cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Adrenocortical Carcinoma in Children

AbstractAdrenocortical carcinoma in childhood is a rare yet potentially fatal disease. We present 5 cases of adrenocortical carcinoma detected and managed in childhood. Of the 5 patients 4 presented with clinical signs of excess corticosteroid production and 1 presented suddenly with abdominal pain. All patients had palpable abdominal masses. All tumors were removed surgically and adjuvant therapy with mitotane was used in 4 children. Two patients are alive and 3 are dead. Our experience demonstrates that mitotane may be used safely in children, and that early diagnosis, aggressive surgical extirpation, and the use of mitotane and chemotherapy may lead to an increased survival of children with adrenocortical carcinoma.
The fundamental role of stage control technology on the detectability for Salmonella networking laboratory

Objective To evaluated the fundamental role of stage control technology (SCT)on the detectability for Salmonella networking laboratories.Methods Appropriate Salmonella detection methods after key point control being evaluated,were establishment and optimized.Our training and evaluation networking laboratories participated in the World Health Organization-Global Salmonella Surveillance Project (WHO-GSS) and China-U.S.Collaborative Program on Emerging and Re-emerging infectious diseases Project (GFN) in Shanghai.Staff members from the Yunnan Yuxi city Center for Disease Control and Prevention were trained on Salmonella isolation from diarrhea specimens.Data on annual Salmonella positive rates was collected from the provincial-level monitoring sites to be part of the GSS and GFN projects from 2006 to 2012.Results The methodology was designed based on the conventional detection procedure of Salmonella which involved the processes as enrichment,isolation,species identification and sero-typing.These methods were simultaneously used to satisfy the sensitivity requirements on non-typhoid Salmonella detection for networking laboratories.Public Health Laboratories in Shanghai had developed from 5 in 2006 to 9 in 2011,and Clinical laboratories from 8 to 22.Number of clinical isolates,including typhoid and non-typhoid Salmonella increased from 196 in 2006 to 1442 in 2011.The positive rate of Salmonella isolated from the clinical diarrhea cases was 2.4％ in Yuxi county,in 2012.At present,three other provincial monitoring sites were using the SBG technique as selectivity enrichment broth for Salmonella isolation,with Shanghai having the most stable positive baseline.Conclusion The method of SCT was proved the premise of the network laboratory construction.Based on this,the improvement of precise phenotypic identification and molecular typing capabilities could reach the level equivalent to the national networking laboratory. Key words: Assessment; Typhoid and non-typhoid Salmonella; Conventional detection; Positive rates; Network laboratory
Physical Therapist Student Loan Debt

The cost of higher education in the United States is big news. One major reason for the media attention is rising student loan debt. Concerns about rising student loan debt are being voiced at the federal government level1 and by political candidates,2,3 institutions of higher education,4 professional organizations,5,6 and, of course, consumers.7 There seems to be little agreement on the reasons for escalating costs, although there is nearly universal agreement that the costs are out of control. Various authors have argued for and against the effects of several factors on increasing costs, including growing numbers of institutional administrators,8,9 increasing federal regulation,10 new campus buildings to attract students,9,11 rising costs of employee health insurance,12 costs of intercollegiate sports,9 and an increasing proportion of professors staying beyond traditional retirement age.13 State support for public institutions has declined over the past 2 to 3 decades,9,14,15 and both public and private institutions saw declines in gifts and endowments during the recent recession.9 Consequently, institutions have charged students more to make up for budget deficits.15 The result is that over the past 3 decades, tuition and fees have increased approximately 210% at 4-year public universities and by approximately 130% at private 4-year nonprofit institutions,9 while median household income has increased by approximately 2%.15 Although tuition increases have been accompanied by expansion of financial aid packages, increasing proportions of those packages are in the form of loans.9,16 Taken together, these forces have caused higher education costs to outstrip the capacity of many family budgets, requiring more borrowing than in the past. Consequences of high student loan debt are reported to include delays in starting families, …
Identifying devices across the IPv4 address space

Many of today's devices are internet-enabled with IPv4 internet addresses, exposing them to internet threats. To determine the true scale of vulnerabilities being introduced, particularly in the IPv4 internet address space, a new methodology of scanning the entire IPv4 internet space is required. To improve scanning speeds we created a framework combining fast connectionless port scanners with a thorough and accurate connection-oriented scanner to verify results. The results are stored to a database. This combined framework provides more robust results than current connectionless scanners, yet still scans the IPv4 internet fast enough to be practically usable for mass scanning.
Breaking Bonds: White Lines of Love and Hate

