cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Comparison of Doppler Sonography to Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Clinical Examination for Disc Displacement

Abstract Objective: To compare electronic devices advocated as an aid in the diagnosis of disc displacement (DD) of the temporomandibular joint. Materials and Methods: Ninety-five joints (48 subjects, 36 females and 12 males, mean age = 33.3 years, SD ± 11.9) were evaluated in this study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), clinical examination, and Doppler sonography. All subjects had bilateral MRI scans in the sagittal closed and opened and coronal closed positions. Results: When the clinical and the Doppler diagnoses for all subjects were compared with the MRI diagnosis, there was a sensitivity of 73% and 90% and a specificity of 70% and 49%, respectively. When the clinical and the Doppler diagnoses for asymptomatic volunteers were compared with the MRI, there was a sensitivity of 0% and 100% and a specificity of 100% and 56%, respectively. For the symptomatic patients, there was a sensitivity of 80% and 89% and a specificity of 48% and 45%, respectively. Conclusions: The relatively low number of fa...
Sca-1 is negatively regulated by TGF-beta1 in myogenic cells.

Sca-1 (stem cell antigen-1) is a member of the Ly-6 family of proteins and regulates cell proliferation, differentiation, and self-renewal in multiple tissues. In skeletal muscle, Sca-1 inhibits both proliferation and differentiation of myogenic cells. Sca-1 expression is dynamically regulated during muscle regeneration, and mice lacking Sca-1 display increased fibrosis following muscle injury. Here, we show that Sca-1 expression is negatively regulated by TGF-β1 and that this inhibition is dependent on Smad3. We demonstrate that levels of TGF-β1 in skeletal muscle rapidly increase on injury and that the majority of this TGFβ1 is produced by infiltrating macrophages. Sca-1 is expressed in multiple cell types, and we demonstrate that TGF-β1 represses Sca-1 expression in T cells and other immune cell populations derived from the spleen, indicating that regulation by TGF-β1 is a general feature of Sca-1 expression in multiple cell types. Elucidation of the mechanisms by which Sca-1 expression is regulated may aid in the understanding of muscle homeostasis, potentially identifying novel therapeutic targets for muscle diseases.—Long, K., Montano, M., Pavlath, G. K. Sca-1 is negatively regulated by TGF-β1 in myogenic cells.
Quantity, not frequency, of alcohol use moderates the association between multiple sexual partners and Trichomonas vaginalis among women attending an urban STD clinic

Objective The purpose of this study is to investigate alcohol use, sexual risk behaviour and trichomoniasis in a sample of low-income, largely minority, women patients at a publicly funded sexually transmitted disease (STD) clinic in the USA. Methods Baseline data, collected as part of a clinical trial, were used. Patients (688 women, 46% of the overall sample) completed an audio computer-assisted self-interview that included questions about their alcohol use and sexual behaviours. Trichomoniasis was determined from vaginal swab specimens obtained during a standard clinical exam. Results Women (n=580; 18–56 years of age; 64% African–American) who reported that they had consumed alcohol at least once in the past year were included in the analyses. Of the 580 women, 157 were diagnosed with an STD and 80 tested positive for trichomoniasis. Trichomoniasis was associated with having multiple sexual partners (OR=1.09; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.17) but not with the number or proportion of unprotected sex events (p>0.05) in the past 3 months. Quantity of alcohol use (drinks per drinking day, drinks per week, and peak consumption) moderated the association between the number of sexual partners and trichomoniasis. Conclusions The number of sexual partners predicted the probability of trichomoniasis when women reported drinking large quantities of alcohol. Because having multiple sexual partners increases the risk for STD transmission, interventions designed for at-risk women should address the quantity of alcohol consumed as well as partner reduction to reduce the risk for trichomoniasis.
Spatial Resolution of Conscious Visual Perception in Infants

Humans’ conscious awareness of objects in their visual periphery is limited. This limit is not entirely the result of reduced visual acuity. Rather, it is primarily caused by crowding—the difficulty identifying an object when it is surrounded by clutter. The effect of crowding on visual awareness in infants has yet to be explored. Do infants, for example, have a fine-grained “spotlight,” as adults do, or do infants have a diffuse “lantern” that sets limits on what they can register in their visual periphery? We designed an eye-tracking paradigm to psychophysically measure crowding in infants between 6 months and 15 months of age. We showed infants pairs of faces at three eccentricities, in the presence or absence of flankers, and recorded infants’ first saccade from central fixation to either face. Infants could discriminate faces in the periphery, and flankers impaired this ability. We found that the effective spatial resolution of infants’ visual perception increased with age, but was only half that of adults.
Reliability of k-out-of-n standby systems with gamma distributions

