cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Rapid EEG desynchronization and EMG activation induced by intravenous cocaine in freely moving rats: a peripheral, nondopamine neural triggering

Many important physiological, behavioral, and psychoemotional effects of intravenous (IV) cocaine (COC) are too fast and transient compared with pharmacokinetic predictions, suggesting a possible involvement of peripheral neural mechanisms in their triggering. In the present study, we examined changes in cortical electroencephalogram (EEG) and neck electromyogram (EMG) induced in freely moving rats by IV COC administration at low, reinforcing doses (0.25–1.0 mg/kg) and compared them with those induced by an auditory stimulus and IV COC methiodide, which cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. We found that COC induces rapid, strong, and prolonged EEG desynchronization, associated with decrease in alpha and increase in beta and gamma activities, and EMG activation and that both begin within 2–6 s following the start of a 10-s injection; immediate components of this effect were dose independent. The rapid COC-induced changes in EEG and EMG resembled those induced by an auditory stimulus; the latter effects had shorter onset latencies and durations and were fully blocked during urethane anesthesia. Although urethane anesthesia completely blocked COC-induced EMG activation and rapid components of EEG response, COC still induced EEG desynchronization that was much weaker, greatly delayed (∼60 s), and associated with tonic decreases in delta and increases in alpha, beta, and gamma activities. Surprisingly, IV saline delivered during slow-wave sleep (but not quite wakefulness) also induced a transient EEG desynchronization but without changes in EMG activity; these effects were also fully blocked during anesthesia. Peripherally acting COC methiodide fully mimicked rapid EEG and EMG effects of regular COC, but the effects at an equimolar dose were less prolonged than those with regular COC. These data suggest that in awake animals IV COC, like somato-sensory stimuli, induces cortical activation and a subsequent motor response via its action on peripheral neural elements and involving rapid neural transmission. By providing a rapid neural signal and triggering transient neural activation, such an action might play a crucial role in the sensory effects of COC, thus contributing to the learning and development of drug-taking behavior.
Emergence of spatial awareness in self configuring sensor networks

Computers have come a long way since the ENIAC. The desktop that found its way into everyone's study no longer remained the bastion of computing. Radical new technologies like sensor networks are forcing researchers to look beyond the Von Neumann architecture and seek inspiration beyond traditional computing systems. The current work uses principles of amorphous computing to enable a system of homogenous sensor nodes to self-organize into a connected network with a defined topology. A state machine encodes a set of rules representing the micro-behavior of each of these nodes. Subsequently, these nodes evolve using swarm intelligence to locally propagate spatial information leading to the emergence of spatial awareness. It also deals with the multiple challenges faced in designing a de-centralized system to exhibit self-organization and emergence; challenges like getting a homogenous bunch of nodes endowed with identical intelligence to behave differently and overcome the information barrier to achieve self-organization and spatial awareness.
Adjuvant therapy of stage III and IV malignant melanoma using granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor

PURPOSE: To evaluate granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) as surgical adjuvant therapy in patients with malignant melanoma who are at high risk of recurrence. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Forty-eight assessable patients with stage III or IV melanoma were treated in a phase II trial with long-term, chronic, intermittent GM-CSF after surgical resection of disease. Patients with stage III disease were required to have more than four positive nodes or a more than 3-cm mass. All patients were rendered clinically disease-free by surgery before enrollment. The GM-CSF was administered subcutaneously in 28-day cycles, such that a dose of 125 μg/m2 was delivered daily for 14 days followed by 14 days of rest. Treatment cycles continued for 1 year or until disease recurrence. Patients were evaluated for toxicity and disease-free and overall survival. RESULTS: Overall and disease-free survival were significantly prolonged in patients who received GM-CSF compared with matched historical controls. The medi...
Adaptive resource allocation in particle filtering for articulated object tracking

This paper presents a novel particle allocation approach to particle filtering for articulated object tracking which minimizes the total tracking distortion given a fixed number of particles over a video sequence. Under the framework of decentralized articulated object tracking, we propose the dynamic proposal variance and optimal particle number allocation algorithm for articulated object tracking to allocate particles among different parts of the articulated object as well as different frames. Experimental results show the superior performance of our proposed algorithm to traditional particle allocation methods, i.e. a fixed number of particles for each object part in each frame. To the best of our knowledge, our approach is the first to provide an optimal allocation of a fixed number of particles among different object parts and different frames.
Activity, Growth, Reproduction, and Population Structure of Desert Box Turtles (Terrapene ornata luteola) at the Northern Edge of the Chihuahuan Desert