Why do Jesse and Walt remain a team for such a long time? They are not friends; Walt has forced Jesse to be his partner through threat of exposure. Jesse manifests the worst behaviors of Walt’s students: irresponsibility, flippancy, drug-use, ignorance and immaturity. Jesse has equal reason to despise Walter; he’s arrogant, uncaring, self-interested, and dismissive. Walter has a son to love; Jesse isn’t an obvious surrogate child; Jesse’s own life is full of friends and lovers. I explore the strange bond between Jesse and Walt, and argue that Jesse’s practice of an ethic-of-care (and Walter’s poor enactment of this kind of ethical system) finally, emotionally separates them from one another. Jesse is “family-man” Walter believes himself to be.
Approximate continuous belief distributions for precise autonomous inspection

Precise inspection of cluttered environments by computationally-constrained systems requires an efficient and high-fidelity representation of the operating space. We propose a methodology to generate perceptual models of the environment that optimally handle the variation in clutter and provide a multi-resolution and multi-fidelity representation of the environment. Further, our approach is able to capture inherent structural dependencies thereby enabling efficient and precise inference. The approach employs a hierarchy of Gaussian Mixtures to approximate the underlying spatial distribution. We make use of techniques grounded in information theory to estimate the optimal size of the mixture model and to generate and update the hierarchy of mixtures. We show that the proposed approach is superior in terms of memory requirements and accuracy as compared to other state of the art 3D mapping techniques such as NDT occupancy maps and Gaussian Process occupancy maps.
Automated Induction of General Grammars for Design

Grammars are useful for representing systems of design patterns, however formulating good grammars is not straightforward in many contexts due to challenges of representation and scope. This challenge has been identified as one of the 3 goals for computerized use of shape grammars: grammar inference. This work introduces a highly flexible mechanism for inducing viable general grammars from a computational representation of a designed context. This mechanism is evaluated with several common types of devised media of increasing complexity based on dimensionality: 1D (e.g., text), 2D (e.g., PCB layout, building plans), many dimensional (which in abstract can generally be used to represent product, system, platform or service designs), and, against a set of grammar properties necessary for a grammar acquisition method to be useful: accuracy, variability, repeatability and conciseness. This work shows complete enumeration over possible grammars in the 1D case and a continuum of approaches for higher dimension data sets that are demonstrative of grammars in design .
The “injection jet sign”: an innovative method of needle position confirmation during ultrasound guided injections

Ultrasound (US)-guided therapeutic and diagnostic injections play an important role in day-to-day clinical practice for many radiologists. When compared with fluoroscopic or computed tomographic (CT) methods of localization, US offers the benefit of real-time confirmation of instrument position without exposing the patient to any ionizing radiation. Target delivery is usually confirmed by direct needle tip visualization and with real-time demonstration of capsular or bursal distention. While often more technically difficult in deeper anatomic spaces, larger patients and smaller delivery needles, US should still be considered the preferred method of image guidance because of these outlined benefits. We present here three cases demonstrating an innovative method of needle-tip position confirmation, termed the "injection jet sign." This technique represents a useful supplement to routine sonographic guidance and allows the clinician to enjoy the benefits of this imaging modality even in the face of other technical challenges.
Effect of hydrothermal treatment on light transmission of translucent zirconias.

Abstract Statement of problem Studies of the light transmission of translucent zirconias after hydrothermal treatment are limited. Purpose The purpose of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effect of hydrothermal treatment on the light transmission of translucent zirconias for monolithic restorations. Material and methods Four commercially available zirconia products, BruxZir Anterior Solid Zirconia (BruxAnt, BA), Lava Plus High Translucency (LPHT), Katana Zirconia Super Translucent (KST), and Katana Zirconia Ultra Translucent (KUT) were assessed and 1 type of lithium disilicate, e.max Press LT (LDLT) was used as a control. Plate specimens, 20×20×1 mm (n=80) for the translucency assessment were sectioned from postsintered zirconia bulk materials and ground with a #400-grit diamond wheel and coolant. The specimens were placed under hydrothermal conditions of 134°C at 0.2 MPa (n=5 per group at 0, 5, 50, and 100 hours). Percentage of total transmittance of light (T t %) of each specimen was measured using a spectrophotometer with an integrating sphere. X-ray diffraction analyses were used to measure tetragonal-monoclinic phase transformation. Surfaces were examined by scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectrometry. Data were analyzed using 2-way ANOVA followed by the Tukey test (α=.05). Results The T t % ranged from 6.5% to 28.3%. Group LDLT obtained significantly higher transmittance than other tested groups, whereas groups KST and KUT had significantly higher T t % than groups BA and LPHT ( P P P Conclusions Hydrothermal treatment had minimal effects on the translucency of translucent zirconias. The tetragonal-monoclinic phase transformation rate of translucent zirconias was found to be low, except in group LPHT.
Research on Improving Teacher Knowledge and Pedagogical Approaches: From a Comparative to a Collaborative Perspective

