cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Increased Education is Associated with Decreased Compliance in an Urban Multi-Ethnic Lupus Cohort

Objectives: To investigate the factors associated with medication compliance in a multi-ethnic population of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus in an urban community.Methods: We surveyed patients in our cohort using the standardized measures of the Compliance- Questionnaire-Rheumatology (CQR), the Beliefs about Medications Questionnaire (BMQ), as well as patient selfreported compliance. Demographic and clinical characteristics of compliant and non-compliant patients underwent bivariate analysis. A multivariate analysis was then performed on variables of interest.Results: Of the 94 patients who agreed to participate in the survey, 89 fully completed each questionnaire. Overall, 48% of patients were compliant by CQR. In multivariate analyses, higher education level was associated with non-compliance. Spanish-speaking patients and those with an income of greater than $15,000 per year were more likely to be compliant.Conclusions: In this urban lupus population, several factors may influence medication compliance. Factors associated with non-compliance are not what have been found in other populations. Further studies looking into specific reasons for certain areas of non-compliance as well as addressing these issues will be important in both treatment and outcomes in lupus patients in implementing appropriate interventions.
A Review of “Crossroads of Empire: The Middle Colonies in British North America”

Crossroads of Empire traces the development of the middle colonies (New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania) from the arrival of Europeans and Africans to the eve of revolution. Ned C. Landsman, a p...
The Language of the Stones: The Agency of the Inanimate in Literary Naturalism and the New Materialism

A suspicion toward inherited notions of agency has long been recognized (and frequently decried) as a defining feature of literary naturalism. But while the deterministic worldview of writers like Theodore Dreiser generated much lively debate in the early twentieth century, literary scholarship’s investment in the unresolved (and perhaps unresolvable) questions of inanimate agency raised by such works was gradually eclipsed by other concerns. Recently, however, a vigorous interest in such metaphysical questions has resurfaced in the discourse of new materialism, an interdisciplinary and politically committed field of scholarship dedicated to revising humanity’s conventional associations of materiality with passivity and predictability. While this is ostensibly a “new” movement, placing new materialism in the context of American literary history underscores how old—or rather timeless—the concerns addressed by the new materialism really are. Given these similarities, Trumpeter proposes that new materialist discourse stands to profit from a more nuanced understanding of literary naturalism and the discourse of new materialism can likewise help American literary scholars return to naturalist works with a more refined and reenergized perspective on the genre’s perennial concerns. This essay examines the role of the inanimate in Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy as a means for tracing connections and highlighting divergences between these two intellectual movements engaged in drawing humanity’s attention to the surreptitiously active nature of things.
The Analysis of geothermal operation cost factors

In this paper, the main independent variables that can impact the running cost of geothermal industries are analyzed, and these analyses are aim at finding the relationship between the impacts and cost. For the first, the development situation of geothermal is deployed and some negative barriers of geothermal are listed. Then, the main barriers are defined and introduced with the lectures researches, the degrees and the reason that these barriers can make extra investment to the geothermal are analyzed. The analysis help finding a new way to solving and utilizing the ground energy and with comparison with current hydrid and steam geothermal features, ground source heat systems is proved that it indeed can help to solve the listed problems of geothermal. And the conclusion of the advantages of the new technology can be used develop geothermal in future.
Robotics Applications to Transplanting of Plug Seedlings

The production of seedlings for transplants, especially plug seedlings, has become avery beneficial procedure in commercial greenhouses. One necessary task in a plug production system is the transplanting of seedlings from one container to another to allow further growth and development. This transplanting operation is currently done by human labor. The seedlings are young plants of various shapes and sizes, depending on the species, age and the containers used fortheir growth. The large volume of plug production every year (estimated 2.75 billion in North America in 1989) emphasized the need for automating the plug transplanting operation. And, inherent uncertainty and variability associated with the seedling production conditions prompted our study of flexibly automated transplanting using robots.
Effects of monensin and pH on the production and utilization of pyro-glutamate, a novel product of ruminal glutamine deamination.

