cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Evidence of Tying: An Accounting Perspective

This study investigates tying in the banking industry and finds that large banks engage in tying activities. AFP survey findings indicate that lines of credit are the most likely credit instrument to be used in tying activities. Using the Feltham-Ohlson framework and the assumption that financial instruments should be zero net present value projects, this study finds that lines of credit are negative net present value projects, suggesting they are one side of a tying arrangement. Additionally, the new costs added by the implementation of the Basel Accord were not added to lines of credit, a further indication that strong pressure exists to maintain artificially low costs for lines of credit. Tying has potentially important accounting implications, specifically, transferring revenue between segments. If one side of the tying arrangement is with a bank and the other side is with the bank's affiliate, the result of this tying arrangement is unreliable revenue reporting and potentially mispriced equity.
How to launch a doctoral interdisciplinary leadership program

Building a doctoral program in leadership is never an easy task, and building an interdisciplinary doctoral program is even more difficult. Yet, it is the interdisciplinary approach that differentiates typical leadership programs from others and offers learners an integrated view of leadership theories and practices. This special report presents an example of designing and implementing an interdisciplinary doctoral program that promotes social justice leadership. Drawing from firsthand experiences of program faculty, staff, and administration, we share lessons learned and the logic behind adopting an interdisciplinary approach for those creating programs that seeks to promote social justice. We found that by allowing students and faculty to convene together, rather than disperse into separate, isolated academic disciplines, emerging scholar-practitioners are encouraged to engage in realistic, professional practice investigation and problem-solving techniques. Through this experience, we also found that conscious coursework design involves integrating multiple, often quite divergent, disciplines into a core set of courses. Additionally, we learned that unifying students through a common mission permits distinctive discussions, including personal reflection and ethical decision-making opportunities among the concepts, constructs, and knowledge that extend beyond disciplinary lines (Cherney et al., 2012). We also found that cultivating a diverse student body and faculty base requires everyone to work strategically within the program, recognizing the call for coherence and consistency across disciplinary lines. Finally, we discovered that developing a dissertation in practice allows students to implement an evidence-based solution within their professional practice setting as their pinnacle doctorate work (Herr & Anderson, 2014; Olson & Clark, 2009). We conclude this paper by reiterating our finding that leadership programs that promote social justice are enhanced by adopting an interdisciplinary approach as this allows for the creation of a program that challenges students to learn at a more complex level, faculty to integrate disciplines, and programs to promote socially just ideals. We discuss implications for other schools seeking to develop an interdisciplinary doctoral leadership program.
RESISTANCE, MOTIVATIONAL INTERVIEWING, AND EXECUTIVE COACHING

In the sphere of executive coaching, there is great need for the development of mature, refined, and nuanced theoretical conceptualizations. This review attempts to bridge the insights gained from specific areas of social, clinical, and counseling psychology with the executive coaching literature. The article reviews and discusses theoretical approaches to executive coaching, the phenomena of resistance and ambivalence, the psychological theories of reactance and self-determination, and the therapeutic approach of motivational interviewing. The author adopts a relational perspective to resistance to change, describes the conditions under which motivational interviewing might be useful as an executive coaching approach, and notes that the approach is currently underutilized and in need of further research to support its effectiveness.
Chemotaxonomy of Hawaiian Anthurium cultivars based on multivariate analysis of phenolic metabolites.

Thirty-six anthurium varieties, sampled from species and commercial cultivars, were extracted and profiled by liquid-chromatography–mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). Three hundred fifteen compounds, including anthocyanins, flavonoid glycosides, and other phenolics, were detected from these extracts and used in chemotaxonomic analysis of the specimens. Hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) revealed close chemical similarities between all the commercial standard cultivars, while tulip-shaped cultivars and species displayed much greater chemical variation. Principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) supported the results from HCA and were used to identify key metabolites characteristic of standard and tulip cultivars and to identify chemical markers indicative of a particular ancestry. Discriminating metabolites included embinin, 4, which was characteristic of standard-shaped spathes and indicated ancestry from Anthurium andraeanum, while isocytisoside 7-glucoside, 7,...
Field Experience Trials Comparing Narasin and Monensin

Abstract Narasin is effective against all species of chicken coccidia when tested in battery cage and floor pen studies. To confirm the efficacy of narasin under practical broiler production conditions, the drug was fed at concentrations of 60 ppm or 80 ppm to broiler chickens being raised by six different commercial broiler producers in five different geographic areas. Monensin was fed in each trial at a concentration of 100 ppm or 121 ppm as a reference control. The usual management practices of each of the integrated broiler companies were followed throughout the respective trials. Nine trials were conducted and approximately 100,000 broilers were tested for each treatment. No adverse reactions attributable to treatments were observed in any of the trials, and performance results obtained with narasin-medicated birds were generally comparable with those obtained with monensin-medicated birds in the same trial. These findings support the conclusion that narasin at final feed concentrations in the range of 60 to 80 ppm can be safely and effectively used as an anticoccidial agent in commercial broiler production facilities.
Putative population of adipose-derived stem cells isolated from mediastinal tissue during cardiac surgery.

