cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The Agenda-Setting Power of Presidential Press Conferences

Much research on presidents’ abilities to set the media’s agenda has produced mixed results. Although press conferences specifically target the news media, the literature has yet to explore the impact that presidential press conferences may have on the media’s agenda. It is probable that presidential press conferences will set the media’s agenda, at least in the short term. This is important not only to exploring whether the press conference is an effective agenda-setting tool for presidents; it is also relevant to a current debate in the literature. Although some, including Kumar (2007) and Eshbaugh-Soha (2003) maintain that presidents have substantial control over the direction, tenor, and topics in a press conference, others (Barrett 2004; Clayman et. al 2006; Rottinghaus 2010) contend that these are negative and reactive events, undercutting any potential influence they may have on the media’s agenda. This study will shed additional light on the effectiveness of presidential press conferences as a tool to lead the media by explaining the propensity of media stories to reflect the president’s press conference rhetoric using plagiarism detection software, WCopyFind 2.7.
From wetland to farm and back again: phosphorus dynamics of a proposed restoration project

We studied the phosphorus dynamics in a former wetland, which had been converted to a celery farm, and now consists of two shallow, flooded ponds that are being proposed for aquatic habitat restoration. However, like many agricultural areas, this site is plagued by phosphorus legacy issues. Proposed restoration includes hydrologic reconnection of these ponds to its adjacent stream, which are now isolated from one another by an earthen berm, to create a wetland complex. One of the two flooded ponds was partially dredged, whereas the other one has remained undredged. Water column, sediment pore water, and sediment total phosphorus concentrations were significantly greater in the undredged pond compared to the dredged pond, but in both cases phosphorus levels in the water columns (mean TP 929 vs. 133 μg/L in undredged vs. dredged ponds, respectively) would exacerbate downstream water quality issues if hydrologic reconnection occurred without first addressing the phosphorus issue. Sediment isotherm and maximum sorption data indicated that the sediments are close to phosphorus saturation in the undredged pond; simulated dredging of the cores revealed that exposure of deeper sediment layers would increase sorption capacity. Pore water SRP concentrations increased with sediment depth and were significantly greater in the undredged vs. dredged pond at both the 1–4-cm depth (2249 vs. 112 μg/L) and 14–17-cm depth (5506 vs. 222 μg/L). This study provides a framework for other projects that need to balance the competing demands of habitat restoration vs. water quality when restoring wetlands that have been converted to agricultural production.
On-Chip Optical Ring Bus Communication Architecture for Heterogeneous MPSoC

With increasing application complexity and improvements in process technology, multi-processor systems-on-chip (MPSoC) with tens to hundreds of cores on a chip are being realized today. While computational cores have become faster with each successive technology generation, communication between them has not scaled well, and has become a bottleneck that limits overall chip performance. On-chip optical interconnects are a promising development to overcome this bottleneck by replacing electrical wires with optical waveguides. In this chapter we describe an optical ring bus (ORB) based hybrid opto-electric on-chip communication architecture for the next generation of heterogeneous MPSoCs. ORB uses an optical ring waveguide to replace global pipelined electrical interconnects while preserving the interface with today’s bus protocol standards such as AMBA AXI3. The proposed ORB architecture supports serialization of uplinks/downlinks to optimize communication power dissipation. We present experiments to show how ORB has the potential to reduce transfer latency (up to 4.7×), and lower power consumption (up to 12×) compared to traditionally used pipelined, all-electrical, bus-based communication architectures, for the 22 nm technology node.
Co-creation of customers' extrinsic value through C2C and e-store interaction in an e-commerce setting

Customers' perceived value of a product or service is a good predictor of repeated purchasing behaviour. Extrinsic values, especially, are considered direct predictors of intention and actual purchase. This research study is interested in examining whether customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction online co-creates customers' extrinsic values where extrinsic values are defined as perceived service excellence, economic benefit, and convenience. Whereas existing literature identifies extrinsic motivators as antecedents of extrinsic value, this research study presents both e-store and C2C interaction as key antecedents of extrinsic value perceptions of online customers. Extrinsic value perception was found to influence the intention to revisit/repurchase at the e-store.
Development of a Multi-Press Assembly Device for Planar Dynamic Material Property Targets

AbstractA class of dynamic material property (DMP) experiments on the Sandia National Laboratories pulse power Z-Machine requires planar samples to be held in a panel assembly. A custom press device to fabricate the assemblies has the ability to assemble one sample, window, or stack at a time, resulting in a 1-week lead time for a typical three-pocket panel assembly. Fabrication of targets with more than three pockets can take longer. In late 2015, General Atomics conceptualized a new multi-press device to enable several samples, windows, or stacks to be assembled simultaneously, and a prototype was designed, procured, and outfitted in 6 months. Since June 2016, this multi-press design has successfully assembled 60 planar DMP targets. The development considerations for this new device and the resulting benefits for the fabrication of targets are discussed.
A Primer on Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses

With the rapid growth of biomedical literature, there is increasing need to make meaningful inferences from a comprehensive and complex body of evidence. Systematic reviews with or without meta-analyses offer an objective and summative approach to synthesize knowledge and critically appraise evidence to inform clinical practice. Systematic reviews also help identify key knowledge gaps for future investigation. In this review, the authors provide a step-by-step approach to conducting a systematic review. These include: (1) formulating a focused and clinically-relevant question; (2) designing a detailed review protocol with explicit inclusion and exclusion criteria; (3) performing a systematic literature search of multiple databases and unpublished data, in consultation with a medical librarian, to identify relevant studies; (4) meticulous data abstraction by at least two sets of investigators independently; (5) assessing risk of bias in individual studies; (6) quantitative synthesis with meta-analysis; and (7) critically and transparently ascertaining quality of evidence.
Names and Attitudes

Arthur Burks was one of the first philosophers to recognize the inadequacy of the traditional “Description Theory” of proper names inherited from Frege and Russell; he was also one of the first to suggest a plausible revision of that theory (Burks [5]). His suggestion — that proper names be viewed as indexical definite descriptions — anticipated by nearly three decades the general drift of accounts of proper names such as those currently offered by Tyler Burge (in [4]) and Stephen Schiffer (in [22]). Description Theories, however, have recently come under frontal attack from proponents of so-called Causal-Historical Theories (e.g., Kripke [13] and Donnellan [10]), who urge a radically different account of the mechanisms of reference. Whatever one may think of this attack — and its success is by no means uncontested (cf. McKinsey [19]–[20] and Boor [2]) — Description Theories still have many enthusiastic supporters (including Burks in [6]). Nor do they lack ammunition for a counteroffensive. Their most powerful weapon is derived from the well-known tangle of problems attending the interpretation of names in propositional attitude contexts, which they increasingly point to as evidence against the Causal-Historical Theorists’ contention that names “merely designate” and do not “express (descriptive) senses” (cf., e.g., Loar [18]).
Links with Other Test Statistics and Measures of Divergence

In the preceding chapters, we have concentrated on test statistics that measure the degree of divergence between the observed frequencies for a group of cells and the corresponding expected frequencies based on some null model. Throughout we have assumed that we are dealing with discrete counts. If the variable under observation has a continuous (in general, multivariate) distribution, we assume that the outcomes have been grouped into mutually exclusive intervals (in general, compact regions) or cells, whose union contains the support (i.e., the region where the density is positive) of the random variable. We can then use the frequencies with which observations from a sample fall in these cells to perform a goodness-of-fit test (as described in the previous chapters). Such grouping of continuous data necessarily results in some loss of information, and we may wish to use an alternative test statistic that is more efficient in these circumstances. The first two sections of this chapter are devoted to discussing test statistics that are designed for continuous data. In Section 7.3 we draw some comparisons between these statistics and the power-divergence statistic based on the grouping described earlier.
A new thermodynamic model for a process zone in polymers

The paper focuses on identifying equilibrial shape and size of a process zone forming ahead of a growing crack in polymers. The concept of phase transformation and the corresponding equations are applied in modelling such a zone. In addition to transformation stress σtr, a new parameter characterizing the transformation phenomena, the specific energy of transformation γtr [J/m3] is introduced. The assumption of the narrow process zone results in a simple solution of the problem. The comparative analysis of the phase transition approach with that of the Dugdale-Barenblatt model (DBM) is presented. When the specific energy γtr is much smaller than σtr the proposed model recovers the well known results of DBM. If γtr is of the same or larger order of magnitude than σtr, the new model predictions depart significantly from that of DBM. The experimental observations reported in [5] and [11] provide a solid support to the proposed model.
Vibration-Rotation Spectroscopy of ArHCI by Far-Infrared Laser and Microwave/Far-Infrared Laser Double Resonance Spectroscopy

Direct absorption by the low frequency van der Waals vibrations in ArHCI has been observed using the technique of intracavity far infrared laser spectroscopy and more recently with microwave far-infrared double resonance. Constants are reported for the π bending state of ArH37 CI. These constants favor, though not conclusively, a potential surface with a double minimum. Further work on other vibrational bands of ArHCI using double resonance methods will elucidate the nature of the surface directly.
Molecular basis of EMRE-dependence of the human mitochondrial calcium uniporter