Abstract Pure cultures of monensin-sensitive ruminal bacteria were involved in both the production and utilization of pyro-glutamate (pyrrolidone carboxylic acid), a novel product of glutamine fermentation, but the effect of monensin on pyro-glutamate accumulation in mixed cultures had not been assessed. Mixed ruminal bacteria (n = 3) fermented glutamine (40 mM) at a rapid rate (63 nmol/[mg protein-min]) and there was a transient increase in pyro-glutamate (3 mM). Monensin (5 ppm) decreased the rate of glutamine fermentation 70% and greatly enhanced the conversion of glutamine to pyro-glutamate (50 vs 7%). Glutamate was fermented at nearly the same rate as glutamine, and monensin eliminated glutamate fermentation. Glutamate was never converted to pyro-glutamate. Trypticase, a pancreatic digest of casein, contained pyro-glutamate, and a significant fraction (30%) of its N was never converted to ammonia. Pyro-glutamate utilization was reduced by monensin and low pH (less than 6.0). Based on these in vitro observations, pyro-glutamate could be a significant end-product of glutamine degradation when animals are fed monensin.
Myeloid neoplasm demonstrating a STAT5B-RARA rearrangement and genetic alterations associated with all-trans retinoic acid resistance identified by a custom next-generation sequencing assay

We describe the case of a patient presenting with several weeks of symptoms related to pancytopenia associated with a maturation arrest at the late promyelocyte/early myelocyte stage of granulocyte differentiation. A diagnosis of acute promyelocytic leukemia was considered, but the morphologic features were atypical for this entity and conventional tests for the presence of a PML-RARA fusion gene were negative. Additional analysis using a custom next-generation sequencing assay revealed a rearrangement producing a STAT5B-RARA fusion gene, which was confirmed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and supplementary cytogenetic studies, allowing the diagnosis of a morphologically atypical form of acute promyelocytic leukemia to be made. Analysis of the sequencing data permitted characterization of both chromosomal breakpoints and revealed two additional alterations, a small deletion in RARA exon 9 and a RARA R276W substitution, that have been linked to resistance to all-trans retinoic acid. This case highlights how next-generation sequencing can augment currently standard testing to establish diagnoses in difficult cases, and in doing so help guide selection of therapy.
Role of Copper in Mitochondrial Iron Metabolism

Heme synthesis by copper-deficient cells was investigated to elucidate the nature of the defect in intracellular iron metabolism. Iron uptake from transferrin by copper-deficient reticulocytes was 52% of normal, and the rate of heme synthesis was 33% of normal. Hepatic mitochondria isolated from copper-deficient animals were deficient in cytochrome oxidase activity and failed to synthesize heme from ferric iron (Fe III) and protoporphyrin at the normal rate. The rate of heme synthesis correlated with the cytochrome oxidase activity. Heme synthesis from Fe(III) and protoporphyrin by normal mitochondria was enhanced by succinate and inhibited by malonate, antimycin A, azide, and cyanide. It is proposed that an intact electron transport system is required for the reduction of Fe(III), thereby providing a pool of ferrous iron (Fe II) for protoheme and heme a synthesis.
Accident Impact Prediction.

For the first time, real-time high-fidelity spatiotemporal data on the transportation networks of major cities have become available. This gold mine of data can be utilized to learn about the behavior of traffic congestion at different times and locations, potentially resulting in major savings in time and fuel, the two important commodities of the twenty-first century. According to FASANA Motion report (Report 2012), approximately 50 % of the freeway congestions are caused by nonrecurring issues, such as traffic accidents, weather hazard, special events, and construction zone closures. Hence, it is fairly important to quantify and predict the impact of traffic incidents on the surrounding traffic. This quantification can alleviate the significant financial and time losses attributed to traffic incidents, for example, it can be used by city transportation agencies for providing evacuation plan to eliminate potential congested grid locks, for effective dispatching of emergency vehicles, or even for long-term policy-making. Moreover, the predictive information can be either used by a driver directly to avoid potential gridlocks or consumed by a predictive route-planning algorithm (e.g., Demiryurek et al. 2011) to ensure a driver to select the best route from the start. The McKinsey report (McK 2011) predicts a worldwide consumer saving of more than $600 billion annually by 2020 for location-based services, where the biggest single consumer benefit will be from time and fuel savings from navigation services tapping into real-time traffic data. Therefore, let us consider a navigation system utilizing predictive route-planning algorithm as a next-generation consumer navigation system (incar or on smartphone). We notate such systems as ClearPath, as a motivating application, which can help drivers to effectively plan their routes in real time by avoiding the incidents’ impact areas. That is, suppose an accident is reported in real time (by crowdsourcing (WAZE 2014) or through agency reports or SIGALERTS (2013)) in front of a driver, but the accident is 20 min away. If we can effectively predict the impact of the accident, ClearPath would know that this accident would be cleared in the next 10 min. Thereby, ClearPath would guide the driver directly toward the accident because it knows that by the time the driver arrives in the area, there would be no accident.
Protein Engineering of Interferon Alphas

