cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Neglect, abuse and violence against older women: Definitions and research frameworks

The aging of the global population with women living longer than men, resulting in the feminization of aging, focuses attention on the intersection of gender and age. Women across the lifespan can be victims of violence but there has been little attention to date to the neglect, abuse and violence against older women. Because of this gap in knowledge and remedies, little is known about neglect, abuse and violence against older women, particularly its prevalence as well as evidence-based prevention and intervention strategies. Several definitions of neglect, abuse and violence are reviewed here, along with conceptual frameworks that operationalize these definitions differently, resulting in differences in findings on prevalence as well as fragmentation in the way that older women victims of abuse are viewed. Three definitions of older adult abuse are discussed, including those formulated by the Toronto Declaration, the National Research Council, and the United States Center for Disease Control. Each focuses on a different aspect of abuse of older women: active ageing, old age dependency, and domestic violence in later life. A fourth conceptual framework, the human rights perspective, shows promise for addressing abuse of older women in a more holistic manner than the other definitions, but Is not fully developed as a way of understanding neglect, abuse and violence against older women. This is the first of a four-part series on older women and abuse.
OPTIMISING FEMORAL ARTICULATION IN TKA: EXTENDING LONGEVITY?

Total Knee Arthroplasty has proven to be a successful procedure for improving pain and function. Long-term studies have shown survivorship to be 90% or greater at 20 years. Most patients in those studies were over 60 years old. There has been a large increase in patients under 60 years old who are undergoing knee arthroplasty. Younger patients have much greater demands on the artificial articular surfaces. The average 55 year old is likely to perform two to three time as many gait cycles as the average 65 or 70 year old. Long-term studies demonstrate that polyethylene wear is a major cause of long-term failure. Newer bearing materials such as cross-linked polyethylenes show promise in reducing wear in THA and more recently in TKA. Femoral component material can significantly influence wear. Studies reveal that in vivo femoral component scratching significantly increases polyethylene wear. Oxidised Zirconium (OxZr) has been shown to significantly reduce polyethylene wear in knee simulators. The ceramic surface has greater lubricity and is harder. We have examined the in vivo performance on Oxidised Zirconium in several studies. These studies reveal that the harder Oxidised Zirconium femoral surface is much more resistant to scratching than CrCo femurs. Retrieval analysis revealed a 12 fold increase in scratching of CrCo femoral components compared to OxZr. Profilometry analysis of matched pairs of femoral components demonstrates that the surfaces of the CrCo implants significantly roughen over time while the OxZr do not significantly change in vivo . These comparative studies also showed less damage to the tibial polyethylene bearings with the OxZr femoral components compared to CrCo. Extending longevity of TKA requires improved materials to reduced wear. To optimise this, bearing surfaces must be coupled with improvements in both tibial polyethylene and femoral component materials.
EXPOSURE OPTIONS FOR THE REVISION KNEE: GETTING THERE SAFELY

Obtaining adequate exposure is key to optimising outcomes in revision total knee arthroplasty. Goals of the exposure include protecting the extensor mechanism, safe removal of the components that are in place and implantation of the revision components. Challenges to these goals include prior skin incisions, arthrofibrosis, and patella baja. Choosing a skin incision is the first important step. The blood supply to the skin is predominantly derived MEDIALLY and thus the most LATERAL skin incision that works for obtaining exposure is selected. If skin flaps are required, they MUST be full thickness as the blood supply to the skin runs deep just over the fascial layer and partial thickness flaps risk skin necrosis. Avoid acute angles between old skin incisions of The work-horse of revision TKA is the medial parapatellar approach. It includes a generous medial release that allows the surgeon to externally rotate and deliver the tibia by pivoting on the extensor mechanism. An anterior synovectomy is then performed to re-establish the medial and lateral gutters followed by re-establishment of the space behind the patellar tendon to free it from the proximal tibia and finally subluxation of the patella (preferable to formal eversion). A lateral release (or peel of the soft tissue off of the lateral side of the patella) is a final step to mobilise the extensor mechanism (if required). After the components are removed, a posterior capsulectomy is performed followed by re-establishment of the flexion space behind the femur further enhances tibial exposure for both bony preparation and revision component implantation. If the above maneuvers are performed, and exposure is still inadequate, the easiest way to improve exposure is by performing a quadriceps snip. This is an oblique, apical extension of the arthrotomy ACROSS THE PATELLAR TENDON (NOT in the muscle; it is hard to repair if performed in the muscle). It is repaired side to side with no need to alter post-operative physical therapy and heals reliably. The V-Y Quadricepsplasty is a proximal release of the extensor mechanism; essentially perform by connecting the apical extension of the medial parapatellar arthrotomy with a lateral release across the quadriceps tendon. It is classically indicated for patients with extensor mechanism contracture where the surgeon wishes to lengthen it. It usually results in increased flexion at the expense of an extensor lag and is used rarely in contemporary practice. Tibial Tubercle Osteotomy is a distal release of the extensor mechanism that is most useful for accessing the canal to remove long-stemmed cemented tibial components. It is a coronal osteotomy made from the medial side of the tubercle that is usually made 5–8 cm in length, tapering from approximately 1cm thick proximally to 5mm distally.
A projective variety with discrete, non-finitely generated automorphism group

