cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Estimating the Energy Consumption in Pervasive Java-Based Systems

We define and evaluate a framework for estimating the energy consumption of pervasive Java-based software systems. The framework's primary objective is to enable an engineer to make informed decisions when adapting a system's architecture, such that the energy consumption on hardware devices with a finite battery life is reduced, and the lifetime of the system's key software services increases. Our framework explicitly takes a component-based perspective, which renders it well suited for a large class of today's distributed, embedded, and pervasive applications. The framework provides a novel approach that facilitates the accurate estimation of a system's energy consumption both during system construction-time and during runtime. In a large number of distributed application scenarios, the framework showed very good precision on the whole, giving results that were within 5% of the actually measured power losses incurred by executing the software.
Design of an optical thermal sensor for proton exchange membrane fuel cell temperature measurement using phosphor thermometry

Abstract Internal temperatures in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell govern the ionic conductivities of the polymer electrolyte, influence the reaction rate at the electrodes, and control the water vapor pressure inside the cell. It is vital to fully understand thermal behavior in a PEM fuel cell if performance and durability are to be optimized. The objective of this research was to design, construct, and implement thermal sensors based on the principles of the lifetime-decay method of phosphor thermometry to measure temperatures inside a PEM fuel cell. Five sensors were designed and calibrated with a maximum uncertainty of ±0.6 °C. Using these sensors, surface temperatures were measured on the cathode gas diffusion layer of a 25 cm 2 PEM fuel cell. The test results demonstrate the utility of the optical temperature sensor design and provide insight into the thermal behavior found in a PEM fuel cell.
Event detection using local binary pattern based dynamic textures

Detecting suspicious events from video surveillance cameras has been an important task recently. Many trajectory based descriptors were developed, such as to detect people running or moving in opposite direction. However, these trajectory based descriptors are not working well in the crowd environments like airports, rail stations, because those descriptors assume perfect motion/object segmentation. In this paper, we present an event detection method using dynamic texture descriptor. The dynamic texture descriptor is an extension of the local binary patterns. The image sequences are divided into regions. A flow is formed based on the similarity of the dynamic texture descriptors on the regions. We used real dataset for experiments. The results are promising.
A multi-user outline processor for technical documentation

A multiuser outline processor has been implemented on the platform of GroupSystems, an electronic meeting system developed at the University of Arizona. The multiuser outline processor inherits the advantage of encouraging revision of single-user outline processors, but it goes beyond traditional outline processors in (1) providing a graphic display of the outline, (2) enabling a group to interactively create and reach consensus on the details of the outline, and (3) enabling group participants to simultaneously enter textual documentation and to consolidate it for any topic in the outline. These functions make the multiuser outline processor an efficient tool for collaboratively creating technical documents. >
Use of higher severity fire areas by female Pacific fishers on the Kern Plateau, Sierra Nevada, California, USA

The Pacific fisher (Pekania pennanti) is a rare and imperiled forest carnivore, with a genetically distinct and isolated population living in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains of California, USA. Female fishers are of special interest and concern, given their very small numbers and their disproportionately important role in the potential recovery of the population. Using fisher scat detection to assess patterns of habitat use, I conducted analyses regarding use by fishers of unlogged higher severity fire areas at 10–11 years postfire in the 2002 McNally fire area. Contrary to the prevailing current hypothesis regarding fisher postfire habitat use, fishers did not use higher severity fire areas less than low–moderate-severity areas or unburned forest (n = 77 scats), and female fishers used the large, intense McNally fire area significantly more than unburned forest (n = 12 scats). Female fishers were detected at multiple locations >250 m into the interior of a very large (>5,000 ha), unlogged higher severity fire patch. These results indicate unlogged higher severity fire areas are suitable habitat for fishers, especially female fishers, and suggest a need to revisit current management direction, which emphasizes extensive commercial thinning and postfire logging to reduce fuels and control fire. © 2015 The Wildlife Society.
Provoking the construction of a structure for coordinating n + 1 levels of units

