cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Scattered field properties of symmetric periodic structures

Periodic structures have proven to be useful from an electromagnetics standpoint due to their favorable characteristics-as, for example, frequency selective screens. In this communication, fundamental properties of the specular scattered fields are developed, which apply to infinite periodic targets, whether thick or infinitely thin, possessing rotational and/or reflection symmetry. >
3-D planar quadrantal and diagonal symmetry-based Winograd Fourier transform algorithm

A fast algorithm for computing the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of single planar quadrantal symmetric data is discussed. The algorithm is developed employing the techniques of the multidimensional Winograd Fourier transform algorithm (WFTA). It is found that an interesting relationship exists between the quadrantal and diagonal symmetries when the length of the data along each axis is odd. This implies that from one set of symmetry-based WFTA, the other set can be obtained, and the mapping is one-to-one. This idea is formulated, and the single planar diagonal symmetry-based WFTA is derived from single planar quadrantally symmetric WFTA.
Fast-Computed Tomographic Evaluation of the Effect of Route of Breathing on Upper Airway Size and Function in Normal Men

Nasal obstruction is associated with increased sleep disordered breathing (SDB), even in normal subjects. This increase in SDB may result from narrowing of the orohypopharyngeal (OHP) or retroglossal segment of the upper airway (UA) due to retropositioning of the jaw and tongue base as the mouth is opened and route of breathing changed from nasal to oral. It is postulated that significant narrowing of the OHP occurs with oral breathing even in the awake state. To ascertain the effect of route of breathing on the UA, fast-CT was used to study the UA response to the route of breathing in 30 normal, awake men, with each subject breathing via the nasal and oral routes under the following conditions: end-inspiration during tidal breathing (VTei) and functional residual capacity (FRC). In the velopharyngeal (VP) or retropalatal segment of the UA, minimum (Amin) and mean (Amean) cross-sectional areas (CSA) decreased 49 ± 11 percent and 16 ± 6 percent, respectively, with oral compared with nasal breathing at FRC. In the OHP, Amin at FRC increased by 26 ± 15 percent with oral compared with nasal breathing with no significant change in Amean. Similar changes in CSA of both the VP and OHP were observed at VTei. Genioglossal electromyographic (EMGgg) activity increased from 12 ± 1 μ V breathing nasally to 27 ± 4 µV breathing orally at FRC. Although the CSA of the VP segment decreased with conversion from nasal to oral breathing, Amin of the OHP segment was unexpectedly observed to increase with oral breathing. The doubling of EMGgg activity with oral breathing suggests that active contraction of the genioglossus may function to increase the patency of the OHP segment during oral breathing in supine, awake, normal subjects.
Accuracy of Data in Computer-based Patient Records

Data in computer-based patient records (CPRs) have many uses beyond their primary role in patient care, including research and health-system management. Although the accuracy of CPR data directly affects these applications, there has been only sporadic interest in, and no previous review of, data accuracy in CPRs. This paper reviews the published studies of data accuracy in CPRs. These studies report highly variable levels of accuracy. This variability stems from differences in study design, in types of data studied, and in the CPRs themselves. These differences confound interpretation of this literature. We conclude that our knowledge of data accuracy in CPRs is not commensurate with its importance and further studies are needed. We propose methodological guidelines for studying accuracy that address shortcomings of the current literature. As CPR data are used increasingly for research, methods used in research databases to continuously monitor and improve accuracy should be applied to CPRs.
Monitoring asthma in children: what does BATMAN tell us?

The importance of monitoring asthma and adjusting treatment according to control is a fundamental part of asthma management and many studies have demonstrated the benefits of achieving good control. Numerous tools can be used, including spirometry, inflammometry, airway hyper-responsiveness and validated questionnaires of asthma control and asthma-related quality of life. In practice, the clinician uses a combination of some (or none!) of these. However, the evidence of the utility of most of these is lacking, particularly in children. Studies that have been carried out are hampered by a number of constraints: first, there is no gold standard for asthma control. The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) definition of controlled, partially controlled or uncontrolled is often used.1 This is a composite measure, including symptoms, exacerbations and lung function, which was developed for adults and has not been validated in children. It is not universally used to assess the usefulness of monitoring strategies and a variety of end points, including exacerbations, symptom-free days (SFD), inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) dose and FEV1, have been reported. Second, studies tend to evaluate each measure in isolation: lung function or measurement of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) versus standard care and so on and there is limited evidence as to how the various components of control should be integrated. Third, the term ‘standard care’ is also open to much interpretation. The BATMAN …
Boundary functions for wavelets and their properties