ABSTRACT The mitochondrial uniporter is calcium-activated calcium channel complex critical for cellular signaling and bioenergetics. MCU, the pore-forming subunit of the uniporter, contains two transmembrane domains and is found in all major eukaryotic taxa. In amoeba and fungi, MCU homologs are sufficient to form a functional calcium channel, whereas human MCU exhibits a strict requirement for the metazoan-specific, single-pass transmembrane protein EMRE for conductance. Here, we exploit this evolutionary divergence to decipher the molecular basis of the human MCU’s dependence on EMRE. By systematically generating chimeric proteins that consist of EMRE-independent D. discoideum MCU (DdMCU) and H. sapiens MCU (HsMCU), we converged on a stretch of 10 amino acids in DdMCU that can be transplanted to HsMCU to render it EMRE-dependent. We call this region in human MCU the EMRE-dependence domain (EDD). Crosslinking experiments show that HsEMRE directly interacts with MCU at both of its transmembrane domains as well as the EDD. Based on previously published structures of fungal MCU homologs, the EDD segment is located distal to the calcium pore’s selectivity filter and appears flexible. We propose that EMRE stabilizes EDD of MCU, permitting both channel opening and calcium conductance
The Impacts of Information Technology, the Internet and Electronic Commerce on Firm and Industry Structure: The Personal Computer Industry

The adoption of information technology is expected to have major impacts on firm and industry organization. We study the personal computer industry, and find a shift from supply-driven to demand-driven production, accompanied by the creation of a modular production and distribution network. The use of IT has been a key enabler of both trends, allowing firms to coordinate more complex business processes associated with demand-driven production, to standardize data transfers among firms, and to reduce the asset specificity of investments made by PC makers and their suppliers.
City limits: Heat tolerance is influenced by body size and hydration state in an urban ant community.

Cities are rapidly expanding, and global warming is intensified in urban environments due to the urban heat island effect. Therefore, urban animals may be particularly susceptible to warming associated with ongoing climate change. We used a comparative and manipulative approach to test three related hypotheses about the determinants of heat tolerance or critical thermal maximum (CTmax) in urban ants-specifically, that (a) body size, (b) hydration status, and (c) chosen microenvironments influence CTmax. We further tested a fourth hypothesis that native species are particularly physiologically vulnerable in urban environments. We manipulated water access and determined CTmax for 11 species common to cities in California's Central Valley that exhibit nearly 300-fold variation in body size. There was a moderate phylogenetic signal influencing CTmax, and inter (but not intra) specific variation in body size influenced CTmax where larger species had higher CTmax. The sensitivity of ants' CTmax to water availability exhibited species-specific thresholds where short-term water limitation (8 hr) reduced CTmax and body water content in some species while longer-term water limitation (32 hr) was required to reduce these traits in other species. However, CTmax was not related to the temperatures chosen by ants during activity. Further, we found support for our fourth hypothesis because CTmax and estimates of thermal safety margin in native species were more sensitive to water availability relative to non-native species. In sum, we provide evidence of links between heat tolerance and water availability, which will become critically important in an increasingly warm, dry, and urbanized world that others have shown may be selecting for smaller (not larger) body size.
El fin del deseo y el comienzo de la unión con Dios: Conexiones entre La Celestina y la literatura mística del siglo XVI a través del psicoanálisis

This article connects Fernando de Rojas' work with the Spanish mystic literature of the sixteenth century and recognizes in them a shared worldview concerning desire. In both visions, female actors take the center stage in the administration of desire and the immanence fragments the transcendent medieval scholastic order. Also, desire is negotiated in the private space and has a concrete effect on the participants' body. Finally, the administration of desire is carried to the ultimate consequences: silence, nothingness, and death. But while in Celestina , these elements have a negative charge, the mystics perceive them as something positive, the path to divinity.
Enhancing the Quality and Reliability of OER Content

This is a literature review focuses on the quality assurance (QA) that can be applied in Open educational resources (OER) to increase the reliability and quality of it. The review will lead to future research that applies a quantitative approach that contains an online survey. An online survey will be created to collect empirical evidence about a set items in 6 areas of quality assurance QA, which are infrastructure, quality, institutional vision and support, OER development, learning content, and learning support.
Discussions of miscarriage and preterm births on Twitter

Background Experiences typically considered private, such as, miscarriages and preterm births are being discussed publicly on social media and Internet discussion websites. These data can provide timely illustrations of how individuals discuss miscarriages and preterm births, as well as insights into the wellbeing of women who have experienced a miscarriage. Objectives To characterise how users discuss the topic of miscarriage and preterm births on Twitter, analyse trends and drivers, and describe the perceived emotional state of women who have experienced a miscarriage. Methods We obtained 291 443 Twitter postings on miscarriages and preterm births from January 2017 through December 2018. Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) was used to identify major topics of discussion. We applied time series decomposition methods to assess temporal trends and identify major drivers of discussion. Furthermore, four coders labelled the emotional content of 7282 personal miscarriage disclosure tweets into the following non-mutually exclusive categories: grief/sadness/depression, anger, relief, isolation, annoyance, and neutral. Results Topics in our data fell into eight groups: celebrity disclosures, Michelle Obama's disclosure, politics, healthcare, preterm births, loss and anxiety, flu vaccine and ectopic pregnancies. Political discussions around miscarriages were largely due to a misunderstanding between abortions and miscarriages. Grief and annoyance were the most commonly expressed emotions within the miscarriage self-disclosures; 50.6% (95% confidence interval [CI] 49.1, 52.2) and 16.2% (95% CI 15.2, 17.3). Postings increased with celebrity disclosures, pharmacists' refusal of prescribed medications and outrage over the high rate of preterm births in the United States. Miscarriage disclosures by celebrities also led to disclosures by women who had similar experiences. Conclusions This study suggests that increase in discussions of miscarriage on social media are associated with several factors, including celebrity disclosures. Additionally, there is a misunderstanding of the potential physical, emotional and psychological impacts on individuals who lose a pregnancy due to a miscarriage.
Hardware-In-The-Loop Vulnerability Analysis of a Single-Machine Infinite-Bus Power System

