cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Reproductive ecology and behaviour of the Puerto Rican Nightjar Caprimulgus noctitherus

Summary The reproductive ecology and behaviour of the endangered Puerto Rican Nightjar Caprimulgus noctitherus was studied at the Guanica Forest, located in south-western Puerto Rico. From 1985 to 1987 a total of 23 nightjar nests were located. Nests were initiated between 24 February and 2 July. Nightjar males were mostly responsible for parental duties. An elaborate nest-relief ceremony was discovered for this species. Courtship and laying activities were most common during the new moon and last quarter phases. Hatching dates were centred 3-5 days around the first quarter and during full moon. A total of 87% of the nests were successful in producing at least one fledgling. Locomotory activity of radio-tagged nightjar males was higher during periods of twilight, and averaged 61.5 m/movement. Area of primary utilization (i.e. home range) averaged 5.2 ha/nightjar during the period of transmission. A large portion of the species's current range is privately owned forestland that could be subjected to changes (i.e. deforestation), rendering it useless for nightjars. The sedentary nature and nesting habits of this species make it particularly sensitive to the physical and ecological alteration of mature dry forest. Conservation of existing reserves, reforestation of disturbed areas with native and selected plantation species, and acquisition of privately owned tracts of mature dry limestone forest will help to insure the long-term survival of the species throughout its range.
Valid inequalities and facets of the capacitated plant location problem

Recently, several successful applications of strong cutting plane methods to combinatorial optimization problems have renewed interest in cutting plane methods, and polyhedral characterizations, of integer programming problems. In this paper, we investigate the polyhedral structure of the capacitated plant location problem. Our purpose is to identify facets and valid inequalities for a wide range of capacitated fixed charge problems that contain this prototype problem as a substructure.
Ischemia-Reperfusion of Rat Livers Decreases Liver and Increases Kidney Multidrug Resistance–Associated Protein 2 (Mrp2)

Hepatic ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury during liver transplantation can lead to cholestasis and remote organ dysfunction. Multidrug resistance-associated proteins (Mrps) are efflux transporters known to transport a diverse set of substrates, such as amphipathic chemicals, organic anions, and endogenous molecules. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of hepatic IR injury on the expression of Mrps in rat liver and kidney. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to 60 min of partial hepatic ischemia. At various times after reperfusion (0, 3, 6, 24, and 48 h), the ischemic lobes were harvested as well as kidneys. RNA and protein expression of Mrps in livers and kidneys were determined by the branched DNA method, Western blot analysis, and tissue immunofluorescence. Mrp2 mRNA and protein expression in livers decreased after IR. Conversely, Mrp2 mRNA and protein expression in kidneys increased after IR. Mrp3 mRNA expression, and Mrp4 mRNA and protein expression in kidneys transiently increased after IR. The intensity of immunofluorescent staining of Mrp2 corresponded to changes in Mrp2 expression in livers and kidneys after IR as detected by Western blot analysis and was localized to the apical membrane domain in both tissues. These results demonstrate that after hepatic IR, downregulation of hepatic Mrp2 and upregulation of renal Mrp2 occur. These decreases in hepatic Mrp2 may contribute to cholestasis, yet increases in kidney may protect from oxidative stress and/or inflammation after hepatic IR.
Biochemistry of the induction and prevention of lipoperoxidative damage in human spermatozoa

Lipid peroxidation occurs in human sperm cells with damage to the cell plasma membrane, leading to loss of cytosolic components and hence to cell 'death'. The peroxidation may be induced at high rates in the presence of Fe2+ and ascorbate. It occurs at slower rates under physiological conditions as spontaneous lipid peroxidation, which has the following characteristics. The rate is constant over the time required for complete loss of motility in the cells of the sperm sample; one can thus use the time to complete loss of motility (TLM) as a ready measure of the rate. Loss of motility occurs at a characteristic extent of lipid peroxidation, assayed in terms of production of the peroxidative breakdown product, malonaldehyde (MA), that is independent of peroxidation rate. For human sperm, this extent corresponds to 0.1 nmol MA/10(8) cells. Human spermatozoa possess the anti-lipoperoxidative defence enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase plus glutathione reductase (GPX/GRD). The SOD activity is highly variable between human sperm samples while the activities of GPX and GRD are rather more constant. The rates of production of superoxide anion, O2-, and hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, from human spermatozoa are variable, but their sum calculated in O2- equivalents as O2- + 2H2O2 is quite constant. The variability arises from the variability in SOD activity: all H2O2 produced is from O2- due to the action of SOD. The essential role of SOD as defence enzyme is inferred from the observation that TLM of a given sperm sample is directly proportional to the SOD activity of that sample. The essential role of GPX/GRD is inferred from the observation that inhibition of GPX, either with mercaptosuccinate or with complete oxidation of intracellular reduced glutathione, results in a 20-fold increase in peroxidation rate. The capacity of the GPX/GRD system appears to be limited by the glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase-catalysed rate of production of NADPH, the required reductive substrate for GRD. Human spermatozoa appear to have enough anti-lipoperoxidative defensive capacity for lifetimes long enough for fertilization but still short enough for ready removal from the female reproductive tract in good time. Too low a defence capacity could lead to male infertility.
Relaxed Selection and the Evolution of RNA Virus Mucin-Like Pathogenicity Factors

