cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
A RULE BASED ALGORITHM THAT PRODUCES EXPONENTIALLY STABLE FORMATIONS OF AUTONOMOUS AGENTS

A two-dimensional discrete time, nonlinear logic-based control algorithm used in simulation is shown to produce an exponentially stable swarm formation. Each agent in the swarm is subject to two control regimes, the far-field conditions and the nearfield conditions. These control regimes are defined by the state of each agent in the swarm formation. The control algorithm is also a leader-follower type algorithm so that each follower in a leader-follower pair becomes the leader for another leader-follower pair, and so on. The formation leader is the agent that has no leader to follow; this decision is made by the control algorithm and is based on the initial conditions of the swarm. The process by which the initially randomly distributed swarm forms a stable ‘V’ flight formation is simulated and the final formation, when all the agents are governed by the near-field control regime, is shown to be exponentially stable. The control algorithm described herein is distributed since each agent needs only position information of the agents that are in front of it to decide it’s control action and each agent acts autonomously since it makes it’s control decision without knowing what the other agents in the swarm are going to do.
Electronic structure effects in the vectorial bond-valence model

The vectorial bond-valence model (VBVM) describes the spatial distribution of bonds to each atom in a system in terms of the vector sum of the incident bond valences. It has been applied in the past to cations not subject to electronic structure effects (e.g., lone-pair or Jahn-Teller effects) in which case the expectation is that the vector sum will be approximately zero. Here we analyze 178 simple-oxide crystal structures and show that the vectorial bond-valence sum is a predictable function of the atomic valence (oxidation state) of each atom and the valence of the strongest bond to atoms for which second-order Jahn-Teller and lone-pair effects play a role in determining molecular geometry. Outliers are uniformly metastable or unstable under ambient conditions, suggesting that deviation from ideal vectorial bond-valence sums might be used as a proxy for some aspect of structural potential energy. These results are all strictly in harmony with the VSEPR model of molecular geometry, but may allow for more quantitative prediction.
Survey on Actuality of Sanitation of Centralized Water Supply in Rural Areas of Nanxian

Objective To investigate the current status of sanitation of centralized water supply in rural areas of Nanxian,and to discuss the methods of health supervision and management. Method Self-designed uniform questionnaires were used to survey 58 waterworks in Nanxian. Results Among the investigated waterworks,the qualified rate of hygiene license was 77.6%,the percentage of water disinfection was 70.7%,and the percentages of water purification and the removal of iron and manganese processing were 43.1% and 82.8%,respectively.The township and village waterworks did not have self-check ability. Conclusions Centralized water supply in the rural areas has many problems.It is necessary to enhance supervision and management,improve the health consciousness of enterprises,increase the investment,and improve the abilities in water disinfection,purification,treatment and water-quality self-test.
Management of Acute Dissecting Aneurysms of the Aorta

Survival rates in this most common of catastrophic emergencies involving the aorta have greatly improved with the introduction of intensive drug therapy. The principles of management are applicable in any intensive or coronary care unit; the primary aim is to reduce the force exerted by the pulse wave on the aortic wall, thereby limiting the dissection and allowing healing to take place.
A Comparison of Microstructure and Uniaxial Compressive Response of Ice-Templated Porous Alumina Scaffolds Fabricated from Two Different Particle Sizes

Abstract This study investigates the effects of two different particle sizes (0.3 μ m vs. 0.9 μ m ) on the microstructure and uniaxial compressive response of ice-templated sintered alumina scaffolds as a function of the solids loading of the ceramic suspensions and freezing front velocity (FFV). For a comparable solids loading and FFV, variation of the particle size is observed to have a significant effect on the microstructure of the fabricated scaffolds. Moreover, transition of the pore morphology with the increasing solids loading and FFV is observed to be more drastic for the scaffolds processed from the 0.9 μ m size powder particles compared to the scaffolds processed from the 0.3 μ m size powder particles. Similarly, particle size variation also influenced significantly the relative density and porosity of the scaffolds. Interestingly, in spite of the observed significant differences of the microstructure and relative density, uniaxial compressive stress-strain measurements revealed marginal effects of the particle size variation on the compressive strength. The measured comparable uniaxial compressive response of the sintered alumina scaffolds fabricated from two different particle sizes are rationalized based on the relative density, pore aspect ratio, and interlamellae bridge density.
Trampoline-induced quadriplegia.

