cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Low-rank plus diagonal adaptation for deep neural networks

In this paper, we propose a scalable adaptation technique that adapts the deep neural network (DNN) model through the low-rank plus diagonal (LRPD) decomposition. It is desired that an adaptation method can properly accommodate the available development data with a variable amount of adaptation parameters. Thus, the resulting models neither over-fit nor under-fit as the development data vary in size for different speakers. The technique developed in this paper is inspired by observing that adaptation matrices are very close to an identity matrix or diagonally dominant. The LRPD restructures the adaptation matrix as a superposition of a diagonal matrix and a low-rank matrix. By varying the low-rank values, the LRPD contains the full and the diagonal adaptation matrix as its special cases. Experimental results demonstrated that the LRPD adaptation of the full-size DNN obtains improved accuracy over the standard linear adaptation. The LRPD bottleneck adaptation can reduce the speaker-specific footprint by 82% over an already very compact SVD bottleneck adaptation, at an expense of 1% relative WER increase.
O-003 triage of emergent large vessel occlusion strokes with the mobile stroke treatment unit

Introduction Recent intra-arterial therapy (IAT) trials for emergent large vessel occlusion (ELVO) strokes have shown positive outcomes with early treatment. Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit (MSTU), with a portable CT scanner, point-of-care laboratory testing and on-site treatment team reduces time to treatment for intravenous (IV) thrombolysis. We present our initial experience with the MSTU and its utility in the triage of ELVO strokes. Methods Retrospective review of the MSTU database identified patients that received IAT. Clinical characteristic, imaging data and time metrics were collected. Door time for MSTU was defined as the time the patient entered the MSTU for evaluation. We compared this data to patients within the same catchment area as the MSTU, which were transferred to our center and underwent IAT during the 6 months prior to initiation of MSTU. Results Out of 155 patient evaluated in the MSTU during the first 164 days of service, 5 patients underwent IAT. On initial assessment of these patients in the MSTU, due to suspicion of ELMO they were transported to IAT ready centers. Comparing the median time metrics to 5 patients in the historical control period, significant reduction in dispatch to door (19 min vs. 31 min, p = 0.03), door to initial CT (12 min vs. 32 min, p = 0.01), and CT to IAT (82 min vs. 165 min, p = 0.01) was observed. Also the time spent in the MSTU and transfer times were reduced [door to MSTU/primary stroke center (PSC) departure (37 min vs. 106 min, p = 0.01) and transfer between MSTU/PSC to IAT ready centers (14 min vs. 26 min, p = 0.05)]. Conclusions MSTU can significantly reduce time to IAT by triaging patients with suspected ELVO to appropriate hospitals. This may translate into better outcomes for ELVO strokes. Disclosures R. Cerejo: None. A. Buletko: None. S. John: None. A. Taqui: None. A. Itrat: None. G. Toth: None. K. Uchino: None. P. Rasmussen: None. M. Hussain: None.
Flare of bullous pemphigoid in surgically treated skin

Bullous pemphigoid (BP) is an acquired, pruritic, blistering eruption of the skin that typically presents as large, tense, subepidermal bullae in elderly persons. In this article, we present the case of an 80-year-old man with a 2-year history of generalized pruritus with occasional bullae in healed incision sites on his abdomen. Results of biopsy and direct immunofluorescence testing demonstrated evidence consistent with BP. This case demonstrated a BP flare in surgically treated skin, a phenomenon that has infrequently been reported in the literature.
The Federalist Effort in Bonn, September 1948–August 1949

Convening on the banks of the Rhine at Bonn on 1 September 1948, the Parlamentarischer Rat brought the federalist demands of the CSU and the Bavarian government into a truly super-regional forum. The Council also represented the final opportunity to build into the new West German state from its inception those safeguards considered essential by the Bavarian side to prevent a repetition of the failures of the democratic system of Weimar. As has been seen, the party and the Staatsregierung attributed the earlier failure primarily to two causes: the insufficiently strong representation of Lander interests through the agency of an appropriate legislative body; and a less than perfectly clear delineation of competences between the central government and the governments of the Lander. Certainly, these problems were not completely separable from one another, and, given this connection, it is perhaps appropriate here to conduct a brief review.
Site Finder and Internet Governance

On September 15, 2003, VeriSign, Inc., the company that operates the databases that allow Internet users to reach any Internet resource ending in .com or .net, introduced a new service it called Site Finder. Less than three weeks later, after widespread protest from the technical community, at least three lawsuits, and a stern demand from ICANN (the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, which has undertaken responsibility for managing the Internet domain name space), VeriSign agreed to shut Site Finder down. In between those dates, the Internet community saw a passionate debate over the roles of ICANN, VeriSign, and the Internet's technical aristocracy in managing the domain name space. In this paper, I unpack the Site Finder story. Site Finder was highly undesirable from a technical standpoint; it contravened key elements of Internet architecture. ICANN had power to force VeriSign to withdraw it, though, only if VeriSign was violating the terms of its registry contracts. The arguments that Site Finder violated VeriSign's contractual obligations are plausible, but they don't derive their force from Site Finder's architectural or stability consequences. The registry contracts gave ICANN no hook to invoke those concerns; if VeriSign was in breach, it was by happenstance. Part of the lesson of Site Finder is that there needs to be an effective institutional mechanism for protecting the domain name space infrastructure from unilateral, profit-driven change that bypasses the protections and consensus mechanisms of the traditional Internet standards process. Notwithstanding ICANN's flaws, it may be better suited than any other existing institution to protect against that threat. Yet ICANN regulation is itself highly problematic, and so any plan to expand its authority must be approached with care.
Firm-specific risk, managerial certainty and optimism