Mucin-like regions contribute to pathogenicity in a variety of negative-stranded RNA viruses. These regions are characterized by a preponderance of O-linked glycosylation. They evolve exceptionally rapidly yet maintain their function as pathogenicity factors. Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain this evolutionary conundrum of phenotypic stability in the face of extreme genetic divergence: strong positive selection and relaxation of purifying selection. We determined the strength and direction of selection codon by codon across genes containing these regions and found that purifying selection is relaxed over the mucin-like regions relative to the genes in which they are found. This suggests that so long as these regions maintain sufficient O-linked glycosylation, they are free to evolve rapidly without loss of function as pathogenicity factors.
Lives in the Balance: Women With Cancer and the Right to Fertility Care

reproductive risks of cancer treatment and fertility preservation options available pursued assisted reproductive techniques. Moreover, at a time when young patients are forced to confront a life-threatening cancer diagnosis, the opportunity to discuss fertility preservation, related to the future restoration of health, allows patients to feel hopeful about their survival and life after cancer. Withholding available information and existingmedicaltechnologiesfromwomenisindirectoppositiontothegoal ofprotectingpatientautonomy.Educatingoncologiststoaddressfertility concerns and add this skill set to their care of young patients furthers the objective of caring for the whole patient and not the cancer alone. This advanceinoncologicpractice,whichextendstosurvivorshipattheoutset
Small Business Entrepreneurships In The United States

A small business entrepreneur is defined as an individual who establishes and manages a business for the principal purpose of profit and growth. Small businesses constitute an increasingly large proportion of businesses generally in the United States’ economy. They account for 39 per cent of the United States’ gross national product and create two out of every three new jobs in our economy. Seven important prerequisites are identified as being necessary for successfully operating a small business. These include adequate financing, qualified personnel, efficient operation and production, marketing and sales, customer service, information management and administration. One of the most significant contributors to failure of a small business relates to acquisition of adequate capital. Small Business Administration (SBA) was established by Federal Government in 1953 to provide low interest loans to small business borrowers that would not otherwise have access to credit. However, there is some criticism that these SBA programs unfairly benefit, not the small businesses, but the financial institutions that participate in the SBA loan programs. Another significant source of debt financing to small businesses is known as ‘micro-financing,’ started as new wave in providing capital to small businesses by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus, in Bangladesh.
Value Promotion in Health Care: The Importance of Symmetry.

Health care systems around the world are under pressure to restrain health care expenditures. In response, many health care leaders have embraced the idea of promoting health care value, with value defined “as the healthcare outcomes achieved per dollar spent.”1 For instance, some experts have urged third-party payers to adopt value-based insurance designs, whereby the amount patients pay out-of-pocket for health care services varies not as a function of the cost of those services but, instead, as a function of their value.
Decitabine enhances chemosensitivity of early T-cell precursor-acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell lines and patient-derived samples

Therapies targeting epigenetic modifications have emerged as a promising approach for treating hematologic cancers. Our previous work examining a large collection of paired relapse and diagnostic s...
The acoustic consequences of phonation and tone interactions in Jalapa Mazatec

San Felipe Jalapa de Diaz (Jalapa) Mazatec is unusual in possessing a three-way phonation contrast and three-way level tone contrast independent of phonation. This study investigates the acoustics of how phonation and tone interact in this language, and how such interactions are maintained across variables like speaker sex, vowel timecourse, and presence of aspiration in the onset. Using a large number of words from the recordings of Mazatec made by Paul Kirk and Peter Ladefoged in the 1980s and 1990s, the results of our acoustic and statistical analysis support the claim that spectral measures like H1-H2 and mid-range spectral measures like H1-A2 best distinguish each phonation type, though other measures like Cepstral Peak Prominence are important as well. This is true regardless of tone and speaker sex. The phonation type contrasts are strongest in the first third of the vowel and then weaken towards the end. Although the tone categories remain distinct from one another in terms of F0 throughout the vowel, for laryngealized phonation the tone contrast in F0 is partially lost in the initial third. Consistent with phonological work on languages that cross-classify tone and phonation type (i.e. ‘laryngeally complex’ languages, Silverman 1997), this study shows that the complex orthogonal three-way phonation and tone contrasts do remain acoustically distinct according to the measures studied, despite partial neutralizations in any given measure.
The Parotid Gland is an Underrecognized Organ at Risk for Craniospinal Irradiation