Abstract Gathering natural history information on a species is a necessary first step in understanding its ecology, which can lead to hypothesis generation and the data necessary for its conservation. I studied desert box turtles (Terrapene ornata luteola) at the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge in central New Mexico at the northern periphery of this subspecies in the Chihuahuan Desert. I recorded locations and marked all box turtles found in the northeastern part of the refuge over 23 yrs during trips to the site in 1986–1989, 1998, and 2008. I found that desert box turtles at the site sometimes were active in May and early June, but were most active in late June or early July into early October, with greatest activity in July and August. Numbers of box turtles on roads were significantly correlated with air temperature but not precipitation. Daily activity was bimodal during peak activity months. Growth was fairly rapid until about 10 yrs of age and then leveled off dramatically. The largest adults we...
Physical objects as bidirectional user interface elements

The planar manipulator display uses physical objects for human-computer interaction. This system addresses the poor match between standard computer interfaces and human spatial awareness. The desire to take advantage of these abilities was our primary motivation in developing the planar manipulator display (PMD). The PMD uses movable physical objects as a means of human-computer interaction. Our work extends research on the use of tracked physical objects as tangible input elements by providing a practical method to use bidirectional physical elements, whereby objects can be moved both by users and by the computer.
Superficial bladder cancer: part 2. Management.

In the second section of a two-part article, the recent literature is reviewed and the management of nonmuscle-invasive transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder is discussed. Particular attention is given to the indications and timing of intravesical chemotherapy and immunotherapy and the differences in efficacy and side-effect profiles of the available agents. The indications and role of second-look transurethral resection are reviewed. Additionally, the role of bacillus Calmette–Guerin in the management of this disease in terms of definitive treatment and maintenance therapy is discussed. We also offer a review of the literature regarding therapies for bacillus Calmette–Guerin-refractory nonmuscle-invasive transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder and their current place in practice.
Leakage-aware compilation for VLIW architectures

Power consumption has been widely recognised as the most important design limiter for continued increase in the number of transistors integrated into a chip. Specifically, static power consumption has emerged as a significant concern in newer technologies with smaller threshold voltages and feature sizes. Addressing this important challenge requires solutions at different levels of a chip design, ranging from improvements in fabrication process to energy-aware software design. The paper shows how a compiler can play an important role in reducing the leakage power consumption. The strategy is built upon a data-flow analysis that identifies basic blocks that do not use a given functional unit. Collecting this information from all basic blocks in the code, it then inserts activate/deactivate instructions in the code to set/reset a sleep signal which controls leakage current of functional units. To evaluate the effectiveness of their strategy, the authors implemented different versions of it using an experimental compiler and simulation environment and conducted experiments using a VLIW (very long instruction word) architecture and several media applications as well as array-intensive codes. Their experimental results show that the proposed compiler-based strategy is very effective in reducing leakage energy of functional units.
Reflectance of Magnesium Oxide

Measurements have been made of the spectral reflectivity of electrostatically deposited magnesium oxide smoke coating from thicknesses of 0.2 mm to 8.0 mm. The theory of the photometric sphere was used to determine the coefficient of reflection. A glass sphere was used to avoid the reflective effects of an opaque material and to determine the uniformity of the coating. It was found that at 8.0 mm thickness, light from a source placed inside the sphere could be visibly detected through the coating. For thick coatings, the reflectivity was in good agreement with that reported by Benford, Lloyd, and Schwartz. However, at the thinner coatings the results were in reasonable agreement with Middleton and Sanders’ results. The color inside the illuminated sphere depended upon the coating thickness, and changed from a bluish cast through green to ivory as the thickness increased.
Discrete time robust control via state feedback for single input systems

A nonlinear robust state feedback controller for discrete-time uncertain systems is proposed. The uncertainties in the system must satisfy the matching condition, but only their bounds need to be known. The controller is designed via the second method of Lyapunov. The detailed derivation of the controller for single-input systems is given. The system response remains in the neighborhood of the zero state if uncertainties are small. The uncertainty bound for the stability condition is derived. >
Nuclear Transfer Technology in Mammalian Cloning

Abstract The past several years have witnessed remarkable progress in mammalian cloning using nuclear transfer (NT). Until 1997 and the announcement of the successful cloning of sheep from adult mammary gland or fetal fibroblast cells (1), our working assumption was that cloning by NT could only be accomplished with relatively undifferentiated embryonic cells. Indeed, live offspring were first produced by NT over 15 years ago from totipotent, embryonic blastomeres derived from early cleavage-stage embryos. However, once begun, the progression to somatic cell cloning or NT employing differentiated cells as the source of donor nuclei was meteoric, initially involving differentiated embryonic cell cultures in sheep in 1996 (2) and quickly thereafter, fetal or adult somatic cells in sheep, cow, mouse, goat, and pig. Several recent reviews provide a background for and discussion of these successes (3–6). Here we will focus on the potential uses of reproductive cloning along with recent activities in the field and a discussion concerning current interests in human reproductive and therapeutic cloning.
Nonresident Father Involvement and Child Well-Being: Can Dads Make a Difference?