Interferon (IFN)-alphas constitute a family of proteins exhibiting high degree of homology in primary, secondary, and tertiary structure and display a high level of species specificity in their biological properties. However, small structural differences in these proteins may be responsible for a significant variety of biological actions. Understanding the structure and function of human IFN-alpha is very important. Recombinant techniques are important tools for the production and modification of IFN proteins. The first IFN hybrid, IFN-alpha1/alpha2 was constructed using recombinant technology in 1981. Subsequently, a number of IFN hybrids and mutants have been constructed, expressed and characterized. These hybrids and mutants have resulted in novel IFNs that either combine different biological properties from the parental proteins or have significantly different biological activity. Therefore, IFN hybrids and mutants have provided a powerful tool for studying the structure and function of these molecules. Also, these engineered IFNs may have important new therapeutic applications and may provide greater sights into understanding of the clinical activities of these molecules.
Archaeologies of Anxiety: The Materiality of Anxiousness, Worry, and Fear

This chapter furthers recent attempts to theorize archaeological actors as emotional beings. For quite some time, archaeologists have included allusions to emotional states or emotive drivers in their renderings of past societies. Yet, in these discussions, emotions have been largely unfocused and implicit. Recent efforts to engage more explicitly with the interpretation of emotions in archaeology have sought new approaches and terminology to encourage archaeologists to take emotions seriously and this chapter thus opens with an exploration of the evolving understanding of emotions and their materiality. It uses the firm connection between emotions and things to work through how communities use material objects and cultural landscapes to negotiate the senses. The chapter then moves to the ways that contributors address past emotional communities and the geographically and temporally variable ways that people experienced the world. It then points to spaces, residues, and collections of things that archaeologists may use in identifying anxiety in the archaeological record.
Improved Butanol–Methanol (BUME) Method by Replacing Acetic Acid for Lipid Extraction of Biological Samples

Extraction of lipids from biological samples is a critical step in lipidomics, especially for shotgun lipidomics where lipid extracts are directly infused into a mass spectrometer. The butanol–methanol (BUME) extraction method was originally developed to extract lipids from plasma samples with 1 % acetic acid. Considering some lipids are sensitive to acidic environments, we modified this protocol by replacing acetic acid with lithium chloride solution and extended the modified extraction to tissue samples. Although no significant reduction of plasmalogen levels in the acidic BUME extracts of rat heart samples was found, the modified method was established to extract various tissue samples, including rat liver, heart, and plasma. Essentially identical profiles of the majority of lipid classes were obtained from the extracts of the modified BUME and traditional Bligh–Dyer methods. However, it was found that neither the original, nor the modified BUME method was suitable for 4-hydroxyalkenal species measurement in biological samples.
Survivors of Childhood Cancer and Cancer Treatments

Chemotherapy and radiation therapy in childhood malignancy may result in arrested or delayed puberty. Physical exam with assessment of Tanner staging every 6 months to 1 year along with serial measurements of LH, FSH, and estradiol by age 13 is paramount to monitoring pubertal milestones. Prior to treatment with chemotherapy or radiation, fertility preservation options including ovarian transposition or advanced reproductive technologies (ART)—oocyte, embryo, or ovary freezing—should be discussed. This chapter will provide a case-based approach to understanding the pubertal complications associated with the treatment of childhood malignancy.
A practical guide to photoacoustic tomography in the life sciences

The life sciences can benefit greatly from imaging technologies that connect microscopic discoveries with macroscopic observations. One technology uniquely positioned to provide such benefits is photoacoustic tomography (PAT), a sensitive modality for imaging optical absorption contrast over a range of spatial scales at high speed. In PAT, endogenous contrast reveals a tissue's anatomical, functional, metabolic, and histologic properties, and exogenous contrast provides molecular and cellular specificity. The spatial scale of PAT covers organelles, cells, tissues, organs, and small animals. Consequently, PAT is complementary to other imaging modalities in contrast mechanism, penetration, spatial resolution, and temporal resolution. We review the fundamentals of PAT and provide practical guidelines for matching PAT systems with research needs. We also summarize the most promising biomedical applications of PAT, discuss related challenges, and envision PAT's potential to lead to further breakthroughs.
A Recollection with Appreciation

I first met Tris Engelhardt in the early 1970s at a dissertation defense of a mutual friend at the University of Texas at Austin Philosophy Department. I was working on my PhD there. Tris had completed his PhD there in record time some years earlier and had recently moved from Tulane Medical School to the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) as an Assistant Professor. At a celebratory party for the successful candidate later that evening, Tris and I got into a rather lively discussion about embodiment. He laid out and defended Hegel’s categorial treatment. I argued for Merleau-Ponty’s account that I thought positively augmented Husserl’s. Sometime after that, we began corresponding on the same topic—of course, never really coming to agreement. This correspondence importantly provided me with a link that I used later.
Decision-making and exchange processes of dual-military couples: A review and suggested strategies for navigating multiple roles.