Purpose:Current craniospinal irradiation (CSI) protocols do not include the parotid gland as an organ at risk, potentially leading to late effects of xerostomia and secondary parotid malignancies. ...
Does Reacting to the Past Increase Student Engagement? An Empirical Evaluation of the Use of Historical Simulations in Teaching Political Theory

ABSTRACTWithin the teaching of political theory, an assumption is emerging that Reacting to the Past simulations are an effective tool because they encourage greater student engagement with ideas and history. While previous studies have assessed the advantages of simulations in other political science subfields or offered anecdotal evidence of their effectiveness in political theory courses, less attention has been paid to the empirical assessment of simulations in political theory. This study uses data — in the form of presimulation and postsimulation surveys, as well as focus groups — collected from two political theory courses in order to gauge levels of student engagement inside and outside of the classroom. We ask if students’ levels of engagement increase during the simulation in their political theory courses. We also explore the mechanisms involved in driving higher levels of student engagement during the simulation. We conclude by arguing that it is the liminal nature of the Reacting to the Past ...
ShRkC: Shard Rank Cutoff Prediction for Selective Search

In search environments where large document collections are partitioned into smaller subsets shards, processing the query against only the relevant shards improves search efficiency. The problem of ranking the shards based on their estimated relevance to the query has been studied extensively. However, a related important task of identifying how many of the top ranked relevant shards should be searched for the query, so as to balance the competing objectives of effectiveness and efficiency, has not received much attention. This task of shard rank cutoff estimation is the focus of the presented work. The central premise for the proposed solution is that the number of top shards searched should be dependent on --- 1. the query, 2. the given ranking of shards, and 3. on the type of search need being served precision-oriented versus recall-oriented task. An array of features that capture these three factors are defined, and a regression model is induced based on these features to learn a query-specific shard rank cutoff estimator. An empirical evaluation using two large datasets demonstrates that the learned shard rank cutoff estimator provides substantial improvement in search efficiency as compared to strong baselines without degrading search effectiveness.
Energy-Transducing Coupling Factor F0F1 from Mycobacterium phlei

An understanding of the molecular mechanism(s) of the energy transduction for the synthesis of ATP and active transport of solute requires a basic knowledge of the component parts necessary to carry out these functions and is, thus, automatically concerned with the little-understood area where chemical function is intimately involved with physical structure at the molecular level of membrane organization. Methods used to study biochemical processes depend on the resolution of the process into component parts. Solubilized coupling factors were first resolved from Mycobacterium phlei and described as protein component(s) necessary for the restoration of phosphorylation (Brodie and Gray, 1956; Brodie, 1959); however, the latent ATPase associated with the coupling factor was not recognized.
Nerve Sprouting and Cardiac Arrhythmias

After division, crushing, interference of blood supply, or other means of injury, the peripheral nerves undergo Wallerian degeneration and axonal regeneration. This regenerative process, termed nerve sprouting , is well described, both in the central nervous system and in the peripheral nervous system. If the nerve sprouts form synapses, they may result in permanent changes of local innervation, leading to functional consequences. Myocardial infarction (MI) causes nerve injury and regional sympathetic denervation. Afterward, nerve sprouting occurs and results in a regional increase of sympathetic hyperinnervation. 1 Although the magnitude of nerve sprouting varies from subject to subject, there is a correlation between the density of sympathetic nerve and occurrence of ventricular arrhythmia. 2 3 In this chapter, we will review the relationship between sympathetic nerve sprouting and cardiac arrhythmia.
Leonardo da Vinci — The Bio-mechanician

Dibner, in his book “Leonardo da Vinci, Military Engineer,” wrote: “If on some sunny Saturday morning, Leonardo da Vinci were invited to appear at one of the regular meetings of the joint chiefs of staff in Washington, called there by the very simple expedient developed by Van Loon of slipping an invitation under some statue the night before, he would surely appear. He might, perhaps, be a little uncomfortable in his velvet robe and heavy beret. However, he would soon forget his discomfort in the excitment of the conversation. He would listen eagerly to the discussion of strategy and tactics and the assessing of reports of the functioning of the latest weapons of the various fronts. Much of the conversation would of course be strange to him, but generally he would follow the comments and reports not as a stranger. Recommendation for a barrage to be laid down here, combined operations there, tank assault following softening from the air, chemical warfare at this point, the success of submarine attack. All this would pass through his mind and the important points would go down into his ever present notebook with a sketch where possible. Should the discussion turn to the big elements, big guns big areas, great numbers, he might even drop a well-considered word. Discussions of electronics alone would leave him wondering.”
Migration as an Adaptive Response to Ethnic Nationalism in Russia