International studies in education have been part of the research and policy landscape for more than five decades. They are often associated with the inevitable declaration of educational winners and losers and tend to be overshadowed by the media frenzy that accompanies any research reports that highlight world rankings. However, the organizational, political, methodological, and social skills required to design, implement, and disseminate these kinds of international comparative studies cannot be underestimated. In this commentary I first provide a brief overview of salient and widely discussed challenges and benefits of international studies and consider them in relation to the focus of this section on improving teacher knowledge and pedagogical approaches. I then highlight how each of the chapters in this section attends to some of these challenges and benefits. I close with reflections and future questions for international research focused on this area of study.
Johnson Family Farm – Hedging Decision

Frank Johnson was contemplating his alternatives for the upcoming year. On the following day, January 12, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report was scheduled to be released. From Johnson's point of view, the biggest issue was the projected corn carryover from 2010. In November, the USDA predicted that for the first time in recent years, the projected carryover would be about 827 million bushels, which would be the lowest since 1996. The low carryover boded well for corn prices. At that time, the USDA estimated a U.S. average cash corn price for 2010–11 of $5.20. With current spot prices at about $5.83 per bushel, he expected the outlook to actually improve but was concerned about the overall price uncertainty. The uncertainties related to the use of corn in ethanol production and demand for corn from China loomed large in his thinking. He needed to consider whether he should hedge all or some part of the following year's crop. Excerpt UVA-F-1641 Dec. 28, 2011 Johnson Family Farm—Hedging Decision Frank Johnson was contemplating his alternatives for the upcoming year. On the following day, January 12, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report was scheduled to be released. From Johnson's point of view, the biggest issue was the projected corn carryover from 2010. In November, the USDA predicted that for the first time in recent years the projected carryover would be about 827 million bushels, which would be the lowest since 1996. The low carryover boded well for corn prices. At that time, the USDA estimated a U.S. average cash corn price for 2010–11 of $ 5.20. With current spot prices at about $ 5.83 per bushel (Exhibit 1), he expected the outlook to actually improve but was concerned about the overall price uncertainty. The uncertainties related to the use of corn in ethanol production and demand for corn from China loomed large in his thinking. He needed to consider whether he should hedge all or some part of the following year's crop. The Johnson family farmed about 5,000 acres in north central Illinois. The vast majority of the land was devoted to corn production. Generally the Johnsons expected to yield about 185 bushels per acre. This amounted to almost one million bushels of corn, which, at current prices, meant roughly $ 5.5 million in revenue. Volatility in corn prices could have a significant effect on the Johnsons' revenue. The past 10 years had seen some dramatic fluctuations in corn prices (Figure 1). From lows of about $ 2.00 in the early part of the decade, prices jumped to over $ 7.00 per bushel in June 2008 before once again falling to about $ 3.00 in 2009. In light of this, the current cash price of $ 5.83 seemed attractive. Figure 1. Corn cash prices, January 1, 2001, to January 7, 2011. . . .
Mapping of Membrane Protein Topology by Substituted Cysteine Accessibility Method (SCAM

A described simple and advanced protocol for the substituted-cysteine accessibility method as applied to transmembrane (TM) orientation (SCAM™) permits a topology analysis of proteins in their native state and can be universally adapted to any membrane system to either systematically map an uniform topology or identify and quantify the degree of mixed topology. In this approach, noncritical individual amino acids that are thought to reside in the putative extracellular or intracellular loops of a membrane protein are replaced one at a time by cysteine residue, and the orientation with respect to the membrane is evaluated using a pair of membrane-impermeable nondetectable and detectable thiol-reactive labeling reagents.
Centrosome Regulation and Breast Cancer

Chromosomal instability and aneuploidy are commonly observed in breast tumor cells. Loss of function of the breast- and ovarian-specific tumor suppressor gene, BRCA1, results in supernumerary centrosomes that are likely to contribute to the genetic instability and tumorigenesis in breast cancer cells. Other DNA repair proteins also contribute to the regulation of the centrosome along with several oncogenic and tumor suppressor proteins. A number of centrosome regulators that are known to be involved in breast cancer will be discussed with a focused discussion of BRCA1 and its ubiquitin ligase activity in the regulation of centrosome number.
Natural history and courtship behavior in Tengella perfuga Dahl, 1901 (Araneae: Zoropsidae)

Tengella perfuga Dahl, 1901 is a Nicaraguan cribellate zoropsid spider found in high altitude remnant cloud forest habitats bordering coffee plantations. Since its description in 1901, and its rediscovery in 2012, almost nothing is known of its natural history, life history, courtship or web spinning behavior. Observations were made in the field, as well as in the lab. Mature female T. perfuga occurred in funnel webs with several knockdown lines comprised of cribellate silk, and that were typically placed between buttress roots of strangler figs or other outcropping structures, while males abandoned their webs upon adulthood to search for females. Here, we describe the life history, growth, web ontogeny, courtship and reproductive behaviors, as well as silk use of this spider for the first time. There are 11–12 instars to reach adulthood and cribellate silk did not appear in juvenile webs until the eighth instar. Interestingly, orbicularian-like behaviors were observed in the initial appearance of cribellate silk lines in the juvenile web in a spiral-like pattern. Males exhibited positive allometric growth in Leg I from penultimate to adult instars, which likely plays an important role in courtship; this included strumming the sheet, stroking the female and depositing a thin ‘bridal veil' of silk on the female. Virgin females had ‘mating plugs' prior to exposure to males. This suggests that T. perfuga may be an interesting species with which to further examine sexual evolution and female choice.
Implementation in the midst of complexity: Using ethnography to study health care-associated infection prevention and control.

