cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Platelet-Derived Growth Factor Delivery via Nanofibrous Scaffolds for Soft-Tissue Repair.

Background: Platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) is a multifunctional growth factor that exerts its biological effects on cellular chemotaxis, proliferation, matrix synthesis, antiapoptosis, and vascularization. PDGF is clinically approved to treat neuropathic diabetic ulcers and osseous defects due to periodontal disease. The Problem: The short half-life in vivo of PDGF limits the efficacy of its biological functions. Solving this problem remains a key obstacle for PDGF clinical application. Therefore, the development of an optimized controlled release delivery system offers significant potential. Basic/Clinical Science Advances: In this article, we highlight the development of a polymeric delivery system of nanofibrous scaffolds containing PDGFencapsulated microspheres for tissue engineering. The designed scaffolds were evaluated in a subcutaneous implantation model for tissue neogenesis, vascularization, and chemokine gene expression, as well as soft-tissue repair. PDGF was found to strongly upregulate in vivo gene expression of the CXC chemokine family members such as CXC chemokine ligand CXCL1, CXCL2, and CXCL5 that are important in angiogenesis, inflammation, and wound repair. Clinical Care Relevance: Recombinant human PDGF is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for patients afflicted with diabetic foot ulcers or compromised periodontal wounds. Challenges related to the transient biological activity of bolus PDGF administration using currently available release systems continue. Thus, it is necessary to explore new delivery systems to optimize biological activity and bioavailability of tissue growth factors. Conclusion: The use of a controlled, ‘‘dial-able’’ delivery system allows for a more tightly regulated release of factors to promote repair of soft- and hardtissue defects for clinical application.
Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial to Evaluate the Impact of Bed Rest on Maternal and Fetal Outcomes in Women with Preterm Premature Rupture of the Membranes.

Objectives Preterm premature rupture of the membranes (PPROM) is spontaneous rupture of membranes before 37 weeks' gestation before the onset of labor. The standard of care is inpatient management with antibiotics and monitoring. Bed rest has not been shown to be beneficial in the setting of PPROM and has adverse maternal effects. We conducted a pilot randomized clinical trial (RCT) to determine the feasibility of recruitment for an RCT of this nature and obtain estimates of the frequency of maternal and neonatal outcomes. Study Design Patients who were diagnosed with PPROM Results In this study, 36 women were enrolled and randomized; 1 patient withdrew. Complete data were available for 21 subjects. In univariable analysis, women in the activity group had a nonsignificantly shorter latency time than the bed rest group (median 6.0 vs. 8.5 days). Neonatal outcomes were similar between groups. Using log-rank sum analysis, neonates born to mothers in the activity group were more likely to develop necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) than in the control group (24 vs. 0%, p = 0.05); this difference was not significant after false discovery rate correction (p = 0.80). Conclusion This is the first randomized controlled study to evaluate bed rest versus normal activity in the setting of PPROM
Sex-specific effects of pain-related anxiety on adjustment to chronic pain.

Abstract:Objective:Considerable research indicates that both high levels of anxiety and female sex are associated with increased sensitivity to experimental pain and greater experience of clinical pain. In general, however, previous research has not investigated the joint effects of sex and anxiety
A Required Reading Program for Mathematics Majors

A typical experience for a student in a college mathematics course is to buy a textbook at the beginning of the course, and then in a regular way read one section per lecture and work some problems at the end of the section. Rarely is another book consulted or is any research done in the library. Most teachers of college mathematics courses, especially the courses beyond calculus, would agree that the above scenario is not desirable, and wish that their students would read more widely in the mathematical literature. Description of the program. At Wheaton College we have developed a program to ensure that our majors gain at least a minimal introduction to the literature. We choose a collection of 16 articles or chapters of books that sample such topics as history, biography, applications, surveys of broad areas, creativity, and the nature of mathematics. We would like our majors to be aware of the past contributions of people such as Cantor, Cauchy, Euler, Gauss and Hilbert as well as the present influence of people such as Halmos, Kline, Knuth and Polya. We would like them to become acquainted with the NCTM, MAA, ACM, Bell Labs and G6ttingen. We give the list of articles to our majors towards the end of their sophomore year while they are in the abstract algebra course and require that they finish the program before the end of their junior year. After reading each article, the student is to write a page of reactions to the material in the article. Unless there is some way to enforce this program, it will remain a good idea that died because students choose to concentrate their time on assignments that are required. If the 16 reports are not in by the end of the junior year, we assign a grade of incomplete in a major course that the student took during the spring term of the junior year. If the program is not completed within an additional 6 weeks, the incomplete is changed to a grade of F. While we have given a number of incompletes over the years, we have never had to resort to giving an F for this deficiency. Most students express appreciation for the value of the program when it is completed. We place copies of these articles on reserve in the library and also make them available in the department area. If a department has a study area or seminar room, a better method is to place the books or journals on a table where they are readily visible. As the student reads one article in a book, the hope is that he or she will see other interesting articles and be encouraged to read beyond the requirement. Content of the program. I will now list several of the books and articles that we have used in recent years. One has to fight the temptation to try to include too many articles, or selections that are too long. The program works best when the
Methyl bromide fumigation combined with storage for control of codling moth in apples.

