cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
96 – The National Institutes of Health: Procedures and Performance

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a component organization of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The NIH is composed of 25 separate Institutes, Centers, or Offices (given the general abbreviation of IC). Each has responsibility for different areas, delineated by a disease process, organ system, scientific endeavors, or administration of various aspects of scientific research administration. Often, research topics are of interest to multiple ICs, giving rise to dual assignments of applications. The standard operating procedures for each IC are generally similar, although differences may exist. A longstanding hallmark of the NIH is the determination of the relative scientific merit of grant proposals through the process of peer review. The vast majority of peer review for the NIH falls under the jurisdiction of the Center for Scientific Review (CSR). It is a unique administrative unit of the NIH, separate from the Institutes. In turn, the Institutes have the authority and the resources, both given by Congress, to make grant awards. Thus at the NIH, the review process is separate from the funding and administration of grants.
The impact of ride-hailing on vehicle miles traveled

Ride-haling such as Uber and Lyft are changing the ways people travel. Despite widespread claims that these services help reduce driving, there is little research on this topic. This research paper uses a quasi-natural experiment in the Denver, Colorado, region to analyze basic impacts of ride-hailing on transportation efficiency in terms of deadheading, vehicle occupancy, mode replacement, and vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Realizing the difficulty in obtaining data directly from Uber and Lyft, we designed a quasi-natural experiment—by one of the authors driving for both companies—to collect primary data. This experiment uses an ethnographic and survey-based approach that allows the authors to gain access to exclusive data and real-time passenger feedback. The dataset includes actual travel attributes from 416 ride-hailing rides—Lyft, UberX, LyftLine, and UberPool—and travel behavior and socio-demographics from 311 passenger surveys. For this study, the conservative (lower end) percentage of deadheading miles from ride-hailing is 40.8%. The average vehicle occupancy is 1.4 passengers per ride, while the distance weighted vehicle occupancy is 1.3 without accounting for deadheading and 0.8 when accounting deadheading. When accounting for mode replacement and issues such as driver deadheading, we estimate that ride-hailing leads to approximately 83.5% more VMT than would have been driven had ride-hailing not existed. Although our data collection focused on the Denver region, these results provide insight into the impacts of ride-hailing.
Toxoplasma Gondii Meningitis in Heart Transplant Recipient - An Atypical Presentation of Toxoplasmosis

Background While toxoplasmosis is an uncommon infection in heart transplant recipients with a prevalence of 0.3% to 0.61%, meningitis is extremely uncommon. Case report A 39-year-old male 3 months post heart transplant presented with one day of fever, nausea, vomiting and headache. He was on standard immunosuppression and prophylaxis except a modified dosing of SMZ-TMP at 400-80 (half tablet, twice per week) due to adverse effects of renal dysfunction and hyperkalemia. Initial infectious work up was negative but altered mental status worsened with no focal deficits despite empiric broad spectrum antibacterial coverage. CT head was unremarkable and MRI could not be performed due to retained pacemaker leads. Lumbar puncture (LP) showed glucose of 35, WBC of 438 (neutrophils 53%, monocytes 37% and lymphocytes 10%) and protein 217. All cultures were negative while Toxoplasma PCR showed 513,000 copies. Pyrimethamine with folinic acid and sulfadiazine was started but had ongoing fluctuations of his mental status and on day 15 a repeat CT head showed hyperdensity along the right lateral ventricle ( Figure 1 ) likely due to hemorrhagic meningoencephalitis. Repeat LP revealed negative toxoplasma PCR but blood in the CSF. Oral SMZ-TMP dosing was increased and clindamycin added to the regimen with a final improvement of his clinical status leading to discharge with ongoing improvement with no residual neurological deficits. Discussion Recipients with negative serostatus for toxoplasmosis are at a high risk of clinical disease when they receive organ from a seropositive donor. (OR 15.12, CI 2.37-96.3). Our patient had no prior exposure while his donor was noted to have toxoplasma IgG. Current prophylaxis regimens do not factor such mismatches and probably need to.
Response Surface Analysis of Genomic Prediction Accuracy Values Using Quality Control Covariates in Soybean.

