area and constricted degree of freedom. Accordingly, this research seeks to design a Teach and Playback device that can aid surgical training by key-framing and then reproducing surgical motions. The result is an inexpensive and portable Teach and Playback laparoscopic training device that can record a trainer’s surgical motions and then play them back for trainees. Indeed, such a device could provide a training platform for surgical residents generally and would also be susceptible of many other applications for other robot-assisted tasks that might require complex motion training and control.
Solvatochromism and fluorescence response of a halogen bonding anion receptor

Herein, we present two 2,6-bis(4-ethynylpyridinyl)-4-fluoroaniline receptors that display solvatochromic absorption and emission. Neutral derivatives displayed opposite solvatochromic behavior as compared to the alkylated receptors. Adding anions induced changes in the absorption and emission spectra. In general, the fluorescence of the halogen bonding receptor was quenched less efficiently when compared to the hydrogen bonding receptor.
Surfaces (Interfaces) and Polymer Stability

An overview of surface degradation and stability of polymers has been presented. Surface thermal, oxidative and photo-oxidative degradation has been discussed and illustrated by examples. The importance of the new surface-instrumental methods has been pointed out. Also, the significance of surface modifications for adhesion has been noted.
Readmissions for venous thromboembolism: expanding the definition of patient safety indicators.

Article-at-a-Glance Background The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) defines its venous thromboembolism (VTE) patient safety indicator (PSI) as surgical cases with a secondary diagnosis of pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis. Short-term readmissions for VTE are excluded because most state administrative databases are unable to track readmissions. Methods Patients meeting the AHRQ VTE PSI definition and those readmitted with a VTE principal diagnosis within 30 days of a prior surgical hospitalization were identified on the basis of inpatient discharge data. Results A total of 4,906 surgical discharges in New York met the AHRQ VTE PSI definition in 2001. An additional 1,059 cases of VTE were found when surgical patients with a short-term readmission for VTE were identified. Patients readmitted with VTE were less likely to die but were more likely to have a pulmonary embolism and were more likely to be white and non-Hispanic compared to those who met the AHRQ VTE PSI definition. Discussion Short-term readmissions for VTE represent potentially important cases to capture when monitoring adverse events. Prophylaxis, monitoring, and patient education may be required after hospital discharge to prevent or treat VTE as early as possible. Data systems that can track patients across multiple admissions to identify complications resulting in short-term readmissions are needed.
Do the Ends Justify the Means? The Relative Focus on Overhead Versus Outcomes in Charitable Fundraising:

Prospective donors are often sensitive to the amount of overhead in charitable fundraising. The present studies examine how differences in one’s personal commitment to a cause moderate the relative...
TCF-1 and HEB cooperate to establish the epigenetic and transcription profiles of CD4 + CD8 + thymocytes

Thymocyte development requires a complex orchestration of multiple transcription factors. Ablating either TCF-1 or HEB in CD4+CD8+ thymocytes elicits similar developmental outcomes including increased proliferation, decreased survival, and fewer late Tcra rearrangements. Here, we provide a mechanistic explanation for these similarities by showing that TCF-1 and HEB share ~7,000 DNA-binding sites genome wide and promote chromatin accessibility. The binding of both TCF-1 and HEB was required at these shared sites for epigenetic and transcriptional gene regulation. Binding of TCF-1 and HEB to their conserved motifs in the enhancer regions of genes associated with T cell differentiation promoted their expression. Binding to sites lacking conserved motifs in the promoter regions of cell-cycle-associated genes limited proliferation. TCF-1 displaced nucleosomes, allowing for chromatin accessibility. Importantly, TCF-1 inhibited Notch signaling and consequently protected HEB from Notch-mediated proteasomal degradation. Thus, TCF-1 shifts nucleosomes and safeguards HEB, thereby enabling their cooperation in establishing the epigenetic and transcription profiles of CD4+CD8+ thymocytes. Thymocyte development requires a complex orchestration of multiple transcription factors. Gournari and colleagues find that Tcf-1 and HEB cooperate to establish the epigenetic and transcription profiles of CD4+CD8+ thymocytes
Characterizing graphs of critical pairs of layered generalized crowns

The generalized crown Snk is a well-known family of bipartite graphs whose order dimension is given in terms of the parameters n and k. In recent work, Garcia and Silva defined the notion of layeri...
Linguistically-Informed Specificity and Semantic Plausibility for Dialogue Generation.

