cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Sicherheit und Effektivität des zervikal posterioren Zugangs zum Plexus brachialis - Daten des Regionalanästhesie Surveillance Systems (RASS)

BACKGROUND This is the first report of the Regional Anesthesia Surveillance System (RASS) analyzing complication data of the relatively new cervical posterior approach to the brachial plexus. MATERIAL AND METHODS The Regional Anesthesia Surveillance System (RASS) was introduced in October 2003. All regional anesthesia punctures and continuous catheters in place are recorded as part of the midnight-statistic and forwarded to the RASS databank. Complications are registered and coded according to standardized definitions ( www.UIRASS.com ) by the acute pain service. Plausibility of coding is checked against the medical record by the RASS-coordinator for data quality assurance. RESULTS From October 2003-October 2005 there have been 360 cervical posterior punctures and 547 catheterdays. The utilization ratio of the cervical posterior brachial plexus block is 1.42 %. A pneumothorax occurred in 2.7/1000 punctures, local anesthetic toxicity and short term neurologic deficits were also observed in 2.7/1000 punctures. Catheter dislocation occurred in 5.4/1000 catheterdays and severe neck pain was noticed in 16.3/1000 punctures. There were no catheter associated long term neurological deficits, bleeding or infectious complications. CONCLUSION The cervical posterior approach to the brachial plexus is an alternative to the interscalene approach with the advantages of high success rate and secure catheter placement. Neck pain can be a disadvantage of the technique and acute complications like pneumothorax and local anesthetic toxicity seem to be similar to those reported with interscalene blocks in the literature.
Viable Infectious Cell Sorting in a BSL-3 Facility

With the increase in demand for high-speed cell sorting of viable infectious and now therapeutic cell samples, safety concerns for the protection of flow cytometer operators have increased. This chapter describes a quick, sensitive, and reproducible procedure to assure sample containment before sorting these samples. This procedure includes aerosol containment, physical barriers, environmental controls, and personal protection. An aerosol management system produces a negative pressure within the sort chamber where aerosols are vacuumed directly into a HEPA filter. Physical barriers include the manufacturer's standard plastic shield and panels. The flow cytometer is contained in a BSL-3 laboratory for maximum environmental control and the operator is protected using a respiratory system. Containment is measured using highly fluorescent Glo-Germ particles under the same conditions as the cell sort but with the sorter adjusted to produce large amounts of aerosols. These aerosols are collected by a vacuum air sampling system for 10 min in three locations onto a glass slide and examined microscopically. With this system in place, aerosol containment can be measured quickly and efficiently, therefore reducing the risk to the operator when sorting viable infectious cells.
Student Loan Programs and the Realities of Student Debt

The main purpose of federal student loans is to solve cash flow problems, not to pay part of the cost of education. Grant aid is the best way to provide subsidies to disadvantaged students. But some borrowers need help paying back their loans because their education does not pay off as well as anticipated. Measures of the amounts individual students borrow are generally more meaningful than the total amount of debt outstanding and there is quite a bit of variation in the borrowing patterns of different students. For example, older students and graduate students tend to carry more debt than others. Default rates are disturbingly high, but the biggest problems are among students who do not complete their programs and among those who attended for-profit institutions.
Camera as Witness, Image as Sign: The Study of Visual Communication in Communication Research

This chapter summarizes the state of the study of visual communication in communication research. The author outlines major themes and theories characterizing the study of visual communication and concludes by isolating key issues and current trends in the field.
Children's Burials in Fifth-Century Britain and Connections to the Roman Past

This paper considers the relationship between child burials and the way burial parties used them to create connections to the Roman past during Britain's long fifth century, AD 350–550. It examines how both children and adults were buried with late-Roman and early-fifth-century material culture such as bracelets, coins, repurposed Roman curiosities and disc brooches. During the fifth century, though these items were buried with individuals of all ages, the total grave goods assemblage of which they were a part differed for children and adults. Children were usually buried only with Roman material culture, whereas adults were also given items from Anglo-Saxon or other early medieval material cultures. As the chronological distance between a community and the Roman past lengthened, the graves of children – the future of the living community – were used to commemorate or construct connections to the Roman past.
A noise mechanism for model observers

Model observers may be employed as surrogates for human observers for various parameter optimization tasks that involve evaluation of imaging systems and processing algorithms. For a lesion localization-detection task, model observers based on statistical detection theory typically demonstrates superior performance compared to human observers. Inclusion of an internal-noise-mechanism can allow a model observer to better match humans. In a sequential reading task, human-observer internal noise may depend in a complicated manner on the ensemble of image data in addition to the particular image being viewed in the sequence. There may be other data-independent components of internal-noise as well. In this work, we propose an internal-noise model that takes this conditional dependence on the data-ensemble into consideration. Different ways of defining the ensemble lead to different sets of parameters for the noise-model, which in turn lead to different dynamics for the parameter-optimization curves. We explore these various cases using the channelized non-prewhitening (CNPW) observer. Our dataset consisted of Ga-67 hybrid SPECT/CT data, which was reconstructed using various combinations of attenuation compensation (AC), scatter Compensation (SC) and resolution compensation (RC). We generate optimization curves for these different combinations and compare the results with the noise-less case.
Probing carrier dynamics in wide-bandgap semiconductor-metal nanoparticle hybrids(Conference Presentation)