An important and broadly used tool for selection purposes and to increase yield and genetic gain in plant breeding programs is genomic prediction (GP). Genomic prediction is a technique where molecular marker information and phenotypic data are used to predict the phenotype (eg, yield) of individuals for which only marker data are available. Higher prediction accuracy can be achieved not only by using efficient models but also by using quality molecular marker and phenotypic data. The steps of a typical quality control (QC) of marker data include the elimination of markers with certain level of minor allele frequency (MAF) and missing marker values and the imputation of missing marker values. In this article, we evaluated how the prediction accuracy is influenced by the combination of 12 MAF values, 27 different percentages of missing marker values, and 2 imputation techniques (IT; naive and Random Forest (RF)). We constructed a response surface of prediction accuracy values for the two ITs as a function of MAF and percentage of missing marker values using soybean data from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Soybean Breeding Program. We found that both the genetic architecture of the trait and the IT affect the prediction accuracy implying that we have to be careful how we perform QC on the marker data. For the corresponding combinations MAF-percentage of missing values we observed that implementing the RF imputation increased the number of markers by 2 to 5 times than the simple naive imputation method that is based on the mean allele dosage of the non-missing values at each loci. We conclude that there is not a unique strategy (combination of the QCs and imputation method) that outperforms the results of the others for all traits.
NSF grant workshop

This workshop is intended for faculty and supporting staff at universities and community and technical colleges who are interested in obtaining support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for curricular and programmatic initiatives but who are unfamiliar with current funding opportunities and/or lack grant-writing experience. The workshop will provide an overview of the programs in NSF's Directorate for Education & Human Resources that focus on undergraduate education and cover the basic elements of a good proposal and strategies that can be used to effectively formulate and communicate ideas to reviewers and NSF program officers. Also discussed will be the mechanics of submitting a proposal, the review process from submission to award or decline, merit review criteria, and how to volunteer to become a reviewer.
An improved PCR assay for species-specific detection and quantification of Cercospora beticola

Cercospora beticola causes cercospora leaf spot (CLS) on sugar beet and table beet. Accurate identification of this pathogen is critical to disease diagnosis and effective research outcomes for imp...
Understory plant composition and nitrogen transformations resistant to changes in seasonal precipitation

Climate change has increased global mean surface temperatures and altered hydrological processes, and projections suggest that these changes will accelerate. As seasonal precipitation patterns change, so will the soil resources available for plants. In the midwestern United States, winter temperatures and precipitation are expected to increase, while snowfall is expected to be reduced. Reduced snowpack could lead to greater frost damage and alter the timing and amount of plant available resources at the start of the growing season. In the summer, precipitation is expected to decrease, and variability is expected to increase, creating longer and more frequent dry periods. In temperate forests, herbaceous understory plants and woody plants in early developmental stages are expected to be highly sensitive to changes in abiotic conditions. Here, we study how seasonal changes in precipitation affect the timing and availability of resources in a temperate deciduous forest. Further, we examine how changes in abiotic conditions influence understory composition and woody plant recruitment. We established a fully factorial experiment that manipulated winter snowfall and summer precipitation to create wet, dry, and control (ambient) conditions in a temperate deciduous forest near West Lafayette, Indiana, USA. We found that large changes in winter and summer precipitation appeared to affect forest processes independently of one another, and changes in seasonal precipitation altered understory composition minimally and had little to no effect on mineralization rates. The recruitment of woody plant species may be more sensitive to altered precipitation, as snow removal lowered germination rates and wet summer conditions lowered relative growth of a woody plant species, Lindera benzoin. In general, though, ecological processes in this forest understory were relatively resistant to change, at least in the short timeframe of this experiment.
Ni-Mn bimetallic oxide nanosheets as high-performance electrode materials for asymmetric supercapacitors

Abstract Using bimetallic oxide as the electrode material of supercapacitor is emerging as a promising approach to supply better pseudocapacitive performance than that from the electrodes made of corresponding single metal oxides. Herein, Ni-Mn bimetallic oxide nanosheets (Ni-MnBMO) on carbon cloth substrate were synthesized through a facile hydrothermal method. With the help of cyclic voltammetry activation process, the prepared A-Ni-MnBMO electrode exhibits the maximum specific capacitance 574 F g−1 (within a potential range of −0.2–1.2 V vs. Ag/AgCl at 1 A g−1 after excluding the effects of OER) mainly due to the reversible redox reactions of Mn3+/Mn4+. Moreover, to prove its potential as the positive electrode in a supercapacitor, an asymmetric supercapacitor with a voltage range of 2.1 V is fabricated by using functional carbon nanotube as the negative electrode and 1 M Na2SO4 as the electrolyte. As a result, the device can deliver a maximum energy density of 27 Wh kg−1(at 0.5 A g−1) and 82.3% of its initial specific capacitance can be maintained after 8000 cycles of galvanostatic charge and discharge tests at 4 A g−1.
Effective forcing for direct numerical simulations of the shear layer of turbulent free shear flows