Wavelets and wavelet transforms have been studied extensively since the 1980s. It has been shown that the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) can be applied to an enormous number of applications in virtually every branch of science. The DWT is designed for decomposing and reconstructing infinitely long signals. In practice, we can only deal with finitely long signals. This raises the very important question of handling boundaries. What should be done near the ends? Several approaches have been proposed to deal with this problem. In this dissertation, we consider the boundary function approach. The idea is to alter the DWT by constructing appropriate boundary functions at each end so that finite length signals can be analyzed accurately. This dissertation contains two sets of new results. One is about smoothness and approximation order properties of boundary functions. The other is about finding boundary functions. The results have been elaborated upon for some specific wavelets.
Biotic origin for Mima mounds supported by numerical modeling

article i nfo Mima mounds are ~1-m-high hillocks found on every continent except Antarctica. Despite often numbering in the millions within a single field, their origin has been a mystery, with proposed explanations ranging from gla- cialprocesses to seismic shaking. One hypothesisproposes that mounds inNorth America are built by burrowing mammals to provide refuge from seasonally saturated soils. We test this hypothesis with a numerical model, parameterized with measurements of soil transport by gophers from a California mound field, that couples animal behavior with geomorphic processes. The model successfully simulates the development of the mounds as well as key details such as the creation of vernal pools, small intermound basins that provide habitat for en- demic species. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the spatial structure of the modeled mound fields is similar to actual mound fields and provides an example of self-organized topographic features. We conclude that, scaled by body mass, Mima mounds are the largest structures built by nonhuman mammals and may provide a rare example of an evolutionary coupling between landforms and the organisms that create them.
Risk Perception and the Economic Crisis: A Longitudinal Study of the Trajectory of Perceived Risk

We conducted a longitudinal survey of public response to the economic crisis to understand the trajectory of risk perception amidst an ongoing crisis. A nation-wide panel responded to seven surveys beginning in late September 2008 at the peak of the crisis and concluded in October 2009. At least 600 respondents participated in each survey, with 413 completing all seven surveys. Our online survey focused on perceptions of risk (savings, investments, retirement, job), negative emotions toward the financial crisis (sadness, anxiety, fear, anger, worry, stress), confidence in national leaders to manage the crisis (President Obama, Congress, Treasury Secretary, business leaders), and belief in one's ability to realize personal objectives despite the crisis. We employed latent growth curve modeling to analyze change in risk perception throughout the crisis. Our results suggest that, in general, people's perceptions of risk appear to decrease most rapidly during the initial phase of a crisis and then begin to level off. Negative emotion about the crisis was the most predictive of increased risk perception, supporting the notion of risk as feelings. Belief in one's ability to realize personal objectives was also predictive. Confidence in national leaders, however, was not predictive of perceived risk. Finally, our results demonstrate that groups may experience a crisis differently depending on a combination of personal characteristics such as gender, income, numeracy, and political attitude. Risk management and communication should work in sync with these mechanisms and differences across groups.
Notch ligands Delta1 and Jagged1 transmit distinct signals to T-cell precursors

Signaling through the Notch pathway plays an essential role in inducing T-lineage commitment and promoting the maturation of immature thymocytes. Using an in vitro culture system, we show that 2 different classes of Notch ligands, Jagged1 or Delta1, transmit distinct signals to T-cell progenitors. OP9 stromal cells expressing either Jagged1 or Delta1 inhibit the differentiation of DN1 thymocytes into the B-cell lineage, but only the Delta1-expressing stromal cells promote the proliferation and maturation of T-cell progenitors through the early double-negative (DN) stages of thymocyte development. Whereas the majority of bone marrow-derived stem cells do not respond to Jagged1 signals, T-cell progenitors respond to Jagged1 signals during a brief window of their development between the DN1 and DN3 stages of thymic development. During these stages, Jagged1 signals can influence the differentiation of immature thymocytes along the natural killer (NK) and gamma delta T-cell lineages.
Selective failure of brain-derived neurotrophic factor mRNA expression in the cerebellum of stargazer, a mutant mouse with ataxia

In search of the possible involvement of neurotrophic factors in inherited neurological disease, we examined brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), nerve growth factor (NGF), and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) mRNA expression patterns in the ataxic mutant mouse stargazer (stg). Using in situ hybridization, we found a selective and near total reduction in BDNF mRNA in the cerebellar granule cell layer. NT-3 or NGF mRNA expression in the cerebellum was normal. Northern blot analysis demonstrated a 70% reduction in BDNF mRNA in the whole cerebellum. BDNF mRNA levels in other mutant brain regions were unchanged. Absence of BDNF mRNA in granule cells was observed at postnatal age (P15), coincident with the onset of ataxia, and expression levels failed to follow the developmental increase found in the wild type at later ages (P20 and P30). Despite the severe BDNF reduction, in situ hybridization patterns for both the full-length and the truncated BDNF TrkB receptor mRNA were unaltered. No major cytoarchitectural abnormalities were apparent in the stg/stg cerebellum. BDNF expression in a related ataxic mutant, tottering, was unaltered. These data show that BDNF can be regulated selectively in distinct brain regions, possibly by differential activation of its multiple promoters. Absence of cerebellar granule cell BDNF mRNA in stg/stg mice demonstrates that sustained expression of this neurotrophin is not required for cell survival in the developing cerebellar cortex. Our data, in contrast, suggest a role of BDNF in maturation of specific cerebellar neurons and pathways. Early failure of cerebellar BDNF expression may be related to the ataxic phenotype in stg mice.
Do Boards Pay Attention When Institutional Investor Activists 'Just Vote No'?