We construct a projective variety with discrete, non-finitely generated automorphism group. As an application, we show that there exists a complex projective variety with infinitely many non-isomorphic real forms.
A CUSTOMISED TKA: THREE STEPS TO SUCCESS

Up until this point in time, total knee replacement implants have relied on standardised sizes and shapes. The design process for the ‘off-the-shelf’ implants has typically involved designing a standard size implant and then scaling the design up and down to provide a series of standard sizes. More recently, some suppliers have paid more attention to providing sizes that meet the particular needs for either women or men, but these implants are largely standard designs with adjustments to the medial to lateral width or the anterior to posterior depth. To design an implant that not only provides the correct size for every patient9s knee, but more importantly to provide an implant that duplicated the patient9s exact geometry is the goal. A CT scan is obtained of the patient9s lower limb. The CT data is converted into a surface model of the knee joint with proprietary software. The surface model is then utilised to create a near exact match of the articular surface in a knee femoral component. The sagittal geometry is preserved for the medial, trochlear and lateral ‘J’ curves with correction for disease as required. The coronal trochlear and condyle geometries are engineered surfaces that respect the laws of knee design for low contact stress. The bone cuts are individualised for each femoral component based on maximising bone preservation and utilising design rules that are based on finite elemental analysis and fatigue testing. The tibial articular surface geometry is derived from the femoral component. Separate medial and lateral inserts are supplied in varying thicknesses that allow precise balancing of the joint. Patient specific instrumentation is supplied with the implant that allows either femur first or tibial first techniques.
Not All Sparks Light a Fire: Stakeholder and Shareholder Reactions to Critical Events in Contested Markets:

This paper examines when and how a critical mass of social and political stakeholders mobilizes against a corporate organization and the impact of such mobilization on the organization’s market val...
Corporate Political Transparency

Corporations are facing a growing demand for the transparency of political contributions. In the United States, this demand has largely focused on the implementation of a mandatory disclosure law. ...
FASN regulates cellular response to genotoxic treatments by increasing PARP-1 expression and DNA repair activity via NF-κB and SP1

Fatty acid synthase (FASN), the sole cytosolic mammalian enzyme for de novo lipid synthesis, is crucial for cancer cell survival and associates with poor prognosis. FASN overexpression has been found to cause resistance to genotoxic insults. Here we tested the hypothesis that FASN regulates DNA repair to facilitate survival against genotoxic insults and found that FASN suppresses NF-κB but increases specificity protein 1 (SP1) expression. NF-κB and SP1 bind to a composite element in the poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase 1 (PARP-1) promoter in a mutually exclusive manner and regulate PARP-1 expression. Up-regulation of PARP-1 by FASN in turn increases Ku protein recruitment and DNA repair. Furthermore, lipid deprivation suppresses SP1 expression, which is able to be rescued by palmitate supplementation. However, lipid deprivation or palmitate supplementation has no effect on NF-κB expression. Thus, FASN may regulate NF-κB and SP1 expression using different mechanisms. Altogether, we conclude that FASN regulates cellular response against genotoxic insults by up-regulating PARP-1 and DNA repair via NF-κB and SP1.
Unsupervised texture segmentation for 2D probabilistic occupancy maps

This paper presents a novel method for the segmentation of probabilistic two-dimensional occupancy maps, based on the analysis of their texture characteristics. The texture is represented by means of a double distribution of "local binary pattern" and "contrast". The logarithmic likelihood ratio, G-statistic, is used to measure the degree of similarity between different regions; this pseudo metric measure compares LBP/C distributions linked to different segments. The innovative algorithm is used to segment the probabilistic images in regions that characterize the space according to the certainty of its occupancy level. For a better interaction between an autonomous system and its environment, the segmentation scheme is also able to differentiate between objects present in the scene by analyzing the proximity between occupied segments. Along with experimental results, a comparison with other algorithms is provided in order to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach
Robust and Scalable Column/Row Sampling from Corrupted Big Data

Conventional sampling techniques fall short of drawing descriptive sketches of the data when the data is grossly corrupted as such corruptions break the low rank structure required for them to perform satisfactorily. In this paper, we present new sampling algorithms which can locate the informative columns in presence of severe data corruptions. In addition, we develop new scalable randomized designs of the proposed algorithms. The proposed approach is simultaneously robust to sparse corruption and outliers and substantially outperforms the state-of-the-art robust sampling algorithms as demonstrated by experiments conducted using both real and synthetic data.
Investigating the use of mastery-style online homework exercises in introductory algebra-based mechanics in a controlled clinical study