The dynamic performance of the generators is a critical factor for the safe operation of the power grid. To this extent, the stability of the frequency of generators is the target of cyber attacks since its instability may lead to sizable cascade failures in the whole network. In this paper, we perform the vulnerability analysis in a developed power grid Hardware-In-The-Loop (HITL) testbed with a Wago 750-881 PLC sending control commands to the generators and a 750 Feeder Management Relay connected to a local load. A process-aware coordinated attack is demonstrated by spoofing control commands sent by the PLC and the relay to the simulated power system which is modeled as a single-machine infinite-bus (SMIB). Based on the reachability analysis, the attacker can find the optimal attack signal to drive the system state out of their safe set of values. Thereafter, it is experimentally demonstrated that the attacker does not need to send attack signal continuously if he implements a carefully designed coordinated attack on the PLC and the relay. The presented assessments provide information about the best time to launch an attack in order to destabilize the power system.
Acceleration of Multipath TCP by Letting ACKs Take the Shortest Path

Multipath TCP (MPTCP) can improve overall throughput of an end-to-end connection by leveraging different network paths. However, the heterogeneity of these paths can significantly hamper MPTCP’s performance. In this paper, we propose to send acknowledgments (ACKs) along the lowest-latency path. This can help improve the performance of MPTCP when subflow throughput is constrained by packet loss by reacting to loss events faster. An active probing module is also developed to dynamically select the lowest-latency path against the potential change of path condition. Experiments demonstrate that overall throughput improvement generally ranges from 10% to 50%.
Empirical Bayes small area prediction under a zero‐inflated lognormal model with correlated random area effects

Many variables of interest in agricultural or economical surveys have skewed distributions and can equal zero. Our data are measures of sheet and rill erosion called Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation - 2 (RUSLE2). Small area estimates of mean RUSLE2 erosion are of interest. We use a zero-inflated lognormal mixed effects model for small area estimation. The model combines a unit-level lognormal model for the positive RUSLE2 responses with a unit-level logistic mixed effects model for the binary indicator that the response is nonzero. In the Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) data, counties with a higher probability of nonzero responses also tend to have a higher mean among the positive RUSLE2 values. We capture this property of the data through an assumption that the pair of random effects for a county are correlated. We develop empirical Bayes (EB) small area predictors and a bootstrap estimator of the mean squared error (MSE). In simulations, the proposed predictor is superior to simpler alternatives. We then apply the method to construct EB predictors of mean RUSLE2 erosion for South Dakota counties. To obtain auxiliary variables for the population of cropland in South Dakota, we integrate a satellite-derived land cover map with a geographic database of soil properties. We provide an R Shiny application called viscover (available at https://lyux.shinyapps.io/viscover/) to visualize the overlay operations required to construct the covariates. On the basis of bootstrap estimates of the mean square error, we conclude that the EB predictors of mean RUSLE2 erosion are superior to direct estimators.
Intervención de las neurofunciones en el desarrollo psicomotor de los niños

Las neurofunciones, como un conjunto de funciones elementales de aprendizaje, necesitan una intervencion oportuna para el proceso de madurez escolar en los ninos y ninas previo al ingreso a la etapa escolar. Y es que al referirnos a la madurez escolar es hablar de la oportunidad de incorporar al nino o nina un nivel de desarrollo fisico, psiquico y social que le permita la adaptacion apropiada a las exigencias en etapas posteriores. Se ha comprobado que la mayoria de ninos que presentaron un bajo rendimiento escolar no tuvieron la estimulacion adecuada, por consiguiente, no tuvieron la madurez necesaria para asimilar el aprendizaje en lectura, escritura, calculo y razonamiento. La presente investigacion, permite conocer la importancia que tienen las Funciones Basicas o neuro funciones, en el desarrollo del proceso del desarrollo motriz en ninos y ninas en etapa preescolar. El desarrollo motriz, siendo un proceso habitual y estructurado, debe tener muy bien cimentadas sus bases en los primeros anos de vida del nino, para que su aprendizaje en etapas posteriores sea de exito y se desarrolle de manera acorde a las exigencias de la etapa escolar. El proyecto “Analisis de la intervencion de las neurofunciones en el desarrollo psicomotor de los ninos” tiene como objetivo general: Analizar la intervencion de las neurofunciones en las areas de desarrollo psicomotor en los ninos de educacion inicial, mediante la investigacion bibliografica, a fin de determinar las necesidades de intervencion oportuna para su correcto aprovechamiento de aprendizajes en la edad adecuada.
Kicking maturity down the road: Early refinancing and maturity management in the corporate bond market