A numerically efficient configuration to simulate turbulent flows is to use triply periodic domains, with numerical forcing techniques to sustain turbulence. Previous homogeneous shear turbulence simulations considered only idealized homogeneous shear flows and not the statistically stationary shear turbulence observed in practical free shear flows. In contrast, the current study mathematically derives the complete forcing technique from the large scales of the turbulent free shear flows. Different statistically stationary free shear flows are considered in this study, namely, a nearly homogeneous shear turbulent flow, turbulent mixing layer, a turbulent planar jet, and a turbulent round jet. The simulations are performed on triply periodic, statistically homogeneous cubic domains in the vicinity of the shear layer in the self-similar region. An a priori analysis is performed to calculate the effects of the different forcing terms and to predict the expected turbulence quantities. The forcing technique is then used to perform direct numerical simulations at different Reynolds numbers. Numerical results for the different cases are discussed and compared with results from experiments and other simulations of free shear turbulent flows. Anisotropy is observed both in the components of velocity and vorticity, with stronger Reynolds number dependence in the anisotropy of vorticity. Energy spectra obtained from the present homogeneous shear turbulence agree well with the spectra from temporally evolving shear layers. The results also highlight the effects of the additional forcing terms that were neglected in previous studies and the role of shear convection and the associated splitting errors in the unbounded evolution of previous numerical simulations.
Artificial Neural Networks and Adaptive Neuro-fuzzy Models for Prediction of Remaining Useful Life.

The U.S. water distribution system contains thousands of miles of pipes constructed from different materials, and of various sizes, and age. These pipes suffer from physical, environmental, structural and operational stresses, causing deterioration which eventually leads to their failure. Pipe deterioration results in increased break rates, reduced hydraulic capacity, and detrimental impacts on water quality. Therefore, it is crucial to use accurate models to forecast deterioration rates along with estimating the remaining useful life of the pipes to implement essential interference plans in order to prevent catastrophic failures. This paper discusses a computational model that forecasts the RUL of water pipes by applying Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) as well as Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). These models are trained and tested acquired field data to identify the significant parameters that impact the prediction of RUL. It is concluded that, on average, with approximately 10\% of wall thickness loss in existing cast iron, ductile iron, asbestos-cement, and steel water pipes, the reduction of the remaining useful life is approximately 50%
Contesting the terms of consent: how university students (dis)align with institutional policy on sexual consent

Universities’ sexual consent policies remain the focus of national media and government attention in the United States. Affirmative consent (i.e. physical and verbal consent) is increasingly the norm for institutional definitions of consent; yet these policies remain at odds with how students report consenting to sexual activity. In this paper, we examine how students formulate their understanding of sexual consent in ways that either resist or align with their university’s policies on sexual assault. Using conversation analysis, we analyse interviews in which students make explicit references to university policy when defining personal definitions of consent. We show that interviewees who do not align with university policy orient to this position as problematic and accountable, and conduct significantly more interactional work when defining consent. These findings illustrate the complex challenges that university students may face in articulating personal understandings of sexual consent, which may have consequences for policy and sexual consent programs.
Revisiting online scheduling for AI-driven internet of things

AI-driven Internet of Things (IoT) use AI Inference to characterize data processed from various sensors. Together, AI and IoT support smart buildings, cities, cars and drones. However, AI Inference requires updates when executed in new contexts. Frequent updates consume more energy and drain precious IoT batteries. Updates can be batched together to save energy, but it is challenging to batch updates well without knowing when updates will arrive, what their processing needs will be and how long they can be delayed. This work studies update batching and its potential energy savings. We define an update batching policy as a sequence of discrete choices about when to apply concurrent updates. This allows us to use random walks to sample update batching policies. Random walks simulate nearly 1M batching policies and models their energy footprint for an AI-driven IoT comprising 50 AI Inference components. The best policy uses much less energy than 99th and 95th percentiles. First-come-first-serve and Shortest-job-first policies perform like the median sampled batching policy, using 7X more energy.
Bilateral optic nerve and retinal infiltration as an initial site of relapse in a child with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Abstract Purpose To describe a case of leukemic infiltration of bilateral optic nerves and retina as a site of relapse in a child with T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). Observations We report a 7 year old female who presented one year following initial treatment for T-Cell ALL with visual acuity impairment, bilateral optic nerve infiltration and infiltration of the retina of both eyes. OCT demonstrated subretinal fluid in both eyes, which eventually resolved, and perivascular hyperreflectivity within the inner retinal layers. She was treated with systemic and intrathecal chemotherapy, total body and orbital radiation and eventual bone marrow transplantation with notable improvement in vision and regression of retinal and optic nerve findings. With continued remission, there was notable outer retinal thinning, specifically of the photoreceptors in the right eye. Conclusions and importance Leukemic abnormalities of the eye are not uncommon, however optic nerve and retinal infiltration are rare manifestations. Leukemic infiltrates of the retina can be detected by OCT despite normal funduscopic examination and monitored for improvement. The optic nerve and other ocular tissues are considered a pharmacologic sanctuary and thus, the optic nerve can be a site of relapse in leukemia. The use of radiation therapy is a helpful adjunct with systemic, intrathecal chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation in obtaining clinical remission and visual acuity improvement.
299 – S2P protease