We examine 'just vote no' campaigns, a recent innovation in low-cost shareholder activist tools whereby activists encourage their fellow shareholders to withhold votes toward a director's election to express dissatisfaction with management performance or the firm's corporate governance structure. Grundfest (1993) argues that a substantial withheld vote will motivate directors to take immediate action to avoid further embarrassment. We find a variety of supportive evidence, including operating performance improvements and abnormal disciplinary CEO turnover, indicating that campaigns induce boards to take actions in shareholders' interests. Furthermore, abnormal turnover is robust to controlling for concurrent events and firm- and CEO-specific controls.
A new formula for the log-likelihood gradient for continuous-time stochastic systems

Using a finitely additive white noise approach, we obtain an explicit expression for the gradient of the log-likelihood ratio for system parameter estimation for continuous-time linear stochastic systems with noisy observations. Our gradient formula includes the smoother estimates of the state vector, and derivatives of only the system matrices, and not the estimates or error covariances. A scheme to calculate the log-likelihood gradient without solving a Riccati equation is described when only one matrix and the initial covariance depend on the unknown parameter. >
Cross-Layer Design of Multicast in Fading: Network Coding and Asynchronous Subgradients

A cross-layer design along with an optimal resource allocation framework is formulated for wireless fading networks, where the nodes perform network coding. The aim is to jointly optimize end-to-end multicast rates, network code design variables, broadcast link flows, link capacities, average power consumption, and short-term power allocation policies. As in the conventional routing paradigm, the cross-layer optimization problem with network coding is non-convex in general. It is proved however, that dual decomposition is optimal so long as the fading at each wireless link is a continuous random variable. This result is leveraged to develop a subgradient algorithm for network control. The algorithm is asynchronous, whereby the dual updates at the physical layer can be affordably performed with a certain delay with respect to the resource allocation tasks in upper layers. Moreover, the long-term average values of multicast end-to-end rates, virtual flows, broadcast link flows, link capacities, and power consumption are shown to converge to near-optimal ones.
Bootstrapping Ternary Relation Extractors.

Binary relation extraction methods have been widely studied in recent years. However, few methods have been developed for higher n-ary relation extraction. One limiting factor is the effort required to generate training data. For binary relations, one only has to provide a few dozen pairs of entities per relation, as training data. For ternary relations (n=3), each training instance is a triplet of entities, placing a greater cognitive load on people. For example, many people know that Google acquired Youtube but not the dollar amount or the date of the acquisition and many people know that Hillary Clinton is married to Bill Clinton by not the location or date of their wedding. This makes higher n-nary training data generation a time consuming exercise in searching the Web. We present a resource for training ternary relation extractors. This was generated using a minimally supervised yet effective approach. We present statistics on the size and the quality of the dataset.
Ultrasonographic Diagnosis of Intrauterine Fetal Decapitation Secondary to Amniotic Band Sequence: A Case Report.

Abstract Background Amniotic band sequence (ABS) is a rare disorder that can result in a wide spectrum of congenital craniofacial, limb, trunk, and viscera deformities. One of the more rare manifestations of ABS is intrauterine fetal decapitation. Case Report This case report presents the ultrasonographic diagnosis of first-trimester intrauterine fetal demise resulting from decapitation secondary to amniotic band sequence. Why Should an Emergency Physician Be Aware of This? This case report presents a rare and atypical presentation of intrauterine demise valuable for an emergency physician to recognize while performing or reviewing pelvic ultrasounds. It is important for the clinician to understand and counsel the patient that subsequent pregnancies will not be at increased risk due to a prior miscarriage from ABS, as opposed to other etiologies of first-trimester spontaneous abortion.
Single-pot extraction-analysis of dyed wool fibers with ionic liquids.