This review of the world’s literature documenting cervical spine injuries attempts to determine common factors regarding patient characteristics, environment, injury mechanisms, and pathology. The policy statements and safety guidelines of both the American Academy of Pediatrics and athletic administrative bodies are reviewed in order to evaluate what effect, if any, these policies and guidelines have had on documented injuries. On the basis of this review, it is believed that the AAP was ill-advised in altering its position on the use of trampolines. The opinion is presented that both the trampoline and minitrampoline are dangerous devices when used in the best of circumstances, and their use has no place in recreational, educational, or competitive gymnastics.
No time at all: opportunity cost of Android permissions (invited paper)

App permissions detail the privacy-sensitive access to users' location, contact information, network access, and more. In this paper, we draw from the motivational work of McDonald and Cranor [18] on web privacy policies to investigate the opportunity cost for users and the United States if people would read these permission screens on mobile devices during installation or launch time. We also demonstrate the time and cost differences between different versions of Android's permissions model. Based on our findings, an average user of Android M may spend less than two minutes annually viewing permission screens. This would mean a maximum annual opportunity cost of $1.29 and a minimum of $0.16 based on whether it was read at work or leisure. Reading detailed permissions screens in older versions of Android could require a user to spend nearly 90 minutes annually with a maximum cost of $67.24 and a minimum of $8.40. In our estimates, the United States would have to invest between a leisure cost of $36.67 million and a work cost of $293.6 million for Android M. However, these costs are small in comparison to costs needed in older versions of Android that could use up to as much as $1.87 billion in leisure costs and $15.03 billion in work costs. We conclude that updates to Google's permissions layout has reduced the time and opportunity cost to the point where, with Android M, they are at an all-time low.
From Adaptation to Influence: Carson McCullers on the Stage

Carson McCullers found great success with the stage adaptation of her 1946 novel The Member of the Wedding, which ran on Broadway from 1950 to 1951. However, her next attempt at writing for the stage, with The Square Root of Wonderful (1957), was a critical disaster that closed after only 45 performances. Despite McCullers’ ambivalent experiences with the theater, her work has retained its connection with the theater world into the twenty-first century, through adaptation of her work and other McCullers-inspired stage engagements. This essay explores McCullers’ successes and challenges in adapting her work to the stage; potential explanations for ambivalent critical responses; and considers the ways in which contemporary playwrights, artists and audiences are interacting with McCullers, her work, and her legacy.
Diabetes als kardiovaskulärer Risikofaktor— Epidemiologische Übersicht

Die Rekrutierung von uber 12000 Mannern fur das MRFIT-Interventionsexperiment machte es erforderlich, 356000 Manner im Alter von 35-57 Jahren zu untersuchen. Sie waren anamnestisch frei von Koronargefaserkrankungen. Insgesamt 5245 Manner waren Diabetiker, die uber 5 Jahre weiter beobachtet wurden. Die altersberichtigten Todesraten der Diabetiker im Vergleich zu Nichtdiabetikern lagen fur Koronargefaskrankheiten 3,1 mal huher, fur kardiovaskulare Erkrankungen (ohne ischamische Herzkrankheit) 3,2mal huher und fur alle Todesursachen zusammen 2,6mal huher. Multivariante Analysen zeigten, das sowohl fur Diabetiker als auch fur Nichtdiabetiker das Serumcholesterin, der Blutdruck und das Zigarettenrauchen signifikant und unabhangig mit den drei Mortalitatsursachen assoziiert waren. (20)
Functionalism, Behaviorism, and Rationalism

Many of the notions of rule of mind, behavior and structure, and arguments for mechanism apply broadly to other theories of mind that are usually referred to collectively as ‘computationalism’. On the whole these do not have anything much to say about sentience — mental occurrents — while all of them claim that mental features, dispositions, etc. are subjects independent of biology and physics. They differ in nontrivial philosophical detail while still sharing a common distrust of ghosts and other mental substances, and a fondness for autonomous, essentially irreducible, cognitive psychology. My aim here is to bring to the fore key philosophical issues about individuation of mental entities and how they fit into overall cognitive anatomy.
Optical lithography forges ahead

The ability to pack ever increasing amounts of memory and computing power onto semiconductor chips has been a crucial component in the continued growth of the electronics and information technology industries. This trend, known as very-large-scale integration (VLSI), will continue to be of utmost importance for these industries. It has, so far, only been limited by our ability to define small enough circuits or patterns in semiconductor devices. Lithography is the process used to make these patterns, so the progress of VLSI, and hence the electronics and IT industries, very much depends on advances in lithography.
Real-World Brain Injuries

In this chapter, three real-world problems will be discussed to show how head injury modeling can be helpful in providing information on human tolerance to head impact and the impact parameters that are good predictors of brain injury. The first deals with the problem of estimating human tolerance to mild concussion as experienced by athletes who play American football. It was of interest to professional football in the USA, and the study reported below was supported in part by the National Football League (NFL) which is a nonprofit trade association made up of professional football teams around the country. The second problem is to simulate a well-documented automotive crash at an intersection, including the injuries sustained by one of the drivers. The third problem is the simulation of the crash of a racecar and the response of the brain to the crash.
Ahab—Heedless Father, Sullen Son: Humour and Intertextuality in 1 Kings 21:

This article presents the results of a literary-sensitive reading of 1 Kings 21, with attention to features of humour and intertextuality, addressing the apparent inconsistency between Ahab's passi...
Type II SLAP Tear in a 50-Year-Old Recreational Athlete Treated with Biceps Tenodesis

The incidence of Type II SLAP tears is increasing, and this injury represents a common clinical presentation to the sports medicine specialist. Patients often present with a chief complaint of vague, aching shoulder pain that adversely affects daily activities and/or athletic performance. Diagnosis consists of careful history taking, dedicated physical examination, and magnetic resonance imaging studies.
A statistical approach for evaluating the effectiveness of heartworm preventive drugs: what does 100% efficacy really mean?