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to focus on investor reactions to unanticipated changes in income, and whether those reactions can be mitigated by managerial discussion. The authors investigate how top-management team certainty and optimism during post-earnings announcement conference calls can serve as corrective actions and add back firm value in times of unexpected changes in firm-specific risk. Design/methodology/approach – The research question is tested empirically in the context of large, publicly traded, US firms’ quarterly earnings announcements, and their subsequent post-earnings announcement conference calls. The authors use the advanced content analysis software DICTION to measure the levels of managerial certainty and optimism displayed during post-earnings announcement conference calls, and event-study methodology to measure investors’ reactions. Findings – Results indicate that earnings surprises are negatively associated with firm value, but that this relationship is mitigated posit...
DSN 2016 Tutorial: Resilience for Scientific Computing: From Theory to Practice

Envisioning the future Exascale platforms requires a deep understanding of the impact of faults and a realistic view of the needs in terms of reliability. Reliability has been highlighted as one of the major concerns and the IESP projects an increase in node performance and concurrency by one or two orders of magnitude, which translates, even under the most optimistic circumstances, in at least one order of magnitude direct decrease of the mean time to interruption of capability platforms. Because of this tendency, platform providers, software developers, and high-performance application users who target capability runs, cannot regard the occurrence of interruptions due to a failure as a rare dramatic event, but must consider faults as an inevitable component of the computing eco-system, and design and develop software components that have some form of fault-tolerance integrated at their core.
Fine‐needle aspiration with selective use of core needle biopsy of major salivary gland tumors

Objectives Preferential use of fine-needle aspiration (FNA) versus core needle biopsy (CNB) for distinguishing benign from malignant major salivary gland tumors is highly debated. The main disadvantage of FNA is lower sensitivity, whereas arguments against CNB include use of a larger bore needle and greater risk of complications. The aim of this study is to evaluate our experience performing ultrasound-guided (UG) FNA with selective use of CNB based on preliminary cytopathology, and to determine whether our preoperative diagnostic approach is more sensitive and specific than FNA alone—and at least as sensitive and specific as CNB alone. Study Design Retrospective review of UG needle biopsy sampling of lesions arising in or around parotid and submandibular glands. Methods Ultrasounds of 141 needle biopsies were identified. Patient/lesion/needle biopsy characteristics, preliminary cytopathology, final pathology, imaging studies, and subsequent clinical course and treatment were documented. Results Needle biopsies performed according to our protocol provided results that guided clinical decision making in 125 of 135 cases, 92.6% (95% confidence interval [CI], 86.8%–96.4%) of the time. Using 41 cases that had histologic verification, sensitivity was 100% (95% CI, 79.6%–100%), and specificity was 92.3% (95% CI, 75.9%–97.9%) for detecting malignancy. We definitively characterized 120 lesions as benign (84) or malignant (36). Conclusion Preoperative needle biopsy diagnoses allowed clinical management to progress 92.6% of the time. The protocol of FNA with selective use of CNB may potentially reduce patient exposure to risks associated with CNB without the tradeoff of lower sensitivity seen with FNA. Level of Evidence 4. Laryngoscope, 2017
Comparison of transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion outcomes in patients receiving rhBMP-2 versus autograft

Abstract Background Context Recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein 2 (rhBMP-2) plays a pivotal role in complex spine surgery. Despite its limited approval, the off-label use of rhBMP-2 is prevalent, particularly in transforaminal lumbar interbody fusions (TLIFs). Purpose To determine the effectiveness and safety of rhBMP-2 use in TLIF procedures versus autograft. Study Design Retrospective cohort study. Patient Sample Patients older than 18 years undergoing spine surgery for lumbar degenerative spine disease at a single academic institution. Outcome Measures Clinical outcome was determined according to patient records. Radiographic outcome was determined according to plain X-rays and computed tomography (CT). Methods A retrospective study from 1997 to 2014 was conducted on 191 adults undergoing anterior-posterior instrumented spinal fusion with TLIF at a single academic institution. Patient data were gathered from operative notes, follow-up clinic notes, and imaging studies to determine complications and fusion rates. One hundred eighty-seven patients fit the criteria, which included patients with a minimum of one TLIF, and had a minimum 2-year radiographic and clinical follow-up. Patients were further classified into a BMP group (n=83) or non-BMP group (n=104). Three logistic regression models were run using rhBMP-2 exposure as the independent variable. The respective outcome variables were TLIF-related complications (radiculitis, seroma, osteolysis, and ectopic bone), surgical complications, and all complications. Results Bone morphogenetic protein (n=83) and non-BMP (n=104) groups had similar baseline demographics (sex, diabetes, pre-existing cancer). On average, the BMP and non-BMP groups were similarly aged (51.9 vs. 47.9 years, p>.05), but the BMP group had a shorter follow-up time (3.03 vs. 4.06 years; p Conclusion Evidence supports the hypothesis that off-label use of rhBMP-2 in TLIF procedures is relatively effective for achieving bone fusion at rates similar to patients receiving autograft. Patients exhibited similar complication rates between the two groups, with the BMP group exhibiting slightly higher rates of radiculitis and seroma.
Clinical Research Nursing: Development of a Residency Program .