Sequence-to-sequence models for open-domain dialogue generation tend to favor generic, uninformative responses. Past work has focused on word frequency-based approaches to improving specificity, such as penalizing responses with only common words. In this work, we examine whether specificity is solely a frequency-related notion and find that more linguistically-driven specificity measures are better suited to improving response informativeness. However, we find that forcing a sequence-to-sequence model to be more specific can expose a host of other problems in the responses, including flawed discourse and implausible semantics. We rerank our model’s outputs using externally-trained classifiers targeting each of these identified factors. Experiments show that our final model using linguistically motivated specificity and plausibility reranking improves the informativeness, reasonableness, and grammatically of responses.
Gemstone Screening and Identification Using Fluorescence Spectroscopy

We demonstrate a fluorescence spectroscopy based gemstone screening system. The fluorescence features can be used to separate mined diamonds from lab-grown diamonds and diamond simulants, detect treated pink diamonds, and identify certain gemstones.
The Immune Protein Calprotectin Impacts Clostridioides difficile Metabolism through Zinc Limitation.

ABSTRACT The intestines house a diverse microbiota that must compete for nutrients to survive, but the specific limiting nutrients that control pathogen colonization are not clearly defined. Clostridioides difficile colonization typically requires prior disruption of the microbiota, suggesting that outcompeting commensals for resources is critical to establishing C. difficile infection (CDI). The immune protein calprotectin (CP) is released into the gut lumen during CDI to chelate zinc (Zn) and other essential nutrient metals. Yet, the impact of Zn limitation on C. difficile colonization is unknown. To define C. difficile responses to Zn limitation, we performed RNA sequencing on C. difficile exposed to CP. In medium containing CP, C. difficile upregulated genes involved in metal homeostasis and amino acid metabolism. To identify CP-responsive genes important during infection, we measured the abundance of select C. difficile transcripts in a mouse CDI model relative to expression in vitro. Gene transcripts involved in selenium (Se)-dependent proline fermentation increased during infection and in response to CP. Increased proline fermentation gene transcription was dependent on CP Zn binding and proline availability, yet proline fermentation was only enhanced when Se was supplemented. CP-deficient mice could not restrain C. difficile proline fermentation-dependent growth, suggesting that CP-mediated Zn sequestration along with limited Se restricts C. difficile proline fermentation. Overall, these results highlight how C. difficile colonization depends on the availability of multiple nutrients whose abundances are dynamically influenced by the host response. IMPORTANCEClostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is the leading cause of postantibiotic nosocomial infection. Antibiotic therapy can be successful, yet up to one-third of individuals suffer from recurrent infections. Understanding the mechanisms controlling C. difficile colonization is paramount in designing novel treatments for primary and recurrent CDI. Here, we found that limiting nutrients control C. difficile metabolism during CDI and influence overall pathogen fitness. Specifically, the immune protein CP limits Zn availability and increases transcription of C. difficile genes necessary for proline fermentation. Paradoxically, this leads to reduced C. difficile proline fermentation. This reduced fermentation is due to limited availability of another nutrient required for proline fermentation, Se. Therefore, CP-mediated Zn limitation combined with low Se levels overall reduce C. difficile fitness in the intestines. These results emphasize the complexities of how nutrient availability influences C. difficile colonization and provide insight into critical metabolic processes that drive the pathogen’s growth.
Tunable hard x-ray nanofocusing with Fresnel zone plates fabricated using deep etching

Fresnel zone plates are used widely for x-ray nanofocusing, due to their ease of alignment and energy tunability. Their spatial resolution is limited in part by their outermost zone width drN, while their efficiency is limited in part by their thickness tzp. We demonstrate the use of Fresnel zone plate optics for x-ray nanofocusing with drN=16nm outermost zone width and a thickness of about tzp=1.8µm (or an aspect ratio of 110) with an absolute focusing efficiency of 4.7% at 12 keV, and 6.2% at 10 keV. Using partially coherent illumination at 12 keV, the zone plate delivered a FWHM focus of 46×60nm at 12 keV, with the first-order coherent mode in a ptychographic reconstruction showing a probe size of 16 nm FWHM. These optics were fabricated using a combination of metal-assisted chemical etching and atomic layer deposition for the diffracting structures, and silicon wafer back-thinning to produce optics useful for real applications. This approach should enable new higher resolution views of thick materials, especially when energy tunability is required.
Imperatives for Virtual Humans