Cold standby redundancy is used as an effective mechanism for improving system reliability. However, methods for analyzing the reliability of k-out-of-n cold standby systems, particularly with components having age-dependent hazard (failure) rates, are limited. In this paper, using the concepts of counting processes, we propose an efficient method to evaluate the reliability of k-out-of-n cold standby systems. This proposed method considers gamma distributions for component lives and the effects of switch failures on system reliability. The main advantage of this counting process-based method is that it reduces a complex problem involving multiple integrals into an equivalent simple problem involving one-dimensional convolution integrals. We consider the gamma distribution for three reasons: (1) it can be used to model increasing, decreasing, and constant hazard rates, similar to the Weibull distribution, (2) it can be used to approximate several component failure time distributions, and (3) it has well established algorithms for calculating the convolutions that are used in the counting process-based method. In addition, we can find closed-form solutions to the convolution of the gamma distribution when its shape parameter is equal to an integer. Hence, we show that all steps involved in finding the reliability of k-out-of-n cold standby system are simple. We demonstrate the proposed method and its computational efficiency using a numerical example.
Attachment in institutionalized and community children in Romania

This study examined attachment in institutionalized and community children 12-31 months of age in Bucharest, Romania. Attachment was assessed using ratings of attachment behaviors and ratings of caregiver descriptions in a structured interview. As predicted, children raised in institutions exhibited serious disturbances of attachment as assessed by all methods. Observed quality of caregiving was related to formation and organization of attachment in children living in institutions. These results held even when other variables, such as cognitive level, perceived competence, and quantitative interaction ratings, were controlled for. Ratings of attachment behavior in the Strange Situation and caregiver reports of signs of Reactive Attachment Disorder converged moderately. The implications of these findings for different perspectives on attachment are discussed.
Attachment and psychopathology in a community sample.

Abstract The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID-I) and the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) were administered to 60 women participating in a study (n = 226) of mother – child interaction. These women were not referred to the study for psychiatric care. The 60 women interviewed with the AAI were selected from the first 190 women who completed the SCID-I, so that 30 received a diagnosis and 30 did not. Analyses indicated that psychopathology diagnoses were associated significantly with mental representations of attachment classified in the AAI. The non-autonomous groups had increased likelihood of SCID diagnosis, compared to the autonomous group. While 32% of women with autonomous AAI transcripts received SCID diagnoses, 63% of women with Dismissing, 100% of woman with Preoccupied, and 65% of women with Unresolved transcripts received diagnoses. Secondary analyses indicated that Dismissing classifications were associated with Axis I diagnoses and Preoccupied classifications with affective dis...
Autochthonous Intestinal Bacterial Flora and Cholesterol Levels in Specific Pathogen-free Swine Fed High-Lipid and High-Sucrose Diets

Abstract Graber, C. D. (Baylor University College of Medicine, Houston, Tex.). R. W. Moore, M. Suzuki, W. E. Redmond, R. M. O'Neal, and B. M. Lockhart. Autochthonous intestinal bacterial flora and cholesterol levels in specific pathogen-free swine fed high-lipid and high-sucrose diets. J. Bacteriol. 92:1290–1297. 1966.—Thirty-two specific pathogen-free (SPF) and conventional swine fed high fat, high sugar, and a standard ration were cultured for intestinal flora, and their blood cholesterol levels were measured. The diets, whether sterilized or not sterilized, fed ad libitum or restricted, did not alter bacterial flora greatly or influence blood cholesterol levels. Anaerobes outnumbered aerobes by several logs. Four autochthonous bacteria, lactobacilli, Escherichia coli, enterococci, and gram-variable, nonspore-forming anaerobes (GVNSA; a type of bacteroides), were shown to be constantly present in all animals regardless of dietary conditions. From the duodenum and jejunum of 14 pigs, GVNSA and Bacteroides nigrescens were cultured in rather large numbers, a finding not previously reported in swine or in most other mammals. This finding may have special significance in reference to bile acid and cholesterol metabolism.
The relation between BPR and ERP systems: a failed project

Vicro Communications (we use a pseudonym to mask the identity of the organization) sought to reengineer its basic business processes with the aid of data-centric enterprise software. Vicro management however made the mistake of relying completely on the software to improve the performance of its business processes. It was hoped that the software would increase information sharing, process efficiency, standardization of IT platforms, and data mining/warehousing capabilities. Management however made no attempt to rethink existing processes before embarking on a very expensive implementation of the software. Moreover, management made no attempt to obtain feedback or opinions from employees familiar with existing business or legacy systems prior to investing the software. Unfortunately for Vicro, the reengineering effort failed miserably even after investing hundreds of millions of dollars in software implementation. As a result, performance was not improved and the software is currently being phased out.
Learning from measurements in exponential families