Mesenchymal stem cells have been isolated from various adult human tissues and are valuable for not only therapeutic applications but for the study of tissue homeostasis and disease progression. Su...
Water Quality Models for Analysis of Small System Operation: Case Study of Carthage, NC

Small systems are often plagued by a lack of resources, outdated equipment, unreliable raw water supplies, and minimally trained staff. A study has been undertaken to document the transition of a small system from conventional treatment to microfiltration. The Town of Carthage, North Carolina (population 2,300) completed construction in May 2002 of a 1.0-MGD microfiltration treatment plant. The study involves the analysis of monthly samples of raw water, finished water, and water collected at six different locations in the distribution system, both before and after the startup of the microfiltration plant. Water quality in the distribution system has been highly variable. To better analyze and interpret water quality data for this system, a water quality model of the distribution system was used to predict water age and disinfectant residual concentration. The model demonstrated that tank sizing and operation along with long retention times significantly affect water quality in the Carthage system.
Techniques: Alternatives to SNA

The advantages of changing from a network configured with IBM's preSNA equipment (hosts, host software, communications processors, terminals) to one using SNA are reviewed. Two viable alternatives to SNA are considered. One relies on data comunications architectures as developed by two vendors (NCR-Comten, CCl) of plug-compatible replacements for IBM's 3704/3705 communications controllers. Packet-switched public data networks provide a second alternative. Host software remains unchanged in both instances.
Design and Realization of A Fast Tracing Algorithm Based on Mean-shift

This paper presents a moving object tracking algorithm.The tracing algorithm is based on the mean-shift tacking method which is based on the histograms of moving objects in consecutive image frames.And a physical simulation system for tracing moving objects is designed employing DM642EVM as video signal processor.
A Distribution Network Intelligent Dispatching Mode and Its Key Techniques

The energy balance mode in the distribution network is changed after the distributed generation,microgrid,energy storing device and charge-discharge device of electric vehicles are inserted in the grid.To promote the development of the smart grid,the objectives and devices for the intelligent dispatch of the distribution network are presented following an analysis of the characteristic of the distribution network and its dispatching and control.A multi-dimensional and multi-stage progressive intelligent dispatching mode for the distribution network based on the interaction between the network,power supply and loads are proposed to achieve the goal of efficient operation of the distribution network.And the functional structure of intelligent dispatching of the distribution network is provided.The key techniques to be solved are presented to complete the intelligent dispatching system of the distribution network.The developing tendency for the intelligent dispatching of the distribution network is explored and the research direction summed up.
Frames of Reference in Sensorimotor Integration: Position Sense of the Arm and Hand

Publisher Summary Frames of reference are used to make measurements during an experiment. Muscle stretch receptors can be thought to encode the orientation of one limb segment in a frame of reference that is attached to the segment's proximal neighbor. The frame of reference in which peripheral afferents encode information can be deduced from the receptors' anatomy; the frame of reference used by central neurons to encode information may be neither as clear nor as consistent. Posterior parietal neurons' discharge depends both on a visual target's location in a retinotopic flame of reference and the eye's position in a head-centered flame of reference. It is found that a population of such neurons could be used to encode target location in a head-centered flame of reference and this neural population could achieve the transformation between two flames of reference. The reference flames that are expressed at the behavioral level imposes some constraints on how information is encoded in individual neurons, or, alternatively, some constraints in the patterns of connectivity among the neurons at any one structural level and among structural levels. Such an approach has actually proved successful in understanding how visually derived spatial information is encoded.
REPAIRABLE DAMAGE IN DNA