Initial studies of heartworm preventive drugs all yielded an observed efficacy of 100% with a single dose, and based on these data the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required all products to meet this standard for approval. Those initial studies, however, were based on just a few strains of parasites, and therefore were not representative of the full assortment of circulating biotypes. This issue has come to light in recent years, where it has become common for studies to yield less than 100% efficacy. This has changed the landscape for the testing of new products because heartworm efficacy studies lack the statistical power to conclude that finding zero worms is different from finding a few worms. To address this issue, we developed a novel statistical model, based on a hierarchical modeling and parametric bootstrap approach that provides new insights to assess multiple sources of variability encountered in heartworm drug efficacy studies. Using the newly established metrics we performed both data simulations and analyzed actual experimental data. Our results suggest that an important source of modeling variability arises from variability in the parasite establishment rate between dogs; not accounting for this can overestimate the efficacy in more than 40% of cases. We provide strong evidence that ZoeMo-2012 and JYD-34, which both were established from the same source dog, have differing levels of susceptibility to moxidectin. In addition, we provide strong evidence that the differences in efficacy seen in two published studies using the MP3 strain were not due to randomness, and thus must be biological in nature. Our results demonstrate how statistical modeling can improve the interpretation of data from heartworm efficacy studies by providing a means to identify the true efficacy range based on the observed data. Importantly, these new insights should help to inform regulators on how to move forward in establishing new statistically and scientifically valid requirements for efficacy in the registration of new heartworm preventative products. Furthermore, our results provide strong evidence that heartworm ‘strains’ can change their susceptibility phenotype over short periods of time, providing further evidence that a wide diversity of susceptibility phenotypes exists among naturally circulating biotypes of D. immitis.
Pair Housing Alters Delay Discounting in Lewis and Fischer 344 Rats

Impulsive choice underlies several psychological disorders and can be assessed in laboratory rats using delay-discounting tasks, in which choice is for either one food pellet immediately or three food pellets after a delay. Choice for the smaller, immediate reinforcer is considered the impulsive choice. Lewis (LEW) and Fischer 344 (F344) rats differ in the number of impulsive choices made during this task when singly housed, with LEW choosing the impulsive option more often. Due to increasing recommendations to provide environmental enrichment as a component of animal-husbandry practices, a systematic replication of two previous studies was conducted using pair-housed LEW and F344. Delay discounting was assessed with pair-housed LEW and F344 and compared to previous data from singly housed LEW and F344 collected from the same laboratory. Results showed that differences in impulsive choice between the two strains were attenuated with pair housing. The main result driving this change appears to be an increase in impulsive choice in pair-housed F344 relative to singly housed F344.
Lung epithelial-specific TRIP-1 overexpression maintains epithelial integrity during hyperoxia exposure.

Abstract The onset and degree of injury occurring in animals that develop hyperoxic acute lung injury (HALI) is dependent on age at exposure, suggesting that developmentally regulated pathways/factors must underlie initiation of the epithelial injury and subsequent repair. Type II TGFβ receptor interacting protein‐1 (TRIP‐1) is a negative regulator of TGFβ signaling, which we have previously shown is a developmentally regulated protein with modulatory effects on epithelial‐fibroblastic signaling. The aim of this study was to assess if type II alveolar epithelial cells overexpressing TRIP‐1 are protected against hyperoxia‐induced epithelial injury, and in turn HALI. Rat lung epithelial cells (RLE) overexpressing TRIP‐1 or LacZ were exposed to 85% oxygen for 4 days. A surfactant protein C (SPC)‐driven TRIP‐1 overexpression mouse (TRIP‐1 AECTg+ ) was generated and exposed to hyperoxia (>95% for 4 days) at 4 weeks of age to assess the effects TRIP‐1 overexpression has on HALI. RLE overexpressing TRIP‐1 resisted hyperoxia‐induced apoptosis. Mice overexpressing TRIP‐1 in their lung type II alveolar epithelial cells (TRIP‐1 AECTg+ ) showed normal lung development, increased phospho‐AKT level and E‐cadherin, along with resistance to HALI, as evidence by less TGFβ activation, apoptosis, alveolar macrophage influx, KC expression. Taken together, these findings point to existence of a TRIP‐1 mediated molecular pathway affording protection against epithelial/acute lung injury.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Heart Failure in Men Within the Veteran Affairs Health System.

Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are at risk of multiple co-morbidities and are more likely to develop incident heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF). The relation of PTSD with clinical outcomes in HFrEF is not established. US veterans diagnosed with HFrEF from January 2007 to January 2015 and treated nationwide in the Veterans Affairs (VA) Health System were included in the study. Patients with HFrEF were identified through International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) codes. Mortality data were obtained from the VA's death registry. We compared characteristics of patients with HFrEF with and without PTSD. We identified 111,970 VA patients with HFrEF and 11,039 patients with concomitant PTSD (9.9%). Patients with PTSD and HFrEF tended to be younger (64 vs 69 years) and have a higher rate of coronary artery disease (73% vs 64%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (42% vs 31%), and hypertension (80% vs 64%, p
ONCOGENIC OSTEOMALACIA: THE SEARCH, TREATMENT, AND CURE OF A DEBILITATING TUMOR

Objective: To present a rare case of oncogenic osteomalacia, describe the breadth of potential clinical symptoms, and review the underlying pathophysiology of this disorder. Methods: We report a case of oncogenic osteomalacia cured by surgical resection of a mesenchymal tumor. Results: A 48-year-old, wheelchair-dependent man presented to a tertiary care academic hospital with progressive back pain and diffuse weakness. Biochemical evaluation revealed elevated alkaline phosphatase, marked hypophosphatemia, phosphaturia, vitamin D deficiency, and elevated fibroblast growth factor 23, results that are concerning for oncogenic osteomalacia. Subsequent imaging showed extensive loss of vertebral height, numerous fractures, and ultimately identified an area suspicious for tumor in the right mandible, with concurrent uptake on octreotide scan. Segmental resection of the right mandible revealed a calcifying mesenchymal tumor. Following surgery there was a normalization of biochemistries and dramatic improvement in...
Spontaneous Exact Spin-Wave Fractals in Magnonic Crystals.

Exact fractals of nonlinear waves that rely on strong dispersion and nonlinearity and arise spontaneously out of magnetic media were observed for the first time. The experiments make use of a microwave to excite a spin wave in a quasi-one-dimensional magnonic crystal. When the power of the input microwave (${P}_{\text{in}}$) is low, the output signal has a power-frequency spectrum that consists of a single peak. When ${P}_{\text{in}}$ is increased to a certain level, new side modes are generated through modulational instability, resulting in a comblike frequency spectrum. With a further increase in ${P}_{\text{in}}$, each peak in the frequency comb can evolve into its own finer comb through the modulational instability. As ${P}_{\text{in}}$ is increased further, one can observe yet another set of finer frequency combs. Such a frequency-domain fractal manifests itself as multiple layers of amplitude modulation in the time-domain signal.
Presenting Archaeological Heritage: Identity and Interpretation in Heritage Tourism Planning

This chapter addresses the fundamental question of how the interpretive component of a large archaeological tourism project can best accommodate the often disparate knowledge base and heritage interests of potential tourists drawn from regional, national, and international contexts. In developing tourist attractions for an outdoor “archaeological park” centered on the site of San Isidro, Ecuador, a primary challenge, situated both at the local level and within the heritage tourism design team, has been balancing the role of interpretation based on scientific archaeological research versus interpretation based on more popular and often unscientific views of the local archaeological record. Very often, this discrepancy plays out in terms of an emphasis on archaeological contexts based on sustained archaeological research in the area, versus a focus on archaeological objects, in which the latter are usually derived from looting activity yet heavily inform local heritage identity. In this scenario, interpretative goals can easily bifurcate into parallel realities—one accommodating an international scientific community and scientifically informed tourists, and the other accommodating local, regional, and national heritage identities. This chapter discusses how these disparate interpretive threads can be effectively conjoined into a uniform archaeological narrative by (a) referencing the current heritage identity politics of the Ecuadorian nation-state emphasizing the importance of recovering ancestral knowledge and (b) by exploring Amerindian ontological perspectivism as a means of better interpreting decontextualized archaeological objects.
United States Venture Capital Contracting: Foreign Securities

U.S. venture capital financings of U.S. entrepreneurial firms with up to 213 observations is consistent with the proposition that convertible preferred equity is the optimal form of venture capital finance. This paper introduces new evidence from 208 U.S. venture capital financings of Canadian entrepreneurial firms. In contrast to U.S. venture capital investments in U.S. entrepreneurial firms, U.S. venture capitalists finance Canadian entrepreneurial firms with a variety of forms of finance. The differences between domestic and international U.S. venture capitalist financing structures are not attributable to differences in the definition of the term 'venture capital'. The data point to the importance of institutional determinants of venture capitalist capital structures within the U.S. and abroad. Among other things, the data indicate that U.S. venture capitalists often do not choose convertible preferred shares in the absence of tax considerations in favour of that financing vehicle.
Which Countries and Industries Contributed the Most to the Decline in Trade Barriers Around the World

Diverse trends across countries and industries are behind the global decline in trade barriers.
A Constraint Programming model for food processing industry: a case for an ice cream processing facility

This paper presents a Constraint Programming (CP) scheduling model for an ice cream processing facility. CP is a mathematical optimisation tool for solving problems either for optimality (for small...
Chewing causes rapid changes in immunoreactive nerve patterns in rat molar teeth: Implications for dental proprioception and pain.