Fumigation with 32 g/m3 methyl bromide (MeBr) for 2 hr at 23.9–25°C followed by a minimum 60 days of storage at −0.56°C in either standard cold or controlled atmosphere storage destroyed all live larvae of Laspeyresia pomonella (L.), in apples. In contrast, some unfumigated larvae survived the entire holding period (120 days) in both types of storage. Unacceptable damage to the fruit, including surface scalding, accentuation of bruises, and accelerated breakdown during storage occurred when ‘Red Delicious’ or ‘Golden Delicious’ apples were fumigated with 48 or 64 g/m3 MeBr.
Feasibility discussion for formulating chronic obstructive lung disease of the guidance principle of clinical study on traditional Chinese medicine

chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD) is a common respiratory system disease which seriously damages the patients' physical and mental health.Along with the continuous depth understanding of the disease,the clinical guidelines set by the China and western have guided and standardized the diagnosis and treatment of COPD.The improvement of clinical and scientific research plays a positive role in formulating industry guidelines.The industry guidelines have led COPD clinical trial of new traditional Chinese medicine.This article discussed the feasibility and necessity of establishing industry guiding principle of COPD.
Prevalence and Characterization of High Histamine-Producing Bacteria in Gulf of Mexico Fish Species.

Recent developments in detection and enumeration of histamine-producing bacteria (HPB) have created powerful molecular-based tools to better understand the presence of spoilage bacteria and conditions, resulting in increased risk of scombrotoxin fish poisoning. We examined 235 scombrotoxin-forming fish from the Gulf of Mexico for the presence of high HPB. Photobacterium damselae subsp. damselae was the most prevalent HPB (49%), followed by Morganella morganii (14%), Enterobacter aerogenes (4%), and Raoultella planticola (3%). The growth characteristics and histamine production capabilities of the two most prevalent HPB were further examined. M. morganii and P. damselae had optimum growth at 35°C and 30 to 35°C and 0 to 2% and 1 to 3% NaCl, respectively. P. damselae produced significantly (P < 0.001) higher histamine than M. morganii in inoculated mahimahi and Spanish mackerel incubated at 30°C for 24 h, but histamine production was not significantly different between the two HPB in inoculated tuna, possib...
Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order

(1968). Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order. Journal of Economic Issues: Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 94-97.
Grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) locomotion: forelimb joint mechanics across speed in the sagittal and frontal planes

ABSTRACT The majority of terrestrial locomotion studies have focused on parasagittal motion and paid less attention to forces or movement in the frontal plane. Our previous research has shown that grizzly bears produce higher medial ground reaction forces (lateral pushing from the animal) than would be expected for an upright mammal, suggesting frontal plane movement may be an important aspect of their locomotion. To examine this, we conducted an inverse dynamics analysis in the sagittal and frontal planes, using ground reaction forces and position data from three high-speed cameras of four adult female grizzly bears. Over the speed range collected, the bears used walks, running walks and canters. The scapulohumeral joint, wrist and the limb overall absorb energy (average total net work of the forelimb joints, −0.97 W kg −1 ). The scapulohumeral joint, elbow and total net work of the forelimb joints have negative relationships with speed, resulting in more energy absorbed by the forelimb at higher speeds (running walks and canters). The net joint moment and power curves maintain similar patterns across speed as in previously studied species, suggesting grizzly bears maintain similar joint dynamics to other mammalian quadrupeds. There is no significant relationship with net work and speed at any joint in the frontal plane. The total net work of the forelimb joints in the frontal plane was not significantly different from zero, suggesting that, despite the high medial ground reaction forces, the forelimb acts as a strut in that plane.
Single-Compartment Model

During the past 40 years, several mathematical models have appeared that describe urea kinetics during and between hemodialyses (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10). These models compute changes in urea concentration with time and are based on logical expressions of urea mass balance. The basic equations are straightforward, but the mathematics become more complex as additional variables are added to improve accuracy (10). Any one of these models can generate a predictable profile of urea concentrations on the vertical axis and time on the horizontal axis for each patient. To create the profile, only two or three urea or urea nitrogen concentrations are measured, one or two before dialysis and one at the end of dialysis. Figure 4.1 shows the pattern of changes in the blood urea nitrogen (BUN) that urea modeling techniques can generate for an entire week. The weekly pattern repeats itself, just as the patient’s dialysis schedule repeats itself at one-week intervals. The asymmetry of the weekly pattern is a consequence of the patient’s requirement for more than one and less than seven dialyses per week and our ancestors’ adoption of the biblical seven-day week.
Model based design introduction: modeling game controllers to microprocessor architectures

