cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Matrix type alters structure of aquatic vertebrate assemblages in cypress domes

Management of communities in fragmented systems requires application of models for predicting and understanding patterns of diversity at relevant scales. Metacommunity models may help explain patterns of beta-diversity, but more empirical investigations are needed to determine the generality of these models and the importance of matrix identity as a mediator of metacommunity processes. We studied patterns of beta diversity among cypress domes in a landscape composed of two different matrix types within Big Cypress National Preserve to determine whether community composition differed by matrix type and to evaluate predictions of metacommunity models. We sampled fully-aquatic vertebrates in 16 cypress domes. A causal modeling framework was used to assess the relative importance of space and environmental variables measured in the domes and in the nearby matrix in explaining variation in community similarities. Our results show that community composition was influenced by matrix type, which violates the common metacommunity assumption that matrix identity has negligible effect on patch patterns. We found different drivers of beta-diversity patterns between matrix types; similarities among dome communities within cypress-prairie matrix were influenced by local environmental conditions and matrix characteristics, while communities in pine-rockland domes were most influenced by conditions in the matrix. Our results have implications for use of metacommunity models in conservation planning and we suggest that future research should focus on the importance of matrix identity and complexity in mediating community patterns in patchy landscapes.
Structural characterization of SIL, a gene frequently disrupted in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Abstract The SIL (SCL interrupting locus) gene was initially discovered at the site of a genomic rearrangement in a T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia cell line. This rearrangement, which occurs in a remarkably site-specific fashion, is present in the leukemic cells of 16 to 26% of patients with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. We have now cloned a normal SIL cDNA from a cell line which does not carry the rearrangement. The SIL cDNA has a long open reading frame of 1,287 amino acids, with a predicted molecular size of 143 kDa. The predicted protein is not homologous with any previously described protein; however, a potential eukaryotic topoisomerase I active site was identified. Cross-species hybridization using a SIL cDNA probe indicated that the SIL gene was conserved in mammals. A survey of human and murine cell lines and tissues demonstrated SIL mRNA to be ubiquitously expressed, at low levels, in hematopoietic cell lines and tissues. With the exception of 11.5-day-old mouse embryos, SIL mRNA was not detected in nonhematopoietic tissues. The genomic structure of SIL was also analyzed. The gene consists of 18 exons distributed over 70 kb, with the 5' portion of the gene demonstrating alternate exon utilization.
Numerically stable Green function for modeling and analysis of substrate coupling in integrated circuits

The Green function over a multilayer substrate is derived by solving Poisson's equation analytically in the coordinate and numerically in the z and y coordinates. The x and y functional dependence is transformed into a discrete cosine transform (DCT) representation for rapid evaluation. The Green function is further transformed into a numerically stable form appropriate for finite-precision machine evaluation. This Green function is used to solve for the impedance matrix for an arbitrary three-dimensional arrangement of conductors placed anywhere in the substrate. Using this technique, the substrate coupling and loss in IC circuits can be analyzed. A spiral inductor is presented as an example. Experimental measurement results verify the accuracy of the technique.
Humor as an Interpersonal Asset and Liability

(1971). Humor as an Interpersonal Asset and Liability. The Journal of Social Psychology: Vol. 85, No. 1, pp. 51-64.
Self-Determination: Is a Rose by Any Other Name Still a Rose?.

We invite you to read this Exchange focusing on the need to have more coherence and consistency in terminology/descriptions and in anticipated outcomes related to self-determination funding. We also invite you to contribute to a national dialogue to seek the coherence and consistency for which the article advocates. You can join the online discussion by visiting the Beach Center website (www.beachcenter.org) and looking on the home page for a link to the discussion board or you may link to the discussion board through TASH.org. Please join in!
Nectar characteristics and phenology of spring bee plants in northwestern New York

Southwick, E.E. and Southwick, A.K., 1986. Nectar characteristics and phenology of spring bee plants in northwestern New York. Agric. Ecosystems Environ., 16: 55--62. The sequence of blooming of nectar- and pollen-yielding spring plants in northwestern New York is reported. Seasonal progression and the importance of these species to honey bees (Apis mellifera), whether for nectar and/or pollen, is indicated and discussed. The nectar standing crop volume, sugar concentration and total sugar are reported for representatives of 9 plant families. The data show an average standing crop of nectar per flower of 0.7 ul at a concentration of 41% (g sugar 100 g nectar-' ) containing 0.33 mg sugar and providing 1.3 cal of energy.
Strategies for the management of neonatal hypoxic–ischemic brain injury