Homework in introductory physics represents an important part of a student's learning experience; therefore choosing the manner in which homework is presented merits investigation. We performed three rounds of clinical trials comparing the effects of mastery-style homework vs traditional-style homework with students in both algebra-based and calculus-based introductory mechanics. Results indicate a benefit from mastery-style over traditional-style homework, principally for weaker students who are less familiar with the material being covered and on questions that are nearer transfer to the study materials.
Los amantes pasajeros: An Update on Almodóvar’s Trans-Border Cinema

Los amantes pasajeros (2013) comes at a difficult moment in Almodovar’s career, when his cinema appears disengaged from his local Spanish audience and when critics and viewers abroad have responded tepidly to his more recent films. In an effort to repair these audience links, the film mobilizes a dense textual layering and allusions that incorporate into a contemporary comedy Spanish nostalgic tropes from Almodovar’s past, almost as if the authorial Almodovar were spoofing an Almodovar comedy. Characters and dialogue evoke the effervescent years of sexual freedom of the early post-Franco transition, the very years of the filmmaker’s meteoric rise to celebrity. Along with this local address, one of the film’s central aesthetic and cultural premises is the borderless contiguity between Spain and Mexico, the latter serving as a synecdoche for Latin America. Through intertextual associations, the film emphasizes the notion of Almodovar’s cinema as a trans-border Hispanic phenomenon. It is, in fact, this deterritorialized pan-Latino audience to which his production company, El Deseo and Almodovar have addressed their attention over the past decade. Los amantes pasajeros thus represents a crucial but illuminating self-referential pause in Almodovar’s development, a film that underscores the return of his cinema to his Spanish roots in an immediately recognizable way, and which also reminds audiences of the ways his films have moved from their origin as a local Spanish phenomenon to an authentic transnational, trans- border object.
On the approximation of the output process of multi-user random access communication networks

Bernoulli and first-order Markov processes are used to approximate the output process of a class of slotted multiuser random-access communication networks. The parameters of the approximating processes are analytically calculated for a network operating under a specific random-access algorithm. The mean time that a packet spends in the central node of the star topology is calculated under the proposed approximations of the output processes of the interconnected networks. The results are compared with simulation results of the actual system. It turns out that the memoryless approximation gives satisfactory results up to a certain per-network-traffic load. Beyond that point, the first-order Markov processes performs better. >
AN INTEGRATION OF EQUILIBRIUM THEORY AND TURNPIKE THEORY

Abstract A turnpike theorem is proved for a general equilibrium model with finitely many immortal consumers.
STOP-LOSS ORDERS AND PRICE CASCADES IN CURRENCY MARKETS

In this paper, I provide evidence that currency stop-loss orders contribute to rapid, selfreinforcing price movements, which I call "price cascades." Stop-loss orders, which instruct a dealer to buy (sell) a certain amount of currency at the market rate once the rate has risen (fallen) to a prespecified level, generate positive-feedback trading. Theoretical research on the 1987 stock market crash suggests that such trading can cause price discontinuities, which would manifest themselves as price cascades. My analysis of high-frequency exchange rates offers three main results that provide empirical support for the hypothesis that stop-loss orders contribute to price cascades: (1) Exchange rate trends are unusually rapid when rates reach exchange rate levels at which stoploss orders have been documented to cluster. (2) The response to stop-loss orders is larger than the response to take-profit orders, which generate negative-feedback trading and are therefore unlikely to contribute to price cascades. (3) The response to stop-loss orders lasts longer than the response to take-profit orders. Most results are statistically significant for hours, although not for days. Together, these results indicate that stop-loss orders propagate trends and are sometimes triggered in waves, contributing to price cascades. Stop-loss propagated price cascades may help explain the well-known “fat tails” of the distribution of exchange-rate returns, or equivalently the high frequency of large exchange-rate moves. The paper also provides evidence that exchange rates respond to non-informative order flow. (Key words: positive-feedback, stop-loss, order flow, portfolio insurance, information, exchange rates, high-frequency, currency market microstructure) (JEL codes: F1, G3.)
Effects of autonomous vehicle behavior on arterial and freeway networks

Autonomous vehicles offer new traffic behaviors that could revolutionize transportation. Examples include reservation-based intersection control and reduced reaction times that result in greater road capacity. Most studies have used microsimulation models of those new technologies to study their impacts more realistically. However, microsimulation is not tractable for larger networks. Recent developments in simulating reservation-based controls and multiclass cell transmission models for autonomous vehicles in dynamic traffic assignment have allowed studies of larger networks. This paper presents analyses of several highly congested arterial and freeway networks to quantify how reservations and reduced reaction times affect travel times and congestion. Reservations were observed to improve over signals in most situations. However, signals outperformed reservations in a congested network with several close local road and arterial intersections because the capacity allocations of signals were more optimized...
THE POSTERIOR STABILISED KNEE: NO POST REQUIRED – OPPOSES