We present an introduction to model based design. Model based design is a visual representation, generally a block diagram, to model and incrementally develop a complex system. Model based design is a commonly used design methodology for digital signal processing, control systems, and embedded systems. Model based design’s philosophy is: to solve a problem - a step at a time. The approach can be compared to a series of steps to converge to a solution. A block diagram simulation tool allows a design to be simulated with real world measurement data. For example, if an analog control system is being upgraded to a digital control system, the analog sensor input signals can be recorded. The digital control algorithm can be simulated with the real world sensor data. The output from the simulated digital control system can then be compared to the old analog based control system. Model based design can compared to Agile software develop. The Agile software development goal is to develop working software in incremental steps. Progress is measured in completed and tested code units. Progress is measured in model based design by completed and tested blocks. We present a concept for a video game controller and then use model based design to iterate the design towards a working system. We will also describe a model based design effort to develop an OS Friendly Microprocessor Architecture based on the RISC-V.
Intravesical chemotherapy versus immunotherapy for superficial bladder cancer.

The decision to treat superficial bladder cancer with intravesical therapy should be predicated primarily on disease stage and grade as well as the patient's clinical history. Once the decision to proceed with intravesical therapy has been made, the clinician must select the appropriate agent. Several agents are available and the choice of which agent to use should be based on careful consideration of the potential benefit of a given drug versus its inherent risk of complications. The first drug to be administered intravesically, thiotepa is an alkylating agent used as first-line treatment for low-grade lesions; it has limited use against higher-grade tumors or carcinoma in situ. In addition, the low molecular weight of thiotepa results in significant systemic absorption, which often results in myelosuppression. Mitomycin, also an alkylating agent, has shown significant activity as both first-line therapy and in patients with recurrent disease. Unlike thiotepa, mitomycin has a relatively high molecular weight, and the incidence of significant bladder absorption and systemic side effects is low. Doxorubicin, which also possesses a high molecular weight, is used intravesically against superficial bladder cancer more frequently in Europe and Japan than in the United States. Immunotherapy with bacille Calmette-Guerin is the treatment of choice for carcinoma in situ and high-grade T1 lesions. It is associated with the highest incidence of both minor and major adverse reactions, however, and its use should be tempered by its potential toxicity.
A Systematic Literature Review for Evidence of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae Toxigenicity in Recreational Waters and Toxicity of Dietary Supplements: 2000–2017

Previous studies of recreational waters and blue-green algae supplements (BGAS) demonstrated co-occurrence of Aphanizomenon flos-aquae (AFA) and cyanotoxins, presenting exposure risk. The authors conducted a systematic literature review using a GRADE PRISMA-p 27-item checklist to assess the evidence for toxigenicity of AFA in both fresh waters and BGAS. Studies have shown AFA can produce significant levels of cylindrospermopsin and saxitoxin in fresh waters. Toxicity studies evaluating AFA-based BGAS found some products carried the mcyE gene and tested positive for microcystins at levels ≤ 1 μg microcystin (MC)-LR equivalents/g dry weight. Further analysis discovered BGAS samples had cyanotoxins levels exceeding tolerable daily intake values. There is evidence that Aphanizomenon spp. are toxin producers and AFA has toxigenic genes such as mcyE that could lead to the production of MC under the right environmental conditions. Regardless of this ability, AFA commonly co-occur with known MC producers, which may contaminate BGAS. Toxin production by cyanobacteria is a health concern for both recreational water users and BGAS consumers. Recommendations include: limit harvesting of AFA to months when toxicity is lowest, include AFA in cell counts during visible blooms, and properly identify cyanobacteria species using 16S rRNA methods when toxicity levels are higher than advisory levels.
ARCTIC OIL CLEANUP SYSTEM - SUBSYSTEM REQUIREMENTS*

The U.S. Coast Guard has the responsibility for preventing and controlling oil spills in and along the coastal waters of the United States from authority granted by the Water Pollution Control Act. The coastal waters of arctic Alaska are in the direct area of Coast Guard responsibility.
Using Parameterization and Springs to Determine Aneurysm Wall Thickness

Aneurysms are an enlargement of a blood vessel due to a weakened wall and can pose significant health risks. Abdominal aortic aneurysms alone are the 13th leading cause of death in the United States, with 15,000 deaths annually. While there are recommended guidelines for doctors to follow in the treatment of specific aneurysms, they cannot guarantee a satisfactory outcome. Computer simulations of an aneurysm may be able to help doctors in their treatment; however, the results are inaccurate if the vessel wall thickness is poorly measured. In order to provide more accurate, patient-specific simulations, not only does geometry for the fluid domain need to be created from medical images for analysis, but the creation of more accurate models for the wall needs to be accomplished as well. This paper proposes a solution to the latter by deforming the mesh from a healthy vessel into one with an aneurysm through parameterization and the use of a spring model. The thickness of the resulting wall model is empirically valid and fluid-structure interaction simulations show significant improvements when using a variable versus a uniform wall thickness.
Polymer Processing Operations Other Than Shaping