This paper examines debt maturity management through early refinancing, where firms retire their outstanding bonds before the due date and simultaneously issue new ones as replacements. Speculative-grade firms frequently refinance their corporate bonds early to extend maturity, particularly under accommodating credit supply conditions, leading to a procyclical maturity structure. In contrast, investment-grade firms do not manage their maturity in the same manner. I exploit the protection period of callable bonds to show that the maturity extension is not driven by unobservable confounding factors. The evidence is consistent with speculative-grade firms dynamically managing maturity to mitigate refinancing risk. Received June 6, 2016; editorial decision September 21, 2017 by Editor Philip Strahan.
YOLBO: You Only Look Back Once–A Low Latency Object Tracker Based on YOLO and Optical Flow

One common computer vision task is to track an object as it moves from frame to frame within a video sequence. There are a myriad of applications for such capability and the underlying technologies to achieve this tracking are very well understood. More recently, deep convolutional neural networks have been employed to not only track, but also to classify objects as they are tracked from frame to frame. These models can be used in a tracking paradigm known as tracking by detection and can achieve very high tracking accuracy. The major drawback to these deep neural networks is the large amount of mathematical operations that must be performed for each inference which negatively impacts the number of tracked frames per second. For edge applications residing on size, weight, and power limited platforms, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, high frame rate and low latency real time tracking can be an elusive target. To overcome the limited power and computational resources of an edge compute device, various optimizations have been performed to trade off tracking speed, accuracy, power, and latency. Previous works on motion based interpolation with neural networks either do not take into account the latency accrued from camera image capture to tracking result or they compensate for this latency but are bottlenecked by the motion interpolation operation instead. The algorithm presented in this work gains the performance speedup used in previous motion based neural network inference papers and also performs a novel look back operation that is less cumbersome than other competing motion interpolation methods.
Identification of a novel heterozygous SPTB mutation by whole genome sequencing in a Chinese patient with hereditary spherocytosis and atrial septal defect: a case report

Hereditary spherocytosis (HS) is a common inherited red blood cell membrane disorder characterized by an abnormal increase of spherocytes in peripheral blood. SPTB gene mutation is one of the most common causes of HS; however, few cases of HS resulting from SPTB mutation in the Chinese population have been reported so far. A 3-year-old Chinese girl presented to Qingdao Women and Children’s Hospital, Qingdao University, with atrial septal defect (ASD). Meanwhile, she was clinically diagnosed with HS. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) was performed for the proband and her parents for genetic molecular analysis. A novel SPTB mutation (c.1756delG) was detected by WGS and confirmed by Sanger sequencing in the proband. This mutation results in a frameshift with a premature termination codon in exon 12, leading to a nonsense mutation (p.Ala586Profs*7). Her parents had no similar symptoms, and blood routine and serum biochemical tests showed no significant abnormalities. The patient’s mother did not know of any relatives with HS-like symptoms. Percutaneous transcatheter closure was successfully performed for treating the ASD. In this study, we identified a novel SPTB frameshift mutation in a Chinese girl with HS. This finding would expand the spectrum of SPTB mutations, provide a valuable insight into the genotyping of HS in the Chinese population, and contribute to the clinical management and genetic counseling in HS.
Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation is Feasible in Patients with Prior COVID-19 Infection.

There are limited data on outcomes of patients with prior Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who proceeded to autologous or allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). Whether these patients are more susceptible to poor outcomes and recurrence of COVID-19 is unknown. We report a retrospective analysis of outcomes of 15 consecutive patients with hematologic malignancies who experienced COVID-19 and subsequently underwent autologous (n = 8) or allogeneic (n = 7) HCT between June 17, 2020, and February 17, 2021. The cohort included patients with asymptomatic past infections or symptomatic COVID-19 disease. Data were obtained from chart review. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize patient characteristics. Among eight patients who underwent autologous HCT, four had a diagnosis of multiple myeloma and four had a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Four of these eight patients did not test positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody at any point during the course of treatment. The other four patients had detectable anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies before undergoing autologous HCT, but only two of these patients remained anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody-positive at their last follow-up. One patient died from progression of disease. Seven patients with prior COVID-19 underwent allogeneic HCT for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (n = 3), acute myelogenous leukemia (n = 1), chronic myelogenous leukemia in lymphoid blast crisis (n = 1), myelodysplastic syndrome (n = 1), or myelofibrosis (n = 1). Three of the seven patients tested positive for anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies following the initial COVID-19 diagnosis; however, only one of these patients retained anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibody following allogeneic HCT. One patient died of infection (fungal and Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia) occurring in the context of ongoing treatment for graft-versus-host disease. None of the 15 patients had recurrent COVID-19 infection. Based on our experience, autologous and allogeneic HCT can be safely performed in selected patients with previous COVID-19 infection.
Percutaneous gastrostomy tube placement in a patient with prior sleeve gastrectomy