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the structural chemistry and the biological aspects of S2P protease. S2P is a highly hydrophobic metalloprotease that cleaves its substrates within membrane-spanning domains. It was identified as a component of the processing machinery necessary for the end-product feedback regulation of lipid biosynthesis in mammalian cells. This feedback occurs mainly at the level of transcription of lipid biosynthetic genes. The transcription factors responsible, SREBP-1 and -2, are synthesized as precursor proteins that are attached to the membranes of the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) by two membrane-spanning domains separated by a short luminal loop. Both the N-terminal transcription factor domain and the C-terminal regulatory domain face the cytoplasm. The cleavage sites for all known S2P substrates lie within membrane-spanning domains of type 2 transmembrane proteins. These hydrophobic protein domains are normally embedded in the lipid bilayer. Endoproteolytic cleavage by S2P releases a soluble fragment of the substrate into the cytoplasm, leaving behind a membrane-embedded “stub” of protein whose disposition is unknown. S2P retains a substantial degree of activity even when the active-site Glul72 is changed to Asp.
6 – Forested Wetlands

Forested wetlands, floodplain forests, and riparian areas provide important ecosystem services to society. They intercept sediment and nutrients (N, P) and denitrify nitrate. Riparian forests are corridors for dispersal of birds and mammals while floodplain forests store floodwaters during overbank flooding and provide critical habitat for large mammals and migrating songbirds. Forested wetlands are important foraging and breeding habitat for herpetofauna, frogs, toads, salamanders, and turtles. Restoration of forested wetlands involves reconnecting the floodplain with the river or the riparian area with the stream. Light-seeded, early successional species readily colonize if there is a seed source nearby. Heavy-seeded species such as oaks (Quercus) and hickories (Carya) that do not readily disperse but provide important wildlife habitat must be planted. Microtopography, hummocks, and hollows are a common feature of floodplain forests. It enhances spatial variability of nutrient cycling (nitrification and denitrification), species diversity, and establishment of woody species, so it is important to recreate these features during restoration. With proper attention to restoring hydrology, recreating microtopography, and reintroducing heavy-seeding species, a highly functioning forested wetland can be established in 40–60 years. Complete restoration of a fully developed mature species-rich forest, critical to migratory songbirds, may require 100 years or more.
Coping with caregiving: Humor styles and health outcomes among parents of children with disabilities.

Abstract Background Parents of children with developmental disabilities experience greater stress and worse mental and physical health outcomes than parents of typically developing children. The use of various humor styles to cope with stressors has been associated with mental and, to a lesser extent, physical health outcomes in other populations, but has not been previously examined among parents of children with disabilities. Aims To examine relations of adaptive vs. maladaptive humor styles with depression, daily affect, mental and physical functioning, somatic symptoms, and health behaviors, and to examine whether social support or positive reappraisal mediate relations of humor with health outcomes. Method 80 parents of children with disabilities completed online surveys at T1. 40 parents completed T2 surveys 4 months later. Results As predicted, the adaptive humor styles – self-enhancing and affiliative – were associated with enhanced mental health outcomes, and these relations were mediated by social support and, to a lesser extent, positive reappraisal. Self-defeating humor was associated with worse mental health, greater symptoms, and worse health behavior; these relations were mediated by social support. Conclusion Adaptive humor use may facilitate caregivers’ ability to garner support from others and reframe stressors, which ultimately may contribute to mental and physical resilience to stress.
It Is in Their Head

This chapter empirically addresses the issue of how Luis Martin-Santos’ psychiatric corpus is shown in his character’s personality and acts. It analyzes the author’s understanding of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness on the one hand, and of Heidegger’s Being and Time, on the other hand as shown in his characters’ behavior as an illustration of their existential situation and a map of the men and women of the time.
Interactive Watershed Optimization in the Presence of Spatially-varying and Uncertain Stakeholder Preferences

Watershed planning over a geographic area is a difficult task primarily due to the presence of large number of stakeholders and decision makers whose intrinsic conflicting and/or subjective preferences often lead to uncertainty in perceived fitness of planning decisions. Deciding which watershed strategy should be implemented at what location requires a participatory approach to design and decision making, if adoption of landscape decisions is critical to success. Analytical participatory design (APD) approaches aim to enable farmers, environmentalists, government agencies, and other stakeholders to visualize the landscape, explore and design competitive scenarios of implementing certain management practices on the landscape. Since these approaches improve decision makers’ awareness of opportunities and constraints in the co-existing physical and human systems, it is hypothesized that they can be used to generate acceptable decisions that are robust to uncertainties in stakeholder preferences.An APD method based on Interactive optimization is described in this paper and tested for design of wetlands in a study watershed site (Eagle Creek Watershed) in the state of Indiana. The method is then used to test research hypothesis by involving multiple virtual stakeholders as surrogates to diverse human users and their preferences. The results indicate that, while, as expected, the interactive optimization approach results in lower values of the financial and environmental objective criteria (which are being traded off against users’ diverse subjective personal criteria), it also results in a relatively high degree of user consensus, indicating high likelihood of adoption of the generated solutions by the stakeholders.
Combination therapies utilizing neoepitope-targeted vaccines