Analytical capabilities to identify dyes associated with structurally robust wool fibers would critically assist crime-scene and explosion-scene forensics. Nondestructive separation of dyes from wool, removal of contaminants, and dye analysis by MALDI- or ESI-MS, were achieved in a single-pot, ionic liquid-based method. Ionic liquids (ILs) that readily denature the wool α-keratin structure have been identified and are conducive to small volume, high-throughput analysis for accelerated threat-response times. Wool dyed with commercial or natural, plant-based dyes have unique signatures that allow classification and matching of samples and identification of dyestuffs. Wool released 0.005 mg of dye per mg of dyed wool into the IL, allowing for analysis of single-thread sample sizes. The IL + dye mixture promotes sufficient ionization in MALDI-MS: addition of common MALDI matrices does not improve analysis of anionic wool dyes. An inexpensive, commercially available tetrabutylphosponium chloride IL was discove...
Western Blot Analysis of Antibody to Varicella-Zoster Virus

We used western blot (WB) to compare the IgG response to varicella-zoster virus (VZV) after chickenpox (CP), zoster, and administration of a live attenuated varicella vaccine (LAVV). After CP, 13 of 14 normal children had antibody to glycoprotein (gp) I (99 and 92 kilodaltons [kDa]), 11 had antibody to gpII (133 kDa), and 10 had antibody to gpIII (119 kDa). Bands at 150 and 35 kDa were also seen in 13 and 11 sera, respectively. Bands to gpI, gpII, and p35 were more intense after zoster than CP. After one dose of LAVV, eight of eight normal children had gpI antibody. In leukemic children, gpI antibody appeared in 18 (56%) after one dose and in 25 (89%) after two doses. Upon household exposure, leukemic vaccinees who developed CP were less likely than those protected to have prior gpIII and p35 antibodies. As seen after zoster, WBs after breakthrough CP showed intense responses to VZV antigens. Thus, WB helps distinguish secondary from primary antibody responses to VZV.
Advances in the Analysis of Conformational Transitions in Peptides Using Differential Scanning Calorimetry

Differential scanning calorimetry can measure the heat capacity of a protein/peptide solution over a range of temperatures at constant pressure, which is used to determine the enthalpy function of the system. There are several experimental factors that can have a significant impact on the determined enthalpy and subsequent derived thermodynamic parameters. These factors are discussed in terms of sample and instrument preparation, as well as data collection and analysis.
Who Does the Work? Partner Perceptions of the Initiation and Maintenance of Romantic Relationships

The contributions and effort that partners perceive each other to have made to the initiation and maintenance of their relationship may have significant individual and interpersonal consequences. Yet relatively little empirical research has explored such perceptions. The primary goal of the present investigation was to examine how both members of a sample of heterosexual romantic couples (N = 96 couples) perceived the balance of work in regard to both the initiation and the maintenance of their relationship. A second goal was to examine gender differences and similarities in perceptions of relationship work. A third goal was to explore relational outcomes (i.e., satisfaction and commitment) associated with these perceptions, and whether the link between perceptions and relationship outcomes differs as a function of partner gender. As expected, most participants (approximately 70%) perceived balance (equal sharing) in the work of maintaining the relationship. However, a majority (approximately 64%) perceived the work of relationship initiation as imbalanced (i.e., one partner contributing more than the other). Perceptions of balance versus imbalance in the work of relationship maintenance (but not initiation) were associated with satisfaction and commitment to the relationship. Interestingly, the pattern of association was different for men and women. The findings are discussed in terms of equity theory, as well as other theoretical frameworks.
Blogging the brand: Meaning transfer and the case of Weight Watchers’ online community

Brand communities are becoming increasingly popular online. The current study examines the Weight Watchers online brand community to understand the role consumer engagement plays in shaping brand meaning and how brand meaning is transferred through computer-mediated content. Social and cultural meanings are discussed. Practical implications for brand strategies are included and also how to engage consumers with content delivered through online communities.
The P2Y2 receptor mediates uptake of matrix-retained and aggregated low density lipoprotein in primary vascular smooth muscle cells.

Background and aims The internalization of aggregated low-density lipoproteins (agLDL) mediated by low-density lipoprotein receptor related protein (LRP1) may involve the actin cytoskeleton in ways that differ from the endocytosis of soluble LDL by the LDL receptor (LDLR). This study aims to define novel mechanisms of agLDL uptake through modulation of the actin cytoskeleton, to identify molecular targets involved in foam cell formation in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). The critical observation that formed the basis for these studies is that under pathophysiological conditions, nucleotide release from blood-derived and vascular cells activates SMC P2Y2 receptors (P2Y2Rs) leading to rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton and cell motility. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that P2Y2R activation mediates agLDL uptake by VSMCs.
Indoor tobacco legislation is associated with fewer emergency department visits for asthma exacerbation in children