ABSTRACT Important contributions to the elucidation of the role of DNA repair for cell viability, mutagenesis, malignant transformation and cell degeneration are expected from experiments in which individual DNA lesions of known chemical structure are investigated. This is important in view of the high degree of complexity of the spectrum of lesions which is induced by most physical and chemical agents by direct action and by Indirect action via the intermediacy of active oxygen species. The formation of thymine damage in baby hamster kidney cells by indirect action was demonstrated for the chemical DNA damaging agents benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P) and ascorbic acid/Cu2+. It is useful to characterize the biochemical properties of DNA lesions in terms of their excisability, coding properties and regulatory properties . As a start the excisability of several structurally related arylation products of guanine induced by B(a)P and N-acetoxy-acetylaminofluorene (N-acetoxy-AAF) was determined in the epitheloid human alveolar tumor line A549. The following decreasing scale of excisability was observed: B(a)P-4,5-epoxide adduct C2> B(a)P-4,5-epoxide adduct C1≫B(a)P-diol-epoxide II-deoxyguanosine > deacetylation product of “major” deoxyguanosine-AAF adduct > B(a)Pdiol-epoxide I-deoxyguanosine > “major” deoxyguanosine-AAF adduct ≧ “minor” deoxyguanosine-AAF adduct. For the B(a)P-deoxyguanosine adducts these results suggest an inverse relationship between the excisability of the lesions and the mutagenicity and toxicity of the B(a)P-metabolites by which they are induced in mammalian cells. The effect of the location of the lesions in chromatin on their excisability is discussed.
IMPACT OF INFLAMMATORY BIOMARKERS ON RELATION OF HIGH DENSITY LIPOPROTEIN-CHOLESTEROL WITH INCIDENT CORONARY HEART DISEASE: CARDIOVASCULAR HEALTH STUDY

Inflammatory factors and low HDL-C relate to increased coronary heart disease (CHD) risk, but whether inflammation attenuates protection from CHD with high HDL-C is unknown. In 3,888 older adults aged 65 to 98 without cardiovascular disease, we examined if the inflammatory markers C-reactive
Healthcare Utilization as a Source of Health Disparities Among U.S. Male Immigrants

Healthcare utilization has important implications for immigrant health, yet remains under-conceptualized, particularly as it relates to men’s health. This chapter uses nationally-representative data from the 2003 New Immigrant Survey (NIS) to compare utilization behaviors and health outcomes among male immigrants (n = 3901), focusing on those from Mexico , India, and China. We find that Indian males are more likely than their Mexican and Chinese counterparts to interact with the healthcare system and to report good health, findings largely explained by their privileged social position and access to care. Mexican and Chinese males are hindered by their lack of English language proficiency and are more likely to rate their health as poor. In contrast to the results for self-rated health, we find no significant difference in the likelihood of being diagnosed with a medical condition across national-origin groups. These similarities and differences have research and policy implications, which we discuss in the conclusion.
Positive versus negative priming of older adults’ generative value: do negative messages impair memory?

ABSTRACTObjectives: A considerable volume of experimental evidence demonstrates that exposure to aging stereotypes can strongly influence cognitive performance among older individuals. However, whether such effects extend to stereotypes regarding older adults’ generative (i.e. contributory) worth is not yet known. The present investigation sought to evaluate the effect of exposure to positive versus negative generative value primes on an important aspect of later life functioning, memory.Method: Participants of age 55 and older (n = 51) were randomly assigned to read a mock news article portraying older individuals as either an asset (positive prime) or a burden (negative prime) to society. Upon reading their assigned article, participants completed a post-priming memory assessment in which they were asked to recall a list of 30 words.Results: Those exposed to the negative prime showed significantly poorer memory performance relative to those exposed to the positive prime (d = 0.75), even when controlling...
Cultivating change door to door: Educational outreach to improve prescribing practices in rural veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder

ABSTRACTBackground: Clinical guidelines for the management of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) recommend against the use of benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines and PTSD are both associated with addiction-related risks. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) prescribing trends show continued use of benzodiazepines and polysedative use in veterans with PTSD, particularly in rural areas. The authors examine the use of an educational intervention to improve pharmacologic management of veterans with PTSD in rural clinics. Methods: The VA Academic Detailing Service Informatics Toolset provides prescribing, demographic and risk factor data for veterans with PTSD treated at the White River Junction VA Medical Center (WRJ VA) and affiliated rural clinics in Vermont and New Hampshire. Individualized academic detailing visits were provided to clinicians identified by the informatics tool with the aim of increasing guideline-concordant care. Other educational efforts included traditional, didactic group education o...
Minimizing electricity cost for geo-distributed interactive services with tail latency constraint

Cross-border data movement has become increasingly more costly, and even been prohibited due to data sovereignty requirements. Consequently, geo-distributed interactive services, which rely on geographically distributed data sets, is quickly emerging as an important class of workloads in data centers and resulting in soaring electricity costs. While numerous geographic load balancing (GLB) techniques exist to exploit differences in electricity prices for cost savings, they do not apply to emerging geo-distributed interactive services due to two major limitations. First, they assume that each request is processed only in one data center, whereas each geo-distributed interactive request must be processed at multiple data centers simultaneously. Second, they primarily focus on meeting average latency constraints, whereas tail latencies (i.e., high-percentile latencies) are more suitable to ensure a consistently good user experience. In this paper, we make an early effort to optimize GLB decisions for geo-distributed interactive services, exploiting spatial diversity of electricity prices to minimize the total electricity cost while meeting a tail latency constraint. Our solution employs a novel data-driven approach to determine the tail latency performance for different GLB decisions, by profiling the network latency and data center latency at a low complexity. We run trace-based discrete-event simulations to validate our design, showing that it can reduce the electricity cost by more than 7% while meeting the tail latency constraint compared to the performance-aware but cost-oblivious approach.
Predation, Climate, and Emergence and Mating of Mayflies