Introduction Proper balance and stability is essential to the longevity of total knee arthroplasty (TKA). The aim of this study was to evaluate long-term quality and performance of cemented total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in young and active patients using posterior stabilised designs. Methods From a prospective database between January 2000 and October 2001, 62 patients (81 TKAs, mean age 53 ± 1.5 years) with University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) activity score of 5 or above were identified. All implants received Posterior-Stabilised (PS) TKA: 43 Rotating-Platform (RP-PS) and 38 Fixed-Bearing (FB-PS) and were followed prospectively for a minimum of 10 years. The femoral component was identical in both groups and all TKAs were cemented. Extension first gap balancing technique was utilised in all cases. Results There was no malalignment, patellofemoral maltracking, aseptic loosening or osteolysis at final follow-up. The final mean ROM in RP-PS and FB-PS was 117 and 114 degrees, respectively. There was no case of early or late flexion instability or spinout. 79% of patients had high functional scores at final follow-up and 92% were satisfied. The results of the MRI study showed that the mean femoral rotation in the RP-PS and the FB-PS knees was 2 degrees and 3 degrees, respectively. The tibial base plate rotation compared to the most prominent point of the tibial tubercle was 0.4 degrees and 0.1 degrees of external rotation in RP-PS and FB-PS knees, respectively. Conclusion The PS TKA in young and active patients can provide long-term durability and high quality of function.
Real Estate Market Segmentation: Hotels as Exemplar

Market segmentation for hotel properties is quantitatively assessed. Results indicate that the hotel property market is segmented by hotel class. The results are robust to model specification including general economic conditions, property performance measured by market level RevPAR, ADR, standard deviation in ADR, occupancy and standard deviation in occupancy and room count. The results strongly suggest segmented hotel property markets. By showing that hotel properties are not drawn from a single property population, the results advance the notion that aggregate property type pricing models may provide biased estimators.
An Improved Dictatorship Test with Perfect Completeness

A Boolean function f:{0,1}^n\->{0,1} is called a dictator if it depends on exactly one variable i.e f(x_1, x_2, ..., x_n) = x_i for some i in [n]. In this work, we study a k-query dictatorship test. Dictatorship tests are central in proving many hardness results for constraint satisfaction problems. The dictatorship test is said to have perfect completeness if it accepts any dictator function. The soundness of a test is the maximum probability with which it accepts any function far from a dictator. Our main result is a k-query dictatorship test with perfect completeness and soundness (2k + 1)/(2^k), where k is of the form 2^t -1 for any integer t > 2. This improves upon the result of [Tamaki-Yoshida, Random Structures & Algorithms, 2015] which gave a dictatorship test with soundness (2k + 3)/(2^k).
Reducing Student Absenteeism in the Early Grades by Targeting Parental Beliefs

Attendance in kindergarten and elementary school robustly predicts student outcomes. Despite this well-documented association, there is little experimental research on how to reduce absenteeism in the early grades. This paper presents results from a randomized field experiment in 10 school districts evaluating the impact of a low-cost, parent-focused intervention on student attendance in grades K–5. The intervention targeted commonly held parental misbeliefs undervaluing the importance of regular K–5 attendance as well as the number of school days their child had missed. The intervention decreased chronic absenteeism by 15%. This study presents the first experimental evidence on how to improve student attendance in grades K–5 at scale and has implications for increasing parental involvement in education.
Employment lotteries, endogenous firm formation and the aspiration core

The paper shows that the aspiration core of a TU-game coincides with the set of competitive wages arising in a labor market economy in which time is indivisible, but workers and firms can sign contingent labor contracts and trade in employment lotteries. The set of firms that are active in the market is endogenously determined at equilibrium and it coincides with the generating collection of the corresponding aspiration core allocation.
Who's the Boss? The Effect of Strong Leadership on Employee Turnover

Abstract Despite the importance placed on supervision in the workplace, little is known about the effects of a boss' leadership quality on labor market outcomes such as employee job retention. Using plausibly exogenous assignment of junior officers to bosses in the U.S. Army, we find positive retention effects for those assigned to immediate and senior bosses who are strong leaders. These effects are strongest for officers with high SAT scores. Junior officers who share the same undergraduate institution as their bosses also retain at higher rates.
A particle filter for dynamic state estimation in multi-machine systems with detailed models

Particle filters provide a general framework for dynamic state estimation (DSE) in nonlinear systems. The scope for particle filter-based DSE can be significantly enhanced by exploiting data from phasor measurement units (PMUs) when available at higher sampling frequencies. In this paper, we present a particle filtering approach to dynamically estimate the states of a synchronous generator in a multi-machine setting considering the excitation and prime mover control systems. The filter relies on typical output measurements assumed available from PMUs stationed at generator buses. The performance of the proposed filter is illustrated with dynamic simulations on IEEE 14-bus system including: 1) generators models with subtransient dynamics, 2) excitation units (IEEE DC1A, DC2A, AC5A), and 3) turbine-governor models (steam and hydro). The estimation accuracy of the proposed filter is assessed for three classes of disturbances assuming noisy PMUs' measurements and comparative results are presented with the unscented Kalman filter (UKF). The accuracy-computational burden trade-off is also analyzed and the results strengthen the feasibility of using particle filters for dynamic state estimation.
QBO/solar modulation of the boreal winter Madden-Julian oscillation: A prediction for the coming solar minimum