Accumulating evidence points to an evolving process of brain injury after intrapartum hypoxia–ischemia that initiates in utero and extends into a recovery period. The processes leading to cell death include necrosis or apoptosis, and result from the combined effects of cellular energy failure, acidosis, glutamate release, intracellular Ca2+ accumulation and generation of free radicals that serve to disrupt essential components of the cell. Secondary cerebral energy failure occurs from 6 to 48 h after the primary event and involves mitochondrial dysfunction secondary to extended reactions from primary insults. Treatment strategies to prevent or ameliorate ongoing brain injury include early identification of high-risk infants, supportive therapy and neuroprotection. Currently, hypothermia offers the greatest promise as a neuroprotective strategy and has shown benefit particularly in a subset of infants who present with moderate encephalopathy and without seizures. Future directions will probably include hyp...
The Social Responsibility Of Labor

In the ongoing discussion about corporate social responsibility, little attention has been paid to the social responsibility of the other factor of production - labor. The modern perspective is that major economic players have an external impact on society that generates social costs that are paid by the community. The emerging view is that, for the sustainability of the community, these players must contribute in a positive way by covering these social costs and participating in the life of the community. This paper examines the extent to which unionized labor, as a major economic player, is assuming positions of social responsibility in the national and local communities. It suggests that by developing a boarder social vision, the American labor movement could revitalize itself.
Measurements of Neutron Spectra in Water, Polyethylene, and Zirconium Hydride*

An experimental arrangement designed for accurate measurements of low-energy neutron spectra has been assembled and tested.A pulsed high-current electron linear accelerator is used to produce short...
Cardiac arrest after thoracic paravertebral block with ropivacaine in a 6-year-old child

We encountered cardiac arrest induced by 0.375 % ropivacaine 7 ml administered via a catheter for continuous thoracic paravertebral block (TPVB) in a 6-year-old female who underwent pacemaker implantation for sick sinus syndrome (SSS). She was successfully resuscitated with adrenaline and lipid emulsion. Plasma concentration of ropivacaine was 5.2 μg/ml, suggesting intravascular administration of ropivacaine. Inadvertent intravascular administration is a crucial complication of TPVB.
Coping with uncertain dynamics in visual tracking: redundant state models and discrete search methods

A model of the world dynamics is a vital part of any tracking algorithm. The observed world can exhibit multiple complex dynamics at different spatio-temporal scales. Faithfully modeling all motion constraints in a computationally efficient manner may be too complicated or completely impossible. Resorting to use of approximate motion models complicates tracking by making it less robust to unmodeled noise and increasing running times. We propose two complementary approaches to tracking with approximate dynamic models in a probabilistic setting. The Redundant State Multi-Chain Model formalism described in the first part of the thesis allows combining multiple weak motion models, each representing a particular aspect of overall dynamic, in a cooperative manner to improve state estimates. This is applicable, in particular, to hierarchical machine vision systems that combine trackers at several spatio-temporal scales. In the second part of the dissertation, we propose supplementing exploration of the continuous likelihood surface with the discrete search in a fixed set of points distributed through the state space. We demonstrate the utility of these approaches on a range of machine vision problems: adaptive background subtraction, structure from motion estimation, and articulated body tracking.
The United States Longevity Insurance Market

This chapter documents the substantial decline in traditional sources of longevity insurance, and shows that published statistics on the individual annuity market greatly overstate its size and growth. It considers whether the decline in annuitization rates is cause for concern. It then documents in more detail the structure, size, and pricing of the individual annuity market, and discusses product innovations. It concludes by discussing policy options for increasing rates of voluntary annuitization.
Facebook and the American Medical Record: A Very Fine Line Just Got Even Smaller

Americans love their privacy. And yet, as the ever-increasing trend of social networking illustrates, they also love to share the facts of their lives. As a result, defining privacy can be tricky in this modern age, and often depends on the venue in which information is presented and the form it takes. In today’s world of electronic health records, straddling the fence between harmless information and sensitive data is no longer such an easy task, and the repercussions for the slightest transgressions can be severe.
Intelligent Network Applications for Medical Systems

The role of intelligent communication systems in medical field is immediate and globally pervasive. Most of the modern hospitals and medical networks depend on the deployment of Intelligent Networks (IN) techniques for routing the calls and recipients to correct locations. Seeking the correct information from the appropriate medical knowledgebase is generally content-based. A decade earlier, the choice of knowledge base was entirely within discretion of the user. However, with the increasing dependability of network intelligence, the intelligent elements and agents embedded in the network can route the calls, services and agents to quickly generate the supporting data and procedures to attend to any emergency, medical or security issues. We extend these concepts to the use in hospitals, medical centers, and local communities.
Microwave structure for the propiolic acid-formic acid complex.