As the number of dual-earner couples has increased, so has the number of dual-military couples. Individuals in dual-military couples experience many of the same challenges and benefits as dual-earn...
Oct-tree terrain modelling methods for terrain reference navigation systems

This paper describes the use of oct-trees to represent digitised terrain elevation data (DTED) in terrain reference navigation (TRN) systems. Oct-trees provide a regular method to represent digitised terrain data where the level of detail of the terrain is encoded in the tree structure. The use of oct-trees also provides a basis for a significant reduction in the on-line storage requirement for DT-EDs. A method of encoding using Morton ordering is introduced which allows DTEDs to be accessed as oct-trees and quad-trees where the tree structures are represented as pointerless structures. Algorithms to construct and access terrain oct-trees are presented which form a set of access primitives for tree operations required in TRN applications. The paper concludes with examples to illustrate the efficiency of the methods described in the paper for two DTEDs, in terms of performance of the tree access operations and reductions in storage.
Sensitive dependence of complex systems: an agent-based modelling demonstration

The objective of this paper is to provide insights about the phenomenon of sensitive dependence of complex systems on initial conditions i.e., the butterfly effect. An agent-directed simulation of a case study is presented to demonstrate and investigate this phenomenon. The case study used is exploring the impact of one person on a population's genome. A population growth simulation was created as a baseline. Every agent in the population was given a unique ten-digit identifier to represent their DNA coding. Other simulations were run with small perturbation factors introduced to the initial conditions. Results show that mild perturbations introduced to a population growth model can significantly alter the genetic structure of a population in the long term. Furthermore, the simulation revealed a positive relationship between the complexity of the system and the speed at which the butterfly effect emerges.
Correlations of Genotype with Climate Parameters Suggest Caenorhabditis elegans Niche Adaptations.

Species inhabit a variety of environmental niches, and the adaptation to a particular niche is often controlled by genetic factors, including gene-by-environment interactions. The genes that vary in order to regulate the ability to colonize a niche are often difficult to identify, especially in the context of complex ecological systems and in experimentally uncontrolled natural environments. Quantitative genetic approaches provide an opportunity to investigate correlations between genetic factors and environmental parameters that might define a niche. Previously, we have shown how a collection of 208 whole-genome sequenced wild Caenorhabditis elegans can facilitate association mapping approaches. To correlate climate parameters with the variation found in this collection of wild strains, we used geographic data to exhaustively curate daily weather measurements in short-term (3 month), middle-term (one year), and long-term (three year) durations surrounding the date of strain isolation. These climate parameters were used as quantitative traits in association mapping approaches, where we identified 11 quantitative trait loci (QTL) for three climatic variables: elevation, relative humidity, and average temperature. We then narrowed the genomic interval of interest to identify gene candidates with variants potentially underlying phenotypic differences. Additionally, we performed two-strain competition assays at high and low temperatures to validate a QTL that could underlie adaptation to temperature and found suggestive evidence supporting that hypothesis.
Uridine diphosphoglycosyl compounds and theirimportance in metabolism

It is now about 10 years since the first isolation of a uridine nucleotide which was shown to have a definite role in intermediary metabolism.
Parents' Traditional Cultural Values and Mexican-Origin Young Adults' Routine Health and Dental Care

Abstract Purpose To investigate the prospective associations between Mexican-origin mothers' and fathers' traditional cultural values and young adults' health and dental care utilization and to test the moderating role of youth gender. Methods Mexican-origin parents and youth (N = 246 families) participated in home interviews and provided self-reports of parents' cultural values (time 1) and young adults' health status and routine health and dental care (time 2; 5 years later). Logistic regressions tested parents' traditional cultural values as predictors of routine health and dental care, accounting for parent nativity, parent acculturation, family socioeconomic status, youth gender, youth age, and youth physical health status. We also tested whether youth gender moderated the associations between parents' cultural values and young adults' routine care. Results Young adults whose mothers endorsed strong familism values when they were in mid-to-late adolescence were more likely to report at least one routine physician visit in the past year as young adults (odds ratio [OR] = 3.47, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.23–9.83, p = .019). Furthermore, for females only, mothers' more traditional gender role attitudes predicted reduced odds of receiving routine health (OR = .22; 95% CI: .08–.64, p = .005) and dental care (OR = .26; 95% CI: .09–.75, p Conclusions Our findings highlight the importance of examining intragroup variability in culturally specific mechanisms to identify targets for addressing ethnic/racial disparities in health care utilization among Mexican-origin young adults, during a period of increased risk for health-compromising behaviors and reduced access to care.
Countersuits and the Politics of Abandoned WTO Trade Disputes