Transient absorption spectra were measured to demonstrate carrier injection in multi-layered stacks of Au nanoparticles sandwiched in between TiO2 atomic layer deposited (ALD) thin films. Similar structures were fabricated with ALD Al2O3 for control samples. Sub-percolation thin films of Au resulted in <20 nm particles with plasmon resonances at ~650 nm (~590 nm) in the TiO2 (Al2O3) samples. Two separate pump-probe experiments were preformed to monitor transient heating of the metal and carrier injection in the TiO2. In the first experiment, the metal nanoparticles were excited at 400 nm, and the metal electron dynamics were probed at wavelengths around the plasmon resonance. We measured a decay time of ~1.7 ps in the TiO2-Au layered samples compared to ~2.2 ps in the Al2O3-Au layered samples. The decay times are attributed to electron-phonon coupling. The faster decay in TiO2 may be the result of charge injection into the TiO2. In the second experiment, carriers were excited in the Au nanoparticles by pumping on the plasmon resonance, and the system was probed in the mid-IR to measure free carrier absorption in the TiO2. The TiO2-Au layered sample exhibited transient signals similar to the free carrier absorption signals following excitation of TiO2 films, however, no signal was observed on the Al2O3-Au layered sample. This provides clear evidence that the signal measured in the TiO2-Au layered sample was not from the Au nanoparticles alone but instead originated from charge injection from the Au into the TiO2.
Contribution of EUV mask CD variability on LCDU

The shrink in feature sizes enabled by EUV lithography introduces a regime where stochastic limits to resolution can manifest in the form of line edge roughness (LER) for line/space patterns and local critical dimension uniformity (LCDU) for contact/holes. To meet increasing tolerances on edge placement error (EPE) and suppression of stochastic effects, an understanding of EUV mask contributions on lithographic patterning variability is essential. The work here explores stochastic noise originating from the mask patterning process and attempts to quantify its contributions towards on-wafer LCDU. A semiempirical approach was used to statistically decompose the mask variability component from the measured LCDU and provide a first-order understanding of the mask’s impact on wafer. Taking a more direct approach, a one-to-one correlation of local CD variation between mask and wafer was also experimentally shown, presenting the possibility for predicting the contributions and impact of mask LCDU on wafer prior to exposure.
Metabolism of 14C-imipramine. II. Urinary metabolites in man.

About 95% of the radioactivity representing imipramine and its metabolites after a 5 μC oral dose of 14C-imipramine could be extracted with tetrahydrofuran-isoamyl alcohol (1∶1) from salt-saturated human urine at pH 12 and pH 5.
The Adoption of New Technologies in Dryland Farming Regions of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon

In the last 30 years several advanced technologies including guidance systems, auto-steer systems, variable fertilizer rate systems, and section controllers have become mainstream in modern irrigated agriculture. Although these technologies have become widely accepted under irrigated conditions in the United States, their adoption under dryland conditions has lagged. The purpose of this study was to document the adoption of these technologies in the dryland inland areas of northern Idaho, eastern Washington, and northeastern Oregon. Three mail-based surveys conducted 15 years apart in 1981, 1996, and 2011 were used to document adoption. All of the Dillman-based surveys received grower responses in excess of 50%. In 2011, guidance systems, auto steer systems, section controllers, and variable rate application systems were used by 46.8, 36.6, 25.5, and 20.4% of the survey respondents, respectively. The use of these technologies was less than 2% in 1981 and less than 10% in 1996. The factors of annual precipitation zone, grower age, number of years farmed, and farm size all had an impact on the use of modern technology. In general, variable rate systems were more popular in the drier areas. Younger farmers were more likely to have adopted the new technologies, and new technology use was more widespread on the larger farms. This article is important because it contains a 30-year history of how quickly modern technologies have been adopted in northern Idaho and eastern Washington. This article is unique because medium-term production changes (20–40 years) are seldom documented by a single research/extension program in production agriculture.
Abstract 1251: Pioglitazone inhibits periprostatic white adipose tissue inflammation in obese mice