New microwave spectra were measured to obtain rotational constants and centrifugal distortion constants for the DCCCOOH···HOOCH and HCCCOOD···DOOCH isotopologues. Rotational transitions were measured in the frequency range of 4.9–15.4 GHz, providing accurate rotational constants, which, combined with previous rotational constants, allowed an improved structural fit for the propiolic acid–formic acid complex. The new structural fit yields reasonably accurate orientations for both the propiolic and formic acid monomers in the complex and more accurate structural parameters describing the hydrogen bonding. The structure is planar, with a positive inertial defect of Δ = 1.33 amu A2. The experimental structure exhibits a greater asymmetry for the two hydrogen bond lengths than was obtained from the ab initio mp2 calculations. The best-fit hydrogen bond lengths have an r(O1–H1···O4) of 1.64 A and an r(O3–H2···O2) of 1.87 A. The average of the two hydrogen bond lengths is rav(exp) = 1.76 A, in good agreement wit...
New Testament Biblical Apocrypha and the Exclusion of Apocalypses from the Canon

In lieu of an abstract, below is the essay's first paragraph. "The criteria for canonicity which led to the inclusion of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament call into question the exclusion of other apocryphal apocalypses and revelatory treatises. Biblical apocrypha is defined as texts that were at one time a part of the biblical canon but no longer are, or texts that were never a part of the biblical canon at all but are widely known and valued. Examples of writings that collectively make up the apocrypha are gospels, gnostic texts, acts, epistles, apocalypses, fragments, lost works, and other miscellaneous texts." This work in progress is available in Verbum: http://fisherpub.sjfc.edu/verbum/vol13/iss2/6
Transport characteristics of the apical anion exchanger of rabbit cortical collecting duct β-cells

To functionally characterize transport properties of the apical anion exchanger of rabbit β-intercalated cells, the mean change in anion exchange activity, dpHi/dt(where pHi is intracellular pH), w...
Some Trade and Development Aspects of a Developing OPEC Country: Nigeria

With oil wealth Nigeria is emerging as a dominant economic development in both the developed and developing countries of the world. However, oil-imports induced economic growth in Nigeria resulting in many discontinuities in the economic and social development process. This paper discusses such developmental dilemmas experienced by Nigeria in recent years and explores their implications.
Speed Limits for Nonvesicular Intracellular Sterol Transport

Sterol transport between the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and plasma membrane (PM) occurs by nonvesicular mechanisms requiring sterol transport proteins (STPs). Here we examine the idea that transport is enhanced at membrane contact sites where the ER is closely apposed to the PM. We conclude that sterol desorption from the membrane, rather than STP-mediated diffusion, is rate limiting in the cellular context, so there is no apparent kinetic benefit to having STP-mediated sterol transfer occur at contact sites. Contact sites may instead compartmentalize lipid synthesis or transport machinery, providing opportunities for regulation.
Methodological and statistical aspects in perioperative chemotherapy trials.

Historically, local regional treatment alone (with surgery or radiation therapy) has been the main approach to the management of patients with newly diagnosed cancer without evidence of distant metastases. Unfortunately, this form of primary therapy alone is not curative for a large number of patients. Failure is felt to be due in large part to the presence of micrometastatic disease that remains undetected at initial diagnosis. Thus, in an effort to destroy these micrometastases, chemotherapy has been introduced as an adjuvant to the primary treatment.
Frogs Exploit Statistical Regularities in Noisy Acoustic Scenes to Solve Cocktail-Party-like Problems

Noise is a ubiquitous source of errors in all forms of communication [1]. Noise-induced errors in speech communication, for example, make it difficult for humans to converse in noisy social settings, a challenge aptly named the "cocktail party problem" [2]. Many nonhuman animals also communicate acoustically in noisy social groups and thus face biologically analogous problems [3]. However, we know little about how the perceptual systems of receivers are evolutionarily adapted to avoid the costs of noise-induced errors in communication. In this study of Cope's gray treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis; Hylidae), we investigated whether receivers exploit a potential statistical regularity present in noisy acoustic scenes to reduce errors in signal recognition and discrimination. We developed an anatomical/physiological model of the peripheral auditory system to show that temporal correlation in amplitude fluctuations across the frequency spectrum ("comodulation") [4-6] is a feature of the noise generated by large breeding choruses of sexually advertising males. In four psychophysical experiments, we investigated whether females exploit comodulation in background noise to mitigate noise-induced errors in evolutionarily critical mate-choice decisions. Subjects experienced fewer errors in recognizing conspecific calls and in selecting the calls of high-quality mates in the presence of simulated chorus noise that was comodulated. These data show unequivocally, and for the first time, that exploiting statistical regularities present in noisy acoustic scenes is an important biological strategy for solving cocktail-party-like problems in nonhuman animal communication.
δ 15 N Values in Crassostrea virginica Shells Provides Early Direct Evidence for Nitrogen Loading to Chesapeake Bay