Why are so many WTO trade disputes initiated but never completed? At least one third of all WTO trade disputes are not settled early, nor go to panel. Given the costs associated with initiating a trade dispute, this is an unusually high number. I argue that dropped disputes are a useful domestic political tool - leaders can use them to enhance their standing, particularly close to elections, but if they are unable to reach an early settlement, they can abandon those disputes to avoid potential retaliation without much domestic harm, given the length of dispute resolution and the questionable compliance record. As such, I argue that disputes initiated close to an election of the executive in the complainant country are much more likely to be abandoned. I focus on safeguards, antidumping and countervailing duties that lead to WTO disputes, and test this hypothesis using a two-stage selection model. I nd evidence that suggests that electoral politics may indeed play a role in which disputes are abandoned.
A seasonal pattern of presentation in younger patients with de novo acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

6617 Background: Seasonal variation in AML has been studied in a wide variety of populations and locations, with primarily negative results. These investigations may have been undermined by the het...
Host responses to cycles of climate change shape parasite diversity across North America's Intermountain West

Host-parasite cospeciation, in which parasite divergence occurs in response to host divergence, is commonly proposed as a driver of parasite diversification, yet few empirical examples of strict cospeciation exist. Host-parasite co-evolutionary histories commonly reflect complex mosaics of cospeciation, dispersal, lineage extinction and other phenomena. The episodic host-switching model of parasite diversification accounts for complexity by suggesting that diversification and faunal assembly is a consequence of fluctuation between environmental disruption and environmental stability. The phylogeographic predictions of the strict cospeciation and episodic host-switching models were tested using the North American pika/parasite assemblage, with a primary focus on the American pika, Ochotona princeps (Richardson, 1828), and a suite of its endoparasitic cestodes and nematodes. This approach integrating phylogeographic and demographic methods with inferences drawn from species distribution modelling revealed that the parasite community of pikas has been shaped by climate-driven range fluctuation of hosts and bouts of geographic and host colonization by parasites associated with transitions between glacial and interglacial phases.
A novel tool for naturalistic assessment of behavioural dysregulation after traumatic brain injury: A pilot study.

Objective: This study aimed to develop a novel tool for measuring behavioural dysregulation in adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI) using objective data sources and real-world application and p...
Development and implementation of a competency-based clinical evaluation tool for midwifery education

Abstract Background The learning goals and evaluation strategies of competency-based midwifery programs must be explicit and well-defined. In the US, didactic learning is evaluated through a standardized certification examination, but standardized clinical competence evaluation is lacking. Description of the tool The Midwifery Competency Assessment Tool (MCAT) has been adapted from the International Confederation of Midwives' (ICM) "Essential Competencies" and from the American College of Nurse-Midwives' (ACNM) "Core Competencies", with student self-evaluation based on Benner's Novice-to-Expert theory. The MCAT allows for the measurement and monitoring of competence development in all domains of full-scope practice over the course of the midwifery program. Application and evaluation of the tool Strengths of the MCAT are that it provides clear learning goals and performance evaluations for students, ensures and communicates content mapping across a curriculum, and highlights strengths and gaps in clinical opportunities at individual clinical sites and for entire programs. Challenges of the MCAT lie in balancing the number of competency items to be measured with the tedium of form completion, in ensuring the accuracy of student self-evaluation, and in determining "adequate" competence achievement when particular clinical opportunities are limited. Conclusions Use of the MCAT with competency-based clinical education may facilitate a more standardized approach to clinical evaluation, as well as a more strategic approach to clinical site development and use.
Binary Coefficients Redux

Paleoecologists and paleogeographers still make use of binary coefficients in multivariate analysis decades after being introduced to the geosciences. Among the main groups, similarity, matching and association, selecting a particular coefficient remains a confusing and sometimes empirical process. Coefficients within groups tend to correlate highly when applied to datasets. With increasing interest in a probabilistic approach to grouping taxa or faunal lists, the Raup-Crick measure of association is closely related in purpose and empirically to coefficients of association and works well in cluster analysis and ordination. A reasonable strategy is to compare dendrograms and ordinations calculated with several coefficients, care being taken to select coefficients with different performance characteristics. Above all, the practitioner should understand the purpose of each coefficient.
Northernmost collection record of Lymantria narindra (Lepidoptera: Lymantriidae) in Thailand: males captured in (+)-disparlure-baited traps.