In this paper, I argue that migration responses to push factors can differ along ethnic lines. To arrive at migration as an adaptive response in which minorities engage, two processes are necessary. First, an individual making the decision to migrate must interpret ethnic tensions as a threat to her life chances, and she must evaluate her future prospects in this ethnically charged framework. Second, the option of migration must be a viable one. That is, an individual must consider them self the plausible target of the threat of diminishing life chances, conclude that an adaptive response is required, and determine that the benefits of migrating outweigh the costs. In order to explain these processes, the relational theory of ethnic politics (Hale 2008) and demographic theories of migration are employed. To test this hypothesis, an event history model is estimated using regional, household, and individual-level data from Russian censuses and the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey. The relationship between out-migration and regional nationalist vote share is examined as well as regional hate crimes. The findings suggest that political push factors affect minority groups differently from the ethnic majority, supporting the hypothesis that the success of ethno nationalist politics in a region signals vulnerability to ethnic minorities, influencing migration decisions.
Kinetics of Cations with C2 Hydrofluorocarbon Radicals

Reactions of the cations Ar+, O2+, CO2+, and CF3+ with the C2 radicals C2H5, H2C2F3, C2F3, and C2F5 were investigated using the variable electron and neutral density attachment mass spectrometry technique in a flowing afterglow–Langmuir probe apparatus at room temperature. Rate coefficients for observed product channels for these 16 reactions are reported as well as rate coefficients and product branching fractions for the 16 reactions of the same cations with each of the stable neutrals used as radical precursors (the species RI, where R is the radical studied). Reactions with the stable neutrals proceed by charge transfer at or near the collisional rate coefficient where energetically allowed; where charge transfer is endothermic, bond-breaking/bond-making chemistry occurs. While also efficient, reactions with the radicals are more likely to occur at a smaller fraction of the collisional rate coefficient, and bond-breaking/bond-making chemistry occurs even in some cases where charge transfer is exotherm...
Bias and Precision of Alternate Estimators in Meta-Analysis: Benefits of Blending Schmidt-Hunter and Hedges Approaches:

We describe a new estimator (labeled Morris) for meta-analysis. The Morris estimator combines elements of both the Schmidt-Hunter and Hedges estimators. The new estimator is compared to (a) the Sch...
The Influence of Early Ophthalmic Hospitals on the Journal.

Purpose To consider the American Journal of Ophthalmology's (AJO's) role not only as a forum to describe clinical and scientific advances but also as a record of institutional histories. We used the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and the Wills Eye Hospital as case studies on the Journal's role in documenting the people and organizations that have moved ophthalmology forward. Design Perspective. Methods Using the ScienceDirect database, we conducted a literature search to gather all mentions of the 3 eye hospitals in the Journal's archives from 1918 to 2018. We evaluated those search results to identify a few of the individuals and articles that highlight how the history of eye institutions are reflected in the AJO. Results Searches for the aforementioned 3 hospitals yielded over 3400 results in Journal archives. These included articles on their histories, proceedings from clinical case conferences, profiles of prominent surgeons, and information about educational offerings, among others. Many of those articles were written by physicians from those institutions who also served on the AJO's editorial board or had a long history of publishing in the Journal. Conclusions The AJO has played a crucial role in the last 100 years as a register of ophthalmic history. The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and Wills Eye Hospital provide 3 examples of how that role manifests.
Fractionation of Interphotoreceptor Matrix Metalloproteinases

Metalloproteinases (MPs) present in the interphotoreceptor matrix (IPM) may play a role in both the maintenance of normal retinal homeostasis and the progression of various degenerative retinal diseases. We wished to extend our previous studies of these enzymes and begin their characterization by first obtaining them in purified form.
Simple optimization techniques for A*-based search

In this paper, we present two simple optimizations that can reduce the number of priority queue operations for A* and its extensions. Basically, when the optimized search algorithms expand a state, they check whether they will expand a successor of the state next. If so, they do not first insert it into the priority queue and then immediately remove it again. These changes might appear to be trivial but are well suited for Generalized Adaptive A*, an extension of A*. Our experimental results indeed show that they speed up Generalized Adaptive A* by up to 30 percent if its priority queue is implemented as a binary heap.
Digital government and the digital divide