Given a model family and a set of unlabeled examples, one could either label specific examples or state general constraints---both provide information about the desired model. In general, what is the most cost-effective way to learn? To address this question, we introduce measurements, a general class of mechanisms for providing information about a target model. We present a Bayesian decision-theoretic framework, which allows us to both integrate diverse measurements and choose new measurements to make. We use a variational inference algorithm, which exploits exponential family duality. The merits of our approach are demonstrated on two sequence labeling tasks.
Inverter propagation delay measurements using timing sampler circuits

Two timing sampler designs are described. The first design consists of a chain of 64 inverter pairs that allows the measurement of individual inverter-pair delay. The results for 3- mu m CMOS show that the delays are normally distributed with a standard deviation between 200 and 290 ps. The second design consists of 16 chains of four inverter pairs each that have different load capacitances. This structure allows the measurement of the capacitance/area of poly, metal 1, metal 2, n/sup +/ diffusion, gate layers, and the capacitance/length of n/sup +/ diffusion and p/sup +/ diffusion layers. An analysis of the measurement technique reveals that the delays are sensitive to the timing sampler input waveshape. A steep input risetime can distort the timing delays measured from inverter pairs located at the beginning of the chain. >
Epidemiologic Investigation of Riemerella anatipestifer in a Commercial Duck Company by Serotyping and DNA Fingerprinting

A commercial duck company that raises approximately two million Pekin ducks per year experienced an outbreak of Riemerella anatipestifer (RA) on nine farms over a 1-yr period. Owing to concerns that the bacteria was being spread from farm to farm, an investigation using serotyping and DNA fingerprinting was performed. The results revealed that there were three different strains of RA involved in the outbreak. One strain was spread from one farm to six other farms, while another strain from the same farm was spread to two other farms. These findings add additional proof of the value of DNA fingerprinting in disease outbreak investigations and further support the importance of implementing biosecurity protocols to stop the spread of disease-causing organisms.
Rapid data evacuation for large-scale disasters in optical cloud networks [Invited]

Cloud services based on content sharing and distribution are most prevalent in today's world, and datacenter (DC) networks supporting such services manage a huge volume of data transfers, in the range of terabytes to zettabytes. Usually, contents are replicated in geographically distributed DCs for high availability and reliability, but in the case of high-impact, large-scale disasters, like weapons of mass destruction attacks, DC networks can suffer massive service disruptions and data loss. To save critical data under such circumstances, contents could be evacuated in response to an upcoming disaster alert from a likely disaster region to a safe location before the disaster occurs and causes serious data damage. Depending on the forecasted disaster scenario, content evacuation can be greatly constrained by limited available network resources and strict deadlines (evacuation times). We propose a rapid-data-evacuation (RDE) heuristic that selects the least-delay paths (considering propagation delays, network bandwidth, and congestion) through an anycast network model, and schedules critical and vulnerable contents for evacuation such that the maximum amount of contents can be evacuated within the evacuation deadline or equivalently, a given amount of contents can be evacuated in minimum time. We compare our RDE heuristic with a nearest-evacuation approach, which evacuates data only to the nearest DC using the shortest path. Our results show that, for typical scenarios considered in this study, compared to nearest evacuation, our rapid-evacuation approach provides about 64% time savings, or equivalently, about 97% more volume of evacuated contents for a given deadline. Since our algorithm is based on a greedy approach, we also present an enhanced RDE algorithm based on the simulated annealing (SA) metaheuristic as a benchmark. We show that our proposed RDE heuristic performs very close to the SA based algorithm and is much faster in computation time. Hence, it is suitable and efficient for rapid evacuation.
Predictors of time to biochemical recurrence in a radical prostatectomy cohort within the PSA-era.

Introduction: We sought to determine predictors for early and late biochemical recurrence following radical prostatectomy among localized prostate cancer patients. Methods: The study included localized prostate cancer patients treated with radical prostatectomy (RP) at the University of Southern California from 1988 to 2008. Competing risks regression models were used to determine risk factors associated with earlier or late biochemical recurrence, defined using the median time to biochemical recurrence in this population (2.9 years after radical prostatectomy). Results: The cohort for this study included 2262 localized prostate cancer (pT2-3N0M0) patients who did not receive neoadjuvant or adjuvant therapies. Of these patients, 188 experienced biochemical recurrence and a subset continued to clinical recurrence, either within (n=19, 10%) or following (n=13, 7%) 2.9 years after RP. Multivariable stepwise competing risks analysis showed Gleason score ≥7, positive surgical margin status, and ≥pT3a stage to be associated with biochemical recurrence within 2.9 years following surgery. Predictors of biochemical recurrence after 2.9 years were Gleason score 7 (4+3), preoperative prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level, and ≥pT3a stage. Conclusions: Higher stage was associated with biochemical recurrence at any time following radical prostatectomy. Particular attention may need to be made to patients with stage ≥pT3a, higher preoperative PSA, and Gleason 7 prostate cancer with primary high-grade patterns when considering longer followup after RP.
Visual Autonomy via 2D Matching in Rendered 3D Models