An experiment was conducted during March 2001 in Sai Yok, between Kancharaburi and Thong Pha Phum, Thailand, to determine the effect of sticky traps baited with new synthetic Lymantria spp. sex pheromone on L. narindra males. The traps contained one of the following lures: 100 µg (+)-disparlure or (7R,8S)-cis-7,8-epoxy-2-methyloctadecane (lure 1); the corresponding hydrocarbon of 50 µg disparlure, 2-methyl-Z7-octadecene (lure 2); and 50 µg lure 1, 5 µg lure 2 and 50 µg (+)-monachalure or (7R,8S)-cis-7,8-epoxy-octadecane. The traps were deployed between 20 and 22 March 2001 (2 nights) and 28 to 30 March 2001 (2 nights and traps checked after each night). Initial trapping captured 3 males (all in one trap) and the second trapping captured 2 males each in the same trap but on consecutive nights. All males, confirmed as L. narindra, were captured only in sticky traps baited with lure 1. The other trap lures failed to attract and trap the males. This is thought to be the first record of L. narindra near Sai Yok indicating a new northernmost collection record for L. narindra in Thailand and all of South East Asia.
Rapid and persistent RNAi response in western corn rootworm adults.

Abstract RNA interference (RNAi) has proven effective for controlling pest insects such as western corn rootworm (WCR), Diabrotica virgifera virgifera (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae). Previous studies have shown that WCR adults display a robust RNAi response to orally-administered double-stranded RNA (dsRNA). However, it is unclear how quickly the response occurs after ingestion or how long RNAi effect lasts after WCR stop ingesting diet containing dsRNA. In the current study, WCR adult females were provided with diet treated with dsRNAs of Laccase 2 and Argonaute 2, two nonessential genes, for 8 days. RNAi response in WCR females commenced as early as 10 h after exposure to dsRNA and lasted up to 40 days after exposure to dsRNA ended. Our results show that dsRNA-mediated RNAi response in WCR females is rapid and long-lasting. These findings suggest that even a short-term ingestion of transgenic plants expressing dsRNA by WCR may have a sustained impact on this insect.
The Anthropology of Mining: The Social and Environmental Impacts of Resource Extraction in the Mineral Age

This article examines the social and environmental costs of living in the mineral age, wherein contemporary global livelihoods depend almost completely on the extraction of mineral resources. Owing...
Executive function deficits in kindergarten predict repeated academic difficulties across elementary school

Abstract We investigated whether and to what extent deficits in executive functions (EF) increase kindergarten children’s risk for repeated academic difficulties across elementary school. We did so by using growth mixture modeling to analyze the first- through third-grade achievement growth trajectories in mathematics, reading, and science of a large (N = 11,010) sample of children participating in the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort of 2011 (ECLS-K: 2011). The modeling yielded four growth trajectory classes in mathematics, reading, and science. We observed an at-risk trajectory class in each academic domain using a standardized scale. Children in the at-risk class initially averaged very low levels of achievement (i.e., about two standard deviations below the mean) in first grade. Their trajectories remained very low or declined further by third grade. Trajectories for other classes were also generally flat but started and remained at higher levels of standardized achievement. Deficits in EF, particularly in working memory, increased kindergarten children’s risk of experiencing repeated mathematics, reading, and science difficulties across elementary school. These predictive relations replicated across three academic domains following statistical control for domain-specific and -general autoregressors as well as socio-demographic characteristics.
Gut permeability and depressive symptom severity in unmedicated adolescents.

Abstract Objective This study examined gut permeability in unmedicated adolescents with and without major depressive disorder. Method Medically healthy, non-medicated, 12–17 year-old females in a major depressive episode (MDE) or healthy controls, without any psychiatric condition, were enrolled. They completed the Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised (CDRS-R) and underwent a clinical interview. Preejection period (PEP) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) data were collected to measure autonomic nervous system activity. Following an overnight fast, participants ingested lactulose and mannitol and collected urine for 4 hours while still fasting, to examine gut permeability. Plasma cytokines (interleukin 1β, interleukin 6, and tumor necrosis factor α) were measured. Correlational analyses were used to examine the associations between relevant variables. Results 41 female participants (age: 14.8 ± 1.6 years, n = 25 with MDE) were enrolled. PEP, but not RSA, was inversely associated with neurovegetative symptom severity on the CDRS-R (r = -0.31, p Conclusions This is the first study to examine gut permeability in unmedicated adolescents, offering preliminary support for a mechanistic pathway linking sympathetic nervous system activation to increased gut permeability and activation of the innate immune system, likely contributing to the emergence of neurovegetative symptoms of depression.
High-frequency climate oscillations drive ice-off variability for Northern Hemisphere lakes and rivers