Crassostrea virginica is one of the most common estuarine bivalves in the United States’ east coast and is frequently found in archaeological sites and sub-fossil deposits. Although there have been several sclerochronological studies on stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in the shells of this species, less is known about δ15N values within their shells, which could be a useful paleoenvironmental proxy to assess estuarine nitrogen dynamics. Modern C. virginica samples were collected in Chesapeake Bay for comparison with archaeological shells from nearby sites ranging in age from ~100 to 3,200 years old. Left valves were sampled by milling the hinge area and the resulting powder was analyzed for %N and δ15N values. Comparison of δ15N values between C. virginica shells shows relatively constant values from ~1250 BC to ~1800 AD. After ~1800 AD, there are rapid increases in 15N enrichment in the shells, which continue to increase in value up to the modern shell values. The increase in δ15N values is evidence of early anthropogenic impact in Chesapeake Bay. These results corroborate the observation that coastal nitrogen pollution occurred earlier than the 19th century and support the use of oyster shell δ15N values as a useful environmental proxy.
Dendritic Cell Vaccines: Sipuleucel-T and Other Approaches

The idea of a preventive vaccine against cancer has been extremely attractive because of the immune system’s ability to develop specific and long-lasting immunological memory. Dendritic cells, which present antigen to T cells, sit at a critical point in the activation of the immune system because they are able to activate both B cells and T cells. The first DC vaccines were tested in humans in 1998. In 2010 the first DC vaccine was FDA approved for treatment of patients with advanced prostate cancer. This vaccine showed a survival advantage of 4.3 months. This vaccine was extremely safe, with low rates of adverse events. In this chapter we discuss the history of DC vaccines, the development of DC vaccines including Sipuleucel-T, and the future directions of DC vaccines. This includes strategies for combining DC vaccines with other therapies, including hormone therapy, additional immunotherapy, and chemotherapy.
Retrospective Review of Billowing Phenomenon-A Mimic of Endoleak Following Placement of Endologix Covered Stent for the Treatment of Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm.

Background Billowing is a unique computed tomography (CT) finding of the Endologix stent graft where a rim of contrast is observed outside the stent’s endoskeleton but still contained within the graft cover. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the incidence and clinical outcome of billowing following an Endologix stent-graft placement. Methods All patients who underwent abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair with endovascular placement of an Endologix stent graft from January 2002 to September 2013 and who were followed with imaging were included in the study. The images were evaluated for the incidence of billowing. Demographics and clinical outcomes were also analyzed. Results One hundred twenty-two patients received an Endologix stent graft for AAA repair at our institution. One hundred patients qualified for this study. Eighty-four patients had billowing with the majority (70 patients) having crescentic billowing, and the remaining 14 patients having focal outpouching. Average billowing thickness measured 4.2 mm (range 1–13). Sixty-three patients with billowing had multiple follow-up CT angiograms to allow serial monitoring. Twelve patients had resolution of billowing, 11 patients had reduction in billowing size, 14 patients had no change in billowing size, and 26 patients had increase in billowing size. Patients with billowing had a statistically significant reduction in aneurysm sac size in anteroposterior and transverse dimensions ( P = 0.014 and 0.009, respectively). Five cases of billowing were misdiagnosed as endoleak. Nineteen true endoleaks were identified, of which 13 cases were associated with billowing. Conclusions Billowing does not seem to be associated with increased morbidity, mortality, increase in aneurysm size, or presence of endoleak. Billowing should be recognized as a common and benign finding of the Endologix stent.
Stock Market Charts You Never Saw

Investors have seen countless charts of US stock market performance which start in 1926 and end near the present. But US trading long predates 1926, and the foreshortened perspective that results from a focus on post-1926 data can be misleading. To compound the problem, visual and arithmetic frailties, as catalogued in behavioral finance, make it difficult for investors to draw appropriate inferences from long-term records of performance. As a partial corrective, this paper displays a novel set of charts, with some rooted in the 19th rather than the 20th century, and others ending well before the present. The goal is to challenge shibboleths about the expected outcomes of buy-and-hold stock market investing, and to raise questions about the expected performance of stocks versus bonds over long periods. [This paper has been partially replaced by later work. See revision notes that follow this abstract.]
Perceptions of the Veterinary Profession among Human Health Care Students before an Inter-Professional Education Course at Midwestern University

Conflicts among health care professionals often stem from misperceptions about each profession's role in the health care industry. These divisive tendencies impede progress in multidisciplinary col...
A Modern Method to Monitor Office Blood Pressure