As they decrease in price and increase in fidelity, visually-textured 3D models offer a foundation for robotic spatial reasoning that can support a huge variety of platforms and tasks. This work investigates the capabilities, strengths, and drawbacks of a new sensor, the Matterport 3D camera, in the context of several robot applications. By using hierarchical 2D matching into a database of images rendered from a visually-textured 3D model, this work demonstrates that – when similar cameras are used – 2D matching into visually-textured 3D maps yields excellent performance on both global-localization and local-servoing tasks. When the 2D-matching spans very different camera transforms, however, we show that performance drops significantly. To handle this situation, we propose and prototype a map-alignment phase, in which several visual representations of the same spatial environment overlap: one to support the image-matching needed for visual localization, and the other carrying a global coordinate system needed for task accomplishment, e.g., point-to-point positioning.
Foraging Resources of Boll Weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

Pollen analyses were used to determine alternative foraging resources of spring and early season adult boll weevils, Anthonomus grandis Boheman, in 1995 at three Texas locations: Uvalde, Crockett, and Munday. Overall, 82% of the boll weevils ( n = 486) contained pollen, and over 8,900 pollen grains were encountered. Pollen representing 58 families, 97 genera, and 46 species were identified in the samples. Salicaceae (28%), Fabaceae (13%), and Poaceae (8%) pollen grains represented the highest percentage of pollen types: whereas, Poaceae (45%), Asteraceae (43%), and Fabaceae (34%) pollen grains were found in the greatest number of samples. Fabaceae had more pollen taxa followed by Asteraceae. Uvalde samples had the highest species diversity and species richness. Although there were no significant differences in species diversity, richness, and evenness among the three sites, there was a significant reduction in species diversity in Munday samples from June to July. Our research shows that boll weevils at three Texas locations foraged on a variety of pollen. Identified pollen spectra reflected the habitat from where the boll weevils were captured.
PHYSICAL FITNESS OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL BOYS AND GIRLS PARTICIPATING IN SELECTED PHYSICAL EDUCATION PROGRAMS IN NEW YORK STATE.

Abstract The New York Physical Fitness Test was administered in October and May to pupils of 13 senior high schools whose physical education programs were rated low by members of the Bureau of Physical Education and 16 whose programs were rated high. The LaPorte Score Card was utilized to validate these ratings. The amount of physical activity outside of class was recorded by each pupil and the effect analyzed. Pupils participating in good programs improved significantly more in physical fitness than participants in poor programs. The greatest improvement was in strength with some gain in agility, balance, and endurance.
Effect of storage time on gene expression data acquired from unfrozen archived newborn blood spots

Unfrozen archived newborn blood spots (NBS) have been shown to retain sufficient messenger RNA (mRNA) for gene expression profiling. However, the effect of storage time at ambient temperature for NBS samples in relation to the quality of gene expression data is relatively unknown. Here, we evaluated mRNA expression from quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and microarray data obtained from NBS samples stored at ambient temperature to determine the effect of storage time on the quality of gene expression. These data were generated in a previous case-control study examining NBS in 53 children with cerebral palsy (CP) and 53 matched controls. NBS sample storage period ranged from 3 to 16years at ambient temperature. We found persistently low RNA integrity numbers (RIN=2.3±0.71) and 28S/18S rRNA ratios (~0) across NBS samples for all storage periods. In both qRT-PCR and microarray data, the expression of three common housekeeping genes-beta cytoskeletal actin (ACTB), glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH), and peptidylprolyl isomerase A (PPIA)-decreased with increased storage time. Median values of each microarray probe intensity at log2 scale also decreased over time. After eight years of storage, probe intensity values were largely reduced to background intensity levels. Of 21,500 genes tested, 89% significantly decreased in signal intensity, with 13,551, 10,730, and 9925 genes detected within 5years, > 5 to 10years of storage, respectively. We also examined the expression of two gender-specific genes (X inactivation-specific transcript, XIST and lysine-specific demethylase 5D, KDM5D) and seven gene sets representing the inflammatory, hypoxic, coagulative, and thyroidal pathways hypothesized to be related to CP risk to determine the effect of storage time on the detection of these biologically relevant genes. We found the gender-specific genes and CP-related gene sets detectable in all storage periods, but exhibited differential expression (between male vs. female or CP vs. control) only within the first six years of storage. We concluded that gene expression data quality deteriorates in unfrozen archived NBS over time and that differential gene expression profiling and analysis is recommended for those NBS samples collected and stored within six years at ambient temperature.
Adolescence in International and Cross-Cultural Perspective: An Introduction