Background Contextual factors associated with health care settings make reducing health care–associated infections (HAIs) a complex task. The aim of this article is to highlight how ethnography can assist in understanding contextual factors that support or hinder the implementation of evidence-based practices for reducing HAIs. Methods We conducted a review of ethnographic studies specifically related to HAI prevention and control in the last 5 years (2012-2017). Results Twelve studies specific to HAIs and ethnographic methods were found. Researchers used various methods with video-reflexive sessions used in 6 of the 12 studies. Ethnography was used to understand variation in data reporting, identify barriers to adherence, explore patient perceptions of isolation practices and highlight the influence of physical design on infection prevention practices. The term ethnography was used to describe varied research methods. Most studies were conducted outside the United States, and authors indicate insights gained using ethnographic methods (whether observations, interviews, or reflexive video recording) as beneficial to unraveling the complexities of HAI prevention. Conclusions Ethnography is well-suited for HAI prevention, especially video-reflexive ethnography, for activating patients and clinicians in infection control work. In this era of increasing pressure to reduce HAIs within complex work systems, ethnographic methods can promote understanding of contextual factors and may expedite translation evidence to practice.
Scanning Electron Microscopy of Motile Male Gametes of Land Plants

The only motile cells produced in land plants are male gametes (spermatozoids), which are reduced to non-flagellated cells in flowering plants and most gymnosperms. Although a coiled architecture is universal, the complexity of land plant flagellated cells varies from biflagellated in bryophytes to thousands of flagella per gametes in the seed plants Ginkgo and cycads. This wide diversity in number of flagella is associated with vast differences in cell size and shape. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has played an important role in characterizing the external form, including cell shape and arrangement of flagella, across the varied motile gametes of land plants. Because of the size and scarcity of released swimming sperm, it is difficult to concentrate them and prepare them for observation in the SEM. Here we detail an SEM preparation technique that yields good preservation of sperms cells across plant groups.
The Use of Simulation to Improve Family Understanding and Support of Anesthesia Providers.

Introduction Burnout in medical providers is associated with work dissatisfaction, reduction in patient safety, and provider depression. Simulation is a tool effectively used for specific task training but has not been broadly used as a means to combat medical professional stress and enhance wellness. The authors created a medical simulation program targeted at those involved in the social support of medical providers. The hypothesis was that education of non-medical persons involved in social support would translate into an enhanced understanding of the demands among medical providers in anesthesiology. This understanding would thereby open communication pathways within the social support system and contribute to enhanced wellness among providers. Methods To assess effectiveness and benefits of the event, survey data were obtained from anesthesia providers and their adult support persons before and after the event. The anesthesia providers were queried on their perception regarding the benefit of the event for their support persons. Support persons were asked questions regarding their understanding of the role of an anesthesia provider. Results Sixty-three family members and friends (adult=30, child=33) participated in a two-hour simulation event including activities for participants of all ages. Twenty-nine (96.7%) adult participants (age ≥ 14) completed the support person surveys before and/or after the event. The post-event survey results revealed participants' satisfaction with the event (n=26, 100%). This simulation event also demonstrated an improved understanding of the demands among anesthesia providers by their support persons (seven items, P values range from less than .0001 to .0313). Most anesthesia providers who attended the event enjoyed it a significant amount (n=19, 82.6%). Most providers whose primary work-related support persons attended the event believed that it would be easier to communicate work-related issues (n=12, 85.7%). Conclusion We outline "The Family Anesthesia Experience Day" as a wellness initiative for anesthesia providers. Our study demonstrated improved understanding of support persons' knowledge about anesthesia providers' work-related stress via an immersive two-hour simulation-based learning experience. The event was well-received and may be a useful approach to provide support persons with an opportunity to learn about and better support their beloved anesthesia provider.
What Petya/NotPetya Ransomware Is and What Its Remidiations Are