Obesity is associated with an increased incidence of high-grade prostate cancer (PC) and poor prognosis for PC patients. Recently, we showed that obesity-related periprostatic white adipose tissue (WAT) inflammation, characterized by crown-like structures (CLS) consisting of dead or dying adipocytes surrounded by macrophages, was associated with high-grade PC in men. It’s possible, therefore, that agents that suppress periprostatic WAT inflammation will alter the natural history of PC. Pioglitazone, a ligand of PPARγ, is used to treat diabetes and possesses anti-inflammatory properties. Here our main objectives were to determine if pioglitazone inhibited obesity-related periprostatic WAT inflammation in mice and then to elucidate the underlying mechanism. Mice were fed either a high fat (HF) diet or low fat (LF) diet to determine if obesity caused periprostatic WAT inflammation as defined by the presence of CLS. To determine if pioglitazone inhibited obesity-associated periprostatic WAT inflammation, obese HF diet fed mice were either continued on HF diet alone or treated with HF diet containing two doses (0.005% or 0.05% w/w) of pioglitazone. Treatment with pioglitazone reduced the density of CLS in periprostatic WAT, and suppressed levels of TNF-α, TGF-β and the chemokine monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1). Importantly, the ability of pioglitazone to suppress periprostatic WAT inflammation was abrogated in MCP-1 knock out mice. Pioglitazone caused dose-dependent induction of both adiponectin, an anti-inflammatory adipokine, and its receptor AdipoR2 in cultured 3T3-L1 cells and in periprostatic WAT of obese mice. Pioglitazone blocked TNF-α-mediated induction of MCP-1 in 3T3-L1 cells, an effect that was attenuated when either adiponectin or AdipoR2 were silenced. Taken together, pioglitazone-mediated induction of adiponectin suppressed the elevation in MCP-1 levels thereby attenuating obesity-related periprostatic WAT inflammation. These findings strengthen the rationale for future efforts to determine whether targeting the PPARγ-adiponectin-MCP-1 axis will decrease periprostatic adipose inflammation and thereby reduce the risk of high-grade PC or improve outcomes for men with PC. Citation Format: Miki Miyazawa, Kotha Subbaramaiah, Priya Bhardwaj, Xi Kathy Zhou, Hanhan Wang, Domenick J. Falcone, Dilip D. Giri, Andrew J. Dannenberg. Pioglitazone inhibits periprostatic white adipose tissue inflammation in obese mice [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1251. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-1251
Does donor age matter? Biological and immunogenic differences between infant and aged mesenchymal stromal cells

Over the last decades, mesenchymal stromal cells MSC) have emerged as a promising therapeutic tool for cell-based therapies. However, their biological characteristics and beneficial potential may decline with patients’ age. Because most patients amenable for regenerative medicine have increased age, this could dramatically limit the autologous use of MSCs. We therefore sought to characterize the biological, immunological, and angiogenetic capacities of infant (iMSCs) versus aged MSCs (aMSCs). Both iMSCs and aMSCs showed typical spindle-shaped morphology, plastic adherence, and the same potential to differentiate into osteogenic, chondrogenic and adipogenic lineages. iMSCs and aMSCs expressed MSC-typical surface markers such as CD90 and CD105 and were negative for CD45, CD34, CD31 and CD117. iMSCs showed faster in vitro proliferation (p<0.001), migration (p<0.001), and stronger endothelial adhesion (p=0.018) than aMSC. There were no differences in HLA class I, β2 microglobulin, HLA class II, and co-stimulatory molecule expression between iMSCs and aMSCs. Both immunogenic HLA class II and CD54 and tolerogenic HLA-E expression were upregulated by IFNγ. iMSCs showed significantly higher CD29 signals and stronger endothelial adhesion than aMSCs. Interestingly, iMSCs outperformed aMSCs in different angiogenesis parameters. If not used in an autologous setting, iMSCs and aMSCs similarly provoked TH1 and TH2 responses in unidirectional ELISPOT assays and donor-specific IgM antibody production. Our results thus suggest that donor age does not affect immunogenicity and immunomodulatory properties, but markedly reduces biological properties of proliferation, migration, adhesion, and limits their angiogenic effects.
Postscript: Embodied Shaws

This brief discussion, while underscoring the importance of embodiment in assessing Shaw’s novels, reiterates what the preceding chapters argue: that the “desiring body” is replaced by the “affective body.” Such a thesis is consistent with the intervention of those contemporary theorists associated with affect study, as such feelings as shame, fear, anxiety and disgust are shown in the preceding chapters, at times, not only to accompany expressions of desire, but also to overwhelm such stirrings. Modernity and life in the modern metropolis, at least as Shaw represents them, cultivate such affects at least as often as they spark desire.
Understanding Adversarial Strategies from Bot Recruitment to Scheduling

Today botnets are still one of the most prevalent and devastating attacking platforms that cyber criminals rely on to launch large scale Internet attacks. Botmasters behind the scenes are becoming more agile and discreet, and some new and sophisticated strategies are adopted to recruit bots and schedule their activities to evade detection more effectively. In this paper, we conduct a measurement study of 23 active botnet families to uncover some new botmaster strategies based on an operational dataset collected over a period of seven months. Our analysis shows that different from the common perception that bots are randomly recruited in a best-effort manner, bots recruitment has strong geographical and organizational locality, offering defenses a direction and priority when attempting to shut down these botnets. Furthermore, our study to measure dynamics of botnet activity reveals that botmasters start to deliberately schedule their bots to hibernate and alternate in attacks so that the detection window becomes smaller and smaller.
On the interaction of human liver aldehyde dehydrogenase E1 isoenzyme with disulfiram and iodoacetamide.