Internationally, the study of the psychology of adolescence is burgeoning, and the emerging paradigms place emphasis on the contexts of development. The recent studies take into account the cultural, economic, and political conditions in which developmental transitions occur. The influence of the distal conditions, macrosystem phenomena such as economic and political systems, are studied in terms of their effects on the proximal contexts of adolescents’ lives, including adolescents’ families, friends, schools, leisure pursuits, and work activities. This contextual approach is evident in numerous recent books devoted to adolescent development (e.g., Crockett & Crouter, 1995; Graber, Brooks-Gunn, & Petersen, 1996; Hurrelmann & Hamilton, 1996; Mortimer & Finch, 1996; Nestmann & Hurrelmann, 1994; Neubauer & Hurrelmann, 1995; Noack, Hofer, & Youniss, 1995; Schulenberg, Maggs, & Hurrelmann, 1997; Silbereisen & Todt, 1994). The primary transitions of adolescence include biological, cognitive, and social transitions. In addition, adolescents may also experience changes in their schooling (they may change schools or leave school), their place of residence (their families may migrate), and the structure or composition of their families or peer groups. In today’s world,
Lethality of Salmonella and Listeria innocua in Fully Cooked Chicken Breast Meat Products during Postcook In-Package Pasteurization

The process lethality model was used to predict the thermal kill of Salmonella and Listeria innocua in fully cooked and vacuum-packaged chicken breast meat during hot-water postprocess pasteurization. Time-temperature profiles of the meat samples during treatment and D-values (decimal reduction times) and z-values (change in temperature required to change the D-value) for Salmonella and L. innocua in the same meat product were used in the prediction of lethality. The results of the model prediction were compared with those of the inoculation study for the same meat product at a 95% confidence level of up to 10 7 CFU/g for Salmonella and L. innocua. The thermal lethality predictions obtained with the process lethality model for Salmonella and L. innocua were within the 95% confidence level for the experimental data from the inoculation study, suggesting that the process lethality model was a useful tool for the determination of the kill of Salmonella or L. innocua at up to 10 7 CFU/g in fully cooked chicken breast meat products during postprocess pasteurization with hot water.
Spawning Areas of the Atlantic Eels

In 1904, when the Danish biologist, Johannes Schmidt, aboard the steam research vessel Thor captured a 7-cm-long leptocephalus of the European eel west of the Faroe Islands in the northeastern North Atlantic Ocean (Schmidt 1906),the chase was on! In fact, it was only in 1893 that the Italian zoologists B. Grassi and S. Calandruccio determined that the species known as Leptocephalus brevirostris was the larval form of the European eel (Grassi 1896), known then as Anguilla vulgaris and now as Anguilla anguilla. The Thor specimen and one other collected west of Ireland in the same year were the first specimens to be captured outside the Mediterranean Sea, where Grassi and Calandruccio believed the eels spawned. In 1905, Schmidt captured further specimens, all large (60-88 mm), along the continental slope between the Faroes and Ireland, convincing himself that northern European eels spawned in the Atlantic far from the coasts (Schmidt 1906).
H-FUSE: Efficient fusion of aggregated historical data

In this paper, we address the challenge of recovering a time sequence of counts from aggregated historical data. For example, given a mixture of the monthly and weekly sums, how can we find the daily counts of people infected with flu? In general, what is the best way to recover historical counts from aggregated, possibly overlapping historical reports, in the presence of missing values? Equally importantly, how much should we trust this reconstruction? We propose H-FUSE, a novel method that solves above problems by allowing injection of domain knowledge in a principled way, and turning the task into a welldefined optimization problem. H-FUSE has the following desirable properties: (a) Effectiveness, recovering historical data from aggregated reports with high accuracy; (b) Self-awareness, providing an assessment of when the recovery is not reliable; (c) Scalability, computationally linear on the size of the input data. Experiments on the real data (epidemiology counts from the Tycho project [13]) demonstrates that H-FUSE reconstructs the original data 30 - 81% better than the least squares method.
Mitigation of time-varying spectral nulls in a wideband HF signal

Multiple and time-varying spectral nulls have been observed in wideband HF-NVIS channel. These nulls cause rapid fading in narrowband HF-NVIS links. This paper offers one physical explanation of these observations — the rapid fading is caused by interference between the ordinary (O mode) and extraordinary (X mode) waves carrying the signal in opposite sense polarization at the receiver. This explanation points to a mitigation scheme: coherently combine dual-polarization receive antennas to eliminate the nulls.
LGBT Family Lawyers and Same-Sex Marriage Recognition: How Legal Change Shapes Professional Identity and Practice

Lawyers who practice family law for LGBT clients are key players in the tenuous and evolving legal environment surrounding same-sex marriage recognition. Building on prior research on factors shapi...
Androgen influence on gene expression in the meibomian gland.