Ransomware attacks have been growing worldwide since they appeared around 2012. The idea of ransomware attacks is, encrypting and locking the files on a computer until the ransom is paid. These attacks usually enter the system by using Trojans, which has malicious programs that run a payload that encrypts and locks the files. The basic goal of this type of attack is getting money, so hackers usually unlock the files when they receive the money, but really there is no guarantee of that. Ransomware attacks have various versions such as Reveton, CryptoWall, WannaCry, and Petya. The Petya attack is the attack that this paper discusses, especially the most recent version of it, which is referred as NotPetya. This paper defines the NotPetya attack, explains how it works, and where and how it spreads. Also, this paper discusses four solutions available to recover after a system infected by the NotPetya attack and propose the best solution depending on intense research about the recovering solutions of this attack.
Incongruence between women's survey- and interview-determined decision control preferences: A mixed methods study of decision-making in metastatic breast cancer

Objective Women with metastatic breast cancer face numerous, complex treatment and advance care planning (ACP) decisions. Our aim was to develop a better understanding of women with metastatic breast cancer's decision-making preferences overtime and relative to specific types of decisions. Methods Convergent, parallel mixed-methods study. Participants completed the Control Preferences Scale (CPS) and a semi-structured interview of decision-making experiences at enrollment (T1; n = 22) and when facing a decision or 3 months later (T2; n = 19). We categorized women's decision-making experience descriptions into one of the CPS decisional styles and compared them to their CPS response. We constructed an analytic grid that aligned the interview-determined treatment and ACP decisional preferences with the CPS categories at T1 and T2 and calculated Cohen's kappa coefficient and congruence percentages. Results Participants (n = 22) were White (100%), averaged 62 years, married (54%), retired (45%), and had a bachelor's degree (45%). Congruence between CPS response and interview-determined treatment preferences at T1 was 32% (kappa = 0.083) and 33% (kappa = 0.120) at T2. Congruence between CPS survey response and interview-determined ACP preferences at T1 was 22.7% (kappa =0.092) at T1 and 11% (kappa = 0.011) at T2. Conclusions Although women selected a "shared" treatment decision-making style using the CPS validated tool, when interviewed their descriptions generally reflected a passive process in which they followed the oncologists' treatment suggestions. Future research should explore whether the incongruence between stated and actual decision-making style is a function of misinterpreting the CPS choices or a true inconsistency that could lead to adverse consequences such as decisional regret.
Genetic Determinants of Alcohol Addiction

Alcoholism, like schizophrenia, depression, and some other psychiatric conditions, tends to run in families. In studying a familial disorder, it is important to determine whether the illness is influenced by heredity. Some maintain that truly separating “nature” from “nurture” is impossible, but nevertheless, through the years, there have been a number of studies and much speculation concerning a possible role of heredity in alcoholism.
MAMMARY RESISTANCE MECHANISMS | Anatomical

The exterior teat skin composed of stratified squamous epithelium acts as a primary defense against bacteria by providing an impenetrable keratinized layer. The teat canal keratin functions to provide bacteriostatic lipids and proteins, and also occludes the teat orifice, serving as a physical barrier. The circular smooth muscles of the teat sphincter maintain tight closure of the canal between milkings to prevent leakage and to keep the keratin occluding the canal lumen compressed. Funnel-shaped teats have lower incidence of infection than seen in cylindrically shaped teats, and udders with funnel-shaped teats produce more milk, milk out more completely, and exhibit lower somatic cell counts. Teats smaller in diameter milk out more completely and are less prone to mastitis, whereas teats larger in diameter have larger orifices and are more susceptible to infection. Shorter teats are less prone to injuries, milk out faster, and are associated with greater yield. Pointed teats are longer and predisposed to damage of the orifice. Inverted teat ends are associated with larger-diameter teat ducts and are less resistant to bacterial invasion. Cows with round teat ends have lower incidence of infection and lower somatic cell counts than those with pointed, inverted, or flat teat ends.
Exchange Anisotropy of Fe65(Ni1-xMnx)35 Alloys

Ternary alloys of Fe 65 (Ni 1- x Mn x ) 35 have an f.c.c. structure over a whole range of composition and show a transition from ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic at around the composition of x =0.3. In this transition region it is quite interesting to study their magnetic properties because of the possible coexistence of ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic regions. This paper mainly deals with the exchange anisotropy of these alloys at low temperatures down to 1.4°K obtained by measurements of rotational hysteresis loss and unidirectional anisotropy. The results show an evidence for the coexistence of ferro- and antiferromagnetic regions at low temperatures. A temperature T K , where the rotational loss disappears due to the small anisotropy constant of antiferromagnetic regions, is considered to indicate a lower limit of the Neel temperature, T N of the regions. Values of T K for x ≤0.4 connect smoothly onto values of T N for x ≥0.4.
Adaptive Probabilistic Classification of Dynamic Processes: A Case Study on Human Trust in Automation