This study examines the climatic drivers of ice-off dates for lakes and rivers across the Northern Hemisphere. Most lakes and rivers have trended toward earlier ice-off dates over the last century, as would be expected from long-term climate change. However, we also identify modes of climate variability that significantly impact the short-term behavior of ice-off time series. In particular, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Pacific-North American Pattern (PNA), and to a lesser degree the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) explain a substantial fraction of the interannual variance in melt dates, while the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) generally do not. Furthermore, the spatial pattern of the early or late ice-off dates associated with the NAO, PNA, and ENSO matches a priori expectations due to the known surface temperature patterns associated with these oscillations. In all regions, the strongest correlation to ice-off is with one of the high-frequency modes—the NAO or PNA, suggesting that short-term weather variations play a stronger role than lower-frequency climate variability (ENSO, PDO, AMO) in driving ice-off.
A New Method for Estimating the Absolute Magnitude Frequency Distribution of Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs)

The distribution of solar system absolute magnitudes ($H$) for the near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) observable near opposition -- i.e. Amors, Apollos, and Atens ($A^3$) -- is derived from the set of ALL currently known NEAs. The result is based only on common sense assumptions of uniformly random distributions and that the orbital phase space and $H$-magnitude distribution of known NEAs is representative of the total population. There is no population or other modeling and no assumption on albedo except in interpreting the result as a size-frequency distribution (SFD). The analysis is based on the 18355 $A^3$ NEAs cataloged by the MPC as of June 2018. The observations from 9 of the top programs (in terms of number of distinct NEAs observed) and the smaller but deeper DECam NEO Survey are used, comprising 74696 measurements of 13466 NEAs observed within 30 deg of opposition. The only parameter in the analysis is an estimate of the detection magnitude limits for each program. A single power-law slope for the cumulative distribution, $\log(N {\sim}2$Km) provides a normalization that estimates ${\sim}10^8 A^3$ NEAs with $H < {\sim}27$ corresponding to NEAs greater than ${\sim}10$m in diameter for reasonable typical albedos. Restricting the analysis to Earth crossing asteroids (10839 known, 7336 selected, 36541 observed) produces the same power-law slope.
Safety climate, hearing climate and hearing protection device use among transportation road maintainers

BACKGROUND It is important to understand workplace factors including safety climate that influence hearing protection device (HPD) use. We sought to investigate the association between HPD use, safety climate, and hearing climate, a new measure specific to hearing. METHODS A survey was developed and distributed among transportation "maintainers" who perform road maintenance and repair. A new hearing climate measure was designed by adapting a safety climate measure. HPD use was assessed by asking workers how often they wear HPD while in noise. The differences in safety climate and hearing climate were compared by the frequency of HPD use using analysis of variance. RESULTS Among 166 maintainers, 54% reported always or almost always wearing HPD while noise exposed. High-frequency HPD users reported a statistically significant higher safety climate (P = 0.004) and hearing climate (P = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS Hearing climate predicts the frequency of HPD use and may be a useful measure when assessing and improving hearing conservation programs.
A Cure for Lochner-Phobia

Lochner v. New York is widely considered one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history. The basis for much of this vitriol is a widespread belief that economic liberties of the sort protected in Lochner lack any basis in the Constitution, a view espoused by a host of authorities across the ideological spectrum — including Robert Bork, Ronald Dworkin, Akhil Amar, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, former Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and current Chief Justice John Roberts. I, however, dissent. I argue in this Paper that the result in Lochner, as well as the pre-New-Deal Court’s protection for liberty of contract and related economic rights in general, are based on defensible interpretations of the Constitution. In reaching this conclusion, I adhere to the philosophy of originalism, or the view that constitutional provisions have the meaning they had when they were adopted. I contribute to existing literature by attempting to assemble the most comprehensive and detailed originalist analysis possible of Lochner-era constitutional economic liberties, including some sources that, so far as I am aware, have been overlooked in the prior scholarship addressing this question; as well as by more fully exploring the contours of constitutional economic rights, by which I mean the traditional exceptions to these liberties and the standard of review courts should use in enforcing them. In this Paper, I begin with a brief discussion of the basis in constitutional text for protecting economic liberty of the sort courts enforced during the Lochner era. I then present a thorough originalist argument in favor of Lochner-era constitutional economic liberties based on evidence from the periods before and shortly after the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption, respectively. Next, I identify several historically-justifiable exceptions to, or bases for restricting, these freedoms, formulating a judicial test for adjudicating economic-substantive-due-process challenges to legislation and applying the proposed test to the facts of a real case, so as to illustrate how the standard I devise would function in practice. I then mitigate the more radical implications of my arguments by suggesting some ways in which courts might revitalize more modest forms of economic liberty so as to minimize disruption to settled jurisprudence and give due deference to democratic policymaking. Finally, I conclude with discussion of the public-policy issues raised by my arguments.
Risk of Landslides in Shallow Soils and Its Relation to Clearcutting in Southeastern Alaska