There seems to be a consensus among scholars and pundits that the lack of access to the Internet among African-Americans and Latinos has created a digital divide in the United States. The digital divide has negatively affected the ability of minority groups to accumulate social capital. This study compares Internet access rates in California and the United States in order to test the premise that race is the primary influence upon Internet access. In California, the data explicitly depicts a stronger relationship between Internet access and education and income than it does with Internet access and race. Across the United States, the results are not as stark. However, education and income are increasingly becoming important variables. The policy implications of this study are dramatic. Since most governmental and non-profit efforts in the United States have put resources and money into decreasing the racial divide, this study suggests that at least some of those resources should be shifted to alleviating the educational and economic discrepancies that exist among the American people.
An mRNA decapping enzyme from ribosomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Abstract By use of [ 3 H]methyl-5′-capped [ 14 C]mRNA from yeast as a substrate, a decapping enzyme activity has been detected in enzyme fractions derived from a high salt wash of ribosomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae . The product of the decapping reaction is [ 3 H]m 7 GDP. That the enzyme is not a non-specific pyrophosphatase is suggested by the finding that the diphosphate product, m 7 GpppA(G), and UDP-glucose are not hydrolyzed.
Benzyl Ethers: Formation and Removal: Tri-O-benzylamylose and Methyl 4-O-Benzyl-β-d-glucopyranoside: Debenzylation via Sodium in Liquid Ammonia and via Bromination

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the formation and removal of benzyl ethers. Benzyl ethers are used as hydroxyl protecting groups in carbohydrate chemistry because they are stable to both acids and bases yet can be removed under mild conditions. Synthesis of carbohydrate benzyl ethers involves treatment of the carbohydrate, in a suitable solvent, successively with base and benzyl halide. The solvents that have been used are N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF), tetrahydrofuran, dioxane, and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). Sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, sodium hydride, silver oxide, and barium oxide have been used as bases and benzyl chloride and benzyl bromide as alkylating reagents. The choice of base is also dependent upon the carbohydrate derivative to be benzylated. If the derivative is base-stable, a strong base such as sodium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, or sodium hydride is employed.
Assessment of Water Purification Technologies in Developing Countries

According to United Nations, there has been drinking water crisis in many developing countries. Aside from the direct impact of diminishing health and living condition, there are secondary impacts on poor education. To combat these issues, there are multiple technological innovations to solve this crisis. This research has identified six candidate technologies that are utilizing different methods for filtration and disinfection of harmful agents to create safe drinking water. In order to effectively choose and weight the criteria, we utilized both research and industry articles that we leveraged in the gap analysis. Multi-criteria Decision Analysis approach has been applied to evaluate the identified technologies. The findings of this research can assist communities in developing countries to select the appropriate water purification technologies to improve people's health conditions. The research also provides decision support for organizations and governments on which technology to choose for water purification.
Postoperative Low-Dose Heparin Infusion Does Not Change Complication Rates after Limb Revascularization.

Background Postoperative subtherapeutic low-dose heparin infusion (LDHI) is sometimes administered in patients undergoing extremity arterial revascularization to maintain graft patency and decrease the risk of thrombosis. However, the safety of this management strategy is unknown. Methods From 2013 to 2015, we retrospectively reviewed all patients undergoing upper and lower extremity arterial revascularization at a single university–affiliated medical center. Patients were grouped by receipt of LDHI within the first 24-hour postoperative period. Preoperative demographics, comorbidities, intraoperative measures, 30-day postoperative complications, arterial patency rates, and amputation rates were analyzed for each group. Results We identified 379 patients who received extremity revascularization, and 56 (14.8%) of them had received LDHI. Patients who received LDHI were less likely to have an elective admission on presentation (26.8% vs. 56%, P Conclusions Although LDHI was more likely to be administered in patients who received emergent operations, risk-adjusted analysis demonstrated that it was not associated with increased postoperative bleeding, mortality, short-term need for reintervention, or amputation after extremity arterial revascularization.
TriCore: parallel triangle counting on GPUs

Exact triangle counting algorithm enumerates the triangles in a graph by identifying the common neighbors of two vertices of each edge. In this work, we present TriCore, a scalable GPU-based triangle counting system that consists of three major techniques. First, we design a binary search based algorithm that can increase both the thread parallelism and memory performance on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), both of which are absent from prior work. Second, in contrast to prior attempts which require multiple graph representations, i.e., compressed sparse row (CSR), edge list, and bitmap, to be present in the GPU memory, TriCore evenly partitions and distributes the partitioned CSR data across all the GPUs, and uses a streaming buffer to load the edge list from the CPU memory on the fly. This design enables TriCore to process the graphs that are orders of magnitude larger than the GPU memory. Third, we further develop a dynamic workload management technique to balance the workload across GPUs. our evaluation demonstrates that TriCore on a single GPU can count the triangles in the billion-edge Twitter graph within 24 seconds, that is, 22× faster than the state-of-the-art CPU project which uses CPUs that are 8× more expensive. When processing big graphs (up to 33.4 billion edges) that are ∼22× larger than the memory size of a single GPU, it achieves 24× speedup when scaling from 1 to 32 GPUs.
High impedance alert with safety switching: An unreported hazard of hybrid pacing systems