Abstract In considering mathematical development across multiple domains, researchers have implicated the critical role of an individual's ability to produce and coordinate units. Here, we describe a theoretically grounded instructional approach for promoting growth in units coordination. Our approach is informed by neuroscience, as well as existing research on units coordination. We present promising results from implementing our approach in a 10-week teaching experiment with a sixth-grade student named Cody. We demonstrate how, over the course of the 14 teaching sessions, Cody progressed from activity involving the coordination of two levels of units, to activity involving the coordination of three levels of units.
Copyright Equality: Free Speech, Efficiency, and Regulatory Parity in Distribution

Copyright law treats webcasters like Pandora, on-demand streaming services like Spotify, the satellite radio company Sirius XM, and traditional radio broadcasters like Clear Channel in vastly different ways. The total royalties paid by each type of music distribution service to copyright owners can vary from five to seventy percent of revenue. This and other forms of differential treatment have slowed or deterred innovation while limiting consumer choice. The disparities have become a pressing problem for policymakers. Two recently proposed bills, the Internet Radio Fairness Act and the competing Interim FIRST Act, both address the disparate treatment across webcasters, satellite radio, and cable radio. But each bill contains only fragments of a real solution. Copyright law needs a new approach grounded in the reasons for equal treatment of different distribution technologies. This Article presents an equality principle based on both economic efficiency considerations and First Amendment principles. These two theories of copyright policy are often thought to conflict. But this Article shows that efficiency and free speech values can align and reinforce each other. The economic argument focuses on barriers to entry for new music distribution technologies and the distortions to consumer choice that result from unequal treatment. The First Amendment argument is both an extension and new application of longstanding jurisprudence that guards new communications media from discriminatory treatment, with an eye toward allowing the information environment to evolve to the public’s benefit. The Article closes with policy recommendations in line with the equality principle and specific proposals for implementation.
Relations, Narrations, and Judgments: The Scholarly Networks and Contributions of an Early Female Muslim Jurist

Through an extensive analysis of early biographical dictionaries and histories, ḥadīth collections and commentaries, as well as legal texts, I reconstruct the life of a female jurist from the third generation of Muslims. It was through informal networks of kinship and scholarship that ʿAmrah bint ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. 106/724) contributed to the core of Islamic knowledge in ways similar to her male contemporaries, while she also served as a resource within the community for the gender-specific concerns of women. The depth of her knowledge established ʿAmrah’s narrations as reliable evidence of the Prophet Muḥammad’s conduct and endowed her own opinions and deeds with an authoritative weight respected by contemporaries and subsequent generations of Muslim scholars.
Sociological and Career Attributes of Midwives

Although all women are expected to have a general competence with reproductive disorders, pregnancy and delivery, certain women specialize in treatment problems associated with such conditions. Via this route, women may acquire renown and respect which are usually the province of men. In order to understand the significance of midwifery as a female professional specialization, it is necessary to consider first the implications of being a healer in Bariba society and then, specifically, the categorization, position, and functions of the midwife.
Changes in monoamine oxidase and monoamines with human development and aging

A series of studies of monoamines and their metabolism in a variety of human tissues indicate that there are aging effects that may alter neurotransmitter substances. Monoamine oxidase (MAO) activity has a significant positive correlation with age in plasma and blood platelets of normal subjects and patients suffering from depressive disorders. Monoamine oxidase and age correlate positively in hindbrain and in eight separate areas of human brains from patients who died from a variety of causes. Hindbrain norepinephrine concentration progressively decreases with advancing age (r = −0.44, P < 0.01) while no changes were noted for serotonin (5-HT) and 5-hydroxy.indoleacetic acid (5-HIAA). Hindbrain norepinephrine concentration has a significant negative correlation with MAO (r = −0.41, P < 0.025) and hindbrain 5-HIAA has a significant positive correlation with MAO (r = +0.66, P = <0.05). These studies suggest that aging processes may significantly affect monoamine mechanisms and be a predisposing factor to the development of clinical diseases in man such as depression, parkinsonism and other disorders of central nervous system homeostasis.—Rorinson, D. S. Changes in monoamine oxidase and monoamines with human development and aging. Federation Proc. 34: 103–107, 1975.
Outage Performance of Uplink User-Assisted Relaying in 5G Cellular Networks