Classification algorithms have traditionally been developed based on the assumption of independent data samples characterized by a stationary distribution. However, some data types, including human-subject data, typically do not satisfy the aforementioned assumptions. This is relevant given the growing need for models of human behavior (as they relate to research in human-machine interaction). In this paper, we propose an adaptive probabilistic classification algorithm using a generative model. We model the prior probabilities using a Markov decision process to incorporate temporal dynamics. The conditional probabilities use an adaptive Bayes quadratic discriminant analysis classifier. We implement and validate the proposed algorithm for prediction of human trust in automation using electroencephalography (EEG) and behavioral response data. An improved accuracy is obtained for the proposed classifier as compared to an adaptive classifier that does not consider the temporal dynamics of the process being considered. The proposed algorithm can be used for classification of other human behaviors measured using psychophysiological data and behavioral responses, as well as other dynamic processes characterized by data with non-stationary distributions.
School Choice and the Politics of Parenthood: Exploring Parent Mobilization As a Catalyst for the Common Good

A substantial body of research has shown how white, middle-class parents in urban school districts use school choice as a tool to pursue educational advantages for their children. The purpose of th...
Workers, Protections, and Benefits in the U.S. Gig Economy

Under existing American labor, employment, and tax laws, in any one work relationship, a worker is either an “employee” or an “independent contractor.” This binary classification of workers, and the high-stakes outcomes it produces, have been challenged by “gig economy,” or “online platform” companies that provide personal labor services (e.g., ride-hailing, home cleaning and handyman/woman, and food delivery services that use smart phone “apps”). Employees in the United States are entitled to a long list of legally mandated benefits and protections. Independent contractors are not. Independent contractors are presumed to have sufficient individual bargaining power to secure their own individual compacts with contracting partners, and either ward off undesirable outcomes or use their freedom in the market to evade them. This article argues that online platform companies’ relationships with their “independent workers” force these workers into a gray area between employee status and independent contractor status. It also argues that American law does not offer a clear and broadly applicable rule for resolving the resulting ambiguities and ensuring consistent and predictable decisions by adjudicators. Serious social and economic problems have resulted. This law and policy article considers these work relationships in the online platform economy with a particular focus on independent workers’ lack of individual bargaining power. The article also extends its bargaining power analysis to workers outside the online platform economy, including those currently classified as independent contractors. Based on this analysis, and after reviewing the state of the law in the U.S. and the size and shape of the workforce in the U.S. online platform economy, the article articulates a set of principles that should guide policy makers in determining how to reform the worker classification system to address its ambiguities and the problematic social and economic outcomes it produces. Most important, the article provides a menu of policy solutions with an assessment of how well each solution serves these principles (i.e., “selection criteria”). The solution advanced in the author’s 2015 paper with Alan Krueger entitled “A Proposal for Modernizing Labor Laws for Twenty-First-Century Work: The ‘Independent Worker’” is included on this menu.
Functional Resistance Training and Affective Response in Female College-Age Students.

INTRODUCTION Although resistance training (RT) can lead to acute improvements in psychological, physiological and psychosocial outcomes, prevalence rates remain low in college-age females likely due to perceived barriers. This study compared the effects of an acute bout of both a functional RT (FRT) and traditional RT (TRT) session on affect, state anxiety enjoyment and physiological measures. METHODS Females (n = 34, mean age = 27 ± 4.5 yr) not currently meeting American College of Sports Medicine RT guidelines completed four sessions (2 FRT, 2 TRT) within 4 wk in a randomized crossover design. Session 1 familiarized participants to the RT exercises. Session 2 consisted of 2 × 10 moderate intensity repetitions. Outcome measures included affect and state anxiety (preexercise, postexercise, and 15 min postexercise); enjoyment (post), and manipulation measures of session RPE and HR). RESULTS Between-condition comparisons indicate change scores in state anxiety pre- to post-15 (P = 0.028) and enjoyment levels post- (P = 0.02) were significantly greater in FRT than TRT. Within-condition analyses revealed pre- to post-15 changes in affect were positive and greater in FRT (d = 0.79) than TRT (d = 0.53, P = 0.47), and greater in decreases in state anxiety (FRT, d = -0.58; TRT, d = -0.37, P = 0.028). Mean session RPE was not significantly different between conditions (FRT 6 ± 1.2 units; TRT 6.3 ± 1.1 units; P = 0.11), though average percent of age-predicted maximum HR (FRT 68.7 ± 7.6; TRT 57.1 ± 8.4) was significantly different (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS Findings suggest that compared with TRT, FRT is associated with higher acute positive psychological states, higher levels of enjoyment, and greater energy expenditure. Future studies are recommended to examine additional measures of affect and in-task timepoints to determine how these responses relate to maintenance and adherence, thereby potentially increasing the proportion of college females meeting American College of Sports Medicine RT and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity guidelines.
“I Want to be Both, but Is that Possible?”: Communicating Mother-Scholar Uncertainty During Doctoral Candidacy

Doctoral study is a vulnerable time when students are faced with the task of establishing a new professional identity in a competitive environment, with financial stress, an uncertain future, and low status. This significant period of uncertainty is a particularly ripe context for higher education researchers to explore, as it simultaneously falls during important family formation and childbearing years. Through in-depth, semistructured interviews of 30 married women doctoral candidates, largely within the humanities and social sciences and the lens of uncertainty management theory, this investigation examines how women construct and manage uncertainty surrounding the mother-scholar identity.
Reflections on the Complexity of Surgical Site Infection Prevention and Detection from an Organizational Lens.