The abbreviated adult life of Ephemeroptera is an adaptation to minimize exposure time to predators. In eight to ten independent specialized lineages adult life is reduced to two hours or less. Predation by Odonata and birds is intensive in the lowland tropics and most unspecialized longer-lived forms emerge as sub-imagos in the first two hours of darkness, transform to imagos before dawn and mate and oviposit by mid-morning. In temperate regions cool night-time temperatures often preclude the possibility of the tropical pattern; furthermore lessened predation allows other temporal patterns. Temperate mayflies thus have a variety of emergence and swarming times. Short-lived specialized genera are subject to fewer restraints on emergence and swarming times and tropical and temperate forms are similar. Seasonal emergence and coordinated mass emergence are mechanisms for satiating predators. Remote nuptial flight probably evolved as a mechanism of escape from predation; it is assumed that swarm markers are essential to allow remote flight. It is probable that swarm markers are more common in tropical than in temperate mayflies. There is some evidence that ancestral emergence and swarming habits may persist when mayflies disperse to new areas.
Impact of Dual Use of Department of Veterans Affairs and Medicare Part D Drug Benefits on Potentially Unsafe Opioid Use.

Objectives. To estimate the prevalence and consequences of receiving prescription opioids from both the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Medicare Part D.Methods. Among US veterans enrolled in both VA and Part D filling 1 or more opioid prescriptions in 2012 (n = 539 473), we calculated 3 opioid safety measures using morphine milligram equivalents (MME): (1) proportion receiving greater than 100 MME for 1 or more days, (2) mean days receiving greater than 100 MME, and (3) proportion receiving greater than 120 MME for 90 consecutive days. We compared these measures by opioid source.Results. Overall, 135 643 (25.1%) veterans received opioids from VA only, 332 630 (61.7%) from Part D only, and 71 200 (13.2%) from both. The dual-use group was more likely than the VA-only group to receive greater than 100 MME for 1 or more days (34.3% vs 10.9%; adjusted risk ratio [ARR] = 3.0; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.9, 3.1), have more days with greater than 100 MME (42.5 vs 16.9 days; adjusted difference = 16.4...
Probabilistic robot navigation in partially observable environments

Autonomous mobile robots need very reliable navigation capabilities in order to operate unattended for long periods of time. This paper reports on first results of a research program that uses par tially observable Markov models to robustly track a robots location in office environments and to direct its goal-oriented actions. The approach explicitly maintains a probability distribution over the possible locations of the robot taking into account various sources of uncertainly including approximate knowledge of the environment and actuator and sensor uncertainty. A novel feature of our approach is its integration of topological map information with approximate metric information. We demonstrate the robustness of this approach in controlling an actual indoor mobile robot navigating corridors.
How Safe is Safe? A Scientist's Viewpoint

Summary 1 The human body and the interaction of drugs with the human body are so complicated, and so incompletely understood, that no one can yet predict ahead of time what dangers there may be from a new drug or a new application of a drug. 2 This complexity and lack of knowledge means that a semiempirical approach to drug safety is necessary. 3 Past experience with drugs plus progressive improvements in the ways to study interactions of drugs with the body, greatly improve and speed up this semiempirical drug testing process. 4 Until the human body is much better understood than at present, there will always be the possibility that a new drug in spite of apparently adequate testing may ultimately cause a small degree of harm to many people or a large degree of harm to a few people. Judgement as to potential benefit and possible risk from a new drug is often very difficult and should be made on the basis of the best scientific advice. 5 With these considerations in mind, in order to achieve for the public maximum drug safety on one hand and maximum benefits from drugs on the other, it is recommended first that basic research be strongly encouraged and in no way sacrificed for more obvious immediate health goals, and second that an advisory system to the FDA be set up to include a wide spectrum of basic biomedical scientists and clinical scientists from both inside and outside government.
Thermodynamic Properties of Cryogenic Fluids

This chapter provides information about the thermodynamic properties of 15 cryogenic fluids. The properties given here are calculated using the most accurate wide-range correlation for each fluid available at the time of this writing. Many of the correlations used in this work are based on comprehensive data bases that include P—ρ—T and other property data (isobaric heat capacity, isochoric heat capacity, speed of sound, and saturation properties). Table 5.1 lists the fluids detailed in this chapter along with the reference for each fluid correlation. The details about each fluid property correlation may be obtained by consulting the references in this table.
Limitations and Problems of hCG-Specific Antisera