The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), also known as the 30-60 day oscillation, is the strongest of the intraseasonal climate oscillations in the tropics and has significant derivative effects on extratropical circulation and intraseasonal climate. It has recently been shown that the stratospheric quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) modulates the amplitude of the boreal winter MJO such that MJO amplitudes are larger on average during the easterly phase (QBOE) than during the westerly phase (QBOW). A major possible mechanism is the decrease in static stability in the lowermost stratosphere under QBOE conditions resulting from relative upwelling associated with the QBO induced meridional circulation. Here, evidence is presented that tropical upwelling changes related to the 11-year solar cycle also modulate the boreal winter MJO. Based on 37.3 years of MJO amplitude data, the largest amplitudes and occurrence rates, and the weakest static stabilities in the tropical lower stratosphere, occur during the QBOE phase under solar minimum (SMIN) conditions while the smallest amplitudes and strongest static stabilities occur during the QBOW phase under solar maximum (SMAX) conditions. Conversely, when the QBO and solar forcings are opposed (QBOW/SMIN and QBOE/SMAX), the difference in occurrence rates becomes statistically insignificant. During the coming solar minimum, at least one additional winter in the QBOE/SMIN category should occur (possibly as early as 2017/2018) during which especially large MJO amplitudes are expected and an initial test of these results will be possible.
A flexible wideband millimeter-wave channel sounder with local area and NLOS to LOS transition measurements

This paper presents a millimeter-wave (mmWave) wideband sliding correlator channel sounder with flexibility to operate at various transmission rates. The channel sounder can transmit and receive up to 1 GHz of RF null-to-null bandwidth while measuring a 2 nanosecond multipath time resolution. The system architecture takes advantage of field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), high-speed digital-to-analog converters (DACs), and low phase noise Rubidium (Rb) references for synchronization. Using steerable narrowbeam antennas, the system can measure up to 185 dB of path loss. The channel sounder is used to measure the directional and omnidirectional received power as a receiver transitions from line-of-sight to non-line-of-sight conditions down an urban canyon. A 25 dB drop in omnidirectional received power was observed as the receiver transitioned from line-of-sight (LOS) conditions to deeply shadowed non-LOS (NLOS) conditions. The channel sounder was also used to study signal variation and spatial consistency for a local set of receiver locations arranged in a cluster spanning a 5 m × 10 m local area, where the omnidirectional received power in LOS and NLOS environments is found to be relatively stable with standard deviations of received power of 2.2 dB and 4.3 dB, respectively. This work shows that when implementing beamforming at the transmitter at mmWave, the omnidirectional received power over a local area has little fluctuation among receiver locations separated by a few to several meters.
16S rRNA gene sequencing reveals site-specific signatures of the upper and lower airways of cystic fibrosis patients

Background Metastasis of upper airway microbiota may have significant implications in the development of chronic lung disease. Here, we compare bacterial communities of matched sinus and lung mucus samples from cystic fibrosis (CF) subjects undergoing endoscopic surgery for treatment of chronic sinusitis.
Optical Activation Behavior of Ion Implanted Acceptor Species in GaN

Ion implantation is used to investigate the spectroscopic properties of Mg, Be, and C acceptors in GaN. Activation of these species is studied using low temperature photoluminescence (PL). Low dose implants into high quality undoped hydride vapor phase epitaxial (HVPE) material are used in conjunction with high temperature (1300 °C) rapid thermal anneals to obtain high quality spectra. Dramatic, dose-dependent evidence of Mg acceptor activation is observed without any co-implants, including a strong, sharp neutral Mg acceptor-bound exciton and strong donor-acceptor pair peaks. Variable temperature measurements reveal a band-to-acceptor transition, whose energy yields an optical binding energy of 224 meV. Be and C implants yield only slight evidence of shallow acceptor-related features and produce dose-correlated 2.2 eV PL, attributed to residual implantation damage. Their poor optical activation is tentatively attributed to insufficient vacancy production by these lighter ions. Clear evidence is obtained for donor-Zn acceptor pair and acceptor-bound exciton peaks in Zn-doped HVPE material.
AVOIDING INSTABILITY: THE TRANSTROCHANTERIC APPROACH – OPPOSES