Clinical research nurses are essential in the coordination of clinical trials and the management of research participants. Without a stable, knowledgeable research nurse workforce, the conduct of research is affected. A research nurse residency is a novel approach to preparing new graduate nurses for the oncology research nurse role. This article will describe the development and content of the research nurse residency and how this approach is being used to address a need for clinical research nurses to support burgeoning clinical trials at a National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center. .
Abstract 18940: Pre-B-Cell Colony Enhancing Factor Blood Levels Correlate With Intravenous Catecholamine Use and Post-Resuscitation Death After Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest

Introduction: High blood concentrations of the cytokine PBEF are associated with poor cardiac arrest outcomes in our prior animal studies. Furthermore, PBEF release results from high energy demands as occur with surges of catecholamine, and can cause cardiac dysfunction and up-regulation of other pro-inflammatory cytokines similar to that seen after human cardiac arrest. Hypothesis: PBEF level is associated with cardiac arrest survival and intravenous catecholamine (i.e. CAT) administration. Methods: Prospective, observational cohort study of 81 out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients was performed at four geographically distinct urban tertiary care cardiac arrest centers of excellence from 2011 to 2012. Hypothermia (33°C) was applied to all patients. Intravenous CAT was administered per resuscitation protocols. Serial blood samples were taken at time of admission and through 48 h after admission (T0, T12, T24, T36 and T48 respectively). Survival and discharge outcomes with neurological score were evaluated. Results: 75 patients had CAT administration and 36 patients did not. 25 out of 75 patients who received intravenous CAT survived. By contrast, 26 out of the 36 patients without CAT administration survived. Chi-square testing shows a strong association (33.3% vs. 72.2%, p=0.00012) between CAT treatment and death. A trend of high blood PBEF levels was observed throughout T0 to T48 with the T12 and T24 post-resuscitation time-points being most significant (p Conclusion: High blood PBEF levels and catecholamine administration are independently associated with post-resuscitation death in OHCA patients. Future work is needed to understand whether PBEF may an important mediator of catecholamine-induced post-resuscitation injury.
Exploring the Protest Language of Chants “Everyday I’m çapulling” and “Sí se puede”

In Chapter Three, the protest chants “Everyday I’m capulling” from Turkey and “Si se puede” from the United Farm Workers in the American Southwest are examined within the deep stories of their particular contexts. Each chant is then analyzed as a performative within the framework of the renovated felicity conditions, as introduced in Chapter 2 based on Austin’s Speech Act Theory, for the speech act of protest. Each analysis focuses on the presuppositional conditions regarding convention, circumstance, words, persons, effects, and positionings, followed by the aspirational conditions with a focus on thoughts, intention, risk, commitment, and subsequent actions. These analyses include discussions of identity in terms of convocativity as well as how these speech acts attain pragmatic legitimacy through the fulfillment of the felicity conditions.
Psychological health and socioeconomic status among non-Hispanic whites.

Much attention has been paid of late to drug abuse and mortality among less-educated whites. This group, often referred to as the “white working class,” is typically defined as non-Hispanic whites who do not have Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science college degrees (1). Mortality rates have risen for members of the white working class in midlife, mainly due to increases in drug overdoses, suicides, and alcohol-related liver mortality (2⇓⇓–5). In contrast, mortality rates for African Americans and Hispanics have continued to decline (4). These findings have contributed to a popular narrative of rising malaise among the white working class, leading to a surge in “deaths of despair” (6, 7) and to support for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election (8). But has there really been an increase in feelings of despair among the white working class? In PNAS, Goldman et al. (9) examine changes since the mid-1990s in the psychological health of the non-Hispanic white population. The authors use data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) study, an interdisciplinary investigation of psychological well-being and physical health among Americans ages 25–74 y (10). It comprises two national surveys conducted in 1995–1996 and 2011–2014. The surveys contained a comprehensive set of questions about positive and negative mental health, which were combined into scales with known psychometric properties. A study that linked the 1995–1996 MIDUS data to National Death Index records found that positive mental health was associated with a lower risk of subsequent mortality (11). Goldman et al. (9) find a decline in psychological health between the earlier and later MIDUS survey samples for white non-Hispanics as a whole. In addition, the authors find that the … [↵][1]1Email: cherlin{at}jhu.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1
Dipeptide transport across rat alveolar epithelial cell monolayers.