Polymer processing operations which do not involve shaping are defined here as those which are concerned with the synthesis of high molecular weight polymers, and those which are concerned with affecting physico-chemical changes in the nature of polymeric materials. These operations, which are most often conducted upstream from the shaping operations (i.e., extrusion, injection molding, blow molding, tubular film blowing, fiber spinning), include by way of example: vapor-liquid stripping operations when the liquid phase is a molten polymer or polymer solution (devolatilization), liquid-liquid stripping operations where one liquid is a molten polymer or polymeric solution, gas absorption in molten polymers, polymerization and grafting reactions, mixing, pumping and pressurization, and filtration.
The Use of Somatic Hypermutation for the Affinity Maturation of Therapeutic Antibodies

The engineering of antibodies and antibody fragments for affinity maturation, stability, and other biophysical characteristics is a common aspect of therapeutic development. Maturation of antibodies in B cells during the adaptive immune response is the result of a process called somatic hypermutation (SHM), in which the activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) acts to introduce mutations into immunoglobulin (Ig) genes. Iterative selection and clonal expansion of B cells containing affinity-enhancing mutations drive an increase in the overall affinity of antibodies. Here we describe the use of SHM coupled with mammalian cell surface display for the maturation of antibodies in vitro and the complementarity of these methods with the mining of immune lineages using next-generation sequencing (NGS).
Fundamental Properties of Monomial Ideals

In this chapter, we develop the basic tools for working with monomial ideals. Section 1.1 introduces the main players. Motivated by some properties from this section, Section 1.2 contains a brief discussion of integral domains. Section 1.3 deals with some aspects of generating sets for monomial ideals. The optional Section 1.4 on noetherian rings is a natural follow-up. The chapter concludes with explorations of some numerical aspects of monomials and monomial ideals in Sections 1.5 and 1.6. The parallel Macaulay2 material here explores these notions computationally and lays the groundwork for more elaborate programming down the road.
Are aromatase inhibitors associated with higher myocardial infarction risk in breast cancer patients? A Medicare population-based study

Background Theoretically, the estrogen deprivation induced by aromatase inhibitors (AIs) might cause ischemic heart disease, but empiric studies have shown mixed results. We aimed to compare AIs and tamoxifen with regard to cardiovascular events among older breast cancer patients outside of clinical trials. We hypothesized that AIs increase the risk of myocardial infarction. Methods We identified women age ≥67 years diagnosed with breast cancer from June 30, 2006 to June 1, 2008 in the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results (SEER)-Medicare database, treated with either tamoxifen or an AI, and followed through December 31, 2012. To compare myocardial infarction (MI) risk for the treatment groups of AIs vs tamoxifen, we developed and assigned stabilized probability of treatment weights and used the Fine and Gray model for time to MI with death not related to MI as a competing risk. Results Of the cohort of 5648 women, 4690 were treated with AIs and 958 with tamoxifen; a total of 251 patients developed MI, and 22 patients died of MI during the study period while 476 died of other causes. The hazard for MI was not significantly different between AI vs tamoxifen groups (HR = 1.01, 95% CI 0.72-1.42), after adjusting for the following known MI risk factors at the start of adjuvant therapy: diabetes, ischemic heart disease, congestive heart failure, MI, and peripheral vascular disease. Conclusions In this SEER-Medicare-based population study, there were no significant differences in the risk of MI between AI and tamoxifen users after adjustment for known risk factors.
Bayesian Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial Regression Based on Pólya-Gamma Mixtures

Motivated by a study examining spatiotemporal patterns in inpatient hospitalizations, we propose an efficient Bayesian approach for fitting zero-inflated negative binomial models. To facilitate posterior sampling, we introduce a set of latent variables that are represented as scale mixtures of normals, where the precision terms follow independent Polya-Gamma distributions. Conditional on the latent variables, inference proceeds via straightforward Gibbs sampling. For fixed-effects models, our approach is comparable to existing methods. However, our model can accommodate more complex data structures, including multivariate and spatiotemporal data, settings in which current approaches often fail due to computational challenges. Using simulation studies, we highlight key features of the method and compare its performance to other estimation procedures. We apply the approach to a spatiotemporal analysis examining the number of annual inpatient admissions among United States veterans with type 2 diabetes.
Quantifying the Cross-Sensitivity of Glass pH Electrodes in Alkaline Solutions