The diagnosis and management of hypertension relies on accurate and precise blood pressure (BP) measurements and monitoring techniques. Variability in traditional office based BP readings can contribute to misclassification and potential misdiagnosis of hypertension, leading to inappropriate treatment and possibly avoidable adverse drug events. Both home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) and 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) can improve characterization of BP status over traditional office values and can predict cardiovascular morbidity and mortality risk; however, they are limited by availability and/or practical use in many situations. Available in-office blood pressure measuring methods include manual auscultation, automated oscillometric, and automated office blood pressure (AOBP) devices. A strong correlation exists between AOBP and awake ABPM measurements and has been linked to better prediction of end-organ damage and white coat response compared to standard office BP methods. While AOBP does not provide nocturnal BP readings, it can be utilized in several outpatient settings, and has the capability to decrease utilization of ABPM, white coat effect, and improve optimization of cardiovascular assessment, evaluation, and therapeutic assessment in clinical practice. Hypertension affects over 80 million adults in the United States (US) and is a major risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality [1]. The condition’s ubiquitous nature and broad impact potentially makes understanding the diagnosis and treatment of hypertension key elements of managing cardiovascular risk. Though much attention is paid to the treatment of hypertension, from 2009 to 2012, 45.9% of US patients with hypertension were uncontrolled [1]. Appreciating the aspects of proper assessment of blood pressure is crucial and creates the foundation for approaching hypertension management. Until recently, hypertension was defined as an appropriately measured office systolic blood pressure (SBP) of greater than or equal to 140 mmHg and/or diastolic blood pressure (DBP) greater than or equal to 90 mmHg, with the patient seated and resting for 5 minutes in a proper position, and preferentially, measured as an average of two readings taken 1 or 2 minutes apart [1-5]. While serving as the primary method, standard office blood pressure assessment with either manual or traditional automated BP cuffs is limited in accuracy and application in everyday practice, and faces many challenges. As such, an understanding of the potential limitations of current BP strategies, and the roles and rationale for novel assessment techniques are of value to clinicians [6]. Conflict of Interest: We declare no conflicts of interest or financial interests that the authors or members of their immediate families have in any product or service discussed in the manuscript, including grants (pending or received), employment, gifts, stock holdings or options, honoraria, consultancies, expert testimony, patents and royalties. Type: Review
Is the hospitality industry ready for the new lease accounting standards

The days where companies can use off-balance sheet leases are coming to an end. The new lease accounting standards, ASU 842 and IFRS 16, released in early 2016, will be effective, respectively, on ...
Compound-Nuclear Polarization Effects in Deuteron Elastic Scattering.

Compound-elastic (CE) effects in low-energy, energy-averaged deuteron elastic scattering are shown to be as important as those of the spin-radial-tensor (TR) coupling term of the optical-model (0M) potential.
Breaking the Logjam: Environmental Protection That Will Work

After several decades of significant but incomplete successes, environmental protection in the United States is stuck. Administrations under presidents of both parties have fallen well short of the goals of their environmental statutes. Schoenbrod, Stewart, and Wyman, distinguished scholars in the field of environmental law, identify the core problems with existing environmental statutes and programs and explain how Congress can fix them. Based on a project the authors led that incorporated the work of more than fifty leading environmental experts, this book is a call to action through public understanding based on a nonpartisan argument for smarter, more flexible regulatory programs to stimulate the economy and encourage green technology.
New Immigrants and Social-Support Systems: Information-Seeking Patterns in a Metropolis

The modern immigrant no longer has the freedom of the early settler, who usually simply transferred his own ways of doing things. Upon arrival in a new country, today’s immigrant faces a task of integration into a new culture; there are psychological stresses and strains, which have become magnified with the complexity of modern social organization. Present-day immigration has a desocializing effect on individual life, involving complex disorganization of the individual’s role system, and some disturbance of social identity and self-image (Cf. Eisenstadt, 1955). This chapter argues that the possession of adequate information about the social-support systems of the new country lessens the desocializing effect of immigration. The conceptual theme of this study is that psychosocial adaptation is a function of information seeking which facilitates, and is facilitated by, use of social-support networks. Some information is sought before the arrival of immigrants in a new country, and some after arrival.
Utilization of dental sealants by Alabama Medicaid children: barriers in meeting the year 2010 objectives.

Purpose As a national objective, 50% of US children are expected to have dental sealants on at least one permanent molar by the age of 14 years. The present study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of dental sealants among Alabama Medicaid children and to evaluate the characteristics of the sealant users and non-users so the potential barriers in meeting the year 2000/2010 sealant objectives can be identified. Methods Alabama Medicaid 1990-1997 claims for children (N = 3,683,842) were analyzed using basic descriptive statistics, likelihood ratio, Chi-Square and t-tests, and ANOVA. Logistic regression analysis was used in identifying the predictors of dental sealant utilization. Results Nearly 22 percent of children had at least one sealant claim by 12 to 14 years of age (white = 28.3%; Black = 19.8%; OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.4-1.8; female = 23.6%; male = 19.7%; OR = 1.3, 95% CI = 1.1-1.4). 5- to 9-year-olds were more likely to have sealants compared to 11- to 14-year-olds (OR = 4.1, 95% CI = 2.7-6.1). The availability of a Medicaid accepting dentist within the county of residence was a significant predictor (OR = 1.5, 95% CI = 1.1-2.2). Less than 2% of the annual amount claimed for total dental services in Alabama was related to sealants and the providers were reimbursed only for 50% to 70% of the amount claimed for sealant procedures. Conclusions Racial and gender disparities in obtaining care, non-availability of a Medicaid-participating dentist within the county, and lower payment/claim ratio may make the national sealant objective difficult to achieve in Alabama.
Imagery and verbal thought during rumination and distraction: Does imagery amplify affective response?