The transepithelial transport and metabolism of two model peptides, glycyl-D-phenylalanine (Gly-D-Phe) and glycyl-L-phenylalanine (Gly-L-Phe), across primary cultured monolayers of rat alveolar epithelial cells were studied. These tight monolayers (>2000 Ω-cm2) exhibited type I pneumocyte morphological and phenotypic characteristics. A reverse-phase HPLC was used to monitor the appearance of parent dipeptides and their metabolites (D- or L-Phe) in the receiver fluid. The apparent permeability coefficient (Papp) for Gly-D-Phe was about 1.6 × 10−7 cm/sec at both 1 and 10 mM and in both the apical-to-basolateral (AB) and the basolateral-to-apical (BA) directions. In contrast, the Papp of Gly-L-Phe at 1 mM was about two times higher than that at 10 mM in the AB direction. The Papp of Gly-L-Phe in the BA direction at either concentration was about the same (about 1.4 × 10−7 cm/sec). Whereas no metabolite was detected during Gly-D-Phe transport, the proportions of a metabolite, L-Phe, observed at 4 hr in the basolateral receiver fluid for 1 and 10 mM apical donor Gly-L-Phe accounted for 83 and 77% of the estimated total Gly-L-Phe (i.e., L-Phe + Gly-L-Phe), respectively. The corresponding values in the BA direction were 40 and 19% of the estimated total Gly-L-Phe in the apical receiver reservoir. Metabolism of Gly-L-Phe was significantly reduced in the presence of 3 µM actinonin (an inhibitor relatively specific for aminopeptidase M) in the apical but not the basolateral fluid. Under all experimental conditions, the monolayers remained intact, as indicated by no appreciable changes in the bioelectric parameters of transepithelial potential difference and electrical resistance. The above data provide evidence for cellular metabolism of Gly-L-Phe as well as paracellular restricted diffusional transport of intact Gly-D-Phe and Gly-L-Phe and comparatively lower transcellular transport of Gly-L-Phe across the rat alveolar epithelial cell monolayer.
Outcomes of infants receiving chronic peritoneal dialysis: an analysis of the USRDS registry.

Outcome data for infants on chronic peritoneal dialysis (CPD) is limited and has been based primarily on the analyses of voluntary entry registry data. In contrast, the United States Renal Data Systems (USRDS) collects data on all infants with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) on chronic dialysis in the USA. We aimed to describe the clinical characteristics of this population and to determine the associated patient mortality. The USRDS database was reviewed retrospectively for data on infants who initiated CPD at ≤ 12 months of age from 1990 to 2014. Infants were categorized into four groups, CPD initiation age (≤ 1 month of age or neonates and > 1–12 months of age or older infants) and initiation era (1990–1999 and 2000–2014). A total of 1723 infants (574 neonates and 1149 older infants) were identified. Overall, 20.9% of infants (147 neonates and 213 older infants) died on dialysis during the follow-up. The most commonly identified causes of death on dialysis were cardiorespiratory disease (25.8%) and infection (22.8%). There was an increased risk for mortality in all infants who initiated CPD in the earlier initiation era (1990–1999) vs the later era (2000–2014) (aHR of 1.95), for females vs males (aHR 1.43), and for those with a primary diagnosis of cystic kidney diseases vs congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT) (aHR 1.84). In 2000–2014, patient survival at 1 and 5 years was 86.8% and 74.6% for those who initiated CPD as neonates and 89.6% and 79.3% for those who did so as older infants. In this large cohort of infants who received chronic peritoneal dialysis over more than two decades, the probability of survival after initiating CPD in the first year of life has significantly improved. There is no difference in the probability of death for neonates compared to older infants. However, the mortality rate remains substantial in association with multiple risk factors.
Second-order extensions to nearly orthogonal-and-balanced (NOAB) mixed-factor experimental designs

When simulation studies involve many quantitative (i.e., discrete and continuous) and qualitative (i.e., categorical) input factors with different numbers of levels for each, meta-models of simulat...
TRANSCRIPTIONAL AND TRANSLATIONAL (?) CONTROL OF THE λ REPRESSOR GENE (cI)

ABSTRACT DNA, RNA, and protein sequences are presented which suggest that the repressor gene ( c I) of bacteriophage λ is subject to a heretofore undescribed form of translational control: when c I is transcribed from one promoter ( P RM ) its mRNA lacks a ribosome binding site and is translated inefficiently; when transcribed from a second promoter ( P RE ) its mRNA contains a ribosome binding site and is translated at high efficiency.
Regulators of an ancient polyphenism evolved through episodic protein divergence and parallel gene radiations.