Abstract Objective This study tests the hypothesis that normal use of teeth (chewing) causes changes in immunoreactive-(IR) patterns for endings of large Aβ and CGRP axons in rat molar cusps. Design First, a new paradigm to test chewing in adult male rats was developed. Then IR patterns for large dental axons were analysed for a calcium-binding protein, parvalbumin (PV), heavy neurofilament protein-200 (NFP), and vesicle-release molecule synaptophysin (SYN) that all typify large dental axons and proprioceptors for comparison with endings of CGRP-IR neuropeptide axons. The behavior groups were: (1) daytime sleeping/fasting (Group:SF); (2) brief feeding after 8–11 h of daytime sleeping/fasting (Group:SF–C); (3) normal nocturnal feeding (Group:N); (4) nocturnal fasting (Group:NF); (5) brief feeding/chewing after nocturnal fasting (Group:NF–C). Results Nerve endings with NFP-, PV-, or SYN-IR were lost or altered in pulp and dentin in all chewing groups. Other endings with CGRP-IR were near those with PV-, NFP- and SYN-IR at the pulp-dentin border and in dentin, and they also lost immunoreactivity in all chewing groups. The special beaded regions along the crown pulp/dentin borders lost neural labeling in all chewing groups. Nerves of molar roots and periodontal ligament were not changed. Conclusions Rapid neural reactions to chewing show extensive, reversible, non-nociceptive depletions of crown innervation. Those changes were rapid enough to occur during normal feeding followed by recovery during rest. The new dental paradigm related to chewing and fasting allows dissection of intradental proprioceptive-like mechanisms during normal tooth functions for comparison with nociceptive and mechanosensitive reactions after injury or inflammation.
Building ‘brotherhood’: John D. Rockefeller Jr. and the foundations of New York City’s International Student House

In 1924, American industrialist John D. Rockefeller Jr. inaugurated the flagship project of the International Student House movement. Located in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights, the ‘I-House’ was p...
Metal–Nitrogen–Carbon Electrocatalysts for CO2 Reduction towards Syngas Generation

Shifting syngas (an H2 /CO mixture) production away from fossil-fuel-dependent processes (e.g., steam methane reforming and coal gasification) is mandatory, as syngas is of interest as both a fuel and as a value-added chemical precursor. With appropriate electrocatalysts, such as silver-based and metal-nitrogen-carbon (M-N-C) materials, the electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2 RR) allows for the production of CO alongside H2 (from the hydrogen evolution reaction), and thus leads to syngas generation. In this Minireview, the application of M-N-C electrocatalysts for syngas generation is discussed. The mechanisms leading to different faradaic selectivities for CO are reviewed as a function of the nature of the metal, by using both computational and experimental approaches. The role played by the metal-free moieties in the M-N-C electrocatalysts is underlined. Since M-N-C electrocatalysts only recently entered the CO2 RR field (as opposed to Cu-, Ag-, or Au-based nanostructures), they have been mainly characterized in static liquid environments, in which the reaction rate is significantly hampered by CO2 -dissolution/diffusion limitations. Therefore, the design of CO2 RR electrolyzers for M-N-C electrocatalysts is addressed, and designs such as zero-gap electrolyzers with anionic membranes and humidified CO2 gas feed at the cathode are highlighted.
Systematic Characterization of Recurrent Genomic Alterations in Cyclin-Dependent Kinases Reveals Potential Therapeutic Strategies for Cancer Treatment

Recurrent copy-number alterations, mutations, and transcript fusions of the genes encoding CDKs/cyclins are characterized in >10,000 tumors. Genomic alterations of CDKs/cyclins are dominantly driven by copy number aberrations. In contrast to cell-cycle-related CDKs/cyclins, which are globally amplified, transcriptional CDKs/cyclins recurrently lose copy numbers across cancers. Although mutations and transcript fusions are relatively rare events, CDK12 exhibits recurrent mutations in multiple cancers. Among the transcriptional CDKs, CDK7 and CDK12 show the most significant copy number loss and mutation, respectively. Their genomic alterations are correlated with increased sensitivities to DNA-damaging drugs. Inhibition of CDK7 preferentially represses the expression of genes in the DNA-damage-repair pathways and impairs the activity of homologous recombination. Low-dose CDK7 inhibitor treatment sensitizes cancer cells to PARP inhibitor-induced DNA damage and cell death. Our analysis provides genomic information for identification and prioritization of drug targets for CDKs and reveals rationales for treatment strategies.
The Impact of Nighttime on First Pass Success During the Emergent Endotracheal Intubation of Critically Ill Patients.