Using data from the child supplement to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a series of multivariate regression models were tested to determine whether father visitation or the payment of child support are significantly associated with several measures of child welleing. The results indicate that there is limited evidence to support the hypothesis that nonresident father involvement has positive benefits for children. The strongest evidence is for the effect of child support in the domain of academics.
Acanthocephala from China. I. New Species and New Genera from Chinese Fishes1

In 1916, the writer (Van Cleave, 1916) called attention to the fact that lack of published records should not be taken as an indication of scarcity of Acanthocephalans in the Chinese fauna. A single species of Centrorhynchus has been described from a magpie, and Faust (1921 a) has recorded the species common in the hog. As yet, apart from these two specific identifications, the acanthocephalan fauna of China has remained unknown.
BDD, BNN, and FPGA on fuzzy techniques for rapid system analysis

This paper looks at techniques to simplify data analysis of large multivariate military sensor systems. The approach is illustrated using representative raw data froma video-scene analyzer. First, develop fuzzy neural net relations usingMatlab. This represents the best fidelity fit to the data and will be used as reference for comparison. The data is then converted to Boolean, and using Boolean Decision Diagrams (BDD) techniques, to find similar relations between input vectors and output parameter. It will be shown that such Boolean techniques offer dramatic improvement in systemanalysis time, and withminor loss of fidelity. To further this study, Boolean Neural Net techniques (BNN) were employed to bridge the Fuzzy Neural Network (FNN) to BDD representations of the data. Neural network approaches give an estimation method for the complexity of Boolean Decision Diagrams, and this can be used to predict the complexity of digital circuits. The neural network model can be used for complexity estimation over a set of BDDs derived from Boolean logic expressions. Experimental results show good correlation with theoretical results and give insights to the complexity. The BNN representations can be useful as a means to FPGA implementation of the system relationships and can be used in embedded processor based multi-variate situations.
Survival of Imported Fire Ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Species Subjected to Freezing and Near-Freezing Temperatures

Survival at low temperatures is an important parameter determining distribution of imported Þre ants in the United States. Supercooling points and survival at low temperatures, and the effects of species, individual size, and Thelohania solenopsae Knell, Allen & Hazard (Microsporida: Thelohaniidae) infection on these parameters, were examined. We tested Solenopsis richteri Forel, S. richteri X invicta hybrid, and Solenopsis invicta Buren. Great variation was observed in the supercooling points, which are not an appropriate measure of cold hardiness for imported Þre ants. When exposed to near-freezing temperatures above their supercooling points, Þre ants died at different rates depending on the species and T. solenopsae-infection status. Extended exposure to 4C resulted in both the hybrid and S. invicta infected with T. solenopsae having signiÞcantly lower mortality rates than either the S. richteri or the uninfected S. invicta. At 0.5C, the hybrids had signiÞcantly lower mortality than the uninfected S. invicta, but mortalities for S. richteri and T. solenopsae-infected S. invicta were not signiÞcantly different from each other or the hybrid. Ant mortality was 100% for all ant types after 7da t4C. The uninfected S. invicta was consistently less cold-tolerant than the other ant types. The hybrid Þre ants and the T. solenopsae-infected S. invicta had the lowest mortalities. These results support the hypothesis that extended cold injury causes winter kill of Þre ants, and may partially explain the distribution of Þre ant species in the United States.
G. W. Beadle

George Wells Beadle was born in 1903 and died in 1989. During his lifetime, the science of genetics changed dramatically. Beadle contributed definitively to that change. Perhaps more than that of any other investigator, his work prepared the way for the transition from neoclassical to molecular genetics. His contributions were recognized with a Nobel Prize and many other high honors.
Die Veränderungstheorie der Multisystemischen Therapie

Inhalte dieses Kapitels Die sozial-okologische Theorie als konzeptueller Rahmen fur die MST Die Veranderungstheorie der MST Die empirische Evidenz fur die Veranderungstheorie der MST
The EU's New Impact on U.S. Environmental Regulation

Due to its increasing size and growing regulatory momentum, the European Union is quickly becoming an alternative power center to the United States in the field of environmental policy. Within the past several years, there has consequently been an emerging and discernible trend of EU policy and law on the environmental laws and policy of United States. This piece explores the new European chemicals legislation on Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) as one example of this back impact. Because REACH will affect virtually all multinational corporations, its impacts will be global, including the United States. The article explores some of the public policy consequences of this new phenomenon, in which the U.S. is on the receiving end of regulatory policy crafted in Brussels.
Epidemiological analysis of mumps in Guancheng district of Zhengzhou city from 2005 to 2010