Several Boston Scientific pacemaker models have a known issue with intermittent oversensing of the minute ventilation sensor when paired with non-Boston Scientific leads. Several of our patients with these hybrid systems have had transient out of range impedances and oversensing after safety switching which we suspected may be related. A retrospective analysis of 395 patients who had pacemakers implanted between 2015-2017 found that transient out of range impedances with safety switching was present in 9% of Boston Scientific pacemakers paired with Abbott or Medtronic leads compared with 0% in other device-lead combinations (P = 0.0089). We postulate that the root cause of the minute ventilation oversensing and transient high impedance issue is the same, a header-lead interaction from low-level incompatibility. Recognizing this issue is critical to prevent unnecessary lead revisions or extractions as it can be prevented with a simple reprogramming of lead pace/sense configuration.
Modern Vision Science for Designers: Making Designs Clear at a Glance

Why do some interfaces allow users to find what they need easily while others do not? What information can the visual system effortlessly extract, and what requires slower, more cognitive processes? What does eye-tracking data tell us about what users perceive? Vision scientists have recently made ground-breaking progress in understanding many aspects of vision that are key to good design. A critical determining factor is what information is available at a glance. This course reviews state-of-the-art vision science, including a computational model that visualizes the available information. We will demonstrate use of this model in evaluating and guiding visual designs.
Acquisition and Generalization of Physical Fitness Exercises in Three Profoundly Retarded Adults

A systematic individual instruction program was employed to teach three profoundly retarded adults selected physical fitness exercises. Measures were taken to determine if the subjects (a) learned the exercises under the individual instruction program, (b) generalized the exercises to a group physical fitness program, and (c) generalized learning the exercises to the point of learning nontrained exercises in the group physical fitness program without additional individual training. Data were also gathered on the maintenance of the exercises in the individual and group settings. Results indicated that the profoundly retarded adults learned the selected exercises and generalized the exercises to a group physical fitness program. Performance on nontrained exercises in the group physical fitness program also improved without additional individual training. The subjects maintained all exercises, trained and nontrained, in both the individual and group settings.
Differential responses of amphibian and reptile assemblages to size of riparian buffers within managed forests.

Streamside management zones (i.e., riparian buffers; SMZs) are commonly implemented within managed forests to protect water quality but may also provide habitat for riparian-associated wildlife. Yet, little research has rigorously addressed the value of SMZs for wildlife, particularly for cryptic species such as amphibians and reptiles. Previous studies of herpetofauna within SMZs have focused on one or a few stream-associated species, and questions remain regarding variation among species or guilds and what role SMZs serve toward conservation of herpetofaunal diversity in managed forests. However, recent statistical advances have improved our ability to analyze large multi-species presence-absence data sets, accounting for low detection rates typical for some herpetofaunal species. Our study represents an extensive landscape-scale examination of herpetofaunal communities within SMZs using a multi-species occupancy approach. We conducted four replicate surveys at 102 headwater streams, spanning a gradient of SMZ widths and adjacent forest stand ages, within the Ouachita Mountains, Arkansas, USA. We used a hierarchical Bayesian community occupancy model to estimate species richness and species-specific occupancy responses to SMZ and overstory characteristics, accounting for variation in occupancy and detection attributable to site and sampling covariates. We documented high richness (37 species) within SMZs. Across the herpetofaunal community, occupancy and species richness were consistently positively associated with SMZ width, with maximum predicted richness of 30 species occurring at sites with buffers extending 51 m on either side of the stream. However, we documented considerable variation among groups and species within groups, underscoring the potential for different responses to forest management among taxa. Reptile predicted richness increased more rapidly up to SMZs of ~35 m, whereas maximum salamander predicted richness was not seen until an SMZ width of 55 m. Estimated salamander richness was highest within SMZs embedded in mature managed pine stands and was higher in SMZs comprised of a deciduous or mixed overstory vs. a pine overstory. Compared to salamanders, more anuran species showed high mean estimated occupancy (>75%) at narrower SMZs (<30 m). Collectively, our results indicate that SMZs surrounding small first-order streams in intensively managed forests not only protect water quality, but also can support diverse amphibian and reptile communities.
Computer-Tailored Decision Support Tool for Lung Cancer Screening: Community-Based Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Lung cancer screening is a US Preventive Services Task Force Grade B recommendation that has been shown to decrease lung cancer-related mortality by approximately 20%. However, making the decision to screen, or not, for lung cancer is a complex decision because there are potential risks (eg, false positive results, overdiagnosis). Shared decision making was incorporated into the lung cancer screening guideline and, for the first time, is a requirement for reimbursement of a cancer screening test from Medicare. Awareness of lung cancer screening remains low in both the general and screening-eligible populations. When a screening-eligible person visits their clinician never having heard about lung cancer screening, engaging in shared decision making to arrive at an informed decision can be a challenge. Methods to effectively prepare patients for these clinical encounters and support both patients and clinicians to engage in these important discussions are needed. Objective: The aim of the study was to estimate the effects of a computer-tailored decision support tool that meets the certification criteria of the International Patient Decision Aid Standards that will prepare individuals and support shared decision making in lung cancer screening decisions. Methods: A pilot randomized controlled trial with a community-based sample of 60 screening-eligible participants who have never been screened for lung cancer was conducted. Approximately half of the participants (n=31) were randomized to view LungTalk—a web-based tailored computer program—while the other half (n=29) viewed generic information about lung cancer screening from the American Cancer Society. The outcomes that were compared included lung cancer and screening knowledge, lung cancer screening health beliefs (perceived risk, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, and self-efficacy), and perception of being prepared to engage in a discussion about lung cancer screening with their clinician. Results: Knowledge scores increased significantly for both groups with greater improvement noted in the group receiving LungTalk (2.33 vs 1.14 mean change). Perceived self-efficacy and perceived benefits improved in the theoretically expected directions. Conclusions: LungTalk goes beyond other decision tools by addressing lung health broadly, in the context of performing a low-dose computed tomography of the chest that has the potential to uncover other conditions of concern beyond lung cancer, to more comprehensively educate the individual, and extends the work of nontailored decision aids in the field by introducing tailoring algorithms and message framing based upon smoking status in order to determine what components of the intervention drive behavior change when an individual is informed and makes the decision whether to be screened or not to be screened for lung cancer.
A Framework for Sensing Radio Frequency Spectrum Attacks on Medical Delivery Drones