Larger diameter femoral heads and improved operative approaches and soft tissue repair/closure have somewhat reduced the incidence of recurrent instability after total hip arthroplasty (THA). Nevertheless, hip instability remains one of the most common reasons for reoperation after THA, and accounts for roughly a quarter of hip revisions in the United States in Medicare patients. The prevalence of instability after THA varies widely, from 0.3% to 15%. Surgeons have come to understand that hip instability can be caused by implant malposition, impingement, and inadequate soft tissue tension or integrity. While the cumulative risk of instability is acceptable at approximately 2.8% with transtrochanteric approaches, this is based upon the trochanter actually healing (and often being advanced). On the other hand, trochanteric nonunion and proximal migration have been noted by many, and this frequently results in catastrophic instability. Moreover, and importantly, abductor insufficiency is one the most difficult causes of hip instability to solve. Woo and Morrey reported a 17.6% instability rate when trochanteric nonunion occurred with 1 cm proximal trochanteric migration. Alternatively, the contemporary incidence of instability with the posterolateral or anterolateral approaches, and an adequate soft tissue repair, is approximately 1–2%.
Quasi-Customary Dispute Resolution Mechanisms in Israel's Darfuri Refugees

About 3,500 Darfuri male (and a few female) asylum seekers live in Israel. The majority are 25 to 40 years old. Older men, including village and community dignitaries, stand little chance of surviving the brutal trek. In Darfur, where most inhabitants live in small villages, inter- and intracommunal conflicts are traditionally resolved through the customary justice process of Judiya. But in Israel, Darfuri asylum seekers no longer reside with their kin groups (villages, tribes, clans); instead they often cohabit with asylum seekers from other tribes, clans, and villages, living in crowded conditions, mostly in the poor south side of Tel Aviv—a situation that gives rise to multiple small conflicts. In the absence of their familiar tribal structure, dignitaries, and other interveners, the refugees have no access to the traditional dispute resolution mechanisms they have grown up with. Furthermore, these asylum seekers avoid bringing their conflicts to the attention of the Israeli authorities, for fear of endangering their asylum petitions. The result is that this community finds itself trying to cope with difficult, intracommunal, conflict-rich conditions, without being able to use either traditional conflict resolution mechanisms or local formal justice processes. The response of the Darfuri asylum seekers community to this circumstance has been to develop their own multitier, quasi-customary intracommunal dispute resolution mechanism. This new mechanism combines elements of their traditional, Darfur-based processes, along with newly constructed modifications designed to compensate for the missing elements (e.g., lack of village elders) and make use of available resources (e.g., young community activists). This article employs analysis of multiple interviews and review of relevant literature to identify and describe the unique, informal dispute resolution mechanism that the Darfuri community developed in Israel. Insights developed in this article may help community activists, municipalities, policy makers, nongovernmental organizations, and other individuals and organizations in understanding and facilitating alternative dispute resolution mechanisms within similarly structured and similarly affected displaced persons and asylum seeker communities around the world.
Why you should charge your friends for borrowing your stuff

We consider goods that can be shared with k-hop neighbors (i.e., the set of nodes within k hops from an owner) on a social network. We examine incentives to buy such a good by devising game-theoretic models where each node decides whether to buy the good or free ride. First, we find that social inefficiency, specifically excessive purchase of the good, occurs in Nash equilibria. Second, the social inefficiency decreases as k increases and thus a good can be shared with more nodes. Third, and most importantly, the social inefficiency can also be significantly reduced by charging free riders an access cost and paying it to owners, leading to the conclusion that organizations and system designers should impose such a cost. These findings are supported by our theoretical analysis in terms of the price of anarchy and the price of stability; and by simulations based on synthetic and real social networks.
Tissue-Resident Macrophages Are Locally Programmed for Silent Clearance of Apoptotic Cells

Although apoptotic cells (ACs) contain nucleic acids that can be recognized by Toll-like receptors (TLRs), engulfment of ACs does not initiate inflammation in healthy organisms. Here we identified macrophage populations that continually engulf ACs in distinct tissues and found that these macrophages share characteristics compatible with immunologically silent clearance of ACs; such characteristics include high expression of AC recognition receptors, low expression of TLR9, and reduced TLR responsiveness to nucleic acids. Removal of the macrophages from tissues resulted in loss of many of these characteristics and the ability to generate inflammatory responses to AC-derived nucleic acids, suggesting that cues from the tissue microenvironment program macrophages for silent AC clearance. The transcription factors KLF2 and KLF4 control the expression of many genes within this AC clearance program. The coordinated expression of AC receptors with genes that limit responses to nucleic acids might ensure maintenance of homeostasis and thus represent a central feature of tissue macrophages.
Data flow computation

All data flow models describe computation in terms of locally controlled events; each event is the “firing” of an “actor”. There is no notion of a single point or locus of control—nothing corresponding to the program location counter of a conventional sequential computer. Since many actors may be ready to fire, these models can represent many asynchronous concurrent computational events. Nevertheless, they can guarantee an input/output behavior that is unaffected by the order in which the firing of actors is carried out. This property of data flow models—determinacy—ensures that their input/output behavior is functional. Thus the semantics of data flow graphs are closely related to the semantics of applicative programming languages, and we will illustrate the correspondence of data flow graphs to textual programs by means of program fragments written in Val, an applicative programming language developed at MIT for scientific applications.
Preoperative Evaluation of Pediatric Abdominal Tumor Volumes by Computerized Tomography