Polyphenism is a form of developmental plasticity that transduces environmental cues into discontinuous, often disparate phenotypes. In some cases, polyphenism has been attributed to facilitating m...
Digital Integrated Monobit Dithering in FPGA

Wideband receivers and transmitter are widely used in a variety of applications, including but not limited to Radio-Frequency (RF) surveillance systems and Electronic-Countermeasures systems. Such systems require enormously wide instantaneous bandwidth to allow concurrent monitoring of all potential signals of interest. This paper will present an innovative way to use FPGA digital high-speed transceivers, which are typically used for inter-device communication links, to reduce spurs in Monobit receivers. We propose an integrated dithering solution that has showed outstanding merit to suppress spurs, while allowing to keep HW SWaP more competative versus traditional analog approach.
Lens Implants and Implantation: Determining Lens Power and Design

When considering a cataract extraction, certain IOL measurements are required to assure a satisfactory surgical outcome. Virtually all cataract procedures require a lens implant. After all, your surgeon is going to remove the patient’s biologic lens, and a replacement lens of an appropriate power – calculated to the patient’s needs – is paramount. This depends not only upon the surgeon’s selection but also your confirmation that an IOL of the correct power is brought into the operating room.
How Power and Discretion Attenuate the Queen Bee Phenomenon in Top Management Teams

The Queen Bee (QB) phenomenon posits that senior women in male dominated work contexts (e.g., top management teams) strive for success by distancing themselves from junior female colleagues. This p...
A natural language processing pipeline to advance the use of Twitter data for digital epidemiology of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

Abstract Background In the United States, 17% of pregnancies end in fetal loss: miscarriage or stillbirth. Preterm birth affects 10% of live births in the United States and is the leading cause of neonatal death globally. Preterm births with low birthweight are the second leading cause of infant mortality in the United States. Despite their prevalence, the causes of miscarriage, stillbirth, and preterm birth are largely unknown. Objective The primary objectives of this study are to (1) assess whether women report miscarriage, stillbirth, and preterm birth, among others, on Twitter, and (2) develop natural language processing (NLP) methods to automatically identify users from which to select cases for large-scale observational studies. Methods We handcrafted regular expressions to retrieve tweets that mention an adverse pregnancy outcome, from a database containing more than 400 million publicly available tweets posted by more than 100,000 users who have announced their pregnancy on Twitter. Two annotators independently annotated 8109 (one random tweet per user) of the 22,912 retrieved tweets, distinguishing those reporting that the user has personally experienced the outcome (“outcome” tweets) from those that merely mention the outcome (“non-outcome” tweets). Inter-annotator agreement was κ = 0.90 (Cohen’s kappa). We used the annotated tweets to train and evaluate feature-engineered and deep learning-based classifiers. We further annotated 7512 (of the 8109) tweets to develop a generalizable, rule-based module designed to filter out reported speech—that is, posts containing what was said by others—prior to automatic classification. We performed an extrinsic evaluation assessing whether the reported speech filter could improve the detection of women reporting adverse pregnancy outcomes on Twitter. Results The tweets annotated as “outcome” include 1632 women reporting miscarriage, 119 stillbirth, 749 preterm birth or premature labor, 217 low birthweight, 558 NICU admission, and 458 fetal/infant loss in general. A deep neural network, BERT-based classifier achieved the highest overall F1-score (0.88) for automatically detecting “outcome” tweets (precision = 0.87, recall = 0.89), with an F1-score of at least 0.82 and a precision of at least 0.84 for each of the adverse pregnancy outcomes. Our reported speech filter significantly (P Conclusion This study demonstrates that (1) women do report their adverse pregnancy outcomes on Twitter, (2) our NLP pipeline can automatically identify users from which to select cases for large-scale observational studies, and (3) our reported speech filter would reduce the cost of annotating health-related social media data and can significantly improve the overall performance of feature-based classifiers.
Multifaceted Bioinspiration for Improving the Shaft Resistance of Deep Foundations

This paper describes the bioinspiration process to derive design concepts for new deep foundation systems that have greater axial capacity per unit volume of pile material compared to conventional deep foundations. The study led to bioinspired ideas that provide greater load capacity by increasing the pile shaft resistance. The bioinspiration approach used problem-solving strategies to define the problem and transfer strategies from biology to geotechnical engineering. The bioinspiration considered the load transfer mechanism of hydroskeletons and the anchorage of the earthworm, razor clam, kelp, and lateral roots of plants. The biostrategies that were transferred to the engineering domain included a flexible but incompressible core, passive behaviour against external loading, a longitudinally split shell that allows expansion for anchorage, and lateral root-type or setae-type anchoring elements. The concepts of three bioinspired deep foundation systems were proposed and described. The advantage of this approach was illustrated with two examples of the new laterally expansive pile in drained sand under axial compression. The finite element analysis of these examples showed that the new laterally expansive pile can provide considerably greater load capacity compared to a conventional cylindrical pile due to the increased lateral confining pressure developed along the expanded pile core.
Inter-observer reproducibility and intra-observer repeatability in 99mTc-pyrophosphate scan interpretation for diagnosis of transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis.