Standard glass pH electrodes are ubiquitous instruments used in research and in classrooms to measure the hydrogen ions present in a solution. While many chemists and educators have communicated ways to support teaching conceptual understanding of solution pH and the function of pH probes and dyes, the community lacks a methodology that enables students to move beyond a qualitative discussion of pH probe cross-sensitivity to other cations such as Li+ and Na+. Here, we present an affordable method whereby students learn to quantify such instrumental limitations and cross-sensitivities. The reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) detects changes in hydrogen ion activity via electrochemical potential and serves as the baseline in this study to standardize the cation sensitivity of several glass membrane pH probes. Increasing additions of a salt, e.g., NaCl, in their corresponding alkali solutions, e.g., 0.10 M NaOH, were used to observe the shift in measured pH between the RHE (nominally only H+) and glass pH probes (H+ plus other cations). The generated working curves were found to be specific to each glass pH electrode, the cation identity, and the solution pH. Taken together, this report provides a methodology that equips instructors and research mentors to teach undergraduates about systematic error associated with instrumentation and specifically how to improve the accuracy of pH probe measurements in saline or alkaline environments.
PubMed Text Similarity Model and its application to curation efforts in the Conserved Domain Database

This study proposes a text similarity model to help biocuration efforts of the Conserved Domain Database (CDD). CDD is a curated resource that catalogs annotated multiple sequence alignment models for ancient domains and full-length proteins. These models allow for fast searching and quick identification of conserved motifs in protein sequences via Reverse PSI-BLAST. In addition, CDD curators prepare summaries detailing the function of these conserved domains and specific protein families, based on published peer-reviewed articles. To facilitate information access for database users, it is desirable to specifically identify the referenced articles that support the assertions of curator-composed sentences. Moreover, CDD curators desire an alert system that scans the newly published literature and proposes related articles of relevance to the existing CDD records. Our approach to address these needs is a text similarity method that automatically maps a curator-written statement to candidate sentences extracted from the list of referenced articles, as well as the articles in the PubMed Central database. To evaluate this proposal, we paired CDD description sentences with the top 10 matching sentences from the literature, which were given to curators for review. Through this exercise, we discovered that we were able to map the articles in the reference list to the CDD description statements with an accuracy of 77%. In the dataset that was reviewed by curators, we were able to successfully provide references for 86% of the curator statements. In addition, we suggested new articles for curator review, which were accepted by curators to be added into the reference list at an acceptance rate of 50%. Through this process, we developed a substantial corpus of similar sentences from biomedical articles on protein sequence, structure and function research, which constitute the CDD text similarity corpus. This corpus contains 5159 sentence pairs judged for their similarity on a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high) doubly annotated by four CDD curators. Curator-assigned similarity scores have a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.70 and an inter-annotator agreement of 85%. To date, this is the largest biomedical text similarity resource that has been manually judged, evaluated and made publicly available to the community to foster research and development of text similarity algorithms.
Metal ion linked multilayers on mesoporous substrates: Energy/electron transfer, photon upconversion, and more

Abstract Metal ion linked multilayers on mesoporous, semiconducting surfaces have recently emerged as a simple but effective strategy to facilitate photoinduced energy and electron transfer events at organic-inorganic interfaces. In this manuscript, we recount our group’s work in understanding, controlling, and harnessing photoinduced processes in these multilayer assemblies. This includes, 1) manipulating interfacial electron transfer rates at dye-semiconductor interfaces, 2) generating directional energy and electron cascade solar cells, and 3) facilitating and harnessing molecular photon upconversion via triplet-triplet annihilation. We then close with a brief summary of the progress to date, general limitations with the current films/work, and an outlook as to what the future may hold for these multilayer films.
A Model of Full-Time Professional Graduate Student Satisfaction: Program Design, Delivery, and Outcomes

A model of full-time professional graduate student satisfaction is developed and tested using data from in-depth focus groups of full-time MBA students that identified facets of program satisfaction. These fell into six categories—three categories involving program design and delivery and three categories of program outcomes. The model was validated by an independent group of full-time MBA students and a measurement instrument was developed. This instrument was administered to other full-time MBA students and their data analyzed via structural equations modeling. This analysis further refined the model and estimated the path coefficients among the items and linked them to overall satisfaction, perceived value of the program, and commitment to it. We propose that this model can be adapted and generalized to other professional graduate programs.
The Unlimited Jurisdiction of the Federal Courts

Federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction—but only in part. A federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction is limited by the Constitution; its territorial, personal jurisdiction is not. Current doctrine notwithstanding, a federal court’s writ may run as far as Congress, within its enumerated powers, would have it go. Today’s doctrine limits federal jurisdiction by borrowing Fourteenth Amendment principles thought to govern state courts. This borrowing blocks recoveries by injured plaintiffs, such as American victims of foreign terrorist attacks; and it’s become a font of confusion for procedure scholars, giving rise to incisive critiques of the Federal Rules. It’s also a mistake. The Fourteenth Amendment didn’t impose new limits on state personal jurisdiction; it enabled federal enforcement of limits that already applied. Current doctrine retroactively forces the Fifth Amendment into the mold of the modern Fourteenth, transforming an expansion of federal power into a strict constraint on federal authority. The federal courts’ territorial jurisdiction depends, in the first instance, on Congress’s powers. It may be that Congress can authorize fully global jurisdiction over any suit within Article III. If not, Congress may have ways to make better use of its jurisdictional powers at home. Either way, the existing mix of statutes and procedural rules seems fully valid. If the Constitution didn’t impose limits on Congress or on the federal courts, modern doctrine shouldn’t either.
Rapid Effect of Ovarian Hormones on Secretory Component (SC) in Uterine Secretions of the Rat: the Involvement of Rna Synthesis in Sc Production

Abstract Direct measurement of free SC by radioimmunoassay has enabled us to examine the time interval between ovarian hormone release and the accumulation of SC in uterine secretions. When rats were ovariectomized at diestrus (day 2), evidence was obtained that the SC response occurs within 16 to 19 hrs after hormones are released by the ovary. In other studies, the addition of actinomycin D to incubation media markedly inhibited estradiol-stimulated release of uterine SC suggesting that hormonal regulation of SC is mediated through uterine mRNA synthesis.
Efficient Architecture Search for Deep Neural Networks

Abstract This paper addresses the scalability challenge of automatic deep neural architecture search by implementing a parameter sharing approach with regularized genetic algorithm (RGE). The key idea is to use a regularized genetic algorithm (RGE) on a pre-determined template and discover a high-performance architecture by searching for the optimal chromosome. During evolution, each model corresponding to a discovered chromosome is trained for a fixed number of epochs to minimize a canonical cross-entropy loss on a given training dataset. Meanwhile, the performance of the trained model on validation dataset is used as a fitness value to perform the evolutions. Because of parameter sharing the trained weights in each generation are carried to the next, thereby reducing the GPU hours required for maximizing the validation accuracy. On the CIFAR-10 dataset, the approach finds a novel architecture that outperforms the best human-invented deep architecture (DenseNet). The CIFAR-10 model achieved a test error of 4.22% with only 0.96M parameters which is better than DenseNet of 4.51% with 0.8M parameters. On CIFAR-100 dataset, the approach was able to compose a novel architecture that achieved 20.53% test error with 3.7M parameters which is on par with 20.50% test error of wide ResNet with 36.5M parameters.
Civil Pre-Trial Practice, 2019 Revised Edition

This new, updated handbook is a practical and handy resource that provides the “nuts and bolts” for handling a lawsuit from the initial contact with a potential client up to trial. It provides tips and checklists to help all litigators and is an easy-to-follow guide for relatively new civil litigators. This updated edition: Provides useful, up-to-date, practical information. Provides a step-by-step guide to handling a civil lawsuit, including legal research, service of process and settlement negotiations. Contains descriptions of the procedures governing discovery, including sample interrogatories and deposition checklists. Updates statutes and rules governing the civil pre-trial process, including relating to electronic filings. Discusses tactics and strategies in the civil pre-trial practice, such as relating to pre-trial motions. Outlines the settlement negotiation process, including mediation and settlement conferences. Includes downloadable forms that every practitioner can use. ...and more! It is a must for civil litigators practicing in courts in Maryland.
Establishing the structural motifs present in small ammonium and aminium bisulfate clusters of relevance to atmospheric new particle formation.

Atmospheric new particle formation is the process by which atmospheric trace gases, typically acids and bases, cluster and grow into potentially climatically relevant particles. Here, we evaluate the structures and structural motifs present in small cationic ammonium and aminium bisulfate clusters that have been studied both experimentally and computationally as seeds for new particles. For several previously studied clusters, multiple different minimum-energy structures have been predicted. Vibrational spectra of mass-selected clusters and quantum chemical calculations allow us to assign the minimum-energy structure for the smallest cationic cluster of two ammonium ions and one bisulfate ion to a CS-symmetry structure that is persistent under amine substitution. We derive phenomenological vibrational frequency scaling factors for key bisulfate vibrations to aid in the comparison of experimental and computed spectra of larger clusters. Finally, we identify a previously unassigned spectral marker for intermolecular bisulfate–bisulfate hydrogen bonds and show that it is present in a class of structures that are all lower in energy than any previously reported structure. Tracking this marker suggests that this motif is prominent in larger clusters as well as ∼180 nm ammonium bisulfate particles. Taken together, these results establish a set of structural motifs responsible for binding of gases at the surface of growing clusters that fully explain the spectrum of large particles and provide benchmarks for efforts to improve structure predictions, which are critical for the accurate theoretical treatment of this process.
Flexibility and fluidity of grammar: Grammatical constructions in discourse and sociocultural context