Clinical successes have been achieved with checkpoint blockade therapy, which facilitates the function of T cells recognizing tumor-specific mutations known as neoepitopes. It is a reasonable hypothesis that therapeutic cancer vaccines targeting neoepitopes uniquely expressed by a patient’s tumor would prove to be an effective therapeutic strategy. With the advent of high-throughput next generation sequencing, it is now possible to rapidly identify these tumor-specific mutations and produce therapeutic vaccines targeting these patient-specific neoepitopes. However, initial reports suggest that when used as a monotherapy, neoepitope-targeted vaccines are not always sufficient to induce clinical responses in some patients. Therefore, research has now turned to investigating neoepitope vaccines in combination with other cancer therapies, both immune and non-immune, to improve their clinical efficacies.
Trajectory of Cardiac Catheterization for Acute Coronary Syndrome and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: We sought to investigate the trajectory of cardiac catheterizations for acute coronary syndrome (ACS) and out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) during the pre-isolation (PI), strict-isolation (SI), and relaxed-isolation (RI) periods of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic at three hospitals in Los Angeles, CA, USA. Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on adult patients undergoing urgent or emergent cardiac catheterization for suspected ACS or OHCA between January 1, 2020 and June 2, 2020 at three hospitals in Los Angeles, CA, USA. We designated January 1, 2020 to March 17, 2020 as the PI COVID-19 period, March 18, 2020 to May 5, 2020 as the SI COVID-19 period, and May 6, 2020 to June 2, 2020 as the RI COVID-19 period. Results: From PI to SI, there was a significant reduction in mean weekly cases of catheterizations for non-ST elevation myocardial infarction/unstable angina (NSTEMI/UA) (8.29 vs. 12.5, P = 0.019), with all other clinical categories trending downwards. From SI to RI, mean weekly cases of catheterizations for total ACS increased by 17%, NSTEMI/UA increased by 27%, and OHCA increased by 32%, demonstrating a â€œrebound effectâ€. Conclusions: Cardiac catheterizations for ACS and NSTEMI/UA exhibited a â€œrebound effectâ€ once social isolation was relaxed. Cardiol Res. 2021;12(1):47-50 doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/cr1149
How Close is Too Close: The effect of near losses on subsequent risk taking

This paper examines how individuals adjust their risk taking in response to close calls with undesirable outcomes (near losses) and explores the possible mechanisms, cognitive and emotional, that drive these effects. We present four MTurk experiments (N=6,191) that vary people’s proximity to losses and measure the extent of their behavioral adjustment. We find that closeness to undesirable outcomes affects later risk taking: Near misses substantially decrease risk taking, and far misses substantially increase risk taking relative to no feedback. We further find that these effects persist following a 1-hour delay and are thus not likely to be caused by transient shifts in affect. Finally, we show that closeness to undesirable outcomes leads to changes in estimates of the likelihood of similar outcomes in the future, and that this shift explains behavioral adjustment in our risk-taking task. Taken together, our findings support a cognitive rather than emotional account of near-miss effects.
Barriers and facilitators to mobile health and active surveillance use among older adults with skin disease.

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of telemedicine, including teledermatology. Monitoring skin lesions using teledermatology may become increasingly important for several skin diseases, including low-risk skin cancers. The purpose of this study was to describe the key factors that could serve as barriers or facilitators to skin disease monitoring using mobile health technology (mHealth) in older adults. Methods Older adult dermatology patients 65 years or older and their caregivers who have seen a dermatologist in the last 18 months were interviewed and surveyed between December 2019 and July 2020. The purpose of these interviews was to better understand attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that could serve as barriers and facilitators to the use of mHealth and active surveillance to monitor low-risk skin cancers. Results A total of 33 interviews leading to 6022 unique excerpts yielded 8 factors, or themes, that could serve as barriers, facilitators or both to mHealth and active surveillance. We propose an integrated conceptual framework that highlights the interaction of these themes at both the patient and provider level, including care environment, support systems and personal values. Discussion and conclusions These preliminary findings reveal factors influencing patient acceptance of active surveillance in dermatology, such as changes to the patient-provider interaction and alignment with personal values. These factors were also found to influence adoption of mHealth interventions. Given such overlap, it is essential to address barriers and facilitators from both domains when designing a new dermatology active surveillance approach with novel mHealth technology. Patient or public contribution The patients included in this study were participants during the data collection process. Members of the Stanford Healthcare and Denver Tech Dermatology health-care teams aided in the recruitment phase of the data collection process.
Personality and Risk of Physical Illness