Rumination has long been considered a verbal thought process, though emerging evidence suggests that some individuals dwell on maladaptive imagery. This series of studies evaluated imagery and verb...
Deep Learning Architecture Search by Neuro-Cell-Based Evolution with Function-Preserving Mutations

The design of convolutional neural network architectures for a new image data set is a laborious and computational expensive task which requires expert knowledge. We propose a novel neuro-evolutionary technique to solve this problem without human interference. Our method assumes that a convolutional neural network architecture is a sequence of neuro-cells and keeps mutating them using function-preserving operations. This novel combination of approaches has several advantages. We define the network architecture by a sequence of repeating neuro-cells which reduces the search space complexity. Furthermore, these cells are possibly transferable and can be used in order to arbitrarily extend the complexity of the network. Mutations based on function-preserving operations guarantee better parameter initialization than random initialization such that less training time is required per network architecture. Our proposed method finds within 12 GPU hours neural network architectures that can achieve a classification error of about 4% and 24% with only 5.5 and 6.5 million parameters on CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100, respectively. In comparison to competitor approaches, our method provides similar competitive results but requires orders of magnitudes less search time and in many cases less network parameters.
Six-coordinate mononuclear dysprosium(III) single-molecule magnets with the triphenylphosphine oxide ligand

Structural, magnetic and theoretical studies of three octahedral mononuclear DyIII complexes with triphenylphosphine oxide and halide ligands are reported. The Cl- and Br- analogues exhibit SMM behavior with energy barriers of 49.1 K and 70.9 K, respectively under a small dc field. Ab initio calculations were performed, the results of which predict higher energy barriers for iodide containing SMMs.
Generating genuine partially coherent sources using complex transmittance screens

We describe how to synthesize stochastic instances of any genuine partially coherent field using complex screens. The primary utility of this work will be in simulating partially coherent beams propagating through random and complex media.
Teaching Pickleball with In-Depth Content Knowledge in Middle School Physical Education

This article describes specific components of each common content knowledge and specialized content knowledge within the pickleball context. In addition, it provides possible examples of each eleme...
Low-Power Microwave Relaxation Oscillators Based on Phase-Change Oxides for Neuromorphic Computing

Neuromorphic computing is an efficient solution for large-scale associative learning problems such as pattern recognition, but its hardware implementation is stymied by the need for low-power, scalable faux neurons, typically built using relaxation oscillators. This work proposes relaxation oscillators using VO${}_{2}$-based heterostructures with optimized thermal time constants for low-power operation at microwave frequencies. Synchronization behavior between two coupled oscillators is also investigated. This study offers a theoretical foundation for the use of such oscillators in neuromorphic computing.
Prognostic value of peak stress cardiac power in patients with normal ejection fraction undergoing exercise stress echocardiography

AIMS Cardiac power is a measure of cardiac performance that incorporates both pressure and flow components. Prior studies have shown that cardiac power predicts outcomes in patients with reduced left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF). We sought to evaluate the prognostic significance of peak exercise cardiac power and power reserve in patients with normal EF. METHODS AND RESULTS We performed a retrospective analysis in 24 885 patients (age 59 ± 13 years, 45% females) with EF ≥50% and no significant valve disease or right ventricular dysfunction, undergoing exercise stress echocardiography between 2004 and 2018. Cardiac power and power reserve (developed power with stress) were normalized to LV mass and expressed in W/100 g of LV myocardium. Endpoints at follow-up were all-cause mortality and diagnosis of heart failure (HF). Patients in the higher quartiles of power/mass (rest, peak stress, and power reserve) were younger and had higher peak blood pressure and heart rate, lower LV mass, and lower prevalence of comorbidities. During follow-up [median 3.9 (0.6-8.3) years], 929 patients died. After adjusting for age, sex, metabolic equivalents (METs) achieved, ischaemia/infarction on stress test results, medication, and comorbidities, peak stress power/mass was independently associated with mortality [adjusted hazard ratio (HR), highest vs. lowest quartile, 0.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.4-0.6, P < 0.001] and HF at follow-up [adjusted HR, highest vs. lowest quartile, 0.4, 95% CI (0.3, 0.5), P < 0.001]. Power reserve showed similar results. CONCLUSION The assessment of cardiac power during exercise stress echocardiography in patients with normal EF provides valuable prognostic information, in addition to stress test findings on inducible myocardial ischaemia and exercise capacity.
Cassini Spacecraft Strategy for Recovering from a Complete Loss-Of-Signal Condition