The purpose of this study was to determine the inter- and intra-observer variability in 99mtechnetium-pyrophosphate (99mTc-PYP) scan interpretation for diagnosis of transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis (ATTR). Our study cohort comprised 100 consecutive subjects referred for 99mTc-PYP imaging based on clinical suspicion of ATTR cardiac amyloidosis. Myocardial 99mTc-PYP uptake was assessed by both visual (comparison of myocardial to rib uptake) and semi-quantitative (heart-to-contralateral lung uptake ratio, H:CL) methods. Twenty scans were analyzed twice, at least 48 hours apart, by each of two independent observers. Patients with visual scores of ≥ 2 on planar imaging as well as myocardial uptake on SPECT/CT were classified as ATTR positive. Diagnosis of ATTR by visual 99mTc-PYP grade was perfectly reproducible [concordance: positive and negative scans 100% (53/53 and 47/47, respectively). Both inter- and intra-observer correlations for H:CL ratio (r2 = 0.90, 0.99 (Observer 1) and 0.98 (Observer 2), respectively) and repeatability values on Bland–Altman plots were excellent. The coefficient of variation (%) for Observers 1 and 2 was 3.21 (2.14 to 4.29) and 7.49 (4.95 to 10.09), respectively. In addition, there was 100% concordance in positive and negative scan interpretation by visual grading between novice CV imagers (< 3 years’ experience) and an experienced CV imager (10 years’ experience). This study showed excellent inter-observer reproducibility and intra-observer repeatability of 99mTc-PYP visual scan interpretation and H:CL ratio for diagnosis of cardiac ATTR amyloidosis. Cardiac ATTR amyloidosis can be diagnosed reliably using 99mTc-PYP SPECT/CT by novice and experienced CV imagers.
Elucidating the protein substrate recognition of O-GlcNAc transferase (OGT) toward O-GlcNAcase (OGA) using a GlcNAc electrophilic probe.

The essential human O-linked β-N-acetylglucosamine (O-GlcNAc) transferase (OGT) is the sole enzyme responsible for modifying thousands of intracellular proteins with the monosaccharide O-GlcNAc. This unique modification plays crucial roles in human health and disease, but the substrate recognition of OGT remains poorly understood. Intriguingly, the only human enzyme reported to remove this modification, O-GlcNAcase (OGA), is O-GlcNAc modified. Here, we exploited a GlcNAc electrophilic probe (GEP1A) to rapidly screen OGT mutants in a fluorescence assay that can discriminate between altered OGT-sugar and -protein substrate binding to help elucidate the binding mode of OGT toward OGA protein substrate. Since OGT tetratricopeptide repeat (TPR) domain plays a key role in OGT-OGA binding, we screened 30 OGT TPR mutants, which revealed 15 "ladder like" asparagine or aspartate residues spanning TPRs 3-7 and 10-13.5 that affect OGA O-GlcNAcylation. By applying a truncated OGA construct, we found that OGA's N-terminal region or pseudo histone acetyltransferase domain is not required for its O-GlcNAcylation, suggesting OGT functionally interacts with OGA through its catalytic and/or stalk domains. This work represents the first effort to systemically investigate each OGT TPR and our findings will facilitate the development of new strategies to investigate the role of substrate-specific O-GlcNAcylation.
'I'll be there for you'-- Comparative Insights on First-Year Experience (FYE) Policies of Belonging in the 21st Century

In the last 40 years undergraduate enrollment across the United States has more than doubled, yet graduation rates remain practically unchanged (Complete College America 2012). Increased pressure placed on first-year experience as a policy and practice to carve a pathway with strategies for navigating higher education internationally is how institutions in the 21stcentury grapple with challenges of retaining, progressing, and graduating their students (Nutt and Calderon, 2009). Despite the availability of scholarship and pervasiveness of policy which include first-year experience (FYE) initiatives, or a multiplex of “intentional academic and co-curricular efforts within and across postsecondary institutions” to emphasize academic and social adjustment (Koch 2007, 23), higher education globally is somewhat divided on equitable, inclusive understandings, approaches, and implementation when it comes to placing imporance on social adjustment over academic skills in 21st century education contexts.
Equity as Second-Order Law: The Problem of Opportunism

Despite the fusion of law and equity and the apparent demise of equity as a distinct system, this Article argues that equity is a distinct decision making mode within a legal system. Private law relies on formal structures of rights and rules that can be exploited and abused by opportunists. The possibility of strategic manipulation of the information available to other parties and to courts furnishes a rationale for a second-order safety valve on the formal law. In the Anglo-American tradition this anti-opportunism safety valve corresponds roughly to a major strand of equity jurisprudence. The Article shows that an equitable safety valve is to be found in both traditional equity theory and as a theme in equity, from the maxims to defenses to remedies to procedure. The Article explains and partially justifies the equitable safety valve as an ex post higher-order intervention aimed at a problem of measurement and uncertainty: law needs protection against opportunistic distortion and misuse of probabilistic information used by parties and courts. The importance of equity suggests a rethinking of “actuarialist” assumptions in conventional law and economics about stable and unbiased probabilistic information being available to parties and courts. Opportunists can be regarded as entrepreneurs in doing bad who exploit uncertainty. Once the function of equity as an anti-opportunism device is understood, many jurisprudential debates, especially those revolving around formalism and contextualism, can be seen to be lacking an appreciation of hybrid decision making that equity makes possible. Equity as an anti-opportunism safety valve provides an attractive way out of some thorny dilemmas.
Mechanical and Acoustic Microactuators and Micropumps