Production of antisera against intact hCG, its subunits or the unique carboxyl-terminal glycopeptide of the β-subunit, and subsequent development of radioimmunoassay systems based on these antisera, have been shown to be highly valuable for basic and clinical investigations related to pregnancy, trophoblastic neoplasms, and some non-trophoblastic neoplasms. Unlike in vitro and in vivo bioassays, and radioimmunoassays using an antiserum against hCG, radioimmunoassay systems based on either a selected antiserum against the highly purified 8-subunit of hCG or the carboxyl-terminal peptide of hCGβ (known as Sb6 and H93, respectively) permit differentiation of hCG from the structurally similar hLH. However, despite their advantages these hCG-specific radioimmunoassay systems have exhibited a number of limitations in practice. In the light of recent developments such as the finding of small amounts of hCG or hCG-like substances in biological fluids and non-placental tissues of normal subjects, and the use of antifertility vaccines employing hCGβ or a portion of its molecule as antigen, the necessity of understanding such limitations become apparent.
Optimized Ultra-Wideband Radiation of Dipole Antennas With Triangle Driving Pulses

This paper addresses optimization of transient radiation from dipole antennas in terms of minimized pulse extent in time or flat power spectral density. The former is a typical requirement for high-range-resolution radars while the latter can meet the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) regulations on spectrum usage. Recent needs and advances in ultra-wideband (UWB) signal processing, target identification, remote and subsurface sensing, reach-frequency tagging, secure communication, and others stimulate a variety of diverse studies in transient and broadband electromagnetics, including pulsed antennas. These generic problems have been widely explored through full-wave numerical analysis, theoretical and asymptotic approaches, nonlinear optimization methods combined with full-wave electromagnetic solvers, the E- and K-pulse signal processing techniques, and other fashions.
Connexins in the Heart

Gap junctions form the cell–cell pathways for propagation of the precisely orchestrated patterns of current flow that govern the regular rhythm of the healthy heart. As in most tissues and organs, multiple connexin types are expressed in the heart; Cx43, Cx40, and Cx45 are found in distinctive combinations and relative quantities in different, functionally specialized subsets of cardiac myocyte. Cardiac development is marked by major alterations in the spatiotemporal patterns of expression of these connexins, and studies on transgenic animals, in which specific connexins are ablated or substituted, help differentiate their roles in regional tuning of impulse propagation and in morphogenesis. Mutations in genes that encode connexins have only rarely been identified as a cause of human cardiac disease, but remodeling of connexin expression and gap junction organization are well documented in acquired adult heart disease, notably coronary heart disease. Remodeling may take the form of alterations in the distribution of gap junctions and the amount and type of connexin(s) expressed. The evidence that these alterations can contribute to the development of arrhythmia in the diseased human heart is now substantial. It is well established that heterogeneous reduction in Cx43 expression and disordering in gap junction distribution occur in defined forms of ventricular disease and correlate with electrophysiologically identified arrhythmic changes and contractile dysfunction in animal models. Features of gap junction organization and connexin expression may also contribute to the most common form of atrial arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation, though conclusions in this area are less well founded. A major task ahead is to define the precise functional properties conferred by the distinctive connexin coexpression patterns of different myocyte types in health and disease.
LANGUAGE ASSESSMENT LITERACY DEVELOPMENT: A STUDENT-TEACHER’S EXPERIENCES IN TEACHING PRACTICE PROGRAM

The development of a student-teacher’s language assessment literacy was viewed through her experiences in conducting teaching practice in one of the senior high schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. An interview was conducted to explore the experiences taking place in the teaching-practice in relation to the language assessment literacy development. It was found out that the experiences were understood as mostly dealing with administrative tasks and there is a need of more knowledge in administrative matter in teaching and assessment. From the results of the study it was obvious that further studies need to be conducted to explore the role of teaching-practice in the development of student-teaching language assessment literacy. More participants and multiple data collection methods in a longitudinal study are needed to help student-teachers to be more assessment literate, which in turn helps them to be better teachers. DOI: doi.org/10.24071/llt.2018.210209
Random Forest Refinement of the KECSA2 Knowledge-Based Scoring Function for Protein Decoy Detection