The volumes of two neuroblastomas and two Wilms' tumor masses were calculated by computerized tomography (CT) within 48 hours of surgical removal of the tumor. True volumes of the tumor masses were obtained by volume displacement. CT was very accurate in predicting volume with an error ranging from 1.5% to 7.5%. This accurate method of evaluating tumor volume will allow precise monitoring of the response of nonoperable tumors to chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Renal Function Correlates of Postnatal Diuresis in Preterm Infants

A characteristic pattern of fluid homeostasis occurs in the first week of life in many preterm infants. Initially, urine output is low independent of fluid intake, subsequently a diuresis occurs, and finally urine output begins to vary with intake. Renal clearance measurements were made during each of these three phases to elucidate the renal mechanisms involved. Periods during which the ratio of urine output to fluid intake was greater than or equal to 1 and urine output was greater than or equal to 3 mL/kg/h were defined as diuretic. Of 22 preterm infants studied from 12 to 120 hours of age, 17 had at least one period of diuresis. In these infants, urine output, fluid intake rate, output to intake ratio, glomerular filtration rate, and fractional sodium excretion were lowest at 12 to 24 hours of age. During diuresis, urine output tripled without a significant change in fluid intake so that output to intake increased to levels exceeding unity. Diuresis was associated with significant increases in glomerular filtration rate and fractional sodium excretion. By 108 to 120 hours of age, urine output decreased despite an increase in fluid intake. This was accompanied by a decrease in glomerular filtration rate. These results suggest that the initial antidiuretic phase is the result of a low fractional sodium excretion in the face of a low glomerular filtration rate. Subsequently, diuresis and natriuresis occur as a result of abrupt, nonmaturational increases in glomerular filtration rate and fractional sodium excretion. With cessation of diuresis, glomerular filtration rate and fractional sodium excretion decrease and water and electrolyte output begin to vary appropriately with intake.
Does the presence of an occlusal indicator product affect the contact forces between full dentitions

Studies have explored occlusal marking interpretation, repeatability and accuracy. But, when an occlusion detection product is interposed between teeth, direct tooth-tooth occlusal contact relationships are replaced by tooth-material-tooth structures. Thus, the marks cannot reflect the original contacts. This has been shown for single tooth pair contacts. The purpose of this laboratory study was to similarly examine full dentitions. A dentiform was set into Class I centric occlusion with the mandible supported by a load cell. The maxillary arch was guided by precision slides. As the weighted (~52 N) upper assembly was lowered onto and raised off the mandibular arch, the loads on the mandible were measured. With and without (control) occlusal marking material, the steps were as follows: (cleaning - control 1 - material 1) … (cleaning - control 6 - material 6). The six materials were as follows: Accufilm I and II, Rudischhauser Thick and Thin, Hanel Articulating Silk and T-Scan. Then, the six sets of (cleaning - control - material) measurements were repeated with the mandibular assembly shifted, in turn, by 0·1 mm in the Anterior, Posterior, Right and Left directions. The five (Centric and four 0·1 mm shifted) occlusal relationships produced grossly different tooth-tooth (control) load profiles. And, in general, these controls were affected, in different ways, by the marking products. Among the five conventional products, the Rudischhausers fared the worst and the electronic T-Scan was an extreme outlier. Thus, in general, popular occlusal detection products alter the occlusal contact forces, and therefore, their markings cannot characterise the actual occlusion.
Model-free approaches to discern non-stationary microstructure noise and time-varying liquidity in high-frequency data

Abstract In this paper, we provide non-parametric statistical tools to test stationarity of microstructure noise in general hidden Ito semimartingales, and discuss how to measure liquidity risk using high-frequency financial data. In particular, we investigate the impact of non-stationary microstructure noise on some volatility estimators, and design three complementary tests by exploiting edge effects, information aggregation of local estimates and high-frequency asymptotic approximation. The asymptotic distributions of these tests are available under both stationary and non-stationary assumptions, thereby enable us to conservatively control type-I errors and meanwhile ensure the proposed tests enjoy the asymptotically optimal statistical power. Besides, it also enables us to empirically measure aggregate liquidity risks by these test statistics. As byproducts, functional dependence and endogenous microstructure noise are briefly discussed. Simulation with a realistic configuration corroborates our theoretical results, and our empirical study indicates the prevalence of non-stationary microstructure noise in New York Stock Exchange.
Testicular Changes in Gonadotropin-Independent Familial Male Sexual Precocity: Familial Testotoxicosis