Abstract Background: Within the United States, surgical site infections (SSIs) have now become the most common hospital-acquired infection and impact 2%–5% of all surgical patients. It is estimated...
Challenges in SERS-based pesticide detection and plausible solutions

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) can be used for the detection of trace amounts of pesticides in foods to ensure consumer safety. In this perspective, we highlight the trends of SERS-based assays in pesticide detection and the various challenges associated with their selectivity, reproducibility, and nonspecific binding. We also discuss and compare the target analyte capture techniques, such as the use of antibodies, aptamers, and molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs), coupled with SERS to overcome the drawbacks as mentioned above. In addition, issues related to the nonspecific binding of analytes and its potential solution are discussed.
Effects of Dopaminergic Drugs on Cognitive Control Processes Vary by Genotype.

Dopamine (DA) has been implicated in modulating multiple cognitive control processes, including the robust maintenance of task sets and memoranda in the face of distractors (cognitive stability) an...
Thalamocortical motor circuit insights for more robust hierarchical control of complex sequences.

We study learning of recurrent neural networks that produce temporal sequences consisting of the concatenation of re-usable "motifs". In the context of neuroscience or robotics, these motifs would be the motor primitives from which complex behavior is generated. Given a known set of motifs, can a new motif be learned without affecting the performance of the known set and then used in new sequences without first explicitly learning every possible transition? Two requirements enable this: (i) parameter updates while learning a new motif do not interfere with the parameters used for the previously acquired ones; and (ii) a new motif can be robustly generated when starting from the network state reached at the end of any of the other motifs, even if that state was not present during training. We meet the first requirement by investigating artificial neural networks (ANNs) with specific architectures, and attempt to meet the second by training them to generate motifs from random initial states. We find that learning of single motifs succeeds but that sequence generation is not robust: transition failures are observed. We then compare these results with a model whose architecture and analytically-tractable dynamics are inspired by the motor thalamocortical circuit, and that includes a specific module used to implement motif transitions. The synaptic weights of this model can be adjusted without requiring stochastic gradient descent (SGD) on the simulated network outputs, and we have asymptotic guarantees that transitions will not fail. Indeed, in simulations, we achieve single-motif accuracy on par with the previously studied ANNs and have improved sequencing robustness with no transition failures. Finally, we show that insights obtained by studying the transition subnetwork of this model can also improve the robustness of transitioning in the traditional ANNs previously studied.
A Hybrid PAC Reinforcement Learning Algorithm

This paper offers a new hybrid probably asymptotically correct (PAC) reinforcement learning (RL) algorithm for Markov decision processes (MDPs) that intelligently maintains favorable features of its parents. The designed algorithm, referred to as the Dyna-Delayed Q-learning (DDQ) algorithm, combines model-free and model-based learning approaches while outperforming both in most cases. The paper includes a PAC analysis of the DDQ algorithm and a derivation of its sample complexity. Numerical results that support the claim regarding the new algorithm's sample efficiency compared to its parents are showcased in a small grid-world example.
Chlorinated Phenolic Compounds: Formation, Detection, and Toxicity in Drinking Water

Chlorination is extensively practiced in wastewater treatment to disinfect the effluent prior to discharge, particularly where the receiving water may be used for recreational purposes or as a source of potable water. Recently, it has been demonstrated that industrial effluents, particularly those subjected to biological treatment may require disinfection to meet current receiving water bacterial standards. Zillick (1972) has pointed out that the chlorination of municipal wastewater increases its toxicity to aquatic life. One of the major problems associated with disinfection of water supplies by chlorination is that the organoleptic properties of the chlorinated water may be increased. This malodorous water often is produced by a reaction between free available chlorine and trace concentrations of organic compounds, especially phenol and its derivatives.
Cost-effectiveness of post-exposure prophylaxis following sexual exposure to HIV.