The El isoenzyme of human liver aldehyde dehydrogenase (Km acetaldehyde = 30uM, pH 7.0), when incubated with disulfiram at a stoichiometry of four moles disulfiram/tetrameric El, is immediately inhibited to within 10% of control activity. The inhibition is reversed by 0.1% (v/v) mercaptoethanol, indicating disulfide bridge formation. An indirect attempt to locate, on maps, a peptide binding disulfiram has yielded inconsistent results. Iodoacetamide inhibits El slowly; inhibition is facilitated in the presence of NAD, resulting in loss of ca. 90% of control activity. Incubation with 14C iodoacetamide labels a 16,000 dalton CNBr peptide, and a ca. 4,000 dalton tryptic cleavage product. These fragments can be equated with those which have been suggested by disulfiram.
Ecology and Evolution of Ellipticals

The X-ray luminosities of elliptical galaxies indicate a large cooling rate, ~ 1 M ⊙) yr-1 , similar in magnitude to the current rate of mass ejection from evolving stars. The mass loss rate and cooling rate were almost certainly larger in the past when more massive stars were leaving the main sequence, so the total accumulated mass from cooled-off gas could be extremely large, perhaps even larger than the total stellar mass of these galaxies. Time-dependent evolutionary gas dynamical models of the hot gas in ellipticals have been largely successful in accounting for the soft X-ray luminosity and surface brightness profiles in present day ellipticals (Loewenstein and Mathews 1987). Typically these calculations indicate that the total amount of cooled-off gas is 5 to 10 times that of the current mass in hot gas and is from 5 to 200 times the stellar core mass of the galaxies, depending on the size of the core radius. The total amount of cooled off gas is insensitive to the distribution of dark halo matter that is responsible for binding the hot gas to the galaxies.
Prioritizing Cloud Security Controls

As more and more organization move to the cloud, security remains a major concern. Given the unique nature of a cloud computing system, security threats take a different form in the cloud. These unique threats require unique security measures and security management.This paper introduces a simplified method to calculate the effect of adding different security controls to the cloud system and prioritize security management in limited budget situations. These calculations help in prioritizing security controls and security spending to get an optimal security for a given limited budget.To clarify the proposed method, a case study is considered for a University that have shifted its systems to the cloud and needs to prioritize its security spending.
Reconciling Emotion and Rational Choice: Negativistic Auto Theft, Consequence Irrelevance, and the Seduction of Destruction:

Objectives:We explore negativism in the context of auto theft and examine its broader phenomenological significance for Rational Choice Theory.Methods:Data were drawn from qualitative, in-depth int...
Improving Network Health Monitoring Accuracy Based on Data Fusion for Software Defined Networking

Software defined networking (SDN) provides programmable centralized control architecture by separating and abstracting the control plane from the underlying forwarding system. In addition to enabling new applications such as traffic engineering and network virtualization, SDN also simplifies and automates network administrations to achieve increased network reliability and security. However, since events that occur within the network should be inferred by a centralized remote SDN controller, to make an accurate decision in time, the network event management should be able to effectively monitor and analysis the events. In this paper, we propose an efficient network health monitoring based on data fusion strategies to improve the decision accuracy for the centralized remote SDN controller.
2-D Cluster Variation Method Free Energy: Fundamentals and Pragmatics.

Despite being invented in 1951 by R. Kikuchi, the 2-D Cluster Variation Method (CVM), has not yet received attention. Nevertheless, this method can usefully characterize 2-D topographies using just two parameters; the activation enthalpy and the interaction enthalpy. This Technical Report presents 2-D CVM details, including the dependence of the various configuration variables on the enthalpy parameters, as well as illustrations of various topographies (ranging from scale-free-like to rich club-like) that result from different parameter selection. The complete derivation for the analytic solution, originally presented simply as a result in Kikuchi and Brush (1967) is given here, along with careful comparison of the analytically-predicted configuration variables versus those obtained when performing computational free energy minimization on a 2-D grid. The 2-D CVM can potentially function as a secondary free energy minimization within the hidden layer of a neural network, providing a basis for extending node activations over time and allowing temporal correlation of patterns.
Shorter Height Is Associated With Lower Probability of Liver Transplantation in Patients With Hepatocellular Carcinoma