Abstract Background During the past 3 decades, numerous cities and states have adopted laws that ban smoking in public indoor spaces. The rationale for these policies has been to protect nonsmokers from the adverse health effects of secondhand smoke. Objective To determine whether the implementation of indoor smoking legislation is associated with a decrease in emergency department visits for asthma in children. Methods This retrospective analysis used a natural experiment to estimate the impact of clean indoor air legislation on the rate of emergency department admissions for asthma exacerbation in children. Data were obtained from the Pediatric Health Information System. A Poisson regression was used for analyses and controlled for age, sex, race, payer source, seasonality, and secular trends. Results Asthma emergency department visits were captured from 20 hospitals in 14 different states plus the District of Columbia from July 2000 to January 2014 (n = 335,588). Indoor smoking legislation, pooled across all cities, was associated with a decreased rate of severe asthma exacerbation (adjusted rate ratio 0.83, 95% confidence interval 0.82–0.85, P Conclusion Indoor tobacco legislation is associated with a decrease in emergency department visits for asthma exacerbation. Such legislation should be considered in localities that remain without this legislation to protect the respiratory health of their children.
What’s the story? A computational analysis of narrative competence in autism

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder demonstrate narrative (i.e. storytelling) difficulties which can significantly impact their ability to form and maintain social relationships. However, existing research has not comprehensively documented these impairments in more open-ended, emotionally evocative situations common to daily interactions. Computational linguistic measures offer a promising complement to traditional hand-coding methods of narrative analysis and in this study were applied together with hand coding of narratives elicited with emotionally salient scenes from the Thematic Apperception Test. In total, 19 individuals with autism spectrum disorder and 14 typically developing controls were asked to tell stories about six images from the Thematic Apperception Test. Both structural and qualitative aspects of narrative were assessed using a hand-coding system and Latent Semantic Analysis, an automated computational measure of semantic similarity. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder demonstrated significant difficulties with the use of complex syntax to integrate their narratives and problems explaining characters' intentions. These and other key narrative skills were strongly related to narrative competence scores derived from Latent Semantic Analysis, which also distinguished the autism spectrum disorder group from controls. Together, results underscore key narrative impairments in autism spectrum disorder and support the promise of Latent Semantic Analysis as a valuable tool for the quantitative assessment of complex language abilities.
Unraveling Ternary Protein Interactions in the Living Cell with Tricolor Fluorescence Microscopy

Characterization of protein-protein interactions inside the living cell by fluorescence microscopy has been in almost every case limited to the study of pairwise interactions. Since most protein complexes contain more than two protein species, more powerful characterization methods than currently available are needed. We recently demonstrated the characterization of ternary protein systems in live cells using tricolor fluorescence fluctuation spectroscopy (FFS) combined with heterospecies partition analysis. The original description of tricolor FFS was based on a graphical interpretation of heterospecies brightness graphs. Here we advance the method by combining the original qualitative interpretation of tricolor FFS data with quantitative modeling to identify the binding affinity of ternary protein systems. We apply the method to the ternary protein system consisting of coactivator transcription intermediate factror2 and two nuclear receptors (retinoic acid receptor and retinoid X receptor) both in the absence and presence of the agonist. The results of the tricolor analysis were used to develop a potential interaction model for this protein system, and the influence of the agonist on the interactions will be discussed. This work has been supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (R01 GM64589).
Solving Astrom Problem Based on Statistical Fuzzy PID Control

Abstract Astrom problem is referred to as a real time control of a nonlinear, time-variant beam-and-ball system. Previsously, the author of this paper has demonstrated using fuzzy logic and neural network technique, we can establish control objective in real time. However, in order to further improve the system performance, especially reduce the controller’s over-correction under heavy random disturbances, there is a need to develop a more reliable control algorithm. In this paper, we discuss a technique combining the fuzzy logic PID controller with a conventional statistical process control (SPC.) The SPC technique is utilized as a supervisor to monitor the random disturbances and to identify the need of a control action against the randm noise. Simulation result of the SPC-fuzzy PID controller for the first order system is provided.
A theory for monodisperse spray vaporization in adiabatic and isothermal systems

Abstract The motion and the associated phenomena of a monodisperse spray undergoing evaporation in an isothermal or adiabatic gas stream are investigated theoretically. Particular emphasis is placed on initially cold flows that may lack sufficient energy to achieve complete spray vaporization. Expressions are derived for the spacial variations of droplet velocity and size, the gas velocity and temperature, and a criterion on the initial conditions for complete spray vaporization. The relative importance of various factors affecting rapid vaporization over short distances are discussed.
Psychological status and weight variability over eight years: Results from Look AHEAD.