Background:While numerous investigations have described worse outcomes for patients undergoing emergent procedures at night, few studies have investigated the impact of nighttime on the outcomes of...
Boosting One-Point Derivative-Free Online Optimization via Residual Feedback

Zeroth-order optimization (ZO) typically relies on two-point feedback to estimate the unknown gradient of the objective function, which queries the objective function value twice at each time instant. However, if the objective function is time-varying, as in online optimization, two-point feedback can not be used. In this case, the gradient can be estimated using one-point feedback that queries a single function value at each time instant, although at the expense of producing gradient estimates with large variance. In this work, we propose a new one-point feedback method for online optimization that estimates the objective function gradient using the residual between two feedback points at consecutive time instants. We study the regret bound of ZO with residual feedback for both convex and nonconvex online optimization problems. Specifically, for both Lipschitz and smooth functions, we show that using residual feedback produces gradient estimates with much smaller variance compared to conventional one-point feedback methods, which improves the learning rate. Our regret bound for ZO with residual feedback is tighter than the existing regret bound for ZO with conventional one-point feedback and relies on weaker assumptions, which suggests that ZO with our proposed residual feedback can better track the optimizer of online optimization problems. We provide numerical experiments that demonstrate that ZO with residual feedback significantly outperforms existing one-point feedback methods in practice.
A data-driven approach to the automated mapping of functional brain topographies across species

Behavioral neuroscience has made great strides in developing animal models of human behavior and psychiatric disorders. Animal models allow for the formulation of hypotheses regarding the mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders, and the opportunity to test these hypotheses using procedures that are too invasive for human participants. However, recent scientific reviews have highlighted the low success rate of translating results from animal models into clinical interventions in humans. A potential roadblock is that bidirectional functional mappings between the human and rodent brain are incomplete. To narrow this gap, we created a framework, Neurobabel, for performing large-scale automated synthesis of human neuroimaging data and behavioral neuroscience data. By leveraging the semantics of how researchers within each field describe their studies, this framework enables region to region mapping of brain regions across species, as well as cross-species mapping of psychological functions. As a proof of concept, we utilize the framework to create a functional cross-species mapping between the amygdala and hippocampus for fear-related and spatial memories, respectively. We then proceed to address two open questions in the field: (1) Do rodents have a dorsolateral prefrontal cortex? (2) Which human brain region corresponds to the rodent prelimbic cortex?
Polycystic Ovary Disease and Obesity: Leptin, Weight-loss Medication, and Bariatric Surgery.

For many patients, weight loss is a first-line measure recommended to reduce comorbidities associated with polycystic ovary disease. When lifestyle modifications such as diet and exercise are insufficient at achieving this goal, the addition of weight loss medications has proven effective for many patients. In patients with severe obesity, bariatric surgery is often used when other methods have been unsuccessful and has shown promising results for improving health and fertility in patients with polycystic ovary disease.
Nanosheet metrology opportunities for technology readiness

Over the past several years, stacked Nanosheet Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistors captured the focus of the semiconductor industry and has been identified as the new lead architecture to continue LOGIC CMOS scaling beyond-5nm node. The fabrication of GAA devices requires new specific integration modules. From very early processing points, these structures require complex metrology to fully characterize the three-dimensional parameter set. As the technology continues through research and development cycles and looks to transition to manufacturing, there are many opportunities and challenges remaining for inline metrology. Especially valuable are measurement techniques which are non-destructive, fast, and provide multi-dimensional feedback, where reducing dependencies on offline techniques has a direct impact to the frequency of cycles of learning. More than previous nodes, then, this node may be when some of these offline techniques jump from the lab to the fab, as certain critical measurements need to be monitored realtime. Thanks to the compute revolution this very industry enabled, machine learning has begun to permeate inline disposition, and hybrid metrology systems continue to advance. Metrology solutions and methodologies developed for prior technologies will also still have a large role in the characterization of these structures, as effects such as line edge roughness (LER), pitchwalk, and defectivity continue to be managed. This paper reviews related prior studies and advocates for future metrology development that ensures nanosheet technology has the inline data necessary for success.
Specificity of International Classification of Diseases codes for bronchopulmonary dysplasia: an investigation using electronic health record data and a large insurance database.

Objective International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes in electronic health records (EHRs) are increasingly used for health services research, in spite of unknown diagnostic accuracy. The accuracy of ICD codes to identify bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is unknown. Study design Retrospective cohort study in a single-center NICU (n = 166) to evaluate sensitivity and specificity of ICD-10 codes for the diagnosis of BPD. Analysis of large insurance claims database (n = 7887) to determine date of assignment of the code. Results The sensitivity of any BPD-related ICD codes ranged from 0.82 to 0.95, while the specificity ranged from 0.25 to 0.36. In a large national insurance database, the most common date of ICD-9 or ICD-10 code assignment was the day of birth, which is inconsistent with the clinical definition. Conclusions ICD codes registered for BPD are unlikely to accurately reflect the current clinical definition and should be interpreted with caution.
How Have Workers Fared Under the ACA