Several personality characteristics have been linked in multiple well-designed prospective studies to subsequent physical health outcomes, such as longevity and the development and course of cardiovascular disease. The evidence is strongest for negative affectivity/neuroticism, anger/hostility and related traits, and optimism. Models of mechanisms underlying these associations have emphasized physiological effects of stress, exposure to stressors, and health behavior. Preliminary evidence supports the viability of some mechanisms, but formal mediational tests are lacking. In addition to addressing limitations and inconsistencies in this literature, future research should address developmental aspects of these psychosocial risk factors, contextual moderators of their health effects, and intervention applications in the prevention and management of disease. In these efforts, greater incorporation of concepts and methods in the structural, social-cognitive, and interpersonal perspectives in the field of personality are needed.
Supporting youth mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened youth mental health and exposed inadequate mental health infrastructure in the U.S. for children, leading to rising emergency department (ED) visit rates for mental health. Prior to the pandemic, pediatric mental health ED visits and hospitalizations were already increasing, with suicide as the second leading cause of death among youth 10 to 19 years old.1.
Advanced models for improved prediction of opioid-related overdose and suicide events among Veterans using administrative healthcare data.

Veterans suffer disproportionate health impacts from the opioid epidemic, including overdose, suicide, and death. Prediction models based on electronic medical record data can be powerful tools for identifying patients at greatest risk of such outcomes. The Veterans Health Administration implemented the Stratification Tool for Opioid Risk Mitigation (STORM) in 2018. In this study we propose changes to the original STORM model and propose alternative models that improve risk prediction performance. The best of these proposed models uses a multivariate generalized linear mixed modeling (mGLMM) approach to produce separate predictions for overdose and suicide-related events (SRE) rather than a single prediction for combined outcomes. Further improvements include incorporation of additional data sources and new predictor variables in a longitudinal setting. Compared to a modified version of the STORM model with the same outcome, predictor and interaction terms, our proposed model has a significantly better prediction performance in terms of AUC (84% vs. 77%) and sensitivity (71% vs. 66%). The mGLMM performed particularly well in identifying patients at risk for SREs, where 72% of actual events were accurately predicted among patients with the 100,000 highest risk scores compared with 49.7% for the modified STORM model. The mGLMM’s strong performance in identifying true cases (sensitivity) among this highest risk group was the most important improvement given the model’s primary purpose for accurately identifying patients at most risk for adverse outcomes such that they are prioritized to receive risk mitigation interventions. Some predictors in the proposed model have markedly different associations with overdose and suicide risks, which will allow clinicians to better target interventions to the most relevant risks.
The role of television viewing and direct experience in predicting adolescents' beliefs about the health risks of fast-food consumption.

Abstract Background: Fast-food advertising abounds on television (TV), and programs targeting youth often display fast-food consumption but rarely with any negative consequences. Cultivation research maintains that cumulative exposure to TV influences audiences' views of and beliefs about the real world. Thus, the amount of TV adolescents watch is likely to bias their views of the consequences of eating fast food. This research posits that this relationship varies as a function of adolescents' actual experience with fast food. Method: Two cross-sectional surveys conducted in the cultivation research tradition assess the relationship between the amount of adolescents' regular exposure to TV and their beliefs about the risks and benefits of eating fast food. Teenage children of members of online panels reported hours of TV viewing, beliefs about the consequences of eating fast food, and their frequency of fast-food consumption. Results: In both studies, beliefs about health risks of fast-food consumption vary as a function of the amount of TV watched. Heavy TV viewers have less negative and more positive beliefs about the consequences of fast-food consumption than light viewers. As direct experience with fast food increases, the relationship between TV viewing and risk perceptions weakens, but the relationship between TV viewing and positive perceptions strengthens. These moderated relationships remain when we control for physical activity (Study 1) and the density of fast-food restaurants in respondents' geographical area (Study 2). Conclusion: Given the role of TV viewing in biasing perceptions of the consequences of eating fast food, public health researchers and practitioners should carefully monitor and perhaps regulate the amount of fast-food advertising on TV and the content of TV programs.
The Family as Victim: Mental Health Implications

My colleagues at this symposium (cf, Eitinger, Frederick, Harnois) have discussed in their papers the immediate and long-term mental health consequences of victimization for the victim. My contribution to this discussion is to focus my attention on the family of the victim and to explicate two major axioms: First, that the family is the key factor in facilitating the emotional recovery of the victim; and second, that family members experience victimization themselves when another family member becomes a victim.
Conversion of amino acids to fatty acids