Unlike other faults where the space craft’s automated Fault Protection (FP) routines can be relied upon to provide a carrier signal and telemetered data to the ground-based Spacecraft Operations Flight Support (SOFS) team to facilitate vehicle acquisition, diagnosis, and fault recovery, a complete Loss-of-Spacecraft-Signal (LOS) condition will yield no information at all to help re-acquire the vehicle and resolve the fault. For any FP response activation, the spacecraft’s downlink signal must be acquired via the Deep Space Network (DSN) on the expected (post-fault) Radio Frequency Subsystem (RFS) device configuration commanded by the FP; data that will not be attainable in the case of a complete LOS condition since there is no signal available for the ground station to lock onto. In the case of the Cassini Mission-to-Saturn spacecraft, numerous fault possibilities exist that can cause a LOS condition. Activations of the onboard RFS-related FP can reconfigure the post-fault RFS states, impeding the ground team’s ability to acquire the spacecraft’s downlink signal
SquiggleMilli: Approximating SAR Imaging on Mobile Millimeter-Wave Devices

This paper proposes SquiggleMilli, a system that approximates traditional Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imaging on mobile millimeter-wave (mmWave) devices. The system is capable of imaging through obstructions, such as clothing, and under low visibility conditions. Unlike traditional SAR that relies on mechanical controllers or rigid bodies, SquiggleMilli is based on the hand-held, fluidic motion of the mmWave device. It enables mmWave imaging in hand-held settings by re-thinking existing motion compensation, compressed sensing, and voxel segmentation. Since mmWave imaging suffers from poor resolution due to specularity and weak reflectivity, the reconstructed shapes could be imperceptible by machines and humans. To this end, SquiggleMilli designs a machine learning model to recover the high spatial frequencies in the object to reconstruct an accurate 2D shape and predict its 3D features and category. We have customized SquiggleMilli for security applications, but the model is adaptable to other applications with limited training samples. We implement SquiggleMilli on off-the-shelf components and demonstrate its performance improvement over the traditional SAR qualitatively and quantitatively.
Utilization Pattern for Eculizumab Among Children With Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome

Background: Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is a complex disease with multi-organ involvement. Eculizumab therapy is recommended for treatment of complement mediated hemolytic uremic syndrome (cHUS). However, there are few studies evaluating eculizumab therapy among children with HUS. The primary objectives of the study were to describe and identify factors associated with eculizumab therapy in children with HUS. Design/Methods: This large, retrospective, multi-center, cohort study used the Pediatric Health Information System (PHIS) database to identify the index HUS-related hospitalization among patients ≤18 years of age from September 23, 2011 (Food and Drug Administration approval date of eculizumab) through December 31, 2018. Multivariate analysis was used to identify independent factors associated with eculizumab therapy during or after the index hospitalization. Results: Among 1,885 children included in the study, eculizumab therapy was noted in 167 children with a median age of 3.99 years (SD ± 4.7 years). Eculizumab therapy was administered early (within the first 7 days of hospitalization) among 65% of children who received the drug. Mortality during the index hospitalization among children with eculizumab therapy was 4.2 vs. 3.0% without eculizumab therapy (p = 0.309). Clinical factors independently associated with eculizumab therapy were encephalopathy [odds ratio (OR) = 3.09; p ≤ 0.001], seizure disorder (OR = 2.37; p = 0.006), and cardiac involvement (OR = 6.36, p < 0.001). Conclusion(s): Only 8.9% of children received eculizumab therapy. Children who presented with neurological and cardiac involvement with severe disease were more likely to receive eculizumab therapy, and children who received therapy received it early during their index hospitalization. Further prospective studies are suggested to confirm these findings.
E-Learning for Secondary School Teachers: Inclusive Science and Math Instruction for Students with Disabilities

The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is conducting a research and development project to enhance the capacities of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) teachers to educate students with disabilities. The project has conducted online surveys, focus groups and longitudinal studies to discover the training and knowledge needs of teachers. The ongoing research has identified significant gaps in teacher knowledge about students with disabilities and the accommodations that can help them succeed. In particular, there is a pervasive lack of understanding of the uses of assistive technology, along with discomfort in the use of this technology. Findings have been used in the creation of online training courses designed to meet teacher needs in the classroom and laboratory environments. Further research will investigate the use of project resources with teachers of students with focused disability issues.
Marine pollution and sport fishing quality: Using Poisson models as household production functions

Abstract This paper reports the results of estimating a household production function to test how estimates of biochemical oxygen demand as well as nitrogen and pesticide loadings affect total catch during sport fishing trips. Two separate samples support negative and statistically significant impacts from the estimated nitrogen and pesticide loadings on the total catch, after accounting for effort and other characteristics of the fishing party and trip.
Aspects of Italian Immigration to Philadelphia