Objective Cross-sectional studies suggest an association between weight cycling and psychological status. Although this is often interpreted as suggesting that weight cycles "cause" psychological distress, the relationship could be bidirectional. This study provides a prospective analysis of the bidirectional association between weight variability and psychological status over an 8-year period in overweight/obese adults with Type 2 diabetes. Method Data were from the first 8 years of Look AHEAD, a randomized controlled trial comparing health outcomes in individuals with Type 2 diabetes assigned to an intensive lifestyle intervention designed to produce weight loss or a diabetes education and support control group. Psychological status (mental health, depressive symptoms, binge eating) was assessed via surveys and were examined in relation to weight variability at both baseline and year 8. Weight variability was derived from 8 possible annual measurements from participants who had a minimum of 3 consecutive body weight measurements (N = 4,774) and operationalized as the number of year-to-year cycles and the coefficient of variation across all available weight measurements. Results Controlling for study group, higher baseline scores on mental health (Short Form-36 Mental Component Summary) and lower levels of depressive symptomatology (Beck Depression Inventory) and binge eating (Questionnaire on Eating and Weight Patterns) were associated with significantly less subsequent weight variability. The prospective association between weight variability and psychological status at year 8 was less robust. Conclusions These results suggest that the cross-sectional relationship between weight variability and psychological status is due primarily to poorer psychological function preceding greater weight instability. (PsycINFO Database Record
Orff in Afrique Programming and the Master Drummer’s Call: The Late Professor Komla Amoaku’s Philosophy in Practice

ABSTRACTAs internationalism rings ever louder in 21st century classrooms, terms such as “global citizenship,” “beyond tolerance” “and “multicultural awareness” apply to preparing students for diversity-steeped futures. Although such learning-outcomes language appears current to some, tendencies to work together with profound results have taken past forms. One such example is the lesser-known exchange between Ghana's Dr Komla Amoaku and Germany's Carl Orff. In collaborating, the two unlikely matched pedagogues forged a unity from which grew Ghanaian-based programmes such as the Institute for Music and Development, Orff in Afrique, and the Nunya Music Academy. Furthermore, through Orff Schulwerk societies, conferences, and classrooms, the occidental and West-African blend is presented to select groups around the world. Just as current multicultural language speaks to contemporary education, the Amoaku Orff initiatives spoke to musical multiculturalism well before such language was educational lingua franca....
Keeping Good Faith in Diplomacy: Negotiations and Jurisdiction in the ICJ's Application of the CERD

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) refused jurisdiction in Georgia’s suit against Russia under the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, finding that the treaty’s jurisdictional clause, which limits jurisdiction to unsettled disputes, did not apply in the absence of good-faith negotiation. The court reversed its provisional measures order, which entertained jurisdiction, and continued a line of cases holding that clauses like the treaty’s jurisdictional clause serve mainly to give the parties notice of the dispute. The ICJ’s ruling noted that these clauses also reflect limits on parties’ consent to jurisdiction and a general preference for negotiated solutions. This suggests that the court will scrutinize attempted diplomacy more in the future to ensure goodfaith conduct. Yet the court refused to overturn precedents permitting use of open forums such as the UN and finding negotiations where the specific treaty obligations are not identified, making good faith harder to ensure. The ICJ’s adherence to a more flexible standard thus still provides a way for complainants to satisfy jurisdictional thresholds without fully engaging respondents beforehand.
Why? Attributions About and by Entrepreneurs

To help explain events and behavior, people search for causes. In some cases the identified causes are found within persons, in other cases they are found in the environment, in still other cases they are found in the interaction between person and environment. When provided with multiple opportunities for observation, people typically follow a principle of covariation. With only one chance for observation, people rely on causal schemata. Although attributional inferences are often correct, there are two primary classes of attributional error. First, there is a natural difference in perspective between actors and observers. Actors are “looking outward,” concentrating on factors in the environment, but observers are concentrating only on the actor. This perspective difference leads observers to over-attribute events to persons, paying too little attention to situational factors, a cognitive mistake known as the fundamental attribution error. Second, there are errors created by the observer’s motivation. Three examples are the self-serving bias, the need to believe in a just world, and defensive attribution. These errors and objective attribution processes are described and illustrated by examples from entrepreneurship.
Biomarkers in the Emergency Department

Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a clinical syndrome ranging in severity from unstable angina to ST-elevation acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Early diagnosis and risk stratification are needed so that early treatment can appropriately be administered to those at highest risk (1). Because ACS is a heterogeneous disease process, accomplishing these goals, especially in the patient without ST-elevation, can be challenging. The emergency department (ED) is often on the front line of this challenge and is faced with 5 million patient visits for chest pain each year (2). Of these patients, approx 25% will be diagnosed with ACS (3).
Retaining intensive care nurses in Las Vegas: The importance of nurse manager leadership

Retaining Intensive Care Nurses in Las Vegas: The Importance of Nurse Manager Leadership Megan Vendetti In today's healthcare climate, retaining staff nurses is desirable and may be a more permanent solution to improve the nursing shortage. Employing a leadership style that is conducive to staff nurse job satisfaction may be needed to achieve that goal. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of the unit manager leadership style with job satisfaction and intent to stay in the intensive care setting. Staff nurses in two Las Vegas hospitals, one private and one public, were surveyed. A questionnaire was developed and voluntarily completed by 125 registered nurses employed in adult and pediatric intensive care units. Analysis of the data was made using Pearson correlations to determine the relationship between the dependent variables of job satisfaction and intent to stay and multiple independent variables. Regression analysis was then completed to find the measures that impacted the job satisfaction and intent to stay the greatest. The findings suggested that job satisfaction and intent to stay in a position were not affected by nurse manager leadership style in this population. The nurse's instead seemed to strive for more of their basic needs, which was found to be a factor in both job satisfaction and retention and suggests further research.
Performance Measurements of an Airfoil at Low Reynolds Numbers