Seemingly since the inception of virtual humans, there has been an effort to make their behaviors more natural and human-like. In additions to improving movement's visual quality, there has been considerable research focused on creating more intelligent virtual characters. This paper presents a framework inspired by natural language constructs that aims to author more reasonable virtual human behaviors using structured English input. We focus mainly on object types and properties, quantifiers, determiners, and spatial relations. The framework provides a natural, flexible authoring system for simulating human behaviors.
Chapter 1 – Fundamentals

This chapter introduces some elementary facts from set theory, topology of the real numbers, and the theory of real functions. The concepts of real analysis rest on the system of real numbers and on notions such as sets, relations, and functions. A set is a well-defined collection of objects. The objects in the collection are called the elements of the set. For example, A is equal to {x, y, z} is a set with three elements x, y, and z. The notation x Є A denotes that x belongs to A or, equivalently, x is in A . The set of natural numbers is denoted by N , the set of integers by Z , the set of rational numbers by Q , and the set of complex numbers by C . For two sets A and B , A is called a subset of B , denoted by A I B , if every element of A is also an element of B . The intersection of two sets A and B is the set of all elements that are in both A and B , denoted by ACB .
The soft power of the information sciences: Western influences on the development of Japan's library and archival systems

The history of information practices in Japan runs parallel to its larger cultural influences — namely its long history of adaptation of the cultures of China and Korea, with a more recent turn tow...
Being a Token Black Female Faculty Member in Physics: Exploring Research on Gendered Racism, Identity Shifting as a Coping Strategy, and Inclusivity in Physics

Although the United States is becoming racially diverse, the representation of marginalized groups in physics still remains low. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been successful in graduating Black physicists, such that HBCUs are nine of the top 10 physics departments in the United States that produce bachelor degrees. Despite these outcomes, Black women are disproportionately underrepresented in physics. In 2016, only 4% and 3% of Black women earned bachelor’s degrees and doctorate degrees in physics, respectively. Among faculty, Black women made up only 2% in physics doctorate programs and 3% in bachelor’s-only physics departments in 2016. Though the percentage of Latinas in physics has increased, the percentage of Black women in physics has not grown. Therefore, Black female physics faculty are often tokenized and experience gendered racism (intersection of racism and sexism). In this paper, we used an intersectional approach to examine the psychological discourse on Black female physics faculty’s experiences of gendered racism, identity shifting as a coping strategy, and we provide recommendations for creating an inclusive physics environment.
A Guided Evolutionary Search Approach for Real-Time Stencil Printing Optimization

This study aims to identify and maintain optimal stencil printer settings in dynamic surface mount technology (SMT) assembly lines to control the solder paste volume transfer efficiency (TE) and increase the yield rates of surface mount assembly (SMA) lines. Stencil printing process (SPP) is a crucial procedure that determines the first pass yields in SMA lines. Stencil printing speed (PS) and printing pressure (PP) are two critical SPP parameters in the manufacturing process; identifying the optimal printer settings in complex fabrication environment is cost efficient but challenging. To search for the global optimal PS and PP values in real time with minimal computational efforts, a dynamic optimization SPP optimization system is proposed based on a novel guided evolutionary search (GES) strategy. The GES algorithm is flexible to adjust the feasible solution region based on real-time optimization results to maximize the probability of finding optimal solutions and minimize the computational burden. As a major extension on the classical evolutionary search, the GES minimizes the possibility to fall in the local optimal due to insufficiencies in the prediction accuracy and guarantees global optimality within the dynamically varying printing environment.
Acute injuries in American collegiate taekwondo competitions: a prospective study spanning four competitive seasons.