Objectives: To assess the cost-effectiveness, relative to other health-related interventions in the U.S., of post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) following potential HIV exposure through sexual contact with a partner who may or may not be infected, and to compare the relative cost-effectiveness of dual- and triple-combination PEP. Methods: Standard techniques of cost-utility analysis were used to assess the cost-effectiveness of PEP with a four-week regimen of zidovudine and lamivudine, or zidovudine, lamivudine, and indinavir. Due to a lack of empirical data on the effectiveness of PEP with combination drug regimens, the analysis assumed that combination PEP was no more effective than PEP with zidovudine alone. The main outcome variable is the cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) saved by the program. Results: Providing PEP to a cohort of 10 000 patients who report receptive anal intercourse with a partner of unknown HIV status (who is assumed to be infected with probability equal to 0.18) would prevent about 20 infections, at an average net cost of about US$ 70 000 per infection averted. The cost-utility ratio, US$ 6316 per QALY saved, indicates that PEP is highly cost-effective in this instance. Moreover, triple-combination PEP would need to be about 9% more effective than dual-combination PEP for the addition of indinavir to the regimen to be considered cost-effective. Prophylaxis following receptive vaginal exposure is cost-effective only when it is nearly certain that the partner is infected; PEP for insertive anal and vaginal intercourse does not appear to be cost-effective. Conclusions: From a purely economic standpoint, PEP should be restricted to partners of infected persons (e.g., serodiscordant couples), to patients reporting unprotected receptive anal intercourse (including condom breakage), and possibly to cases where there is a substantial likelihood that the partner is infected. Providing PEP to all who request it does not appear to be an economically efficient use of limited HIV prevention and treatment resources.
Co-Optimization Scheme for the Powertrain and Exhaust Emission Control System of Hybrid Electric Vehicles Using Future Speed Prediction

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) have been an effective solution for improved vehicle fuel efficiency and reduced emission pollution. However, the optimization design for HEVs is complicated due to the presence of nonlinear dynamics and complicated integration of the HEV systems. Moreover, there is a trade-off between fuel optimization and emission reduction. In this paper, a co-optimization scheme is proposed to optimize fuel efficiency for HEVs. The proposed optimization scheme uses obtainable future speed prediction as the basis to optimally tune control parameters for the existing powertrain control system. Moreover, the ramp-up time of the catalyst temperature to reach its light-off level in the exhaust emission system is also considered as an additional optimization constraint to reduce emission. At first, the Toyota Prius Hybrid Simulink model which is an integrated model for a powertrain and exhaust emission system is validated using real data from a number of real driving cycle scenarios. Then, to simplify the formulation of the proposed algorithm, the model employed for the optimization for both powertrain and exhaust emission systems is represented by a set of equivalent neural network (NN) models, which are learned using the data generated from the well-validated Toyota Prius Hybrid Simulink model. Using the NN model, a co-optimization algorithm is established that provides an optimal tuning of some fuel-sensitive powertrain control parameters using future speed prediction, leading to a novel co-optimization algorithm, achieving on average a further 9.22% fuel savings for the Toyota Prius Hybrid Simulink model.
A reservoir of stem-like CD8 T cells in the tumor-draining lymph node maintains the ongoing anti-tumor immune response

Abstract “Stem-like” TCF1+ CD8+ T cells (TSL) are necessary for long-term maintenance of T cell responses and the efficacy of immunotherapy but, as tumors contain signals that should drive T-cell terminal-differentiation, how these cells are maintained in tumors remains unclear. We found that a small number of TCF1+ tumor-specific CD8+ T cells were present in tumors throughout development. Yet, most intratumoral T cells differentiated as tumors progressed, corresponding with an immunologic shift in the tumor microenvironment (TME) from “hot” to “cold”. By contrast, most tumor-specific CD8+ T cells in tumor-draining lymph nodes (dLNs) had functions and gene expression signatures similar to TSL from chronic LCMV infection and this population was stable over time, despite the changes in the TME. dLN T cells were the precursors of their more-differentiated intratumoral counterparts, and maintenance of TCF1 by intratumoral T cells required continuous migration from dLNs. Finally, TSL CD8 T cells were also present in LNs from lung adenocarcinoma patients, suggesting this population is also relevant in human disease. Thus, we propose that the dLN TSL reservoir has a critical function during tumor development in sustaining antitumor T cells during tumor development and protecting them from the terminal differentiation that occurs in the TME.
A Direct Method to Calculate Capacity Value of Variable Energy Resources

This paper proposes a direct method to calculate the capacity value of variable energy resources (VERs) in generation adequacy planning studies. The capacity value is used to measure the contribution of VERs such as wind power to the adequacy of generation systems. Iterative methods are traditionally used to calculate the capacity value of VERs. However, iterative methods are computationally demanding even for power system planning studies. The proposed method is based on augmenting the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the generation reserve margin (prior to adding VERs) to include the output power of VERs. From the augmented CDF of the generation reserve margin, the capacity value is analytically determined without performing iterations, thereby reducing the computational burden associated with calculating the capacity value of VERs. The proposed approach considers the correlation between the output of VERs and system load, output variability, and forced outages of VERs in the evaluation process. Further, using the proposed method, the optimal penetration level of VERs in terms of their capacity values is determined with greater ease than with iterative methods. The proposed method is demonstrated on the IEEE Reliability Test System (IEEE RTS) and used to calculate the capacity value of wind power.