Objective To analyze the epidemiological characteristics of mumps in Guancheng district and to provide scientific evidences for controlling and preventing measures. Methods The data of mumps were collected by infectious diseases report system in Guancheng district from 2005 to 2010, then analyzed by descriptive epidemiological method. Results The incidence of mumps was 45.66/100 000 in Guancheng district from 2005 to 2010. The peak of mumps was from March to June and from November to next January. The incidence rate of mumps in those of from 3 to 15 years old was the highest. Most of the cases were students at school and children in kindergartens. Conclusion In work of prevention and control mumps, students at school and children in kindergartens are the key populations. The most important measures for mumps prevention and control are to strengthen monitoring, healthy education in primary schools and kindergartens must be carried out to reduce the incidence.
Service resource's adaptive perception and load-balance of data exchanging bus

Vast amounts of data request and distribution exist in large-scale military simulation,which are managed by the data exchanging bus.The architecture of bus has become more and more complex while the data interacting increasingly.And the management of bus has become an important issue in large-scale distributed simulation.Quality of data interaction is the key to running system smoothly,especially during the real-time,remote and distributed training.This paper carries out prototype system combining with interactive needs for model platform.Under the test for this mechanism in a variety of conditions and interaction request,the results show that mechanism can significantly improve the quality of service interactions in a complicated network environment and various link-types,and then provides a guarantee for model platform to run stably.
Analysis of methylation, acetylation, and other modifications in bacterial ribosomal proteins.

A wide variety of posttranslational modifications of expressed proteins are known to occur in living organisms (Krishna R, Wold F. Post-translational modification of proteins. In: Meister A (ed) Advances in enzymology and related areas of molecular biology. Wiley, New York, 1993, pp 265-296). Although their presence in an organism cannot be predicted from the genome, these modifications can play critical roles in protein structure and function. The identification of posttranslational modifications is critical to our understanding of the functions of proteins involved in important biological pathways and mass spectrometry offers a fast, accurate method for observing them. A combined top-down/bottom-up approach can be used for identification and localization of posttranslational modifications of ribosomal proteins. This chapter describes procedures for analyzing Escherichia coli ribosomal proteins and their modifications by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry. It also covers the analysis of gram-negative Caulobacter crescentus and gram-positive Bacillus subtilis ribosomal proteins by electrospray quadrupole time-of-flight (ESI-QTOF) mass spectrometry. Confirmation of the occurrence and localization of PTMs is obtained through mass spectrometric analysis of tryptic peptides.
Combined Treatment with a Dithiosemicarbazonc and Oxytetracycline to Eliminate Anaplasma marginale Infections in Splcnectomizcd Calves

Summary A total of 12 treatment schedules combining Oxytetracycline and an alpha-dithiosemicarbazone were tested in 36 splcnectomizcd calves carrying Anaplasma marginale infectious. Anaplasma infection was eliminated following the administration of 5 or 10 mg./kg. dithiosemicarbazonc combined with 11 mg./kg. Oxytetracycline, and given 3 times at 24 or 48 hr. intervals. Treatments employing lower drug levels, fewer injections, or at greater time intervals failed to eliminate infection. Treated splcnectomizcd calves failing to show evidence of an A. marginale relapsing infection within 62 days were found to be free of infection on the basis of iujectivity trials conducted an average of 87 days after treatment, and by re-inoculation with A. marignale an average of 164 days after treatment.
Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO2 on Cu and Au/W Electrode Surfaces: Empirical (DEMS) Confirmation of Computational (DFT) Predictions

This work describes the employment of differential electrochemical mass spectrometry (DEMS) as a supplementary experimental approach to theory in the study of the reaction mechanism of the Cu-catalyzed electrochemical reduction of CO_2 by investigating the reduction of reactants and (postulated) intermediates. The empirical inferences: (i) CO is one of the first products of CO_2 reduction, as well as the first intermediate in the formation of more reduced products. (ii) Formaldehyde is not a precursor for C=C bond formation but is an intermediate for the production of methane and ethanol. (iii) Both methane and ethanol can be generated from CO_2 through the protonation of CO and through the HCHO intermediate. (iv) The generation of CH_4 and CH_3CH_2OH from CO and CO_2 has a much higher activation barrier than from HCHO; not unexpected since the formaldehyde intermediate is formed after the (computationally determined) rate-limiting CO-protonation step. In this work, DEMS was also used to test the theoretical prediction suggesting the viability of a bimetallic near-surface alloy (NSA) consisting of Au and W as a CO_2-reduction electrocatalyst selective towards the formation of methanol as a product, as opposed to methane, ethylene or ethanol. At an overlayer NSA that consisted of n monolayers (ML) of Au on a polycrystalline W electrode, W(pc)-n[(1×1)-Au], no methane, methanol, ethylene or ethanol was detected when the coverage of Au was at submonolayer (n = 0.5) or multilayer (n ≥ 2) coverages. However, when the NSA contained only 1 ML of Au, methanol was generated exclusively.
The HERMIT in the Tree - Mechanizing Program Transformations in the GHC Core Language.