Knowledge-based potentials generally perform better than physics-based scoring functions in detecting the native structure from a collection of decoy protein structures. Through the use of a reference state, the pure interactions between atom/residue pairs can be obtained through the removal of contributions from ideal-gas state potentials. However, it is a challenge for conventional knowledge-based potentials to assign different importance factors to different atom/residue pairs. In this work, via the use of the "comparison" concept, Random Forest (RF) models were successfully generated using unbalanced data sets that assign different importance factors to atom pair potentials to enhance their ability to identify native proteins from decoy proteins. Individual and combined data sets consisting of 12 decoy sets were used to test the performance of the RF models. We find that RF models increase the recognition of native structures without affecting their ability to identify the best decoy structures. We also created models using scrambled atom types, which create physically unrealistic probability functions in order to test the ability of the RF algorithm to create useful models based on inputted scrambled probability functions. From this test, we find that we are unable to create models that are of similar quality relative to the unscrambled probability functions. Next, we created uniform probability functions where the peak positions are the same as the original, but each interaction has the same peak height. Using these uniform potentials, we were able to recover models as good as the ones using the full potentials suggesting all that is important in these models are the experimental peak positions. The KECSA2 potential along with all codes used in this work are available at https://github.com/JunPei000/protein_folding-decoy-set .
Boulder Pickup by Tsunami Surge

Study of boulder transport by tsunamis is challenging because boulder size, shape, and composition vary greatly; furthermore, flow conditions, topography, and initial conditions are generally unkno...
Interrogation of sample dynamics using interferometric diffuse correlation spectroscopy

Diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) is a technique that has traditionally required low noise, single photo counting detectors. By utilizing an interferometric approach, we show that these hardware conditions can be relaxed.
Thermal evolution of the Northern Cordillera Volcanic Province: implication for heat flow in remnant back-arc regions

Active and remnant back-arc regions do not follow a typical conductive lithosphere cooling model, but instead have an apparent two-stage cooling, defined by a high heat flow back-arc region during ...
The Midwestern Moment: The Forgotten World of Early-Twentieth-Century Midwestern Regionalism, 1880-1940

Review of "The Midwestern Moment: The Forgotten World of Early-Twentieth-Century Midwestern Regionalism, 1880-1940" edited by Jon K. Lauck
Comparison between organismal staining on histology and tissue culture in the diagnosis of cutaneous infection: A retrospective study

Background In instances of suspected cutaneous infection, the standard of care includes obtaining skin biopsy specimens for histology and tissue culture. Few studies have compared the clinical utility of each test. Objective To assess the concordance of results between tissue culture and histology, as well as the clinicopathologic features that may influence the diagnostic yield of each test. Methods A retrospective review of all patients who underwent skin biopsy for histology and tissue culture at New York University from 2013 through 2018. Results Of 179 patients, 10% had positive concordance, 21% had positive tissue culture only, and 7% had positive histology only. We calculated a kappa correlation coefficient of 0.25 between histology and tissue culture (reference, 0.21-0.39 indicates minimal agreement). Histology exhibited higher sensitivity in detecting fungi, whereas tissue culture was more sensitive in identifying Gram-negative bacteria. Antimicrobial use before biopsy led to significantly fewer positive cultures (37.5% vs 71%; P = .023) in patients ultimately diagnosed with infection. Limitations This study was conducted at a single institution, thereby restricting its broad applicability. The lack of a validated criterion standard to diagnose infection also limits interpretation of the results. Conclusion Tissue culture and histopathology often yield discordant results. Dermatologists should recognize specific limitations, yet high clinical utility in special circumstances, of tests when approaching cases of suspected infection.
Investigating interactions of phthalate environmental toxicants with lipid structures.

Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is one of the most abundant plasticizers in common household products. It leaches from materials, resulting in exposure associated with detrimental health effects. The main objective of this study was to investigate how DEHP and its metabolite, mono(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (MEHP), interact with and permeate lipid structures, namely vesicles and planar bilayers. Using dynamic light scattering, we observed significant changes in the size and polydispersity of L-α-phosphatidylcholine (egg PC) vesicles when incubated with DEHP but not MEHP at the same concentrations (100 and 200 μM). We demonstrated that these effects are mitigated by pre-treatment with chitosan nanoparticles which adsorb the phthalates. Using quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (QCM-D), we observed a concentration dependence on the interaction of DEHP with egg PC supported lipid bilayers (SLBs). QCM-D results suggested lipid removal for 5 and 100 μM DEHP, and adsorption and potential embedment in the bilayer at 50 and 200 μM DEHP. SLB mass decrease was observed for all concentrations of MEHP (5, 50, 100, and 200 μM), suggesting lipid removal. We also investigated the permeability of DEHP and MEHP as well as several small molecules across a 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DOPC) suspended lipid bilayer. We found that DEHP and MEHP both had low permeabilities, but only DEHP remained associated with the bilayer. Exposure to DEHP and MEHP influenced how several common small molecules interacted with DOPC bilayers. Ultimately, this work provides insight into mechanisms of phthalate interactions with lipid structures, having implications for human health.
Remembering perpetrators through documentary film in post-dictatorial Chile

In this article, I explore the representations of perpetrators of human rights violations in post-dictatorial Chilean cinema, specifically in documentary film. My objective is to examine how cultur...
An initial environmental scan of APPE readiness assessment.