Sleeve gastrectomies have quickly become the most common bariatric weight loss surgery performed in the United States (U.S.). Given that hundreds of thousands of gastrostomy tubes (G tubes) are also placed each year, the number of patients with prior sleeve gastrectomies requiring a G tube will surely rise in the coming years. The case presented herein is a patient with prior sleeve gastrectomy who underwent percutaneous G tube placement.
Relationships between identity and academic motivation

This study examined university students' academic motivation, focusing on individual differences in their sense of identity. The participants were 109 female Japanese students from two private universities (age range = 19-22 yr., M = 19.3, SD = 0.6). They completed four scales: the Multidimensional Ego Identity Scale, the Scale of Students' Attitude Toward Their Classes, the Academic Motivation Inventory, and the Scale of Lecture Self-Evaluation. Correlational analyses assessed the relationships between subscales. Then, path analysis was conducted to evaluate whether sense of identity affected attitude toward classes, academic motivation, and lecture self-evaluation. Differences particularly in psychosocial identity and self-identity accounted for significant variance in the students' attitudes toward classes, academic motivation, and lecture self-evaluation.
Biochemical and bioinformatic analysis of the myosin‐XIX motor domain

Mitochondrial dynamics are dependent on both the microtubule and actin cytoskeletal systems. Evidence for the involvement of myosin motors has been described in many systems, and until recently a candidate mitochondrial transport motor had not been described in vertebrates. Myosin-XIX (MYO19) was predicted to represent a novel class of myosin and had previously been shown to bind to mitochondria and increase mitochondrial network dynamics when ectopically expressed. Our analyses comparing ∼40 MYO19 orthologs to ∼2000 other myosin motor domain sequences identified instances of homology well-conserved within class XIX myosins that were not found in other myosin classes, suggesting MYO19-specific mechanochemistry. Steady-state biochemical analyses of the MYO19 motor domain indicate that Homo sapiens MYO19 is a functional motor. Insect cell-expressed constructs bound calmodulin as a light chain at the predicted stoichiometry and displayed actin-activated ATPase activity. MYO19 constructs demonstrated high actin affinity in the presence of ATP in actin-cosedimentation assays, and translocated actin filaments in gliding assays. Expression of GFP-MYO19 containing a mutation impairing ATPase activity did not enhance mitochondrial network dynamics, as occurs with wild-type MYO19, indicating that myosin motor activity is required for mitochondrial motility. The measured biochemical properties of MYO19 suggest it is a high-duty ratio motor that could serve to transport mitochondria or anchor mitochondria, depending upon the cellular microenvironment.
What about a dimension of engagement, equity, and diversity practices? A critique of the next generation science standards

In this paper, I offer a critique of A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (NRC, 2012) and of the Next Generation Science Standards (Achieve, 2013). While the new version of the science education standards and the arguments put forward to support them are an improvement from the previous version of the NRC Science Education Standards, we must pause and reflect on the implications on jumping on another education reform, fast moving train. Using sociotransformative constructivism as a guiding theoretical lens, I argued that the Conceptual Framework and NGSS documents fall short due to the lack of retrospection, the on-going contradictory discourses, and the lack of voice and representation in the development of these important policy documents. Suggestions for improvement and discussion are offered in hope that we might prevent the NGSS from having as little impact on teachers' practice and on students' learning as the previous version of the national science education standards had. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 52: 1031–1051, 2015.
Reflections on the glass ceiling: women in the experimental analysis of behavior.

McSweeney and Swindell (1998) sought to determine whether men and women are treated equitably in the experimental analysis of behavior. They purported to show that women participate less in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior than in similar journals and that the participation of women decreases with increases in selectivity. Their data were difficult to interpret, however, because they did not present the variability in the mean data drawn from different individuals over time. My analyses were not in accord with their conclusions. When the percentage of associate editors who are women was considered along with the mean percentages McSweeney and Swindell reported for other measures, participation did not systematically decrease with increases in selectivity in recent years. As quantified in terms of their number of publications in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, women who were editorial board members and associate editors were not more highly selected than their male counterparts. Finally, in the recent period from 1996 to 1998, although women submitted fewer manuscripts to the journal, rejection ratios did not differ for men and women. Efforts to increase the participation of women in the experimental analysis of behavior may best be directed toward recruitment and retention rather than some of the suggestions proposed by McSweeney and Swindell (1998), which could inadvertently create different standards for women’s work.
ADP-ribose gating of the calcium-permeable LTRPC2 channel revealed by Nudix motif homology