BACKGROUND The effect of height and sex on liver transplantation (LT) for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. METHODS Using United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) data, 14 844 HCC patients listed for LT from 2005 to 2015 were identified. Cumulative incidence of waitlist events (LT and dropout for death or too sick) were calculated and modeled using Fine and Gray competing risk regression. RESULTS Short (SWR), mid (MWR), and long (LWR) UNOS wait regions comprised 25%, 42%, and 33% of the cohort. Three-year cumulative incidence of LT was lower in shorter height patients (≤150, 151-165, and >185 cm; 70.8%, 76.7%, and 83.5%; P 185 cm) was associated with lower probability of LT (0.81 and 0.89; P = 0.02) and greater dropout (HR 1.99 and 1.43; P < 0.001). Female sex was not associated with LT overall, but a significant sex and wait region interaction (P = 0.006) identified lower LT probability for women in MWR (HR versus men, 0.91; P = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS Despite uniform HCC Model for End-Stage Liver Disease exception across height and sex, shorter patients and females in MWR have lower probability of LT. Consideration should be given to awarding additional Model for End-Stage Liver Disease exception points to these patients.
Rethinking Exclusionary Zoning or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love It*:

Everybody, in the academic/activist world at least, seems to hate exclusionary zoning (EZ). In this intervention, I question this prevalent sentiment, especially as held by urban/housing scholars d...
Do female politicians matter for female labor market outcomes? Evidence from state legislative elections in India

Abstract This paper studies the long-term economic consequences of electing women to state legislatures in India. I use data on age cohorts 15–24 between 1980 and 2007 and estimate the causal effect of exposure to female politicians during young adulthood on later life female labor market outcomes. To address the endogeneity of electoral preferences, I use close elections between male and female candidates, won by a woman, as an instrument for female political representation in a district. I find that exposure to female politicians during young adulthood leads to a large increase in the probability of women working in wage employment, specifically from areas with less entrenched gender bias, but has limited effect on self-employment or casual work. There is a corresponding increase in the likelihood of completing higher secondary education and selecting into sales, service, and clerical occupations in the private sector, which require a higher level of education. The evidence suggests that the employment effects are consistent with dual channels of a policy role and changing aspirations of young girls due to role modeling.
Theory of the Trojan asteroids, IV

In the previously published Parts I and II of the paper, the author has constructed a formal long-periodic solution for the case of 1∶1 resonance in the restricted problem of three bodies to 0(m 3/2), wherem is the small mass parameter of the system. The time-dependencet(λ, α,m), where λ is the mean synodic longitude and α is related to the Jacobi constant, has been expressed by ahyperelliptic integral. It is shown here that with the approximationm=0 in the integrand, the functiont(λ, α, 0) can be expanded in a series involving standardelliptic functions. Then the problem of inversion can be formally solved, yielding the function λ(t, α, 0). Similarly, the normalized period τ(α,m) of the motion can be approximated by theHagihara hyperelliptic integral τ(α, 0), corresponding tom=0. This integral is also expanded into elliptic functions. Asymptotic forms for τ(α, 0) are derived for α∼0 and for α∼1, corresponding to the extreme members of thetadpole branch of the family of orbits.
Postoperative Management of Patients After Transcatheter Mitral Valve Procedures.

Abstract The development of new transcatheter and percutaneous solutions for mitral valve regurgitation have originated postoperative concerns that intensivists and cardiologists need to be familiar with, recognize, and manage accordingly. Each device has its own postoperative management considerations, which we have presented in detail.
A perception centred self-driving system without HD Maps.

Building a fully autonomous self-driving system has been discussed for more than 20 years yet remains unsolved. Previous systems have limited ability to scale. Their localization subsystem needs labor-intensive map recording for running in a new area, and the accuracy decreases after the changes occur in the environment. In this paper, a new localization method is proposed to solve the scalability problems, with a new method for detecting and making sense of diverse traffic lines. Like the way human drives, a self-driving system should not rely on an exact position to travel in most scenarios. As a result, without HD Maps, GPS or IMU, the proposed localization subsystem relies only on detecting driving-related features around (like lane lines, stop lines, and merging lane lines). For spotting and reasoning all these features, a new line detector is proposed and tested against multiple datasets.
Implications of Post-Discharge Care Coordination on Survival and Healthcare Utilization for Hospitalized Heart Failure Patients

Introduction With the current global pandemic, implementation of telemedicine transitional care programs has increased across healthcare systems. These programs are also important in the care of patients with chronic comorbidities such as advanced heart failure (HF), where novel cost-effective measures are increasingly sought to improve patient-related outcomes and healthcare utilization. This study explored the impact of tailored, telemedicine-based HF care coordination (HFCC) on 12-month survival and healthcare utilization after hospital discharge. We hypothesized that HFCC improves 12-month mortality and healthcare utilization. Methods Adults (n=1994) admitted with acute decompensated HF at our center from March 2015-December 2016 underwent HFCC (n=277) vs standard care only (non-HFCC, n=1717) for up to 30-days after hospital discharge. Cardiac nurse-led HFCC provided education, coaching, and coordination of medications and HF care needs. HFCC was delivered mainly by telemedicine supplemented with in-person visits as deemed necessary by routine care providers. Survival outcomes, emergency room (ER) visits, and hospital readmissions were evaluated within 12 months of discharge from index hospitalization. Results The study cohort (mean age of 62 ± 15 years) was predominantly Caucasian males (both ≥68%), with a Charlson Comorbidity Index of 5 [3, 5]. The majority were discharged home (90% HFCC vs 84% non-HFCC, p=0.53). The HFCC cohort had a longer index hospital stay (7 [5, 10] vs 5 [3, 9] days, p Conclusions Telemedicine-based transitional care programs such as HFCC can significantly reduce the burden of ER visits during the first year after HF hospitalization. Our analysis did not reveal a benefit on subsequent hospitalization or mortality within 12-months post-discharge. Future studies are warranted to examine the impact of HFCC on guideline-directed medical therapies and additional long-term outcomes.
China's Race to the Top: Regional and Global Implications of China's Industrial Policy