Abstract Introduction Standards 2016 require schools/colleges of pharmacy (s/cop) to assess students' readiness to enter advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs). However, literature describing how schools are meeting this standard is limited. The purpose of this study was to conduct an environmental scan to describe how s/cop assess student readiness to enter APPEs. Methods A web-based survey was distributed to assessment leads at United States s/cop, regardless of accreditation status. Respondents answered questions related to their current approach to assessing student APPE readiness, existence of intentional assessment plans, competencies used, assessment methods, benchmarks, and remediation strategies. Aggregate data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Results Fifty-two S/COP (36.1%) responded. The majority (90.1%) were fully accredited schools. Most respondents have an intentional APPE readiness plan (73.5%), although the duration since implementation varied. There was no consensus among schools on which competencies informed APPE readiness with 67.3% listing Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE) 2013 outcomes, 61.2% Guidance for Standards 2016 Appendix A, 53.1% pre-APPE domains (Standards 2007), and 30.6% Entrustable Professional Activities. Twenty-eight S/COP (57.1%) reported having individual student-level data to assess student APPE readiness. The most common methods for validating student APPE readiness were preceptor (48.9%) and student (44.9%) surveys. Conclusions This environmental scan begins to identify trends in how S/COP is approaching the assessment of student readiness to begin APPEs. Further research is needed to identify best practices and practical methods to ensure compliance with current accreditation standards.
Multi-modal social and psycho-linguistic embedding via recurrent neural networks to identify depressed users in online forums

Depression is the most common mental illness in the US, with 6.7% of all adults experiencing a major depressive episode. Unfortunately, depression extends to teens and young users as well and researchers have observed an increasing rate in recent years (from 8.7% in 2005 to 11.3% in 2014 in adolescents and from 8.8 to 9.6% in young adults), especially among girls and women. People themselves are a barrier to fighting this disease as they tend to hide their symptoms and do not receive treatments. However, protected by anonymity, they share their sentiments on the Web, looking for help. In this paper, we address the problem of detecting depressed users in online forums. We analyze user behavior in the ReachOut.com online forum, a platform providing a supportive environment for young people to discuss their everyday issues, including depression. We propose an unsupervised technique based on recurrent neural networks and anomaly detection to detect depressed users. We examine the linguistic style of user posts in combination with network-based features modeling how users connect in the forum. Our results on detecting depressed users show that both psycho-linguistic features derived from user posts and network features are good predictors of users facing depression. Moreover, by combining these two sets of features, we can achieve an F1-measure of 0.64 and perform better than baselines.
Effects of shifting snowmelt regimes on the hydrology of non-alpine temperate landscapes

Abstract Across the globe, increasing winter temperatures resulting from climate change are affecting how and when snow melts. Despite the significance of snowfall to the annual water budget in mid-latitude, non-alpine regions, there has been limited research into shifting snowmelt dynamics in these areas. This study examines snowmelt changes resulting from warmer winters in the Great Lakes region of North America. Using multiple metrics calculated from station temperature data, recent years (2003–2017) were categorized as “warm” or “cool”, then snowmelt and regional hydrologic patterns within those year types were examined. Systematic differences were observed, including warmer years having less and earlier snowmelt than cooler years. Those changes have, in turn, led to both lower and earlier spring peak flows in streams and decreased net groundwater recharge in the northern regions. Additionally, we show that differences between warm and cool year types become more significant along a north–south gradient; differences between warm and cool years are more pronounced in northern regions with regard to streamflow, net recharge, melt amount and timing. These results provide a framework to examine linked changes between snowmelt and hydrology across high-latitude temperate regions of the world.
Endometriosis Is Associated with Abnormal Placentation and Surgical Morbidity at the Time of Cesarean Section