A recently described form of male sexual precocity characterized by active Leydig cell differentiation and premature onset of spermatogenesis in the absence of pituitary gonadotropin stimulation has been termed familial testotoxicosis. The clinical and endocrine findings in the condition are consistent with an inherited intratesticular defect rather than central or true precocious puberty. In this report, testicular changes in biopsy specimens from a series of affected patients are presented. In all of the cases, Leydig cells demonstrated nuclear and cytoplasmic features characteristic of fully differentiated steroidogenic cells. Reinke crystals were absent. Germ cells at all stages of spermatogenesis were present, but there was evident disorganization of maturation. Spermatids exhibited a variety of structural abnormalities. Sertoli cells were characterized by complex cytoplasmic differentiation, Charcot-Bottcher crystals, and tight junction formation. The morphologic changes indicate premature differentiation of all of the major testicular cell types and are consistent with a distinctive type of intratesticular abnormality.
Immunodeficiency in pancreatic adenocarcinoma with diabetes revealed by comparative genomics

Purpose: Pancreatic adenocarcinomas (PAAD) often are not diagnosed until their late stages, leaving no effective treatments. Currently, immunotherapy provides a promising treatment option against this malignancy. However, a set of immunotherapy agents benefit patients with many types of cancer, but not PAAD. Sharing the origin in the same organ, diabetes and PAAD tend to occur concurrently. We aimed to identify the impact of diabetes on immunotherapy of PAAD by conducting a comparative genomics analysis.Experimental Design: We analyzed level 3 PAAD genomics data (RNAseq, miRNAseq, DNA methylation, somatic copy number, and somatic mutation) from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Firehose. The differential molecular profiles in PAAD with/out diabetes were performed by the differential gene expression, pathway analysis, epigenetic regulation, somatic copy-number alteration, and somatic gene mutation.Results: Differential gene expression analysis revealed a strong enrichment of immunogenic signature genes in diabetic individuals, including PD-1 and CTLA4, that were currently targetable for immunotherapy. Pathway analysis further implied that diabetic individuals were defective in immune modulation genes. Somatic copy-number aberration (SCNA) analysis showed a higher frequency of amplification and deletion occurred in the cohort without diabetes. Integrative analysis revealed strong association between differential gene expression, and epigenetic regulations, however, seemed not affected by SCNAs. Importantly, our somatic mutation analysis showed that the occurrence of diabetes in PAAD was associated with a large set of gene mutations encoding genes participating in immune modulation.Conclusions: Our analysis reveals the impact of diabetes on immunodeficiency in PAAD patients and provides novel insights into new therapeutic opportunities. Clin Cancer Res; 23(20); 6363-73. ©2017 AACR.
Gaps and length asymmetry in the stellar stream Palomar 5 as effects of Galactic bar rotation

The stellar stream emerging from the globular cluster Palomar 5 (Pal 5) is one of the few Galactic streams that is clearly associated with its progenitor system. Recent optical photometric data show that Pal 5’s leading arm appears truncated compared with the trailing arm, which is not expected from previous simulations. We demonstrate that inclusion of the rotating Galactic bar in the dynamical modelling of Pal 5 can reproduce the truncation. As the bar sweeps by, stream stars experience differences in net torques near their orbital pericentres. This leads to the formation of discontinuities in the energy distribution of stream members that in turn become apparent as ever-widening gaps in the stream’s spatial density. We conclude that only streams orbiting far from the Galactic Centre or streams on retrograde orbits can be used to unambiguously constrain dark matter subhalo interactions. Additionally, we expect that the Pal 5 leading-arm debris should reappear south of the density truncation. Rotation of the Galactic bar at the centre of the Milky Way can explain gaps and asymmetries in stellar stream Palomar 5. Similar streams close to the Galactic Centre are therefore unfit for probing the dark matter subhalo interactions in our Galaxy.
The impact of strengthening agricultural extension services : evidence from Ethiopia

This paper evaluates the effect of the Rural Capacity Building Project, which aimed at promoting growth by strengthening the agricultural service systems in Ethiopia and by making them more responsive to smallholders' needs. The project intended to increase the outreach of agricultural extension services to help farmers become aware of and adopt economically viable and environmentally sustainable technologies and practices. The paper examines the impact of the Rural Capacity Building Project using panel data on 1,485 geographically dispersed households in project and control kebeles. The results show that the strengthening of extension services had a positive impact on economic participation in the household, land area cultivated, and adoption of marketable crops, suggesting that access to extension helped farmers switch to more commercial, market-oriented agriculture. In addition, and contrary to previous evidence from other countries, female-headed households seem to have benefited equally from the project. However, the project was not able to reduce the preexisting gender gap in agricultural outcomes.
Aza-analogs of dibenzo[c,h]cinnoline: Triazachrysenes as potent topoisomerase I-targeting anticancer agents

2,3-Dimethoxy-8,9-methylenedioxydibenzo[c,h]cinnoline 1 exhibits greater topoisomerase I (TOP1)-targeting activity and cytotoxicity than its benzo[i]phenanthridine analog. 1,5,6-, 5,6,11-, and 5,6,12-Triazachrysene analogs were prepared to determine the influence of further aza-substitution on TOP1-targeting activity and cytotoxicity. The data reinforce the structure-activity relationships previously observed and indicate that a nitrogen heteroatom can be tolerated at the 11- or 12-position without adversely affecting the TOP1-targeting activity or cytotoxicity of 1.