The paper examines the global and regional implications of China's revitalized state capitalism model through the sectoral lens of the Chinese automotive industry, which stands at the intersection of both traditional and green industrial policy. At the multinational level, China skillfully facilitates local policy implementation that creates excess capacity by propping up local and national champions through convenient compliance with the WTO. At the bilateral level, China closely links purchasing and coercive diplomacy with protections for Chinese players both at home and abroad. Key endeavors like the Belt and Road Initiative open up overseas markets to develop global champions and secure foreign footholds for Chinese champions. Additionally, China's increasing reliance on exclusionary diplomacy provides political justifications to discriminate against foreign competitors within the Chinese market while moving forward with industrial upgrading of domestic players. When linked together, these factors – all byproducts of China's approach to state-led capitalism – combine to explain China's efforts to create a race to the top.
Fitting aggregated phase-type distributions to the length-of-stay in intra-hospital patient transfers

Abstract The patient transfer, as a common seen and necessary healthcare procedure, plays an important role in maintaining efficient treatment and improving the quality of healthcare. Among various factors impacting and indicating the safety and efficiency of the patient transfer, the length-of-stay (LOS), which is not often studied in this field, is worth investigating. Phase-type (PH) distributions, as one of the popular methods of modeling LOS, will be integrated in an aggregated Markov chain to construct a model to describe the sequences of LOS in hospital units. In this paper, we model the intra-hospital transfer flow routes by fitting aggregated PH distribution and using Maximum Likelihood Estimation to estimate the parameters. Following the results of distribution fitting, the patients can be divided into different groups according to their LOS in the same unit. By analyzing each group to find out its common characteristics, intra-hospital transfer routes, admission and discharge situations, the associations among significant factors, the LOS and the treatment efficiency are evaluated.
Training for the Algorithmic Machine

In thinking about the ubiquity of algorithmic surveillance and the ways our presence in front of a camera has become engaged with the algorithmic logics of testing and replicating, this project summons Walter Benjamin’s seminal piece The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility with its three versions, which was published in the United States under the editorial direction of Theodore Adorno. More specifically, it highlights two of the many ways in which the first and second versions of Benjamin’s influential essay on technology and culture resonate with questions of photography and art in the context of facial recognition technologies and algorithmic culture more broadly. First, Benjamin provides a critical lens for understanding the role of uniqueness and replication in a technocratic system. Second, he proposes an analytical framework for thinking about our response to visual surveillance through notions of training and performing a constructed identity—hence, being intentional about the ways we visually present ourselves. These two conceptual frameworks help to articulate our unease with a technology that trains itself using our everyday digital images in order to create unique identities that further aggregate into elaborate typologies and to think through a number of artistic responses that have challenged the ubiquity of algorithmic surveillance. Taking on Benjamin’s conceptual apparatus and his call for understanding the politics of art, I focus on two projects that powerfully critique algorithmic surveillance. Leo Selvaggio’s URME (you are me) Personal Surveillance Identity Prosthetic offers a critical lens through the adoption of algorithmically defined three-dimensional printed faces as performative prosthetics designed to be read and assessed by an algorithm. Kate Crawford and Trevor Paglen’s project Training Humans is the first major exhibition to display a collection of photographs used to train an algorithm as well as the classificatory labels applied to them both by artificial intelligence and by the freelance employees hired to sort through these images.
Bias in a blink: Shedding light on implicit attitudes toward patients with a cleft lip

Introduction Previous studies have shown that patients with cleft lip and/or palate may be stigmatized in society. The objective of this study was to use an implicit association test to evaluate the subconscious biases of non–health care providers and orthodontists against patients with a repaired cleft lip (CL). Methods Respondents participated in an implicit association test. Pictures of patients with CL and controls were shown to participants, along with terms representing positive and negative attributes. Participants were prompted to match pictures to the attributes. The software algorithm detected whether the participants were more likely to associate CL with positive or negative terms than controls. Demographic information was collected to measure the association between some sociodemographic factors and implicit biases. Results Of 130 valid participants, 52 were orthodontists and 78 were non–health care providers. The entire sample displayed a significant implicit bias against CL (P Conclusions Orthodontists and non–health care providers showed moderate but significant levels of implicit biases against patients with clefts. Males, older age groups, and patients with a more conservative political affiliation tended to exhibit slightly higher levels of biases than females, younger people, and those with a more liberal political affiliation.
Observations of Bobcats, Lynx rufus , Hunting Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs, Cynomys ludovicianus , in Western South Dakota