This paper describes our experience using the HERMIT toolkit to apply well-known transformations to the internal core language of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler. HERMIT provides several mechanisms to support writing general-purpose transformations: a domain-specific language for strategic programming specialized to GHC’s core language, a library of primitive rewrites, and a shell-style–based scripting language for interactive and batch usage. There are many program transformation techniques that have been described in the literature but have not been mechanized and made available inside GHC — either because they are too specialized to include in a general-purpose compiler, or because the developers’ interest is in theory rather than implementation. The mechanization process can often reveal pragmatic obstacles that are glossed over in pen-and-paper proofs; understanding and removing these obstacles is our concern. Using HERMIT, we implement eleven examples of three program transformations, report on our experience, and describe improvements made in the process.
Integration of a Community Pharmacy Simulation Program into a Therapeutics Course

Objective. To demonstrate the feasibility of integrating the computer simulation, MyDispense, into a therapeutics course and to measure its effects on student perception and learning. Methods. We conducted a prospective study with an experimental phase and an implementation phase. In the first phase, students were randomized to complete a therapeutics case using MyDispense or traditional paper methods in class. In the second phase, all students completed two therapeutic cases using MyDispense in class with the option to complete four additional outside-of-class cases using MyDispense. Students completed pre- and post-tests in class and three surveys. Results. In the experimental phase, mean test scores increased from pre- to post-test for both MyDispense and traditional paper groups, but the difference between the groups was not statistically significant. Students in the traditional paper group reported statistically significant gains in confidence compared to the MyDispense group. In the implementation phase, mean test scores again increased, however, student perception of the use of MyDispense for therapeutics was negative. Completing the optional outside-of-class cases, however, was positively and significantly correlated with the midterm and final examination scores. Conclusion. Implementation of MyDispense in therapeutics may be feasible and has positive effects (eg, correlation with exam scores, capacity for immediate feedback, and potential for effective self-study). With short-term use and in the absence of assessment methods that also require seeking information from patients, students prefer to learn via traditional paper cases.
Absolute Enumeration of Probiotic Strains Lactobacillus acidophilus NCFM® and Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis Bl-04 ® via Chip-Based Digital PCR.

The current standard for enumeration of probiotics to obtain colony forming units by plate counts has several drawbacks: long time to results, high variability and the inability to discern between bacterial strains. Accurate probiotic cell counts are important to confirm the delivery of a clinically documented dose for its associated health benefits. A method is described using chip-based digital PCR (cdPCR) to enumerate Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis Bl-04 and Lactobacillus acidophilus NCFM both as single strains and in combination. Primers and probes were designed to differentiate the target strains against other strains of the same species using known single copy, genetic differences. The assay was optimized to include propidium monoazide pre-treatment to prevent amplification of DNA associated with dead probiotic cells as well as liberation of DNA from cells with intact membranes using bead beating. The resulting assay was able to successfully enumerate each strain whether alone or in multiplex. The cdPCR method had a 4 and 5% relative standard deviation (RSD) for Bl-04 and NCFM, respectively, making it more precise than plate counts with an industry accepted RSD of 15%. cdPCR has the potential to replace traditional plate counts because of its precision, strain specificity and the ability to obtain results in a matter of hours.
Coping and violence perpetration in a residential substance use disorder treatment sample.

Background: Individuals in substance use disorder treatment report high rates of violence against partners and non-partners. There is growing interest in integrated coping-oriented treatment approa...
Temporal Modeling Using Dilated Convolution and Gating for Voice-Activity-Detection

Voice activity detection (VAD) is the task of predicting which parts of an utterance contains speech versus background noise. It is an important first step to determine which samples to send to the decoder and when to close the microphone. The long short-term memory neural network (LSTM) is a popular architecture for sequential modeling of acoustic signals, and has been successfully used in several VAD applications. However, it has been observed that LSTMs suffer from state saturation problems when the utterance is long (i.e., for voice dictation tasks), and thus requires the LSTM state to be periodically reset. In this paper, we propose an alternative architecture that does not suffer from saturation problems by modeling temporal variations through a stateless dilated convolution neural network (CNN). The proposed architecture differs from conventional CNNs in three respects: it uses dilated causal convolution, gated activations and residual connections. Results on a Google Voice Typing task shows that the proposed architecture achieves 14% relative FA improvement at a FR of 1% over state-of-the-art LSTMs for VAD task. We also include detailed experiments investigating the factors that distinguish the proposed architecture from conventional convolution.
ASD or ELL? Distinguishing Differences in Patterns of Communication and Behavior