Our previous research has demonstrated that the meibomian gland is an androgen target organ.1 This tissue contains androgen receptor mRNA, androgen receptor protein within acinar epithelial cell nuclei and the mRNAs for both Types 1 and 2 5±-reductase, an enzyme that converts testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone into the potent androgen, 5a-dihydrotestosterone.2,3 Our studies also indicate that androgens, as well as gender, may influence gene expression in the rabbit and/or mouse meibomian glands.4,5 The purpose of this study was to identify androgen-regulated genes that may depend upon the presence of functional androgen receptors, and that may mediate the gender-related differences in gene expression in the meibomian gland.
Development and Growth of the Gall

The fundamental difference between development and growth is now widely recognized. While growth embraces changes in size and weight, development is a sequence of internal adjustments undergone in ontogenesis of the organ or tissue. The rates of growth and of development are governed by environmental conditions, independent of each other. The conditions favourable for growth of gall may be unfavourable for its development and vice versa and growth and development are usually accelerated entirely differently. These differences are illustrated by recent investigations on the photoperiodic induction of development and photoperiodic inhibition of growth in plants. The rate of development is not only independent of the rate of growth, but may also not be concurrent with or subsequent to growth. Development may be initiated and progress normally in a rather slowly growing organ. Long before the perceptible growth of the gall, diverse internal readjustments occur within the plant tissue and cell. Whatever their nature, these changes are presumably connected with the physiological state of the cells and tissues at which the capacity to grow is required.
Evaluating the Effect of Faults in SystemC TLM Models Using UPPAAL

Since System on Chip (SoC) systems, where integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip, are typically used for critical scenarios, it is desirable to analyze the impact of faults on them. However, fault-impact analysis is difficult at the RTL level due to the high integrity of SoC systems and different levels of abstraction provided by modern system design languages such as SystemC. Thus, modeling faults and impact analysis at different levels of abstraction is an important task and introduces dependability-related issues from the early phases of design. In this paper, we present a method for modeling and analyzing faults in SystemC TLM programs. The proposed method includes three steps, namely timed model extraction, fault modeling and fault analysis. We use UPPAAL timed automata to formally model the SystemC TLM programs and monitor how the models behave in the presence of faults. We analyze three case studies, two with Loosely-Timed coding style, and the other with Approximately-Timed coding style.
Regularization and Cross Validation Methods for Nonlinear, Implicit, Ill-posed Inverse Problems

Cross validated regularization methods for ill posed inverse problems are reviewed. These methods have been extended to the parameter estimation problem for partial differential equations. In the p. d. e. problem one observes discrete, possibly noisy data on the solution, the forcing function, and the boundary values, and wishes to estimate a (distributed) coefficient in the equation. Some directions for further extension of the method are suggested.
Testing for center effects on survival and competing risks outcomes using pseudo-value regression

In multi-center studies, the presence of a cluster effect leads to correlation among outcomes within a center and requires different techniques to handle such correlation. Testing for a cluster effect can serve as a pre-screening step to help guide the researcher towards the appropriate analysis. With time to event data, score tests have been proposed which test for the presence of a center effect on the hazard function. However, sometimes researchers are interested in directly modeling other quantities such as survival probabilities or cumulative incidence at a fixed time. We propose a test for the presence of a center effect acting directly on the quantity of interest using pseudo-value regression, and derive the asymptotic properties of our proposed test statistic. We examine the performance of our proposed test through simulation studies in both survival and competing risks settings. The proposed test may be more powerful than tests based on the hazard function in settings where the center effect is time-varying. We illustrate the test using a multicenter registry study of survival and competing risks outcomes after hematopoietic cell transplantation.
Patterns of Task and Network Actions Performed by Navigators to Facilitate Cancer Care

While the creation of the patient navigator role has generated interest in multiple care settings as a way to counteract fragmentation and lack of coordination in health care, the question of what ...
Regulating for a reason: Emotion regulation goals are linked to spontaneous strategy use

Objective We investigated how individual differences in emotion regulation goals predict emotion regulation strategy use in daily life. Method Across three studies, we assessed two common types of emotion regulation goals (hedonic, social) and strategies spanning the entire process model of emotion regulation. We conducted two studies using global measures with undergraduates (N = 394; 18-25 years; 69% female; 56% European American) and community members (N = 302; 19-74 years; 50% female; 75% European American), and a nine-day daily diary study with another community sample (N = 272; 23-85 years; 50% female; 84% European American). Results Globally and in daily life, pro-hedonic goals were positively associated with all antecedent-focused strategies (situation selection, situation modification, distraction, and reappraisal), pro-social goals were positively linked to reappraisal, and impression management goals positively predicted suppression. Contra-hedonic goals were negatively associated with reappraisal and positively associated with suppression in some studies. Conclusions The reasons why people regulate their emotions are predictive of the strategies they use in daily life. These links may be functional, such that people typically use strategies that are suitable for their goals. These findings demonstrate the value of an individual difference approach and highlight the motivational component of emotion regulation.
Antioxidant and antifungal activity of phenolic compounds and their relation to aflatoxin B1 occurrence in soybeans (Glycine max L.)