Drone susceptibility to jamming or spoofing attacks of GPS, RF, Wi-Fi, and operator signals presents a danger to medical delivery systems. A detection framework capable of sensing attacks on drones could provide the capability for active responses. The identification of interference attacks has applicability in medical delivery, disaster zone relief, and FAA enforcement against illegal jamming activities. A gap exists in the literature for solo or swarm-based drones to identify radio frequency spectrum attacks. Any non-delivery specific function, such as attack sensing, added to a drone involves a weight increase and additional complexity; therefore, the value must exceed the disadvantages. Medical delivery, high-value cargo, and disaster zone applications could present a value proposition that overcomes the additional costs. The paper examines types of attacks against drones and describes a framework for designing an attack detection system with active response capabilities to improve the reliability of delivery and other medical applications.
Respiratory decompensation due to COVID-19 requiring postpartum extracorporeal membrane oxygenation

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has rapidly spread since its emergence in December 2019, and has been associated with severe morbidity and mortality. This report includes an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges that the obstetrical population provides when considering optimal management strategy.We describe our approach to a preterm patient with high clinical suspicion for COVID-19 whose condition turned critical in the postpartum state.Differences in physiology during pregnancy, and goals for reducing both maternal and fetal risks, provide challenges when considering intensive care management, delivery timing, and method of delivery.
Neoplastic meningitis

Neoplastic meningitis is recognized clinically in 4% to 7% of patients with extraneural cancer, but it remains dramatically under-diagnosed. The frequency of neoplastic meningitis is increasing because of heightened clinical suspicion, improved neuroimaging techniques, and longer survival in patients with extraneural cancer Longer survival allows residual tumor cells within central nervous system sanctuary sites time to become symptomatic. Affected patients may present with cerebral, cranial nerve, or spinal signs and symptoms, depending on the specific sites of central nervous system (CNS) involvement. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) seems to be sensitive for detecting metastatic deposits along the neuraxis. However, metastases at a microscopic level are below the resolution of MRI scanning. As a result, the standard diagnostic test for neoplastic meningitis remains the cytologic identification of malignant cells in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Although CSF cytology is useful, malignant cells are not detected in as many as one third of patients who have compelling clinical or radiographic evidence of neoplastic meningitis. Novel assays are being tested that may enhance the early identification of malignant cells in CSF. Currently, the diagnosis occurs generally after the onset of neurologic manifestations and heralds a rapidly fatal course for most patients. By the time symptoms appear, most tumors have disseminated widely within the CNS, due to cortical irritation, compression of nervous system structures, or obstruction of CSF flow. At this stage surgery, cranial irradiation, and chemotherapy are rarely, if ever, curative. The goals of treatment are to improve or to stabilize the neurologic status of patients and to prolong survival. A major problem in treating neoplastic meningitis is that the entire neuraxis must be treated. If only symptomatic areas are treated, reseeding of the neuraxis with tumor cells will occur. Therefore, intrathecal chemotherapy remains a mainstay of therapy. Currently, four therapeutic agents are available for intrathecal treatment: methotrexate, ara-C, sustained-release ara-C (DepoCyt; Chiron Therapeutics, San Francisco, CA), and thiotepa. Unfortunately, intrathecal chemotherapy does not treat bulky disease in the subarachnoid space, and often is slow to stabilize progressive neurologic deficits. For these reasons, radiation therapy to sites of symptomatic disease and sites of bulky disease on imaging studies is recommended. High dose intravenous methotrexate may be as effective as intrathecal methotrexate. Alternative approaches (which offer less toxicity, enhanced therapeutic effect, and prolonged survival) are being investigated.
An Exploration of Online Behaviors and Social Media Use Among Hookah and Electronic-Cigarette Users.