Free ADP-ribose (ADPR), a product of NAD hydrolysis and a breakdown product of the calcium-release second messenger cyclic ADPR (cADPR), has no defined role as an intracellular signalling molecule in vertebrate systems. Here we show that a 350-amino-acid protein (designated NUDT9) and a homologous domain (NUDT9 homology domain) near the carboxy terminus of the LTRPC2/TrpC7 putative cation channel both function as specific ADPR pyrophosphatases. Whole-cell and single-channel analysis of HEK-293 cells expressing LTRPC2 show that LTRPC2 functions as a calcium-permeable cation channel that is specifically gated by free ADPR. The expression of native LTRPC2 transcripts is detectable in many tissues including the U937 monocyte cell line, in which ADPR induces large cation currents (designated IADPR) that closely match those mediated by recombinant LTRPC2. These results indicate that intracellular ADPR regulates calcium entry into cells that express LTRPC2.
Fermionic quasi-particle representations for characters of (G (1) ) 1 × (G (1) ) 1 /(G (1) ) 2

Abstract We present fermionic quasi-particle sum representations for some of the characters (or branching functions) of ( G (1) ) 1 × ( G (1) ) 1 ( G (1) ) 2 for all simply-laced Lie algebras G. For given G the charactters are written as the partition function of a set of rank G types of massless quasi-particles in certain charge sectors, with nontrivial lower bounds on the one-particle momenta. We discuss the non-uniqueness of the representation for the identity character of the critical Ising model, which arises in both the A1 and E8 cases.
Curriculum for the Hospitalized Aging Medical Patient Review

Geriatricians, hospitalists, general medicine faculty, and PhD educators at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine designed the Curriculum for the Hospitalized Aging Medical Patient (CHAMP) with support from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. It represents a comprehensive faculty development curriculum in hospital-based geriatrics. The program comprises multiple educational modules including PowerPoint presentations, bedside teaching triggers, and workshops for faculty learners. The curriculum includes evaluation instruments, observed structured teaching exercises, and pocket teaching cards with pearls for ward-based teaching.
Chapter 10 Kainate-induced changes in gene expression in the rat hippocampus

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the effects of kainate on the expression of opioid peptides and transcription factor genes. The molecular events that regulate gene expression are examined with an emphasis on the mechanisms that modulate the proenkephalin promotor activity. The opioid peptides expressed in the hippocampus include enkephalins and dynorphins. Both enkephalin- and dynorphin-related peptides are produced from precursor proteins. The 31 kDa proenkephalin is proteolyzed into five Metenkephalin and one Leu-enkephalin-containing peptides. Dynorphin A, dynorphin B (rimorphin), and α-neo-endorphin peptides are processed from the prodynorphin protein. These peptides are stored in synaptic vesicles and released by stimulation. Although their exact function is unknown, the opioid peptides are considered to be neuromodulators. Excitation of the hippocampal neuronal pathways by kainate administration increases opioid peptide gene expression and the release of opioid peptides. The amount of opioid peptide mRNA produced in the dentate gyrus is positively correlated with neuronal stimulation; prodynorphin increases several-fold within the first 3 h after kainate treatment and declines to near basal levels after 24 h. The levels of the proenkephalin message peak at 6 h after kainate injection and are still elevated 2–3-fold 48 h later.
Musculoskeletal health in South Georgia farmworkers: a mixed methods study.

OBJECTIVE Musculoskeletal injuries are recognized as an important health issue for farmworkers. This study aimed to assess musculoskeletal health in South Georgia farmworkers through an exploration of pain status, health beliefs, occupational tasks, work conditions, access to care, and demographics. PARTICIPANTS Interviews were conducted with 83 farmworkers at pro bono medical clinics. METHODS Mixed methods interview topics, based upon an adapted theoretical model, included: work history, current work practices, musculoskeletal symptoms, health beliefs, acculturation, general health, access to care, and demographics. RESULTS Pain was reported by 81.9% of participants. The low back (57.4%) and mid back (52.9%) were the most commonly reported sites of pain. Adapted model constructs were identified quantitatively and qualitatively. Open-ended responses described health beliefs, barriers to accessing care, and farmworkers' sense of responsibility to provide for their families. CONCLUSIONS Data revealed that musculoskeletal pain is common and suggest associations with work tasks and conditions. Numerous barriers to accessing care exist and must be considered. Solutions may include farm-based prevention, enhanced education, improved measurement tools, and ongoing use of ecological models to guide research and interventions.
Beyond invention: the additive impact of incubation capabilities to firm value