Whether the coverage provisions under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would lead to adverse labor market consequences in the form of reduced employment, hours worked, or earnings has been the subject of substantial debate and analysis. This brief assesses whether coverage gains from 2010 to 2016 were associated with changes in labor market outcomes across occupations. Using data from the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey, we show how employment, hours worked per week, and weekly earnings changed, by occupation group, and how these changes differed for occupations experiencing larger and smaller coverage gains under the ACA. We also examine whether occupations experiencing increased coverage through nonemployment sources (i.e., through Medicaid or individual plans purchased on the ACA’s Marketplace exchanges) also experienced offsetting declines in ESI coverage. We find that predictions that the coverage provisions of the ACA would lead to reduced employment, work hours, and earnings did not materialize, nor did predictions that employer-based coverage rates would fall as employers dropped coverage.
Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia

One of the most celebrated modern buildings in the world, next to the Fallingwater, must be the Sydney Opera House. From its inception to its implementation, it has occupied the attention of the Australian nation as well as that of the Western world. It has been one of the most complex and visible construction projects anywhere in the world. The design created by the Danish architect, Jorn Utzon, has had no equals, or successor for that matter. Its implementation was possible only because an unprecedented national and professional resolve overcame sizable political, technical, aesthetic, financial, and cultural obstacles. The role that this building and its design played in the life of an entire nation for a period of a decade during its construction is absolutely unprecedented in modern architectural history.
Healthcare Decisions Are Always Supported Decisions.

Peterson, Karlawish, and Largent’s (2021) “Supported Decision Making with People at the Margins of Autonomy” not only elucidates the conceptual framework but also the practical importance of suppor...
Principles of Antibiotic Therapy

Antimicrobial agents are used to prevent infection, manage established infections, and treat presumptive infections. To correctly administer these compounds, clinicians must understand the indications, spectrum, pharmacodynamics, potential for drug-induced adverse reactions and drug-drug interactions, and relative cost (1). In the surgical intensive care unit (SICU), physicians must be aware of the unique pathogens and their antibiotic profiles, because patients in this setting are often seriously ill, immunosuppressed hosts who have undergone extensive surgical procedures and received numerous antibiotics.
Distinct effects of ventral tegmental area NMDA and acetylcholine receptor blockade on conditioned reinforcement produced by food-associated cues

Stimuli paired with rewards acquire reinforcing properties to promote reward-seeking behavior. Previous work supports the role of ventral tegmental area (VTA) nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) in mediating conditioned reinforcement elicited by drug-associated cues. However, it is not known whether these cholinergic mechanisms are specific to drug-associated cues or whether VTA cholinergic mechanisms also underlie the ability of cues paired with natural rewards to act as conditioned reinforcers. Burst firing of VTA dopamine (DA) neurons and the subsequent phasic DA release in the nucleus accumbens (NAc) plays an important role in cue-mediated behavior and in the ability of cues to acquire reinforcing properties. In the VTA, both AChRs and N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDARs) regulate DA burst firing and phasic DA release. Here, we tested the role of VTA nAChRs, muscarinic AChRs (mAChRs), and NMDARs in the conditioned reinforcement elicited by a food-associated, natural reward cue. Subjects received 10 consecutive days of Pavlovian conditioning training where lever extension served as a predictive cue for food availability. On day 11, rats received bilateral VTA infusion of saline, AP-5 (0.1 or 1μg), mecamylamine (MEC: 3 or 30μg) or scopolamine (SCOP: 3 or 66.7μg) immediately prior to the conditioned reinforcement test. During the test, nosepoking into the active (conditioned reinforced, CR) noseport produced a lever cue while nosepoking on the inactive (non-conditioned reinforced, NCR) noseport had no consequence. AP-5 robustly attenuated conditioned reinforcement and blocked discrimination between CR and NCR noseports at the 1-μg dose. MEC infusion decreased responding for both CR and NCR while 66.7-μg SCOP disrupted the subject's ability to discriminate between CR and NCR. Together, our data suggest that VTA NMDARs and mAChRs, but not nAChRs, play a role in the ability of natural reward-associated cues to act as conditioned reinforcers.
A HUMAN-MACHINE INTERFACE FOR RECONFIGURABLE SENSOR-BASED CONTROL SYSTEMS

The development of software for dynamically reconfigurable sensor-based control systems is a complicated and tedious process, requiring specialization in real-time systems programming and an amount of time which may not be available, for instance, in a space laboratory. The total development time can be reduced by automatically integrating reusable software modules to create applications. The integration of these modules can be further simplified by the use of a high-level programming interface which can integrate modules developed at different sites. We have developed Onika, an iconically programmed human-machine interface, to interact with a reconfigurable software framework to create reusable code. Onika presents appropriate work environments for both application engineers and endusers. For engineers, icons representing real-time software modules can be combined to form real-time jobs. For the end-user, icons representing these jobs are assembled by the user into applications. Onika verifies that all jobs and applications are syntactically correct, non-ambiguous, and complete. They can then be executed from within Onika, or can be saved as a stand-alone program which can be executed independently on the underlying real-time operating system. Onika can retrieve and use software modules created at other sites with modules created locally. While Onika has been fully integrated with the Chimera real-time operating system in order to control several different robotic systems in the Advanced Manipulators Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, it can also function independently of Chimera. Onika will be used in connection with NASA Langley Research Center’s Intravehicular Autonomous Robot (IVAR) space manipulator laboratory.
Preparing Teachers to Train Parents to Use Evidence-Based Strategies for Oral Reading Fluency with Their Children.