As we discussed in Chapter 1, actuators can be viewed as devices that transform various forms of energy into mechanical work. In mechanical actuators, the starting energy itself is in the mechanical form and the actuator transforms one mechanical variable into another one [1–6]. Displacement, velocity and acceleration, and their equivalents in fluids [7– 15], are the main variables of interest and importance in mechanical actuators. Examples of these actuators are solid links and levers that transform small displacement and large forces to large displacements with small forces and gears that perform similar tasks. Other interesting examples are mechanisms which can be used to “rectify” oscillatory motions and generate d.c. displacements [16–20].
Changes in thymic function with age and during the treatment of HIV infection

The thymus represents the major site of the production and generation of T cells expressing alphabeta-type T-cell antigen receptors. Age-related involution may affect the ability of the thymus to reconstitute T cells expressing CD4 cell-surface antigens that are lost during HIV infection; this effect has been seen after chemotherapy and bone-marrow transplantation. Adult HIV-infected patients treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) show a progressive increase in their number of naive CD4-positive T cells. These cells could arise through expansion of existing naive T cells in the periphery or through thymic production of new naive T cells. Here we quantify thymic output by measuring the excisional DNA products of TCR-gene rearrangement. We find that, although thymic function declines with age, substantial output is maintained into late adulthood. HIV infection leads to a decrease in thymic function that can be measured in the peripheral blood and lymphoid tissues. In adults treated with HAART, there is a rapid and sustained increase in thymic output in most subjects. These results indicate that the adult thymus can contribute to immune reconstitution following HAART.
Bilinear Accelerated Filter Approximation

Our method approximates exact texture filtering for arbitrary scales and translations of an image while taking into account the performance characteristics of modern GPUs. Our algorithm is fast because it accesses textures with a high degree of spatial locality. Using bilinear samples guarantees that the texels we read are in a regular pattern and that we use a hardware accelerated path. We control the texel weights by manipulating the u, v parameters of each sample and the blend factor between the samples. Our method is similar in quality to Cardinality-Constrained Texture Filtering [MS13] but runs two times faster.
Batchless factory concept for very short cycle time semiconductor manufacturing

The focus of this paper is a processing concept that moves the thermal processing steps out of the semiconductor fabrication facility, dramatically simplifying the front end of line processing and facilitating single wafer processing to potentially achieve a very short manufacturing process cycle time. In the batchless factory concept wafers would be preprocessed before entering the semiconductor fab by growing gate oxide over the surface of the wafer followed by a blanket poly-silicon gate deposition. Then, through the use of trench or field shield isolation, complementary MOS transistors could be built, isolated and integrated without the need to grow isolation or gate oxides.
Research and the systems approach as methodologies for education

In recent years, educational research-long the sole rigorous approach to educational problems-has been joined by the systems approach, a methodology which shows promise of extending rigor to new classes of education endeavors. The central argument of this paper is that the two methodologies are effective in mutually exclusive ways, differentially applicable in educational problem-solving, and thus complementary. The advent of systems technology strengthened the hand of research, and research in turn can make a fruitful contribution to educational systems engineering. For purposes of this argument, educational research is taken to mean an inquiry-oriented activity employing an objective, empirical, and controlled methodology. Subject to minute scrutiny by other investigators, its findings must be replicable, must instill a high level of confidence, and must be generalizable beyond the local setting in which they were obtained.
The Poincaré-Lighthill-Kuo Method

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the Poincare–Lighthill–Kuo method. Lighthill applied his method to problems involving partial differential equations when the zeroth order solution is obtained from a reduced linear equation of equal order as the exact equation. Many workers in applied mathematics use the elements of the method of Poincare, Lighthill, and Kuo (PLK method). The PLK method is a foolproof method treating all problems on a uniform basis; the intricacies of the problem appear automatically and correctly without the need of foresight on the part of the investigator. In this respect, the PLK method is not unlike the method of the Laplace transform. For engineers, this characteristic of the PLK method is of particular importance. The chapter presents the principles and technique of solving physical problems involving a small parameter “ɛ” by the PLK method. A number of examples are used in the chapter to illustrate the method.
Seismic attenuation in the Middle America Region and the frequency dependence of intrinsic Q