The sections in this article are: 1 Glycine 2 Alanine 3 Aliphatic Branched-Chain Amino Acids 3.1 Valine 3.2 Leucine 3.3 Isoleucine 4 Aromatic Amino Acids 4.1 Phenylalanine, Tyrosine and Tryptophan 5 β-Hydroxyamino Acids 5.1 Serine 5.2 Threonine 5.3 Methionine 6 General Considerations
Normal flow measurement visual motion sensor

This paper presents a two-dimensional programmable normal optical flow measurement chip implemented in 0.5/spl mu/m CMOS process. The chip is composed of an array of 120/spl times/80 APS pixels. The processing circuitry at the periphery of this array computes partial derivatives with respect to space and time and uses them to calculate the normal flow. The spatial derivatives can be programmed to implement 5/spl times/5, 3/spl times/3 or 1/spl times/3 kernels to control the degree of smoothness of the derivatives. The chip occupies an area of 9 mm/sup 2/ and consumes 34.5 mW power (V/sub dd/ = 5V). The operation of the chip is demonstrated by first presenting results from individual blocks and then from system-level testing.
Securing wireless communications in transmit-beamforming systems by precoding jamming noise signals

Information transmission in wireless communication systems is traditionally protected by cryptographic techniques at the higher layers. Recently, a method of physical layer security has attracted much attention because it can potentially provide lower probability of interception of the signals at the eavesdroppers and hence augment the link security in addition to the conventional encryptions. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to securing transmit-beamforming systems by using uniquely designed jamming noise signal, which can significantly degrade the signal quality at the eavesdropper but not at the intended receiver. The jamming noise signal is generated from the null space of the channel matrix. An eigenvector-based implementation of this theoretical method is also provided. Unlike previous physical layer security methods, the proposed approach can provide secure communications over systems with arbitrary antenna configurations. Our proposed method offers more degrees of freedom to generate the jamming noise signal, resulting in the eavesdropper being unable to decode the information signals. Moreover, the eavesdropper cannot influence the system secrecy capacity by employing more antennas or by moving close to the transmitter. Simulation results show that the secrecy capacity increases significantly, by about 7 bits/s/Hz for a 4 × 4 antenna configuration, under typical transmit power constraints. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. (The preliminary discussion of the methods was presented in part at the Sixth International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference, Caen, France, June 2010 , and the IEEE International Conference on Wireless Communications, Networking and Information Security, Beijing, China, June 2010.)
Determinants of public expenditure on infrastructure : transportation and communication

The authors empirically study factors that influence public investment in transportation and communication infrastructure. Using data for 1980-86 for 27 economies, they assess the influence of government objectives, the nature of the domestic economy, and the external assistance flow on public infrastructure spending. They find: a) per capita spending on infrastructure responds most strongly to changes in development level, urbanization rate, and labor force participation rate; b) spending is greater in countries with large foreign sectors and is positively influenced by sectoral imbalances between rural and urban areas; c) if total foreign savings flows increase, there is a small positive per capita spending response; d) with higher population densities, consolidated government spending declines although it rises initially; e) central budget spending is positively associated with improved institutional development, while consolidated budget is negatively associated; f) budget deficit size appears not to influence central budget spending but is positively associated with consolidated budget spending; g) greater outward orientation is positively associated with increased consolidated budget spending but seems to bear no relationship to central budget spending on infrastructure; and h) governments that are either not at all or extremely committed to alleviating poverty spend less on infrastructure. Governments with a limited commitment to poverty alleviation adopt strategies to increase the poor's productivity by investing in infrastructure. As the commitment intensifies, their strategy shifts to improving human capital or strengthening the social safety net, and funding for those social programs competes with funding for developing infrastructure.
Effects of insecticides on reproduction in the laboratory mouse. IV. Endrin and dieldrin.

Abstract A single large-scale feeding test was conducted on CFW Swiss mice to measure the influence of sublethal levels of dietary organochlorine insecticides on reproduction. Endrin and dieldrin were fed at 5 ppm for 120 days, beginning 30 days before mating. Endrin produced significant parent mortality, and significantly smaller litters. Dieldrin, a stereoisomer of endrin, produced no parent mortality, but significantly reduced the size of all litters. Neither compound affected fertility, fecundity, or the number of young produced per day.
Oxygen isotope constraints on the sources of Central American arc lavas