" \ T 7 H O L E STREETS formerly occupied by Irish-American \ / \ / families have become populated by Italians," noted an * • Irish priest of South Philadelphia in the ISCJO'S. A housing investigator studied the new community: "The black-eyed children rolling and tumbling together, the gaily colored dresses of the women, and the crowds of street vendors all give this neighborhood a wholly foreign appearance," she wrote. Because the newcomers included no historians and because few Philadelphians paid them any heed, the story of the Italian immigration to Philadelphia and the growth of the Italian-American colony from a handful of people in the colonial period to upwards of half a million Italian-Americans today has yet to be told. Why did the Italians come here? What were they leaving? What did they seek? What skills, attitudes, and contributions did they bring to the city? How were they received? So long have these questions gone unanswered and so complex are they that only a partial answer can be provided. The nineteenth-century histories of Philadelphia did not concern themselves with these immigrants; the immigrants themselves produced few journalists, and, if there were diarists, their diaries have yet to be discovered. Little exists to record what was a great wave of humanity. In the colonial era only a few Italians trickled into Philadelphia. Most of them, particularly the priests, the sailors, and the intellectuals, were from northern Italy; a few musicians came from southern Italy. By 1850 it is likely that there were about 200 Italians in the city—artists, singers, and political dissidents. In 1870, census records tabulated 300. By 1880, there were 1,656 within the city limits, a
Novel Underfill Material for Wafer Level Packaging

Wafer level packaging presents a paradigm shift in IC packaging manufacturing toward low cost and high performance electronic products. This article reviews different designs of wafer level packages. Wafer level underfill is identified as a convergence of flip-chip and wafer level chip scale package. Due to the unique curing characteristics of the wafer level underfill, there is a need for a fundamental understanding of the underfill curing process. In this study, we have explored two underfill formulations and investigated their curing properties and the gelation behavior. A successful wafer level underfill formulation was developed and characterized. The assembly of the wafer level package was demonstrated. Keywords: Wafer level packaging; Flip-chip; Underfill; Curing kinetics
Impacting Librarianship and Veterinary Medicine: History of the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section of the Medical Library Association from 1974 to 2014

This article discusses the Veterinary Medical Libraries Section (VMLS) of the Medical Library Association (MLA), its impacts on both librarianship and veterinary medicine during its 40-year history, how it achieved those impacts, relationships, selected projects, and organizational changes through the years. A listing of publications about veterinary librarianship and VMLS products is available on the VMLS website (Veterinary Medical Libraries Section, 2014).
M (sub)Dwarf Model Atmospheres: The Next Generation

We review the current theoretical situation and present state-of-the-art molecular and atomic line-blanketed convective model atmospheres of cool low-mass stars. These newest models are valid for a wide range of parameters encompassing the coolest known M dwarfs, M subdwarfs and brown dwarf candidates: 4000 K ≥ Teff ≥ 1500 K; 5.5 ≥ logg ≥ 3.5; and -4.0 ≤ [M/H] ≤ +0.5. The atmospheres are characterised by a thick convective zone reaching optical depths as low as τ ~ 10-3 and by a nearly adiabatic temperature gradient. This latter feature leads to local temperatures in the photosphere which far exceed Teff, unlike conventional grey atmosphere models. The synthetic spectra yield close agreement with observations of M dwarfs across a wide spectral range from the visual to the near-IR, with one notable exception: the fit to the water bands. We discuss ongoing efforts to incorporate water opacities in cool stellar spectra, as well as interesting results of the models relating to searches for brown dwarfs.
A new correlation-differential denoising algorithm

We propose a new correlation-differential denoising algorithm based on two novel concepts of correlation-weighted and differential-weighted filters for Gaussian noise. The correlation-weighted filter utilizes the correlation of different sequences in an image in different directions as a weight to perform the filtering. This filter can preserve the texture information, especially the edge information. Derived from the Gaussian filter, the differential-weighted filter uses the actual difference of pixel values as a parameter instead of the distance relationship of pixels' positions. These two filters have the complementary function that preserve the texture information while simultaneously removing the noise. The algorithm is shown to outperform current denoising standards, including Gaussian filtering, non-local mean, anisotropic diffusion, total variation minimization, and multi-scale transform coefficient thresholding for both middle and high levels of Gaussian noise cases.
“But a Step from College to the Judicial Bench”: College and Curriculum in New England's “Age of Improvement”

In 1827, two years after its incorporation as a college and six years removed from its founding as a “collegiate institution,” Amherst College revamped its curriculum into what it called a “parallel course of study.” In this new scheme, students were allowed to follow one of two tracks during their college years. Courses in mathematics, geography, logic, rhetoric, the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology were still required of all students, but they were permitted to substitute a variety of new offerings in place of instruction in ancient languages and literature—choices ranging from French or Spanish to drawing or civil engineering. The faculty of the college were clear in their rationale for such a change: echoing the sentiments of the nation's President John Quincy Adams, they argued that theirs was “emphatically an Age of Improvement,” one which necessitated altering the structure of the college course. They warned that if the college did not reform its course offerings it would witness the rise of new institutions better equipped to provide for the needs of young men, threatening the existence of Amherst and other colleges committed to liberal education. “Let our Colleges promptly lead on in the mighty march of improvement,” they stated, “and all will be well; but let them hesitate and linger a little longer, and many of their most efficient friends will go on without them.”