How do school professionals distinguish between social, communication, and behavioral differences observed in typically developing English language learners (ELLs) and those ELL students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)? Informed consideration is necessary to avoid inaccurate identification and to ensure appropriate supports are provided; however, little attention has been paid to this topic. Amongst Latino children in particular, ASD is thought to be under identified. This discrepancy may result in limited access to critical intervention services that could improve the functioning of the individual across the lifespan. Differences in language acquisition, social communication, pragmatic speech, socialization, behaviors, and nonverbal communication may be observed in typical ELLs as well as students with ASD. This article will provide a comparison of manifestations of normative second language acquisition (SLA) in ELL students and social communication deficits and behaviors associated with ASD. Practitioners will gain increased understanding of these subtle functional differences. Recommendations for specific assessment procedures are included as well as recommendations for future research.
Assessing trends in urinary diversion after radical cystectomy for bladder cancer in the United States.

Abstract Objectives We assessed recent trends in both urinary diversion after radical cystectomy for bladder cancer in the United States and patient- and hospital-related characteristics. We also identified variables associated with undergoing continent diversion. Materials and methods We queried the National Cancer Database and identified 27,170 patients who underwent radical cystectomy with urinary diversion from 2004 to 2013. Patient demographics, socioeconomic variables, and hospital-related factors were compared between incontinent and continent diversion and trended over time. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify variables associated with undergoing continent diversion. Results Overall, 23,224 (85.5%) and 3,946 (14.5%) patients underwent incontinent and continent diversion, respectively. Continent diversion declined from 17.2% in 2004 to 2006 to 12.1% in 2010 to 2013 (P 60 miles for care were significantly associated with undergoing continent diversion. Rate of continent diversion has declined in most patient- and hospital-related subgroups. Compared to 2004 to 2006, patients in 2010 to 2013 were more likely to be older, have more comorbidities, and be operated on at a high-volume academic facility. Conclusion The rate of continent diversion has declined to 12.1% in the United States. Hospital volume and type, patient income, distance traveled for care, and geography are significantly associated with undergoing continent diversion. Even among high-volume and academic centers, the rate of continent diversion is declining.
Prevalence of asthma in multiple sclerosis: A United States population-based study.

Abstract Background Multiple sclerosis (MS) and asthma are complex multifactorial diseases which adversely impact daily functioning. However, the prevalence of asthma in those with MS is not clear. The objective of this study is to characterize the prevalence of asthma in those with MS, with considerations for age, gender, and race. Methods We conducted a U.S. population-based, cross-sectional study of electronic health record information for 56.6 million Americans available in the IBM® Explorys EPM: Explore database. We evaluated the prevalence of asthma in MS (N = 141,880) and non-MS (N = 56,416,790) cohorts, stratifying by age, gender, and race (All, White Americans, and African Americans). Results The prevalence of asthma was significantly greater among those with MS than the general population across age, gender, and racial subpopulations. Adjusting for age and gender, asthma was three times more common in MS. In the MS cohort, the prevalence of asthma had a U-shaped distribution with respect to age, with the greatest asthma prevalence among the young and the elderly (> 20% prevalence among those Conclusion Asthma is significantly more common in those with MS than in the general population – particularly in the young and elderly – irrespective of gender and race. The results add to the growing MS comorbidity literature, and emphasizes the need for comorbidity management as a part of comprehensive MS patient care.
Molecular structure analyses suggest strategies to therapeutically target SARS-CoV-2.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists around the globe have been working resolutely to find therapies to treat patients and avert the spreading of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In this commentary, we highlight some of the latest studies that provide atomic-resolution structural details imperative for the development of vaccines and antiviral therapeutics.
Nanofibrillar cellulose/Au@Ag nanoparticle nanocomposite as a SERS substrate for detection of paraquat and thiram in lettuce

A nanocomposite based on nanofibrillar cellulose (NFC) coated with gold–silver (core-shell) nanoparticles (Au@Ag NPs) was developed as a novel surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) substrate. SERS performance of NFC/Au@Ag NP nanocomposite was tested by 4-mercaptobenzoic acid. The cellulose nanofibril network was a suitable platform that allowed Au@Ag NPs to be evenly distributed and stabilized over the substrate, providing more SERS hotspots for the measurement. Two pesticides, thiram and paraquat, were successfully detected either individually or as a mixture in lettuce by SERS coupled with the nanocomposite. Strong Raman scattering signals for both thiram and paraquat were obtained within a Raman shift range of 400–2000 cm−1 and a Raman intensity ~ 8 times higher than those acquired by NFC/Au NP nanocomposite. Characteristic peaks were clearly observable in all SERS spectra even at a low concentration of 10 μg/L of pesticides. Limit of detection values of 71 and 46 μg/L were obtained for thiram and paraquat, respectively. Satisfactory SERS performance, reproducibility, and sensitivity of NFC/Au@Ag NP nanocomposite validate its applicability for real-world analysis to monitor pesticides and other contaminants in complex food matrices within a short acquisition time.
Maternal Depression and Mother-Child Oxytocin Synchrony in Youth with Anxiety Disorders