We use stochastic geometry to analyze the performance of a user-assisted decode-and-forward (DF) relaying scheme where an active user relays data through another idle user in uplink cellular communication. We propose a new geometric policy based on the random selection of an idle user within a certain area mid-way between the active user and base station, and compare this policy to the common nearest neighbor geometric policy. These probabilities are further used in the analytical derivation of the moments of inter-cell interference power caused by system-wide deployment of this user-assisted DF relaying. We then numerically evaluate the outage probability performance and show that user-assisted relaying can significantly improve reliability for active users near the cell edge. We also show that the proposed mid-way policy significantly improves outage performance over the nearest neighbor policy even when the nearest neighbor cooperation probability is higher. This result suggests that mid-way relay selection is a highly effective cooperation policy.
On Constrained Reconstruction Operators

Constrained reconstruction methods based on the weighting and elimination approaches are compared in terms of accuracy, robustness, and ease of implementation. A detailed grid-refinement study for the laminar flow over a flat plate indicates that the weighting approach is superior to the elimination approach. The study suggests that the elimination approach appears to be more sensitive to the discontinuity in boundary conditions at the leading edge of the plate. Further work is required to assess the constrained reconstruction method for other boundary conditions and to investigate the influence of the weighting parameter in the weighting approach.
The Molko Case: Will Freedom Prevail?

There exists in America a "tyranny of the normal" that threatens religious liberty. The "normal" image of human ful fillment is highly individualistic as well as essentially secular, and this image encourages prejudice against those persons who prefer to use their freedom differently, i.e., in devotion to a de manding religious cause that requires freely willed renunciation of ordinary career pursuits and friendships in the interests of what is perceived as a "higher" vocation. For those who nar rowly define freedom as independence from any powerful reli gious authority or theologically demanding doctrine, the ties of devotion and loyalty prove irksome, even threatening; nothing is more threatening to secular modernity than the religious de votion that says, in the words of Josiah Royce, "I am, even of my own will, thine."1 In the past, Roman Catholics true to pope and dogma, Mormons inspired by their prophet, and the like have struggled for survival. In the context of modern secularism, though, tyr anny of the normal may be even less able to grasp the personal initiative and the deep freedom-in-search-of-truth that animates the life-transforming experiences of those who march to the beat of different drummer. Those who adhere to the main stream will try to explain away the choices of someone who breaks away in order to pursue a significant commitment to de votional life, particularly if this is a life embedded in a new alter native religious group: explanatory platitudes abound—"He was just lonely and without direction," or "She never had a good family life." Thus, a potent form of self-direction is reduced to
Abstract 3633: Prognostic value of chromogranin A and alkaline phosphatase in patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumor

BACKGROUND: Serum chromogranin A (CgA) or alkaline phosphatase (ALP) are often assessed in patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumor (NET) patients but their prognostic significance continues to be debated. We evaluated whether elevated CgA or ALP levels were associated with shorter survival in a large, prospectively collected cohort of NET patients. METHODS: We identified patients with metastatic NET enrolled in an institutional database between 2003-10. We used the single measurement of serum CgA or ALP levels collected with shortest time after metastatic diagnosis and classified them as binary variables (elevated/normal) based on clinical laboratory specification of elevated value. Elevated biomarker levels were correlated with overall survival using the log-rank test. Hazard ratios for each biomarker were calculated using multivariate Cox regression, adjusting for baseline characteristics of age, gender, tumor histology, and tumor subtype. Each biomarker was modeled as a time-varying covariate to account for variability in time from initial metastatic diagnosis to time of biomarker test. RESULTS: We identified 526 patients who presented at our institution with metastatic NET. Of these, 349 had available CgA values and 350 had available ALP values. There were 146 and 153 deaths among those tested for CgA and ALP, respectively. The median survival time from time of metastatic diagnosis (yrs, (95%CI)) for patients with elevated CgA was 5.98 (5.04, 7.3), as compared to 13.27 (9.51, -) for those at normal CgA limits (p Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3633. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-3633
The Transfer of Domestic-Market Production to a Foreign Site