Abstract Grammar is often considered as an established convention used by all speakers of a language, while variability should be expected if using language is regarded as meaningful sociocultural as well as cognitive behavior. This paper considers the flexible and fluid nature of grammar and the language user’s knowledge of grammatical variability by examining natural discourse data of one Japanese speaker/writer in four different communicative contexts and examples of expository writing. The study finds that the pairing of meaning/function with a form has a crucial role in determining the use of a (non-) conventional construction in context, as maintained in Construction Grammar. The conventionality and variability (in time and space) of grammar can be elucidated by postulating a constellation of multiple layers of socioculturally mediated meanings/functions of a form, a “construction-based semiotic constellation (CBSC).” Some meanings/functions may acquire exclusive association with a context and become conventionalized or even normative through sociocultural beliefs and endorsement, while others remain malleable. An ideal model of grammar should reflect the flexibility and conventionality of language use and the user’s knowledge. In that spirit, this analysis offers a socioculturally informed illustration of conventionalization and flexibility in grammar.
Mediation Analysis of Microbiome Data and Detection of Causality in Microbiome Studies

Microbiome research has basically focused on three factors: environment, microbiome, and host. The interactions among these three factors are dynamic and complicated. Three general hypotheses have been developed to detect these interactions. Among these hypotheses, testing the mediated effects of environmental factors and host mediated by microbiome is the most often designed, because mediation analysis of the human microbiome in these dynamic and very complicated relationships could potentially provide insights into the role of the microbiome in health and the etiology of disease and, more importantly, lead to novel clinical interventions by modulating the microbiome.
Radicals in exile: English catholic books during the reign of Philip II: by Freddy Cristóbal Domínguez, University Park, PA, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2020, 264 pp., $99.95 (hardback), ISBN 9780271086019

Counter-Reformation book production was voluminous and often highly inflammatory, especially in the case of books produced by Catholic writers in politico-religious exile. For Elizabethan Protestan...
Low Power Current-Mode Relaxation Oscillators for Temperature and Supply Voltage Monitoring.

This chapter presents a family of current-mode relaxation oscillators that can be designed either as a compensated digital clock source, or as an oscillator-based sensor whose frequency reports the temperature or supply voltage. One compensated timer implementation in 0.18 \(\upmu \)m CMOS achieves a figure of merit of 120 pW/kHz, making it one of the most efficient relaxation oscillators reported to date. The oscillator design is then extended to produce a \(V_{DD}\)-controlled oscillator and a temperature-controlled oscillator. Finally, we introduce a low-power hybrid oscillator sensor, which encodes measurements of both the supply voltage and temperature into the durations of its two alternating digital clock phases. The underlying dual-phase current-mode relaxation oscillator and the resulting sensor circuits are easy to implement, are area- and energy-efficient, and offer straightforward power and speed tradeoffs for a wide range of applications.
SkyQuery: an aerial drone video sensing platform

Video-based sensing from aerial drones, especially small multirotor drones, can provide rich data for numerous applications, including traffic analysis (computing traffic flow volumes), precision agriculture (periodically evaluating plant health), and wildlife population management (estimating population sizes). However, aerial drone video sensing applications must handle a surprisingly wide range of tasks: video frames must be aligned so that we can equate coordinates of objects that appear in different frames, video data must be analyzed to extract application-specific insights, and drone routes must be computed that maximize the value of newly captured video. To address these challenges, we built SkyQuery, a novel aerial drone video sensing platform that provides an expressive, high-level programming language to make it straightforward for users to develop complex long-running sensing applications. SkyQuery combines novel methods for fast video frame alignment and detection of small objects in top-down aerial drone video to efficiently execute applications with diverse video analysis workflows and data distributions, thereby allowing application developers to focus on the unique qualities of their particular application rather than general video processing, data analysis, and drone routing tasks. We conduct diverse case studies using SkyQuery in parking monitoring, pedestrian activity mapping, and traffic hazard detection scenarios to demonstrate the generalizability and effectiveness of our system.
The insidious risk of periprosthetic fracture in clinically functional total hip arthroplasties: A biomechanical study of willed joints.