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) plays a central role in the regulation of affiliative bonds and anxiety. However, the degree to which its levels are synchronized between interaction partners has not yet been assessed. Physiological synchrony assessed using other peripheral measures (e.g., heart rate, etc.) has been tied to positive outcomes for the individual and the dyad. The present study examined OT synchrony in the context of child anxiety and maternal depression by examining mother-child dyads. Mothers and their children with anxiety disorders participated in a behavioral interaction task. Changes in OT levels and mother-child OT synchrony before and after the interaction, as well as their moderation by maternal depression, were assessed. Ninety-eight youth with anxiety disorders (ages 10 to 17) and their mothers underwent psychiatric evaluation, and mothers rated their own depressive symptoms and their children's behavior problems. Salivary OT was assayed from mother and child before and after the task. Behavioral coding showed that interactions were characterized by high behavioral synchrony between mothers and their children, and both individuals displayed higher levels of positive vs. negative affect during the interactions. Mothers and their children also showed decreases in OT levels after the interaction. As hypothesized, OT synchrony increased following the task, but only dyads in which mothers showed high levels of depressive symptoms showed this increase. As hypothesized, lower levels of OT-synchrony were associated with higher levels of child internalizing symptoms. The findings suggest that positive interactions may be beneficial for youth with anxiety disorders with mothers with depression.
Situating Leadership in the Aesthetics of the Everyday in Higher Education Kinesiology

The aim of this theoretical discussion is to examine leader and follower dynamics within the context of the aesthetics of the everyday philosophy. The author theorizes that leadership is an everyda...
Quantifying Uncertainty in Deep Spatiotemporal Forecasting

Deep learning is gaining increasing popularity for spatiotemporal forecasting. However, prior works have mostly focused on point estimates without quantifying the uncertainty of the predictions. In high stakes domains, being able to generate probabilistic forecasts with confidence intervals is critical to risk assessment and decision making. Hence, a systematic study of uncertainty quantification (UQ) methods for spatiotemporal forecasting is missing in the community. In this paper, we describe two types of spatiotemporal forecasting problems: regular grid-based and graph-based. Then we analyze UQ methods from both the Bayesian and the frequentist point of view, casting in a unified framework via statistical decision theory. Through extensive experiments on real-world road network traffic, epidemics, and air quality forecasting tasks, we reveal the statistical and computational trade-offs for different UQ methods: Bayesian methods are typically more robust in mean prediction, while confidence levels obtained from frequentist methods provide more extensive coverage over data variations. Computationally, quantile regression type methods are cheaper for a single confidence interval but require re-training for different intervals. Sampling based methods generate samples that can form multiple confidence intervals, albeit at a higher computational cost.
Eccentric Sensing Devices: Using Conceptual Design Notes to Understand Design Opportunities, Limitations, and Concerns Connected to Digital Sensing

More things are becoming equipped with digital sensors, central processors, and network connections. Alongside marketing and engineering terminology such as Internet of Things and ubiquitous computing, designers and HCI researchers need new concepts to help understand the design opportunities, limitations, and social concerns connected to digital sensing systems. This pictorial presents an array of conceptual design notes clustered around 5 themes: sensor overreach, layered sensing, floating sensors, upredictable sensing, and sensor attenuation. Reflecting on our creative process, we articulate the methodological concepts of eccentric devices and conceptual design notes. As a whole, this pictorial exemplifies the value of intimate and nuanced depictions of creative processes—details too often omited from final publications and finished products.
Evaluation of the antifungal activity of an ebselen-loaded nanoemulsion in a mouse model of vulvovaginal candidiasis.

Abstract Vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC), caused by Candida albicans, is a common infection in women affecting their quality of life. Standard antifungal drugs (e.g., fluconazole, itraconazole) are typically fungistatic or rendered ineffective due to drug resistance indicating an urgent need to build an arsenal of novel antifungal agents. To surmount this issue, we tested the hypothesis that the organoselenium compound ebselen (EB) possesses antifungal efficacy in a mouse model of VVC. EB is a poorly water-soluble drug and DMSO as a vehicle has the potential to exhibit cytotoxic effects when administered in vivo. EB loaded self-nanoemulsifying preconcentrate (EB-SNEP) was developed, characterized in vitro, and tested in a mouse model of VVC. In vivo studies carried out with EB-SNEP (12.5 mg/kg) showed a remarkable decrease in infection by ~562-fold compared to control (infected, untreated animals). Taken together, EB nanoemulsion proved to be an effective and promising antifungal agent.
How Does High Impact Practice Predict Student Engagement? A Comparison of White and Minority Students