There is a paucity of scientific literature describing Bobcat ( Lynx rufus ) hunting strategies. I document 13 observations of Bobcats hunting Black-tailed Prairie Dogs ( Cynomys ludovicianus ) in western South Dakota. In all cases the Bobcats stationed themselves next to a prairie dog mound in an attempt to ambush prairie dogs emerging from their burrows. In eight cases the Bobcats successfully captured a prairie dog emerging from the burrow, in one case the Bobcat turned and captured a prairie dog that had walked up behind it, and in the other cases the Bobcats lunged at the burrow openings, but did not capture a prairie dog. There were two variations of the tactic: in some cases Bobcats entered a colony prior to prairie dog emergence and stationed themselves next to a mound, whereas in other cases Bobcats stationed themselves next to a burrow that a prairie dog had just escaped to. One Bobcat appeared to have waited next to the same mound for at least 7.5 hr. Prairie dogs may comprise a large portion of a Bobcat's winter diet in landscapes where prairie dog colonies exist in close proximity to badlands or woody cover.
Nothing to Fear: FDR's Inner Circle and the Hundred Days that Created Modern America – By Adam Cohen

In March 1933, Republican Herbert Hoover's policies were in complete disarray while Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt prepared to take office after a landslide victory. In this history of the Hundred ...
A hierarchical analysis approach for high performance computing and communication applications

The design, analysis and development of parallel and distributed applications in High Performance Computing and Communication (HPCC) Systems are still very challenging tasks. Therefore, there is a great need for an integrated multilevel analysis methodology to assist in designing and analyzing the performance of both existing and proposed new HPCC systems. Currently, there are no comprehensive analysis methods that address such hierarchical modeling approach for analyzing the end-to-end performance of an application running on an HPCC system. The overall system is partitioned into application level, protocol level and network level. Functions at each level are modeled using queueing networks. The approach enables the designer to study performance for different types of networks and protocols and different design strategies. In this paper we use video-on-demand as an application example to show how our approach can be used to analyze the performance of such an application.
Orbital motion and force in Newton’s $$\textit{Principia}$$ Principia ; the equivalence of the descriptions in Propositions 1 and 6

In Book 1 of the Principia, Newton presented two different descriptions of orbital motion under the action of a central force. In Prop. 1, he described this motion as a limit of the action of a sequence of periodic force impulses, while in Prop. 6, he described it by the deviation from inertial motion due to a continuous force. From the start, however, the equivalence of these two descriptions has been the subject of controversies. Perhaps the earliest one was the famous discussion from December 1704 to 1706 between Leibniz and the French mathematician Pierre Varignon. But confusion about this subject has remained up to the present time. Recently, Pourciau has rekindled these controversies in an article in this journal, by arguing that “Newton never tested the validity of the equivalency of his two descriptions because he does not see that his assumption could be questioned. And yet the validity of this unseen and untested equivalence assumption is crucial to Newton’s most basic conclusions concerning one-body motion” (Pourciau in Arch Hist Exact Sci 58:283–321, 2004, 295). But several revisions of Props. 1 and 6 that Newton made after the publication in 1687 of the first edition of the Principia reveal that he did become concerned to provide mathematical proof for the equivalence of his seemingly different descriptions of orbital motion in these two propositions. In this article, we present the evidence that in the second and third edition of the Principia, Newton gave valid demonstrations of this equivalence that are encapsulated in a novel diagram discussed in Sect. 4.
Is in vivo manual palpation for thoracic pedicle screw instrumentation reliable

Object Previous reports on the accuracy of manual palpation for thoracic pedicle screw placement have been restricted to cadaveric studies. Authors of the present novel study assessed the accuracy of manual palpation for the detection of medial and lateral pedicle breaches during thoracic spine surgery in living adult humans. Methods Pedicle tracks were created freehand and manually palpated using a ball-tipped probe. Postoperative CT scans of all implanted thoracic and L-1 screws were evaluated with respect to screw position and the pedicle wall. Results Five hundred twenty-five pedicle track/screw placements were compared. There were 21 pedicles with medial breaches measuring ≥ 2 mm. The surgeon correctly identified only 4 of these pedicle tracks as having a medial breach. The surgeon correctly identified 17 of 128 pedicles with a significant (≥ 2 mm) lateral breach. One hundred two screw placements had no measurable breach in any direction (medial, lateral, or foraminal). The surgeon correctly identified 98% of these ideally placed screws. Conclusions In this real-time study of thoracic pedicle screw placement, the accuracy of manual palpation for detecting medial or lateral breaches that were ≥ 2 mm was disturbingly low. These findings are consistent with those in recent cadaveric evaluations of palpation accuracy and point to the critical need for more reliable alternative methods to assess pedicle integrity during the placement of thoracic pedicle screws for spine instrumentation surgery.
Accounting as the Documentary Proof of Good Corporate Governance