Femoral bone quality is a major risk factor of periprosthetic fracture after total hip arthroplasty (THA), which has mortality similar to native hip fractures but higher short-term morbidity. The goal of this study was to quantify cortical strains at the site of expected Vancouver Type-B periprosthetic fracture as a function of bone mineral density, femoral stem material, and fixation method using a series of 29 autopsy-retrieved, clinically asymptomatic hip joints with THA. Periprosthetic bone mineral content and density was assessed using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry by Gruen Zone. Specimens then underwent combined cyclic axial and torsional loading, increasing incrementally from 100 N and ±1 Nm to peaks of 700 N and ±5 Nm. All specimens experienced significantly higher strains on the lateral surface than on the anterior surface, indicating that the bending loads in the frontal plane, rather than axial/torsional loads, had the predominant effect. Multiple significant relationships (p = 0.04, p = 0.02) were found between predicted periprosthetic strains calculated from radiographic measurements and observed principal strains. Though THA in the present study were in successful clinical service, the produced results indicated that some femurs with rigid cemented or noncemented implants were potentially at high risk for Vancouver Type-B fractures, which may be predicted radiographically.
Snapshots of Mobile Jacobi

We wish to document the short but dramatic life of a special matrix undergoing the Jacobi diagonalization procedure to compute its eigenvalues. The combination of a massively parallel supercomputer with a real time graphics display allows us to understand algorithms in entirely new ways, giving insight that can be surprising as well as beautiful. In this note, we would like to give one illustration. We regret that the printed medium only allows for snapshots; the video is far more dramatic.
Timescale of silver nanoparticle transformation in neural cell cultures impacts measured cell response

Both serum protein concentration and ionic strength are important factors in nanoparticle transformation within cell culture environments. However, silver nanoparticles are not routinely tracked at their working concentration in the specific medium used for in vitro toxicology studies. Here we evaluated the transformation of electrostatically stabilized citrate nanoparticles (C-AgNPs) and sterically stabilized polyvinylpyrrolidone nanoparticles (PVP-AgNPs) in a low-serum (~ 0.2 mg/mL bovine serum albumin) culture medium, while measuring the response of rat cortex neural progenitor cells, which differentiate in this culture environment. After 24 h, silver nanoparticles at concentrations up to 10 µg/mL did not affect adenosine triphosphate levels, whereas silver ions decreased adenosine triphosphate levels at concentrations of 1.1 µg/mL or higher. After 240 h, both silver nanoparticles, as well as silver ion, unambiguously decreased adenosine triphosphate levels at concentrations of 1 and 1.1 µg/mL, respectively, suggesting particle dissolution. Particle transformation was investigated in 1:10 diluted, 1:2 diluted, or undiluted differentiation medium, all having an identical protein concentration, to separate the effect of serum protein stabilization from ionic strength destabilization. Transmission electron microscopy images indicated that particles in 1:10 medium were not surrounded by proteins, whereas particles became clustered within a non-crystalline protein matrix after 24 h in 1:2 medium and at 0 h in undiluted medium. Despite evidence for a protein corona, particles were rapidly destabilized by high ionic strength media. Polyvinylpyrrolidone increased the stability of singly dispersed particles compared to citrate ligands; however, differences were negligible after 4 h in 1:2 medium or after 1 h in undiluted medium. Thus low-serum culture environments do not provide sufficient colloidal stability for long-term toxicology studies with citrate- or polyvinylpyrrolidone-stabilized silver nanoparticles.
Natural Resources and Economic Underperformance: An Empirical and Theoretic Inquiry

In the book, "The Paradox of Plenty," Terry Lynn Karl sought to solve the perplexing puzzle of why countries that experienced unprecedented transfer of wealth from the oil booms of the 1970s and 1980s, without exception, displayed similar economic development outcomes in spite of having very dissimilar histories, geo-strategic importance, and socio-political arrangements. The book, while a remarkable effort, managed to confirm what the literature on the subject had been alluding to but failed to give coherence -- reliance on a dominant natural resource to drive macroeconomic development would, with recent minor exceptions, always and everywhere engender bureaucratic corruption, rent-seeking behavior, authoritarian or quasi-democratic political structures, and disincentives to develop other internal sources for economic growth. What I intend to achieve in this paper is to show that, in addition to known culprits, the observed similar economic outcomes in most oil exporting countries is primarily the result of weak or nonexistent domestic social institutions, damaging interferences by international financial institutions, and a world trade order based on neoclassical orthodoxy. A comparative study of four oil-exporting countries – Indonesia, Algeria, Iran, and Venezuela, would be used to show how each country manifested the effects of oil revenue, and how their respective economies suffered as a result.
Optimal Control of a Bilinear Solar Collector/Heat Exchanger System

The problem of maximizing storage fluid temperature at a specified terminal time by controlling both collector and tank loop flow rates is investigated for a flat-plate solar water heating system containing a coupling counterflow heat exchanger. The dynamic system is modeled by two ordinary differential equations incorporating both collector plate and tank fluid capacitance. The paper considers the usual case where the tank loss-to-capacitance ratio is less than that of the collector plate. It is shown that the optimal control algorithm does not depend explicitly on the insolation. Furthermore, the optimal flow rates are shown to be on-off. However, if the collector loop pumping capacity is sufficiently greater than that of the tank loop, then the collector loop "on" flowrate is not the maximum attainable flowrate.