BACKGROUND Injury patterns are well-documented for taekwondo competitions prior to the use of an electronic chest protector for scoring tabulation. To see if injury rates and types changed following this rule change that transformed the fighting style in taekwondo, we investigated injuries in collegiate taekwondo competitions in the United States. METHODS Data were collected at eight collegiate taekwondo tournaments from April 2018 to December 2019. All injured athletes seen at the first-aid station were invited to complete a survey that included injury location, type, and mechanism of injury. Injury rates were calculated per 1,000 athlete-exposures (A-Es) and minute-exposures (M-Es). Risk factors were modeled using logistic regression and chi-squared analysis. RESULTS Out of 1,096 athletes, 194 athletes reported 275 acute injuries. We found an injury risk of 17.7/100 athletes (95% CI 15.4, 20.0) and injury rate of 68.9/1,000 A-E (95% CI 60.7, 77.0) which was comparable to previous studies. The most common injuries were contusions to the lower limbs. In contrast to prior reports, men were injured more frequently from delivering a kick and women from receiving a kick. Populations at higher risk for injury included those with low belt rank and middle weight class for women. CONCLUSIONS It appears that the new fighting style did not affect injury rates. Injury locations and types remain similar, but the mechanisms of injury have reversed as men are more injured from attacking and women from defending. There remains a strong need for research to improve protective equipment and safety rules in taekwondo.
Motion on a Surface of Constant Negative Curvature

The first concrete example of a dynamical system with hard chaos was given by Jacques Hadamard in 1898. Although he was primarily a geometer, to use the traditional name for the members of the mathematics section in the French Academy of Sciences, he saw the physical application immediately. A short account of his work in the same year carries the title, On the billiard game on a surface of negative curvature.
Automatic Video-based Person Authentication Using the RBF Network

As more and more forensic information becomes available on video we address in this paper the Automatic Video-Based Biometric Person Authentication (AVBPA). Possible tasks and application scenarios under consideration involve detection and tracking of humans and human (ID) verification. Authentication corresponds to ID verification and involves actual (face) recognition for the subject(s) detected in the video sequence. The architecture for AVBPA takes advantage of the active vision paradigm and it involves difference methods or optical flow analysis to detect the moving subject, projection analysis and decision trees (DT) for face location, and connectionist network — Radial Basis Function (RBF) for authentication. Subject detection and face location correspond to video break and key frame detection, respectively, while recognition itself corresponds to authentication. The active vision paradigm is most appropriate for video processing where one has to cope with huge amounts of image data and where further sensing and processing of additional frames is feasible. As a result of such an approach video processing becomes feasible in terms of decreased computational resources (‘time’) spent and increased confidence in the (authentication) decisions reached despite sometime poor quality imagery. Experimental results on three FERET video sequences prove the feasibility of our approach.
Enforcing textual alignment of collectives using dynamic checks

Many parallel programs are written in a single-program, multiple-data (SPMD) style, in which synchronization is provided using collective operations that all threads execute simultaneously. If these operations are not properly aligned on all threads, deadlock can occur, and many compiler analyses and optimizations that depend on proper alignment fail. In this paper, we discuss the flaws in the Titanium language's type system for enforcing textual alignment of collectives. We then present a system that uses runtime checks to ensure alignment for two definitions of textual alignment. The system instruments the code to keep track of alignment in each thread and then checks that alignment matches prior to performing a collective operation. We have implemented the system in the Titanium compiler, verifying that it catches alignment errors. We tested its performance on multiple application programs, demonstrating that the checks have no appreciable impact on execution time.
Miseducation: Young Children at Risk

Imagine talking to a fetus in utero via a "pregaphone," showing infants flash cards of various esoteric insects and famous composers, teaching infants to swim to protect themselves from drowning, or giving preschoolers lessons in everything from reading to karate. Consider having young children witness the "birthing" of their siblings, describing to them the horrors of nuclear war, the "bad touching" of child abuse, and the symptoms of AIDS. These practices are not the excesses of a small number of overenthusiastic East Coast parents but have become commonplace across America today. A program for teaching youngsters about child abuse comes from Fargo, ND.
Approaching Emily Dickinson: Critical Currents and Crosscurrents since 1960