Background Soybean is widely used in food formulations; however, few studies on fungal or mycotoxin contamination have been undertaken. Free, conjugated, and bound phenolic compounds, and their antioxidant and antifungal potential, were therefore evaluated together with the occurrence of aflatoxin B1 (AFB1 ) in soybeans. Results The conjugated and bound phenolic soybean extracts were more efficient for the inhibition of the 2,2 diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl (DPPH) radical, the peroxidase enzyme, and the fungal α-amylase enzyme. Aflatoxin B1, detected at low levels (0.96 to 1.67 ng g-1 ), confirmed the protective effect of soybean phenolic compounds against mycotoxigenic contamination. Principal component analysis confirmed that syringic, p-hydroxybenzoic, p-coumaric acids and vanillin were essential for antioxidant and antifungal activities. Conclusion This study presented new insights into the functionality of phenolic compounds in soybeans, regarding their potential to protect the crops naturally against fungal contamination, avoiding aflatoxin production, as attested by the correlations between phenolic compounds and antioxidant mechanisms. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry.
A quantitative meta-analysis of organizational ownership and technical efficiency: non-linear influence by facility types and time for nonprofit and for-profit healthcare providers

This study seeks to determine if for-profit healthcare organizations are more technically efficient than nonprofit organizations. We attempted to answer two questions: Does the technical efficiency...
First-Line Vasopressor and Mortality Rates in ED Patients with Acute Drug Overdose.

While emergency department (ED) visits for acute drug overdose are at an all-time high, the importance of vasopressors to treat circulatory shock in this patient population remains unclear. This study investigated the association between first-line vasopressor and mortality, for both push-dose and infusion, in this patient population. From a prospective cohort of consecutive ED patients with drug overdose at two urban teaching centers over 5 years, we performed a secondary data analysis of patients with circulatory shock, defined as hypotension requiring either vasopressors, high-dose insulin euglycemia therapy, or both. The first-line vasopressor (push-dose and infusion) was analyzed for associations with the primary outcome (in-hospital mortality) and secondary outcomes (24-hour mortality, ICU LOS). Subgroup analysis of beta-/calcium-channel blocker overdose was performed to evaluate impact of antidotal therapies. Data analysis included multivariable regression. Fifty-five patients with circulatory shock were analyzed, in whom there was 20% 24-hour mortality, 42% in-hospital mortality, 730-minute mean vasopressor duration, and 53.4-hour median ICU LOS. On multivariable analysis, there was significantly decreased adjusted odds of in-hospital mortality with first-line push-dose phenylephrine (aOR 0.06, CI 0.01–0.55), and significantly increased adjusted odds of in-hospital mortality with first-line push-dose epinephrine (aOR 60.8, CI 6.1–608). Of the first-line infusions, norepinephrine had the lowest odds of in-hospital mortality (aOR 0.80, CI 0.2–3.1). In ED patients with undifferentiated drug overdose and circulatory shock, the first-line vasopressor is associated with in-hospital mortality. First-line push-dose phenylephrine was associated with the lowest odds of in-hospital mortality. Future randomized studies are warranted for validation.
Low-Complexity Minimum Energy Beamforming in Directional Networking

We study the problem of finding the minimum energy beamforming that satisfies the users' signal-to-noise ratio requirements. Traditional transform based beamforming uses heuristics to determine the radiation pattern first, and then calculates the beamforming vector. Recent optimization based beamforming optimizes the beamforming vector directly and greatly outperforms the transform based beamforming. However, optimization based beamforming has prohibitively high complexity due to the semidefinite programming to be solved. In this paper, we propose to solve the optimal beamforming problem by the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). We can achieve near optimal performance while greatly reducing the computational complexity. Simulations demonstrate the advantages of our proposed algorithm over transform based beamforming in terms of performance (e.g., 4 dB reduction in transmit power), and over optimization based beamforming in terms of computation time (e.g., 10 times reduction in computation time).
Performance Evaluation of Dual Purposes Solar Heating System Using Heat Pipe Evacuated Tube Solar Collector