Study Objective Determine whether patients with endometriosis have a greater likelihood of morbidity at cesarean section. Design Retrospective cohort study Setting Academic hospital Patients or Participants Patients with a singleton pregnancy resulting in primary cesarean delivery between 01/01/2015-12/31/2018. Women with history of surgically-confirmed endometriosis were matched 1:3 to women never diagnosed with endometriosis on delivery year and whether the cesarean was indicated for myomectomy history. Endometriosis was sub-categorized into rASRM stage I/II or stage III/IV by operative findings. Composite morbidity was defined by any transfusion, hysterectomy, or organ injury at cesarean. Additional outcomes included placenta previa, accreta, total surgical time for cesarean, and time from incision to hysterotomy. Multivariable logistic regression models adjusting for age, race, gravidity, IVF conception, and operative hysteroscopy quantified odds ratios(OR) and 95% confidence intervals(CI). Interventions N/A Measurements and Main Results Study population included 384 patients (rASRM stage I/II=44, III/IV=52, no endometriosis=288). Composite morbidity was clinically and statistically significantly greater (17% versus 6%; OR=3.90,CI=1.37-11.05) for stage III/IV patients compared to women without endometriosis. The stage III/IV group also had higher odds of previa (13% versus 3%; OR=4.94,CI=1.45-16.78) and trended towards increased accreta (11% versus 1%; OR=10.18,CI=1.85-55.88) compared to women without endometriosis. Odds of composite morbidity and abnormal placentation were similar comparing stage I/II endometriosis patients to women without endometriosis. Time from skin to uterine incision did not differ between either endometriosis group and women without endometriosis, while stage III/IV patients were more likely to have a surgical time >1 hour (OR=2.49,CI=1.21-5.11). Conclusion Among patients who had a singleton pregnancy resulting in primary cesarean delivery, women with a history of stage III/IV endometriosis had greater odds of placenta previa, and surgical morbidity compared to patients without endometriosis. These findings suggest that one or more characteristics of rASRM stage III/IV may be related to abnormal placentation and morbidity at cesarean delivery, and endometriosis phenotypes should be better documented and further explored.
Metamaterial assisted illumination nanoscopy via random super-resolution speckles.

Structured illumination microscopy (SIM) is one of the most powerful and versatile optical super-resolution techniques. Compared with other super-resolution methods, SIM has shown its unique advantages in wide-field imaging with high temporal resolution and low photon damage. However, traditional SIM only has about 2 times spatial resolution improvement compared to the diffraction limit. In this work, we propose and experimentally demonstrate an easily-implemented, low-cost method to extend the resolution of SIM, named speckle metamaterial-assisted illumination nanoscopy (speckle-MAIN). A metamaterial structure is introduced to generate speckle-like sub-diffraction-limit illumination patterns in the near field with improved spatial frequency. Such patterns, similar to traditional SIM, are then used to excite objects on top of the surface. We demonstrate that speckle-MAIN can bring the resolution down to 40 nm and beyond. Speckle-MAIN represents a new route for super-resolution, which may lead to important applications in bio-imaging and surface characterization. Structured illumination microscopy is usually limited to 2 times spatial resolution improvement over the diffraction limit. Here, the authors introduce a metamaterial structure to generate speckle-like sub-diffraction limit illumination patterns in the near field, and achieve a 7-fold resolution improvement down to 40 nm.
In Search of Newer Targets for Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Systems and a Network Medicine Approach

Introduction: Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, both under the umbrella of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), involve many distinct molecular processes. The difference in their molecular proc...
ReACt: A Resource-centric Access Control System for Web-app Interactions on Android

We identify and survey five mechanisms through which web content interacts with mobile apps. While useful, these web-app interaction mechanisms cause various notable security vulnerabilities on mobile apps or web content. The root cause is lack of proper access control mechanisms for web-app interactions on mobile OSes. Existing solutions usually adopt either an origin-centric design or a code-centric design, and suffer from one or several of the following limitations: coarse protection granularity, poor flexibility in terms of access control policy establishment, and incompatibility with existing apps/OSes due to the need of modifying the apps and/or the underlying OS. More importantly, none of the existing works can organically deal with all the five web-app interaction mechanisms. In this paper, we propose ReACt, a novel Resource-centric Access Control design that can coherently work with all the web-app interaction mechanisms while addressing the above-mentioned limitations. We have implemented a prototype system on Android, and performed extensive evaluation on it. The evaluation results show that our system works well with existing commercial off-the-shelf Android apps and different versions of Android OS, and it can achieve the design goals with small overhead.
Cu-Catalyzed Cross-Coupling of Nitroarenes with Aryl Boronic Acids to Construct Diarylamines.

The development and study of a simple copper-catalyzed reaction of nitroarenes with aryl boronic acids to form diarylamines that uses phenyl silane as the stoichiometric terminal reductant is described. This cross-coupling reaction requires as little as 2 mol % of CuX and 4 mol% of diphosphine for success and tolerates a broad range of functional groups on either the nitroarene or the aryl boronic acid with to afford the amine in good yield. Mechanistic investigations established that the cross-coupling reaction proceeds via a nitrosoarene intermediate and that copper is required to catalyze both the deoxygenation of the nitroarene to afford the nitrosoarene and C–NAr bond formation of the nitrosoarene with the aryl boronic acid.