When Klaus Lubbers's meticulously detailed Emily Dickinson: The Critical Revolution appeared in 1968, examining Dickinson criticism up to 1962, a second revolution in Dickinson criticism was already gathering force, as a new generation of scholars representing a wide spectrum of critical perspectives began reassessing the poet's life and work. In the intervening forty years, approximately 100 books about Dickinson and her oeuvre have appeared, making her one of the most extensively studied American poets in history. Approaching Emily Dickinson provides an objective examination of that vast body of scholarship. It gives detailed attention to the principal trends in Dickinson scholarship during the past half-century: biographical studies; feminist perspectives on the poet's life and work; rhetorical and stylistic analyses; textual studies of the bound and unbound fascicles and the so-called worksheet drafts; studies of Dickinson's social and cultural milieu, including influences on her spirituality, and of her theories of poetry. Fred White also examines Dickinson's artistic reception -- an area of ever-growing fascination, not only among Dickinson scholars but among artists, creative writers, dramatists, and musicians for whom Dickinson's genius has proven to be a powerful conduit for insights into the human condition. A fundamental research tool for both scholars and students, Approaching Emily Dickinson also enables fruitful comparisons both among and within the different critical and artistic perspectives. Fred D. White is professor of English at Santa Clara University. His studies of Emily Dickinson have been published in College Literature and in the Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson.
The psychological treatment of depression

'A clear, rigorous account of cognitive behavioural methods for treating depression.' - British Journal of Psychiatry The use of behavioural and cognitive techniques for treating depression has yielded exciting results. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is as effective in the short term as anti-depressant drugs and has longer-lasting effects than medication. This book brings together assessment and treatment techniques of proven efficacy, describing them in usable detail and setting them in the context of current psychological theories of depression. It is an invaluable guide to practitioners wishing to make use of CBT.
A frequency domain approach for blind identification with filter bank precoders

It is well-known that filter bank precoders can be used for blind identification as well as equalization of FIR channels. In this paper we introduce a new blind identification scheme which directly identifies the frequency domain equalizer coefficients. The precoder redundancy required for this is the same as in the earlier methods. But the proposed method offers simplicity. For example closed form formulas are involved rather than iterative computation of annihilating eigenvectors as in earlier methods.
Court-Connected Settlement Procedures: Mediation and Judicial Settlement Conferences

The present Article reports the findings of an empirical study that provides a rare look at lawyers' views of several models of judicial settlement conferences and mediation, based on their experience with the procedures in federal court. The findings show that lawyers tended to view mediation with staff mediators more favorably than mediation with volunteer mediators and than both types of judicial settlement conferences. Lawyers thought that settlement conferences with judges not assigned to the case raised substantially fewer concerns than settlement conferences with judges assigned to the case, while having most of the same benefits. Mediation with volunteer mediators presented a mixed picture relative to both judicial settlement conference models. The findings, while probably influenced in part by how the models were implemented, reflect inherent structural differences among the models, including the neutrals' decision-making role and closeness to the trial judge and the proportion of their work life spent facilitating settlement. Components of process quality that emerge from model codes of conduct and standards for judges and mediators, as well as issues that commentators have raised about the models, are discussed. The article discusses the implications of the findings of this and other empirical research for courts' and parties' choices among settlement procedure models.
Constructions of Nested Partial Difference Sets with Galois Rings

There have been several recent constructions of partial difference sets (PDSs) using the Galois rings GR(p^2, t) for p a prime and t any positive integer. This paper presents constructions of partial difference sets in (Z_{p^r})^{2t} where p is any prime, and r and t are any positive integers. For the case where r > 2 many of the partial difference sets are constructed in groups with parameters distinct from other known constructions, and the PDSs are nested. Another construction of Paley partial difference sets is given for the case when p is odd. The constructions make use of character theory and of the structure of the Galois ring GR(p^r, t), and in particular, the ring GR(p^r, t) \times GR(p^r, t). The paper concludes with some open related problems.
Dynamically honest displays: Courtship locomotor performance indicates survival in guppies