Incubation is a process whereby the firm nurtures breakthrough discoveries and inventions to test their potential as new business platforms. The recent emergence of organizational roles associated with innovation incubation shows that internal incubation is becoming recognized as an important organizational capability. This development also suggests that firms that invest in discovery for competitive advantage recognize a need to leverage that investment more fully. While case studies describe incubation activities and note their importance, empirical research linking this capability to firm performance is limited. The current study represents an initial attempt at exploring the relationship empirically. Our main finding is that financial markets have difficulty valuing a firm's exploratory discovery investments and that the presence of an incubation capability positively moderates the impact of such investments on firm market valuation. The implication of this result is that investments in certain types of R&D may be suboptimized if there is not a parallel investment in a capability to incubate the opportunities that arise from potentially breakthrough inventions.
1057 UNDERESTIMATION OF S. AUREUS TOLERANCE

Recent work indicates that antibiotic tolerance among S. aureus strains may be of clinical importance. The percentage of strains found to be tolerant varies greatly in published reports. In addition, the percentage of the bacteria within the tolerant strains has also differed greatly (from 0.1% to nearly 50%). The different techniques used by individual investigators may account for these discrepancies. We report here that a major cause of underestimating tolerance is the carryover of antibiotic from the tubes used to determine the minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) to the blood agar subculture plates that are used to identify and count the surviving organisms. We consider a strain to be tolerant if more than 0.1% of its bacterial population survives 18 hours in 32 times the concentration of the MIC and is able to grow when subcultured onto a blood agar plate. It has been assumed that spreading the incubated antibiotic-containing broth culture onto agar plates removed the inhibitory effect of the drug. However, when we tested 15 S. aureus strains by the standard method only 5 qualified as tolerant. In contrast, when the inhibitory effect of the antibiotic was removed by twentyfold dilution before plating, 5 additional strains were found to be tolerant. Also, in all 15 strains tested a greater number of bacteria survived at 32 times the MIC than occurred with the standard method.
Abstract 601: Essential role of LRF in mesenchymal stem cell differentiation and tumorigenesis through Dlk1 and Sox9 repression

Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA The regulatory factors governing the initial steps of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) commitment and differentiation are largely unknown, and the role of MSCs in the genesis of mesenchymal tumors (sarcomas) has not been fully elucidated. In recent years, several genes and pathways have been characterized as important regulators of these cells’ differentiation into adipocytes, chondrocytes and osteoblasts. Although extremely valuable, these data have been mainly generated using cell lines or mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), leaving a more reliable model, such as one based on primary multi-potent MSCs, completely unexplored. To fill this gap, we have established new conditions enabling us to manipulate in vitro primary MSCs while maintaining their stemness properties, and have taken advantage of a series of genetically engineered mouse models to unravel a new role for LRF as both a master regulator of MSC differentiation and a tumor suppressor gene in mesenchymal tumors through the repression of two major pathways: DLK1/MAPK and SOX9. Mesenchymal tumors, although rare, have an extremely high rate of mortality, due to a lack of knowledge of the molecular mechanisms responsible for their genesis and progression, and consequently a limited number of available drugs. Our recent findings, however, significantly advance our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying sarcoma pathogenesis, and identify new LRF/DLK1/MAPK and LRF/SOX9 pathways that could prove fundamental to the stratification and targeted therapy of LRF-negative sarcomas. Citation Format: Jlenia Guarnerio, Andrea Lunardi, Pier Paolo Pandolfi. Essential role of LRF in mesenchymal stem cell differentiation and tumorigenesis through Dlk1 and Sox9 repression. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 601. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-601
Orbits and origins of the young stars in the central parsec of the galaxy

We present new proper motions from the 10 m Keck telescopes for a puzzling population of massive, young stars located within a parsec of the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center. Our proper motion measurements have uncertainties of only 0.07 mas yr^(−1) (3 km s^(−1) ), which is ≳7 times better than previous proper motion measurements for these stars, and enables us to measure accelerations as low as 0.2 mas yr^(−2) (7 km s^(−1) yr^(−1) ). These measurements, along with stellar line-of-sight velocities from the literature, constrain the true orbit of each individual star and allow us to directly test the hypothesis that the massive stars reside in two stellar disks as has been previously proposed. Analysis of the stellar orbits reveals only one disk of young stars using a method that is capable of detecting disks containing at least 7 stars. The detected disk contains 50% (38 of 73) of the young stars, is inclined by ~115° from the plane of the sky, and is oriented at a position angle of ∼100° East of North. The on-disk and off-disk populations have similar K-band luminosity functions and radial distributions that decrease at larger radii as ∝ r^(−2). The disk has an out-of-the-disk velocity dispersion of 28±6 km s^(−1) , which corresponds to a half-opening angle of 7°±2° , and several candidate disk members have eccentricities greater than 0.2. Our findings suggest that the young stars may have formed in situ but in a more complex geometry than a simple thin circular disk.