A significant increase in the frequency of landslides in shallow soils on hillside slopes of southeastern Alaska following timber harvest by clearcutting has been observed. This phenomenon relates to the loss of root strength and evapotranspiration stress that follows the cutting of the trees. A method for evaluating the landslide risk is described in this paper. A hillside with a nearly uniform slope is represented by an infinite slope and the piezometric level required for shear failure is computed. A one-dimensional infiltration-seepage model is used to calculate the response of the piezometric level to rainfall. Weather data are used to calculate the probability of the piezometric level exceeding the value required for slope failure. Uncertainties in soil strength and slope angle may also be accounted for in the calculation of failure probability. Field data obtained from a site near Hollis, Alaska, are used to illustrate the method of risk evaluation and cost analysis. FORESX SCI. 26:495-510. TIMBER HARVEST BY CLEARCUTTING is a common practice in the coniferous for- ests of the Cordilleran area. Among the many ecological problems caused by clearcutting in this area are the effects on the stability of steep hillside slopes. Data have been presented to show that clearcutting increases the creep rate of slopes (Barr and Swanston 1970, Gray 1970). Empirical evidence gathered in southeastern Alaska (Bishop and Stevens 1964, Swanston 1969) indicates that the frequency of landslides classified as debris avalanches increases significantly a few years after clearcutting. The debris avalanches in southeastern Alaska usually occur during periods of heavy autumn rain and begin with a small slide located near the top of the slope. Because of the high water content, the disturbed soil flows rapidly downhill as a viscous fluid and erodes much of the soil along its path. This results in a scar that extends from the initial slip to the bottom of the slope (Fig. 1). The probable occurrence of debris avalanches and its consequences are clearly important factors to be considered in the planning of logging opera- tions. Because the various factors that contribute to the development of a debris avalanche cannot be predicted with precision, a probabilistic approach to risk evaluation is appropriate. This approach is comparatively simple when applied to slides on approximately uniform or planar slopes with a shallow soil cover underlain by impervious bedrock such as those near Hollis, Alaska. Hence, so- lutions for these special conditions are readily obtained. The solutions presented
Allegiance effects in mindfulness-based interventions for psychiatric disorders: A meta-re-analysis.

Objectives: A recent meta-analysis reported that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) outperform specific active control conditions but not evidence-based treatments (EBTs) across various psychia...
Rational application of targeted therapeutics in mucinous colon/appendix cancers with positive predictive factors

Molecular-targeted therapies have demonstrated disappointing results against most advanced solid cancers. This may largey be attributed to irrational drug use against unselected cancers. We investigated the efficacy of dual MEK-PI3K drug therapy against KRAS mutated mucin 2 (MUC2)-secreting LS174T cells and patient-derived ex vivo and in vivo models of KRAS mutated mucinous colon/appendix cancers. These tumors demonstrate unique phenotypic and genotypic features that likely predict sensitivity to this targeted co-therapy. Co-treatment with MEK inhibitor (trametinib) and PI3K inhibitor (pictilisib)-induced synergistic cytotoxicity and intrinsic mitochondrial-mediated apoptosis in LS174T cells and tumor explants in vitro. Dual drug therapy also induced endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS)-associated proteins (GRP78/BiP, ATF4, and CHOP). However, CHOP knock-down assays demonstrated that mitochondrial-mediated apoptosis in LS174T cells was not ERS-dependent. Dual drug therapy also significantly decreased MUC2 expression, MUC2 post-translational modification (palmitoylation) and secretion in LS174T cells, suggesting a simultaneous cytotoxic and mucin suppressive mechanism of action. We also demonstrated effective mucinous tumor growth suppression in ex vivo epithelial organoid (colonoid) cultures and in in vivo intraperitoneal patient-derived xenograft models derived from mucinous colon/appendix cancer. These promising preclinical data support a role for dual MEK-PI3K inhibitor therapy in mucinous colon/appendix cancers. We postulate that mucinous KRAS mutated cancers are especially vulnerable to this co-treatment based on their unique phenotypic and genotypic characteristics.
Joint Representation of Color and Shape in Convolutional Neural Networks: A Stimulus-rich Network Perspective

Abstract To interact with real-world objects, any effective visual system must jointly code the unique features defining each object. Despite decades of neuroscience research, we still lack a firm grasp on how the primate brain binds visual features. Here we apply a novel network-based stimulus-rich representational similarity approach to study color and shape binding in five convolutional neural networks (CNNs) with varying architecture, depth, and presence/absence of recurrent processing. All CNNs showed near-orthogonal color and shape processing in early layers, but increasingly interactive feature coding in higher layers, with this effect being much stronger for networks trained for object classification than untrained networks. These results characterize for the first time how multiple visual features are coded together in CNNs. The approach developed here can be easily implemented to characterize whether a similar coding scheme may serve as a viable solution to the binding problem in the primate brain.