Performance characteristics of an Eppler 387 airfoil using both direct (force) and indirect (pressure) measurement techniques have been obtained at Reynolds numbers from 60,000 to 460,000 in the Langley Low-Turbulence Pressure Tunnel. Lift, drag, and pitching-moment data were obtained from two internally-mounted strain-gage balances specifically designed for small aerodynamic loads. Comparisons of these results with data from a pressure model of an Eppler 387 airfoil are included. Drag data for both models using the wake traverse method are compared with the balance data. Oil flow visualization and surface mounted hot-film sensors were used to determine laminar-separation and turbulent-reattachment locations. Problems associated with obtaining accurate wind-tunnel data at low Reynolds numbers are discussed.
Current Practice Patterns and Perceived Needs of Occupational Therapy Practitioners in Middle Schools.

ABSTRACTThis study explored the practice patterns and perceived needs of American middle-school-based occupational therapy practitioners. An online survey was sent to occupational therapy professio...
Answering English Questions using Foreign-Language, Semi-Structured Sources

Despite continuing advances in machine translation technology, users who lack familiarity with particular foreign languages have no good way to find information in those languages. In this paper, we present a technical framework and implemented system that answers English questions on the basis of information in foreign-language, semi-structured sources such as websites. This work helps users locate, with high precision, relevant segments of foreign- language information, and then makes use of existing machine translation services to present that information in English. The resulting technology extends an approach embodied in the START information access system and its supporting Omnibase uniform data access system, and it has been applied to several Chinese and Arabic websites.
Wise guidance and its challenges: the new Canadian recommendations on breast cancer screening.

[See related article at [www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.180463][2]][2] KEY POINTS Value, defined as clinical outcomes relative to costs, is increasingly emphasized in health care around the world.[1][2] Discussions on value at the system level often focus on the cost component of the value
CA Mutation N57A Has Distinct Strain-Specific HIV-1 Capsid Uncoating and Infectivity Phenotypes

The ability of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) to transduce nondividing cells is key to infecting terminally differentiated macrophages, which can serve as a long-term reservoir of HIV-1 infection. The mutation N57A in the viral CA protein renders HIV-1 cell cycle dependent, allowing examination of HIV-1 infection of nondividing cells. Here, we show that the N57A mutation confers a postentry infectivity defect that significantly differs in magnitude between the common lab-adapted molecular clones HIV-1NL4-3 (>10-fold) and HIV-1LAI (2- to 5-fold) in multiple human cell lines and primary CD4+ T cells. Capsid permeabilization and reverse transcription are altered when N57A is incorporated into HIV-1NL4-3 but not HIV-1LAI The N57A infectivity defect is significantly exacerbated in both virus strains in the presence of cyclosporine (CsA), indicating that N57A infectivity is dependent upon CA interacting with host factor cyclophilin A (CypA). Adaptation of N57A HIV-1LAI selected for a second CA mutation, G94D, which rescued the N57A infectivity defect in HIV-1LAI but not HIV-1NL4-3 The rescue of N57A by G94D in HIV-1LAI is abrogated by CsA treatment in some cell types, demonstrating that this rescue is CypA dependent. An examination of over 40,000 HIV-1 CA sequences revealed that the four amino acids that differ between HIV-1NL4-3 and HIV-1LAI CA are polymorphic, and the residues at these positions in the two strains are widely prevalent in clinical isolates. Overall, a few polymorphic amino acid differences between two closely related HIV-1 molecular clones affect the phenotype of capsid mutants in different cell types.IMPORTANCE The specific mechanisms by which HIV-1 infects nondividing cells are unclear. A mutation in the HIV-1 capsid protein abolishes the ability of the virus to infect nondividing cells, serving as a tool to examine cell cycle dependence of HIV-1 infection. We have shown that two widely used HIV-1 molecular clones exhibit significantly different N57A infectivity phenotypes due to fewer than a handful of CA amino acid differences and that these clones are both represented in HIV-infected individuals. As such minor differences in closely related HIV-1 strains may impart significant infectivity differences, careful consideration should be given to drawing conclusions from one particular HIV-1 clone. This study highlights the potential for significant variation in results with the use of multiple strains and possible unanticipated effects of natural polymorphisms.
Suffering and Healing in the Context of LVAD Treatment