According to Friedrich Carl von Savigny, the corporation is a mere fiction of law.1 As a separate legal person the corporation (company) is ‘invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law’ (John C. Marshall).2 That is the case worldwide. No one ever has seen, for example, the ‘DaimlerChrysler AG’, the ‘BHP Billiton Corp.’ or the ‘Vodafone plc’. Thus, corporate governance and the law associated with corporate governance deal with an ‘artificial being’. So, how can we deal with something ‘invisible’?
First spaceborne observation of an Earth‐reflected GPS signal

[1] We present the first spaceborne observation of a Global Positioning System (GPS) signal reflected from the Earth's surface, specifically from the Pacific Ocean. This result is scaled to obtain the expected voltage signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and altimetric accuracy for a generic GPS reflections altimetry mission and the current SAC-C and CHAMP missions. Cross-correlating a three-parameter phase model with both a 1-s and 4-s segment of spaceborne imaging radar-C (SIR-C) calibration data, recorded before and after a Galapagos Islands imaging pass, results in beam-limited signals having voltage SNRs of 10 and 334, respectively. Evidence for these results being reflected GPS signals includes: (1) The signals' temporal shapes agree closely with that predicted using a detailed scattering model, at two different observation geometries, and differ significantly from the expected direct signal shapes. (2) The signal in the 4-s data has a measured coherence time of 1.0 ms, which agrees closely with that expected for a reflected signal and is completely inconsistent with the direct signal's coherence properties. (3) The 1- and 4-s signals' voltage SNR is maximized by shifting the model frequency −2740 Hz and 497 Hz, respectively from that expected from their respective specular reflection points, or −2875 Hz and 690 Hz from the expected direct signal frequencies. These values agree with the −2900 Hz and 510 Hz Doppler frequency shifts expected from those points on the surface corresponding to the antenna's pointing direction, thus illustrating beam-steering effects on the surface. (4) Plausible hypotheses for the detected waveform being a corrupted direct signal, including second-order mismodeling effects, shuttle multipath effects, or a band-pass cutoff of the GPS spread spectrum, are shown to be inconsistent with the data. Space-based observations of reflected GPS signals, like the ones presented here, may enable a new class of ocean topography measurements unavailable from traditional altimeters, such as TOPEX/Poseidon, and perhaps surface wind vector measurements. Making such observations with sufficient SNR will require unusually large, high-gain antennas. The measurement presented here is scaled to assess the expected SNR for those applications. Because this result lies in a nonlinear scaling regime, the correct scaling equations are presented, and the expected signal strength from a generic GPS reflections altimetry mission is derived to illustrate the most important contributions to the signal SNR. An SNR estimate is also derived for the SAC-C and CHAMP missions, which are expected to make GPS reflection measurements in the near future. Finally, a qualitative wind speed determination is extracted from the observed signal.
Residual stress impairs pump function after surgical ventricular remodeling: A finite element analysis

Background Surgical ventricular restoration (Dor procedure) is generally thought to reduce left ventricular (LV) myofiber stress (FS) but to adversely affect pump function. However, the underlying mechanism is unclear. The goal of this study was to determine the effect of residual stress (RS) on LV FS and pump function after the Dor procedure. Methods Previously described finite element models of the LV based on magnetic resonance imaging data obtained in 5 sheep 16 weeks after anteroapical myocardial infarction were used. Simulated polyethylene terephthalate fiber (Dacron) patches that were elliptical and 25% of the infarct opening area were implanted using a virtual suture technique (VIRTUAL-DOR). In each case, diastole and systole were simulated, and RS, FS, LV volumes, systolic and diastolic function, and pump (Starling) function were calculated. Results VIRTUAL-DOR was associated with significant RS that was tensile (2.89 ± 1.31 kPa) in the remote myocardium and compressive (234.15 ± 65.53 kPa) in the border zone. VIRTUAL-DOR+RS (compared with VIRTUAL-DOR-NO-RS) was associated with further reduction in regional diastolic and systolic FS, with the greatest change in the border zone (43.5-fold and 7.1-fold, respectively; p Conclusions Residual stress that occurs after the Dor procedure is positive (tensile) in the remote myocardium and negative (compressive) in the border zone and associated with reductions in FS and LV volumes. The resultant effect is a further reduction in LV pump (Starling) function.
Infrared absorption coefficient of H 2 SO 4 vapor from 1190 to 1260 cm −1

The infrared absorption coefficient of H2SO4 vapor has been measured for the first time. The vapor was obtained from liquid acid held at the azeotrope. The temperature dependence of the absorption confirmed that the azeotrope concentration was accurate to better than 1%. The P, Q, and R branches of the measured band cover a spectral range of 1190 to 1260 cm−1. The peak absorption coefficient of 4.16 ±0.15 atm−1 cm−1 occurred at 1222 cm−1 within the Q branch, with an integrated absorption coefficient of 120 atm−1cm−2 over the entire band. Within the resolution of the experiment, 0.5 cm−1, no fine structure was observed on this band.