The aim of this work is to develop dual purposes solar heating system using a heat pipe evacuated tube solar collector. The heat transfer fluid between the thermal loads and the solar collector loop was heating oil. The study provided two thermal loads; a solar water heating system and a solar baking/cooking system that had experimentally investigated under various weather conditions. The experimental pilot unit was installed in the Solar Energy Department, National Research Centre, Giza, Egypt. Several test runs were performed to measure all assigned parameters that affect the system performance. The system is designed to provide hot oil surrounding the inner vessel of the baker with a temperature up to 250o C while the raw food can be baked/cooked and the outlet thermal energy can be used for heating water via an immersed coil in the hot water storage tank; then the relatively cooled oil is returned to the solar collector via hot oil circulating pump. The tested system can be positively contributed to baking and cooking purposes and providing hot water as well. It is considered an environmentally friendly system and can significantly enhance sustainable communities. The system is capable to produce hot water temperature up to 85 oC and an average temperature of about 60 oC during the day which is suitable for residential purposes and industrial process as well The auxiliary heating system can be an electric source in case of using in urban areas and can be renewable energy source like biogas or hydrogen fuels in rural and isolated areas.
Work, physical activity, and metabolic health: Understanding insulin sensitivity of long-haul truck drivers.

Background Long-haul truck drivers are disproportionately exposed to metabolic risk; however, little is known about their metabolic health and the role of physical activity and other risk factors in metabolic outcomes. Objective This study compares truck drivers' insulin sensitivity, and associations between metabolic risk factors and insulin sensitivity, with those of the general population. Methods Survey, anthropometric, and biometric data were collected from 115 long-haul truckers, which were then compared to the general population data using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dataset. The quantitative insulin sensitivity check index (QUICKI) was used to estimate insulin sensitivity. Results Truck drivers had lower QUICKI scores than the general population cohort. Sagittal abdominal diameter and exercise were predictive for QUICKI among combined cohorts. Waist circumference and perceived health were more predictive for QUICKI among truck drivers, and sagittal abdominal diameter and income were more predictive for QUICKI among the general population. Conclusions Long-haul truckers appear to represent a subset of the general population regarding the impact of physical activity and other metabolic risk factors on QUICKI. Accordingly, comprehensive efforts which target these factors are needed to improve truckers' physical activity levels and other metabolic risks.
Scientists and the State: The Legacy of World War II

A convincing case can be made that the principal events shaping the twentieth century until the nineteen nineties have been wars: World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam. The two world wars changed the practice of science. Among many other things, both wars highlighted the value to the state of scientists and scientific institutions. But in contrast to the first world war, the second altered the character of science in a fundamental and irreversible way.1 The importance and magnitude of the contribution to the war effort of engineers and scientists, particularly physicists, changed the relationship between scientists and the state. Already during the war, and with ever greater emphasis after the war with the onset of the Cold War, the armed forces in the United States, particularly the Navy and the Army Air Force, realizing that the future security of the nation and its dominance as a world power depended on the creativity of its scientific communities and the strength of its institutions of higher education, invested heavily in their support and expansion. From the mid-forties to the mid-fifties a close relationship was cemented between scientists and the military. Physicists played a key role in these developments and our paper was an outgrowth of an inquiry into the special skills and characteristics that made their contributions so central until the early sixties.
Where Is My Image

The curse of dimensionality and its possible geometric causes are analyzed in this chapter. The expression “curse of dimensionality” refers to the set of circumstances by which the performance of logarithmic time O (log N) indexing methods, such as trees, degrades rapidly when the dimensionality of the space in which the search is performed increases. The phenomenon is observed by most researchers in the area of indexing, and proved to be a formidable obstacle to the development of search algorithms for high-dimensional spaces. Because the dimensionality curse affects mostly spaces of high dimensionality, one is left with two roads to travel in search of an efficient indexing scheme: Either one tries to devise high-dimensional indexing schemes relatively immune to the curse, or one tries to reduce the dimensionality of the feature space as much as possible. Reducing the dimensionality of the feature space entails an approximation and, therefore, an error in the measurement of distances.
Selected Methods for the Detection and Assessment of Ecological Effects Resulting from the Release of Genetically Engineered Microorganisms to the Terrestrial Environment

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses some selected methods for the detection and assessment of ecological effects resulting from the release of genetically engineered microorganisms to the terrestrial environment. The chapter explains the methods and concepts developed to study the potential effects of genetically engineered microorganisms (GEMs) on microbial populations and microbe-mediated ecological processes in soil. The potential impacts of GEMs, unrelated to the purposes for which they are engineered, on the structure and function of the natural environments into which they are introduced constitute the bottom-line concern about the release of GEMs to the environment. The results in the chapter indicates that the introduction of GEMs into soil without the substrates on which the enzymatic products of the novel genes function or without the specific inhibitors to which the products confer resistance is insufficient to evaluate adequately the potential ecological effects of GEMs. In addition, the lack of appropriate theories and methodologies constitutes a major deficit in microbial ecology in general and, specifically, in risk assessment of the release of GEMS to the environment. The development of such theories and methodologies must be of high priority.