Oxygen-isotope ratios of olivine and plagioclase phenocrysts in basalts and basaltic andesites from the Central American arc vary systematically with location, from a minimum δ18Oolivine value of 4.6 (below the range typical of terrestrial basalts) in Nicaragua near the center of the arc to a maximum δ18Oolivine value of 5.7 (above the typical range) in Guatemala near the northwest end of the arc. These oxygen-isotope variations correlate with major and trace element abundances and with Sr and Nd isotope compositions of host lavas, defining trends that suggest variations in δ18O reflect slab contributions to the mantle sources of these lavas. These trends can be explained by a model in which both a low-δ18O, water-rich component and a high-δ18O, water-poor component are extracted from the subducting Cocos slab and flux melting in the overlying mantle wedge. The first of these components dominates slab fluxes beneath the center of the arc and is the principal control on the extent of melting of the mantle wedge (which is highest in the center of the arc); the second component dominates slab fluxes beneath the northwestern margin of the arc. Fluxes of both components are small or negligible beneath the southeastern margin of the arc. We suggest that the low-δ18O component is a solute-rich aqueous fluid produced by dehydration of hydrothermally altered rocks deep within the Cocos slab (perhaps serpentinites produced in deep normal faults offshore of Nicaragua) and that the high-δ18O component is a partial melt of subducted sediment on top of the plate.
Isolation of a Second S-Locus-Related Cdna from Brassica Oleracea: Genetic Relationships between the S Locus and Two Related Loci

Self-incompatibility in Brassica oleracea is controlled by the highly polymorphic S locus. Isolation and subsequent characterization of the S-locus-glycoprotein (SLG) gene, which encodes the S-locus-specific glycoprotein (SLSG), has revealed the presence of a self-incompatibility multigene family. One of these S-locus-related genes, SLR1, has been shown to be expressed. In this study we present the isolation and preliminary characterization of a second expressed S-locus-related sequence, SLR2. Through restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) linkage analysis we demonstrate that the SLR1 and SLR2 loci reside approximately 18.5 map units apart in one linkage group that segregates independently of the S-locus. The identification of a second SLR gene expressed in stigmas suggests that loci unlinked to the S-locus may play a role in the self-incompatibility response, or in pollination in general.
Analysis of a densitometry assay for bacterial chemotaxis

Abstract Analytic expressions are derived for density profiles of chemotactic bacteria moving in a discontinuously exponential chemoattractant gradient. The results are used to indicate how motility coefficients, in addition to chemotactic response velocities, may be obtained from the densitometry assay developed by Dahlquist, Lovely & Koshland (1972) .
The volunteer subject revisited

Abstract The extent to which a useful, comprehensive science of human behaviour can be based upon the behaviour of volunteer subjects is an empirical question of broad importance. In this paper we discuss what is known about (a) the role expectations and behaviour of volunteers and nonvolunteers, (b) differentiating characteristics of volunteers vs. nonvolunteers that may jeopardize the robustness of research conclusions derived from volunteer samples, (c) how a subject's volunteer status can interact with the stimulus variables in an experiment, and (d) some useful procedures for circumventing or reducing these biasing effects.
Medical/health histories and physical evaluation of physically and sexually abused child psychiatric patients: A controlled study

This study examines findings from a pediatric health history and child physical examination conducted for 105 outpatient and 105 inpatient children who were classified on the basis of their history of physical and sexual abuse. Based on multivariate and univariate analyses, physically abused children had more early developmental delays, neurologic soft signs, serious physical injuries, skin markings and scars, and stimulant drug use than their non-physically abused peers. Sexually abused children were reported to exhibit higher levels of sexual activity and stimulant drug use, and had more physical signs of genital manipulation than non-sexually abused children. These data highlight the need to further examine the impact of medical and developmental aberrations, the nature and origins of recurrent physical injuries in this population, and the extent of risk-taking in understanding the differences between physical and sexual child maltreatment.
Low cost Pd–W nanoalloy electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction in fuel cells

Carbon supported Pd100 − xWx (0 ≤ x ≤ 30) nanoalloy electrocatalysts have been synthesized by simultaneous thermal decomposition of palladium acetylacetonate and tungsten carbonyl in o-xylene in the presence of Vulcan XC-72R carbon, followed by annealing up to 800 °C in H2 atmosphere. Characterization of the Pd–W samples by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) energy dispersive spectroscopic (EDS) analysis in scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) indicates the formation of single phase face centered cubic (fcc) solid solutions for 0 ≤ x ≤ 20 with controlled composition and morphology. The TEM data indicate an increase in particle size with increasing heat treatment temperature. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and rotating disk electrode (RDE) measurements reveal that the alloying of Pd with W enhances the catalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) as well as the stability (durability) of the electrocatalyst compared to the unalloyed Pd. The composition Pd95W5 exhibits the maximum activity for ORR in the Pd–W system. The Pd–W catalysts show high tolerance to methanol electro-oxidation compared to a Pt catalyst, which may offer important advantages in employing the Pd-based electrocatalysts for ORR in direct methanol fuel cells.