Background: Illness narratives with meaningful, competent and targeted content have been shown to provide useful guides for patient decision-making and have positive influences on health behaviors. The use of narratives in decision aids can confer a sense of structure, plot and context to illness experiences and help patients make treatment decisions that feel sensible, informed, and transparent. Aim: This paper presents narratives of suffering and healing from patients and their caregivers with advanced heart failure who engaged in decision-making regarding Left Ventricular Device Assist (LVAD) treatment. Methods: Narratives were collected from in-depth interviews with patients who accepted (n = 15) versus declined (n = 15) LVAD implant, LVAD candidates who had received education about LVAD and were in the process of making a decision (n = 15), and caregivers (family or significant others) of LVAD patients (n = 15). Results: Participants shared “restitution” narratives that most commonly conveyed a shift from pre-implant physical suffering and “daily hell,” fatigue so intense it “hurts,” along with emotional suffering from inability to engage with the world, to post-implant improvements in mobility and quality of life, including positivity and family support, adaptation on a “journey,” “getting one’s life back” and becoming “normal” again. Conclusion: For LVAD patients, other patients’ illness narratives can help to give meaning to their own illness and treatment experiences and to more accurately forecast treatment impacts on lifestyle and identity. For clinicians, patient narratives can enhance patient–practitioner communication and understanding by highlighting perspectives and values that structure patients’ clinical experiences.
Grand Unified Theories

Attempts of going beyond the standard model to achieve a unification of all particle interactions lead to constructions called grand unifications, or grand unified theories. Two such theories are discussed in this chapter.
Telling the Story of Childhood Cancer-The Experience of Families After Treatment.

Background:The Discovery Interview methodology was introduced to Oncology Services Group in 2012 as a service improvement strategy and was evaluated positively by staff and families. It enabled cli...
Fetal Neuroimaging Update.

Objectives: To review the current imaging techniques available for the evaluation of the fetal brain. Findings: Ultrasound remains the initial screening modality with routine scanning typically performed at 18-20 weeks gestation. When a central nervous system (CNS) abnormality is noted by ultrasound, MRI is increasingly being used to further clarify findings. Fetal MRI has the unique ability to provide high detailed anatomical information of the entire human fetus with high contrast resolution. This technique has grown due to the development of rapid single shot image acquisition sequences, improvement of motion correction strategies and optimizing shimming techniques. Conclusions: The assessment of fetal CNS anomalies continues to improve. Advanced MRI techniques have allowed for further delineation of CNS anomalies and have become a cornerstone in the assessment of fetal brain well-being. Those interpreting fetal studies need to be familiar with the strengths and limitations of each exam and be sensitive to the impact discussing findings can have regarding perinatal care and delivery planning. Collaboration with neurologists, neurosurgeons, geneticists, counselors, and maternal fetal specialists are key in providing the best care to the families we treat.
Houston Toad and Other Chorusing Amphibian Species Call Detection Using Deep Learning Architectures

The preservation of species from extinction using automatic animal voice detection from audio recordings is a topic of high interest in bioacoustics. The Houston Toad is an endangered amphibian and researchers of the Biology Department at Texas State University are working on a project to rescue this species. The initial approach used by the researchers is called Automated Recording Device (ARD) that only detects the Houston Toad calls. However, it has shown limited success identifying toad calls. If a species is not a Houston Toad but has a frequency spectrum close to a Houston Toad, then the ARD falsely identifies it as a Houston Toad. Hence, the current ARD solution produces high false-positives. This paper proposes a modified ARD solution to detect not only the Houston Toad, but also the Gulf Coast Toad, ther Crawfish Frog, and the Woodhouse's Toad experimenting deep learning architectures: Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), Convolutional neural network (CNN), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Gated Recurrent Units (GRUs) with dominating audio features such as MFCC, LPC, PLP, Mel-Filterbanks, Spectrogram and takes an attempt to improve the performance of the toad calls identification system with reduced false-postive rate. This work also proposes a new single board computing platform NVIDIA Jetson Nano for on-filed deployment of the model.
Mass Transfer of a Reactive Minor Species in a Battery

A mathematical treatment is presented of the equations governing the mass transfer of a reactive species (ionic) present in small concentration in a battery.
Microfluidic Packaging Integration with Electronic-Photonic Biosensors Using 3D Printed Transfer Molding

Multiplexed sensing in integrated silicon electronic-photonic platforms requires microfluidics with both high density micro-scale channels and meso-scale features to accommodate for optical, electrical, and fluidic coupling in small, millimeter-scale areas. Three-dimensional (3D) printed transfer molding offers a facile and rapid method to create both micro and meso-scale features in complex multilayer microfluidics in order to integrate with monolithic electronic-photonic system-on-chips with multiplexed rows of 5 μm radius micro-ring resonators (MRRs), allowing for simultaneous optical, electrical, and microfluidic coupling on chip. Here, we demonstrate this microfluidic packaging strategy on an integrated silicon photonic biosensor, setting the basis for highly multiplexed molecular sensing on-chip.