Although there is promising evidence for parent-tutoring strategies for improving oral reading fluency, such parent tutoring programs are not widely used in schools. This study examined the effectiveness of providing parent training in school settings using teachers as trainers. An evidence-based reading package including listening passage preview, repeated reading, error correction, and performance feedback was developed. Three first-grade teachers were trained using video-training, written instructions, and practice with peers. Eight parents reviewed a similar manual and video and then met with teachers to practice the strategies and develop a tutoring plan. Parents then implemented the reading fluency tutoring package at home for 8 to 9 weeks. Student progress was monitored weekly using curriculum-based measurement of oral reading fluency within an A-B design. Results show oral reading fluency improved when treatment fidelity was good. Future applications of evidence-based tutoring practices and considerations for implementation and sustainability in school-based settings are discussed.
New Geographies of the American West: Land Use and the Changing Patterns of Place

William R. Travis has written an excellent synthesis of the so-called transformation of the fastest growing region in the United States from an “Old” to a “New” West. Indeed, he is uniquely qualifi...
Liquid crystalline polyethers based on conformational isomerism

The synthesis and characterization of copolyethers based on 1-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-2-(2-methyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)ethane (MBPE), 1,8-dibromooctane and each of the following three nonmesogenic bisphenols: 3,4′-dihydroxydiphenylmethane (3,4′-BPM), 4,4′-isopropylidenediphenol (4,4′-BPA) and 3,4′-isopropylidenediphenol (3,4′-BPA) are presented. Copolymers based on MBPE, 3,4′-BPM and 1,8-dibromooctane display a nematic mesophase up to compositions containing as much as 70 mol% of 3,4′-BPM. The range of mesomorphism decreases on going from 3,4′-BPM to 3,4′-BPA and to 4,4′-BPA. These results demonstrate that structural units derived from parent amorphous and liquid crystalline homopolymers can be isomorphous within the mesophase over a certain range of copolymer composition of the resulting copolymers. Subsequently, the parameters of the mesomorphic phase transitions of these copolymers represent weight averaged values of the corresponding parameters of the parent homopolymers.
Specific interactions between rotavirus outer capsid proteins VP4 and VP7 determine expression of a cross-reactive, neutralizing VP4-specific epitope.

Abstract We previously reported that the expression of rotavirus phenotypes by reassortants was affected by recipient genetic background and proposed specific interactions between the outer capsid proteins VP4 and VP7 as the basis for the phenotypic effects (D. Chen, J. W. Burns, M. K. Estes, and R. F. Ramig, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86:3743-3747, 1989). A neutralizing, cross-reactive VP4-specific monoclonal antibody (MAb), 2G4, was used to probe the protein-protein interactions. The VP4 specificity of 2G4 was confirmed by immunoblot analysis. MAb 2G4 reacted with both standard (SA11-C13) and variant rotavirus SA11 (SA11-4F) but did not react with bovine rotavirus B223 as determined by plaque reduction neutralization (PRN) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). When a panel of SA11-4F/B223 and SA11-Cl3/B223 reassortants in purified or crude lysate form that had been grown in the presence or absence of trypsin was analyzed with MAb 2G4 by PRN and ELISA, the results with some reassortants were unexpected. That is, MAb 2G4 reacted with VP4 of SA11 parental origin (4F or C13) when it was assembled into capsids with the homologous SA11 VP7 but failed to react with VP4 of SA11 assembled into capsids with heterologous B223 VP7. Conversely, MAb 2G4 failed to react with VP4 of B223 parental origin when it was assembled into capsids with homologous B223 VP7 but did react with B223 VP4 assembled into capsids with the heterologous SA11 VP7. Similar reactivity was observed when 2G4 was used to immunoprecipitate purified double-shelled virions. When soluble unassembled viral proteins were analyzed by ELISA, the 2G4 reactive pattern was as predicted from the parental origin of VP4. That is, 2G4 reacted with the soluble VP4 of reassortants having VP4 from SA11-Cl3 or SA11-4F and failed to react with VP4 of B223 origin, regardless of the origin of VP7. PRN and ELISA results obtained with nonglycosylated viruses revealed that the unexpected reactivity of 2G4 with virus particles was not the result of differential glycosylation of VP7 and epitope masking. These results indicate that the 2G4 epitope existed in the soluble form of VP4 encoded by SA11-Cl3 or SA11-4F but not in soluble B223 VP4. On the other hand, in assembled virions, the presentation of the 2G4 epitope on VP4 was unexpected in some reassortants and was affected by the specific interactions between VP4 and VP7 of heterologous parental origin.