[1] We evaluate the mechanisms of attenuation for the Middle America (MA) region in the range of 1.0≤f≤15 Hz. Our analysis focuses on reconciling laboratory experiments, which suggest that in this frequency range, intrinsic attenuation has a weak to zero frequency dependence, with results obtained using the Multiple Lapse Time Widow (MLTW) method. The MLTW method is designed to separate the contributions of scattering by heterogeneities and intrinsic attenuation from total attenuation assuming spherical geometrical spreading and isotropic scattering. Application of the MLTW method suggests that total attenuation in the MA region is concentrated towards the upper crust and is relatively constant throughout the region. It also shows a strong frequency dependence of the energy loss component of the attenuation (apparent intrinsic attenuation). We test the effect that forward and back scattering operators, distribution of the sources, and absorption of energy into the mantle has on the separation of the components of attenuation. We conclude that the inclusion of the frequency-dependent leakage of energy towards the mantle provides a mechanism to satisfy both laboratory experiments and estimates based on the MLTW method. For the Middle America region, we find that the intrinsic attenuation QInt−1≈1/2000.
Comparative genomic analysis of evolutionarily conserved but functionally uncharacterized membrane proteins in archaea: Prediction of novel components of secretion, membrane remodeling and glycosylation systems

A systematic comparative genomic analysis of all archaeal membrane proteins that have been projected to the last archaeal common ancestor gene set led to the identification of several novel components of predicted secretion, membrane remodeling, and protein glycosylation systems. Among other findings, most crenarchaea have been shown to encode highly diverged orthologs of the membrane insertase YidC, which is nearly universal in bacteria, eukaryotes, and euryarchaea. We also identified a vast family of archaeal proteins, including the C-terminal domain of N-glycosylation protein AglD, as membrane flippases homologous to the flippase domain of bacterial multipeptide resistance factor MprF, a bifunctional lysylphosphatidylglycerol synthase and flippase. Additionally, several proteins were predicted to function as membrane transporters. The results of this work, combined with our previous analyses, reveal an unexpected diversity of putative archaeal membrane-associated functional systems that remain to be functionally characterized. A more general conclusion from this work is that the currently available collection of archaeal (and bacterial) genomes could be sufficient to identify (almost) all widespread functional modules and develop experimentally testable predictions of their functions.
EVALUATION OF ESOPHAGEAL VARICES IN LIVER DISEASE BY SPLENIC-PULP MANOMETRY, SPLENOPORTOGRAPHY, AND ESOPHAGOGASTROSCOPY; DIAGNOSTIC DISCREPANCIES.

Esophagogastroscopy, splenic-pulp manometry, and splenoportography were combined in a prospective study of 60 patients with documented liver disease and suspected portal hypertension. All three procedures were performed on each of the patients within a 6-day period. Twenty patients were actively bleeding at the time of endoscopic examination.
Parallel 3D computation of unsteady flows around circular cylinders

Abstract In this article we present parallel 3D finite element computation of unsteady incompressible flows around circular cylinders. We employ stabilized finite element formulations to solve the Navier-Stokes equations on a thinking machine CM-5 supercomputer. The time integration is based on an implicit method, and the coupled, nonlinear equations generated every time step are solved iteratively, with an element-vector based evaluation technique. This strategy enables us to carry out these computations with millions of coupled, nonlinear equations, and thus resolve the flow features in great detail. At Reynolds number 300 and 800, our results indicate strong 3D features arising from the instability of the columnar vortices forming the Karman street. At Re = 10 000 we employ a large eddy simulation (LES) turbulence model.
Analysis of information flow security in cyber–physical systems

Abstract Information flow is a fundamental concept underlying the security of a system. Confidentiality of information in a system can be breached through unrestricted information flow. Physical components added to a cyber system considerably increase the difficulty of determining information flow and the difficulty of mitigating the corresponding confidentiality problem. Fundamentally, physical actions inherently divulge information through simple observation. This work applies classical models of non-deducibility and non-inference to cyber–physical systems (CPSs) to determine information flow in the coupled cyber and physical worlds. The results demonstrate that the combined physical and cyber properties of a CPS can both protect and divulge information. The key to formalizing this analysis is to find a uniform semantic representation of the cyber and physical components, their interaction, and the physics of the system, and to devise a formal modeling technique for determining information flow. This paper presents a semantic model for information flow analysis in a CPS and describes an approach to perform the analysis, including both trace-based analysis and automated analysis through process algebra specification. Two model infrastructures demonstrate the approach, a gas pipeline system and a smart electric power grid system. In the gas pipeline system, cooperating flow control system devices exchange confidential information to produce physical actions in the pipeline. In the smart grid, cooperating flexible alternating current transmission system devices exchange confidential information to produce physical actions. The approach can verify whether these infrastructures inherently preserve confidentiality.
Radiation Measurements From A 35 GHz Cyclotron Autoresonance Maser (CARM) Amplifier

Studies of a cyclotron autoresonance maser (CARM) are presented. The measurements are carried out at a frequency of 35 GHz using a mildly relativistic electron beam (1.5 MeV, 260 A) generated by a field emission electron gun followed by an emittance selector that removes the outer, hot electrons. Perpendicular energy is imparted to the electrons by means of a bifilar helical wiggler. Amplification measurements give a small signal gain of approximately 90 dB/m. Computer simulations are also presented.