High Impact Practices (HIPS) contribute to higher retention and graduation rates. HIPS are effective for racial and ethnic minorities in particular, who disproportionately experience high and persistent levels of post-secondary attrition. Little is known about the mechanism by which HIPS promote retention. Based on a random survey of 268 undergraduate students, we conclude that HIPS correlate with engagement, defined as the alignment of student and institution (identified in the present study by behavioral and cognitive measures) and posit that this is the likely mechanism by which HIPS affect retention. Moreover, exposure to HIPS and the relationship between HIPS and engagement varies based on race/ethnicity. HIPS that have an effect on engagement across racial categories are service learning, undergraduate research, group assignments, learning communities, sequence courses, and, especially, having a close faculty mentor. In addition to these factors, diversity-related course content is especially effective for racial/ethnic minority engagement. Implications for educators and policy-makers are elucidated.
Two Distinct Routes for Asparaginyl-tRNA Formation in B. halodurans

In nature, two distinct routes have evolved for attaching the amino acid asparagine (Asn) to its cognate transfer RNA (tRNAAsn), an essential step in protein synthesis. In the direct pathway Asn is ligated to tRNAAsn by an asparaginyl-tRNA synthetase (AsnRS). In a second, two-step indirect pathway, a non-discriminating aspartyl-tRNA synthetase (ND-AspRS) first misacylates Asp to tRNAAsn. This tRNA-bound Asp is then amidated to Asn by the amidotransferase GatCAB. Bioinformatic analysis shows that the Gram-positive Bacillus halodurans can use the direct route. However, whether it uses the indirect route depends on whether its AspRS is non-discriminating. Using both in vivo and in vitro assays, we demonstrate the B. halodurans AspRS can aspartylate tRNAAsn and can be used with GatCAB to form Asn-tRNAAsn. Aminoacylation of tRNAAsn by AsnRS is five-fold more efficient than with AspRS. Retention of the two-step pathway for Asn-tRNA formation in B. halodurans may be vestigial though is might be advantageous unde...
On partially controlled Petri nets that can be made live by supervision

The existence of a supervisory policy that enforces liveness in partially controlled Petri nets (PNs) is undecidable in general (cf. theorem 5.3 and corollary 5.2,). However, there can be families of partially controlled PNs for which the existence of a supervisory policy that enforces liveness can be tested and synthesized. In this paper we present choice-controlled PNs as an example of such a family. Also, there can be specific examples of partially controlled PNs that be made live by supervision. Typically, this is shown by producing a supervisory policy that enforces liveness in the example at hand. There can be no generalization of this approach in light of theorem 5.3 and corollary 5.2 in reference. However, for partially controlled Free-Choice PNs, there is a necessary and sufficient characterization of supervisory policies that enforce liveness. In specific, the necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a supervisory policy that enforces liveness in a fully controlled Free-Choice Petri Net (FCPN) in reference also holds for partially controlled FCPNs. This condition can be used to verify that a given supervisory policy does enforce liveness in a specific partially controlled FCPN.
My Life as a Physicist

I would like to talk to you about my life as a physicist and try to explain to you why I look upon a good many things rather differently from other physicists. I went to a school which specialized in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and modern languages. I was very lucky to go to this school; it gave me just the subjects I wanted, and there were good teachers there. My interest was in mathematics and physics right from the earliest time that I can remember.
The Sun among stars. IV - Albedos of Uranus and Neptune and the solar color

Geometric albedos in 48 adjacent 50 A bands from 3250 to 5600 A have been derived from observations of Uranus and Neptune. The solar analog found in earlier papers (Hardorp 1978, 1980) was chosen for these reductions, so these albedos are more reliable systematically than earlier ones and allow a choice among the scattering models of Savage et al. (1980). Green methane bands are stronger on Neptune. Strong solar absorption lines are found to be partially filled in by Raman-scattering. Neglect of this effect caused Croft et al. (1972) to find a solar color that is too blue. It probably also affected the classification of G-type stars in the Michigan Spectral Catalogue as well as Garrison's (1979) interpretation of IUE observations.
Diversity and freedom: a fundamental tradeoff in wireless systems

Summary form only given. The amount of diversity and the total number of degrees of freedom are two important resources in a wireless system. Traditionally they have been considered in isolation. We propose the point of view of describing the performance of communication schemes as a tradeoff between the actual utilized amount of these two resources. The optimal tradeoff achievable by any scheme provides a fundamental benchmark with respect to which the actual schemes can be judged. We give several examples on which this framework can be applied: 1) point-to-point MIMO links, 2) multiple access MIMO channels, 3) frequency selective ISI channels, 4) cooperative relaying systems.