Summary 1. The indicator theory of sexual selection suggests that mating displays honestly signal aspects of fitness. While rarely studied, kinematic (locomotor) performance is an excellent candidate for an honest indicator, as mating displays of many animals include rapid or extended locomotion that may be physiologically correlated with performance traits that impact survival. 2. We investigate the indicator value of display locomotion of wild-caught male guppies, Poecilia reticulata, by examining relationships between mating display kinematic traits, anti-predator kinematic traits, and survival during a subsequent staged encounter with a natural predator, the pike cichlid Crenicichla alta. 3. We first compared guppy display kinematics with subsequent survival, and found that display body angle and angular speed positively predicted survival. We next compared anti-predator kinematic and tactical traits with survival, to identify traits that might link mating displays to survival. We measured anti-predator traits in two tests, first in response to a standardized stimulus (fast start test), and second in response to the live predator (encounter test). Guppy fast start speed and encounter speed, time in refuges, and approach distance (response distance) all positively predicted survival, while encounter swim duration negatively predicted survival. These data provided our final hypothesis, that these particular anti-predator traits would be correlated with mating display kinematics. However, we detected only one of eight predicted correlations, a negative relationship between display body angle and encounter swim duration that may reflect an energy trade-off. 4. We conclude that courtship locomotor performance can be an honest survival indicator in guppies, and that the mechanism linking courtship to survival merits further study. These results suggest that courtship locomotion may contribute to viability impacts on the evolution of animal mate choice, and support others in suggesting that these traits may reward greater attention in sexual and natural selection studies.
Sonar processing for short range, very-high resolution autonomous underwater vehicle sensors

In an attempt to improve manual and automated sea mine classification results, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) are being outfitted with short-range, very high-resolution sonar sensors. To improve pattern classification results in this regime, artifacts caused by platform motion, sonar beam pattern, and the ocean bottom clutter are first removed from the image. Several preprocessing steps for high-resolution imagery are developed and integrated to help isolate and discover the enduring features of high value targets. Classical denoising, segmentation, and feature-based equalization preprocessing techniques for target localization are adapted and demonstrated.
A tree grammar scheme for generation and recognition of simple texture paths in pictures

The authors present a tree grammar scheme for generation of selected texture straight paths based on the structural and syntactic model introduced by K.S. Fu (1982). The procedure allows for representation of binary images as well as gray scale and color images. The procedure provides an easy approach for representing a quad tree and an alternative for saving space and memory access time. The authors provide a software framework which uses the concept of this grammar scheme for detection and recognition of texture paths in a gray image of N*N pixels. Prolog was chosen as the programming language, since it is easy to represent the grammar rules in this language. >
“I wanna be your fantasy”: Sex, death, and the artist formerly known as prince

(1996). “I wanna be your fantasy”: Sex, death, and the artist formerly known as prince. Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory: Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 137-151.
Frequency of occurrence and concreteness ratings of homograph meanings

The purpose of this research was to establish norms for the relative frequency of use of the different meaning of common homographs (words that have one spelling but two or more distinctly different meanings) and to present ratings of the concreteness-abstractness of those meanings. A total of 108 subjects wrote a phrase or sentence using each of 120 homographs that were presented at a 15.5-sec rate. For each homograph, norms are provided indicating the relative frequency with which each meaning was used by men and by women. In addition, four judges rated the concreteness-abstractness of each meaning. These ratings are also provided, as are the means of the overall concreteness for each homograph.
Use of gabapentin to treat focal status epilepticus

Although gabapentin (GPN) is commonly used as adjunctive therapy to treat recurrent self-limited seizures, little is known about its potential efficacy in treating prolonged partial seizures. We report two cases of refractory focal status epilepticus successfully treated with oral GPN. In both cases, GPN precluded the need for pentobarbital coma. We suggest that GPN may be an effective treatment for focal status epilepticus and should be studied further for its potential efficacy in this condition.
The Case for Economic Reasoning in MBA Education Revisited

Laurence S. Moss was a great scholar and author of countless articles and books. During his long career he continued to be excited by economics and history and made these subjects interesting to his students. For almost 30 years, undergraduate students enrolled in his Scams and Frauds class and Contemporary Economic Systems class in large numbers. Larry would engage students to think, to independently question prevailing truths, and to probe further. This essay is a reflection of our shared experience teaching in the full-time MBA program at Babson College.