Introduction The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between social norms and attitudes towards ENDS and hookah and use of these products.
ShadowStack: A new approach for secure program execution

Abstract In recent years, computer systems belonging to large companies, governments as well as personal computers have been experiencing an increasing wave of attacks that disrupt their normal operation or leak sensitive data. This implies in loss of privacy, financial and national security damages. In this context, “computer security” is no longer an afterthought. Dynamic integrity checking has emerged as a possible solution to protect computer systems by thwarting various attacks. In this context, this paper presents ShadowStack, a new dynamic integrity checking technique based on a watchdog implemented in hardware. The watchdog observes specific instructions in the code being executed through the processor pipeline, compares them against reference values generated at runtime and in the event of detecting a tentative of intrusion, the pipeline is stalled and the instructions are not allowed to commit by flushing them from the pipe. The attack type is stack smashing buffer overflow. This threatening type is by far the most common found in the literature. Experimental results obtained throughout simulations demonstrate the technique's efficiency and the corresponding overheads incurred by the use of the proposed approach.
Resolution of chronic bacterial‐induced prostatic inflammation reverses established fibrosis

BACKGROUND Prostatic inflammation has been suggested to contribute to the etiology of lower urinary tract symptoms by inducing fibrosis. We previously used a well-characterized mouse model of bacterial-induced prostate inflammation to demonstrate that chronic prostatic inflammation induces collagen deposition. Here, we examined stability of the newly synthesized collagen in bacterial-induced prostatic inflammation and the reversibility of fibrosis after resolution of infection and inflammation. METHODS Uropathogenic Escherichia coli 1677 was instilled transurethrally into adult C3H/HeOuJ male mice to induce chronic prostatic inflammation. Collagen was labeled by 3H-proline administration for 28 days post-inoculation and 3H-hydroxyproline incorporation measured to determine stability of the newly synthesized collagen. Inflammation score was graded using a previously established system and total collagen content was measured by picrosirius red staining quantitation and hydroxyproline content. Resolution of inflammation and reversal of collagen deposition was assessed after treatment with antibiotic enrofloxacin for 2 weeks on day 28 post-inoculation followed by an 8-week recovery period. RESULTS Decay analysis of incorporated 3H-hydroxyproline revealed the half-life of newly synthesized collagen to be significantly shorter in infected/inflamed prostates than in controls. Treatment with antibiotic enrofloxacin completely eradicated bacterial infection and allowed resolution of inflammation. This was followed by marked attenuation of collagen content and correlation analysis verified a positive association between the resolution of inflammation and the reversal of collagen deposition. CONCLUSIONS These data demonstrate, for the first time, that inflammation-induced prostatic fibrosis is a reversible process. Prostate 75:23–32, 2015. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Magnet arrays for synchronous machines

The authors demonstrate that the Halbach array is highly applicable for magnetic excitation in synchronous machines. To this end, they present the geometry of Halbach arrays in Cartesian, polar, and cylindrical coordinates. They also present the design of a Cartesian linear motor which has been optimized for use in conjunction with a class of high-precision magnetic suspension stages for photolithography. They give analytical solutions for this motor's fields, forces, commutation structure, and power dissipation. Results for the power-optimum thickness of the stator windings are obtained. It is suggested that an equivalent Halbach geometry electromagnet may find utility in areas such as magnetically levitated trains. >
Irwin (Ernie) Allen Rose (1926-2015).

In 1953, while still at Tufts College Medical School, Mel Simpson published a landmark paper demonstrating the ATP dependence of intracellular protein degradation. A year later, after moving to the Department of Biochemistry at Yale University Medical School, Simpson described his enigmatic results in a late-night discussion with a newly minted Instructor recently arrived from post-doctoral training. Fifty years later, that young faculty member, Ernie Rose, would share the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover for explaining Simpson’s mystery.
Cultura subjetiva en intervenciones de salud

Un numero representativo de publicaciones recientes en el area de la promocion de la salud mental y fisica en los Estados Unidos ha discutido la necesidad de desarrollar planes de prevencion que reflejen de una manera apropiada las caracteristicas culturales del grupo etnico o cultural en cuestion. Este enfasis en la identificacion y aplicacion de las caracteristicas basicas de una cultura en las actividades de la promocion de la salud se debe probablemente a la importancia que se le ha dado ...