Abstract The process of transferring production for a domestic market from a domestic site to a lower-cost foreign site is analyzed to determine under what conditions the firm will realize an economic benefit from such a transference. Assumptions are made concerning the particular production technology of interest, and models of both foreign and domestic costs are drawn from these assumptions. The managerial decision of whether or not to move production to the overseas location is framed in terms of a planning model, but the emphasis is on determining the breakeven times for domestic versus foreign operations as functions of the parameters of the various cases which comprise the off-shore sourcing possibilities.
Atenor Firmin's the Equality of the Human Races, Written 1883-1885, Published in French in 1885, Translated into English in 2000 and Published in English in 2002: Its Importance and Why Ignored

Atenor Firmin wrote a critique of racist views of humanity in 1885. Firmin, a Haitian, had been living in France and was exposed to the racist views of non-human peoples that were popular at the time. These ideas defended colonialism and relegated non-Europeans to an inferior status, if not to a separate race or species. Firmin's book demolished the assumptions and arguments of respected biologists like Broca in a step by step analysis. His book reads as if it were written today as a clear refutation of the Supremist position, yet his book was ignored until the present.
Standardization of pathology work in GLP facility

Pathology department is an important part of good laboratory practice (GLP) facility, which carries the work of toxicological pathology. On the basis of Chinese GLP, several points to pay attention to regarding the process, storage, documentation, qualification, protection, and instrumentation of pathology work were introduced. GLP facilities should attach the importance to the construction of pathology department. The pathology department should develop sound SOP and strengthen training according to the principles of GLP to facilitate the standardization of pathology work.
A review of garment ventilation strategies for structural firefighter protective clothing

The purpose of this review article is to evaluate ventilation, within protective clothing, for its benefit towards heat loss. Literature from ventilation studies in the sports apparel, outdoor clot...
A near ultraviolet solar-blind telescope design using silicon CCD detectors

We propose a novel approach to constructing a solar-blind near ultraviolet telescope using specialized mirror coatings. Each mirror in a three or four element optical system would have a coating reflective in the 200-300nm bandpass and transmissive at wavelengths longer than 300nm. This telescope can thus use CCD detectors providing high quantum efficiency, low noise, and a large pixel count. We have procured, from Materion Corporation, sample coatings with greater than 90% reflectance in the 200-300nm bandpass and less than 10% at wavelengths longer than 300nm. With three surfaces, these coatings provide <75% in band transmission for a telescope with better than 10,000 rejection at visible wavelengths. The use of ultraviolet optimized CCD detectors, combined with a three or four element telescope, would enable an Explorer class mission with near ultraviolet survey efficiency more than 100 times that of the recent GALEX mission. We will present measured reflectance and transmission curves from 200 - 1100nm for multiple samples. We will also show simulations of the expected performance of both 3 and 4 mirror systems for a conceptual space mission.
Turning Inward: 1924–1964

The legislation imposing the national origins quotas dealt a death blow to the Pennsylvania model, and the Great Depression did the same initially to the Virginia model. By the time the national origins quotas went fully into effect in 1929, any calls for renewed immigration would have been suppressed by unprecedented levels of unemployment. During the 1930s, only 500,000 immigrants came to the United States – less than one-eighth the number that had arrived in the previous decade. The Depression affected not only new arrivals but also the ability of prior immigrants to remain in the country. In 1932, emigration was almost three times higher than immigration – 35,576 entered and more than 100,000 immigrants left the United States. At the same time, there were large numbers of internal migrants, including African-Americans moving from the South to northern cities and “Okies” moving from the Dust Bowl to California. Perhaps the most tragic victims of this restrictive atmosphere were the refugees who tried to flee repression and conflict in Europe. The German quota under the 1924 Act often went unfilled as consular officers refused to grant visas to those likely to become public charges or who fell under other exclusions. This chapter will go into some detail on the heated debate in 1939, when Congress defeated the Wagner-Rogers Act, which was legislation intended to bring 20,000 mostly Jewish children from Nazi Germany outside existing legislative limits. The language of the opposition was reminiscent of the debates over the eastern and southern European immigration of the earlier era.
Meeting the Self at the Crossroads: Thoughts on Aging as a Young Cancer Survivor

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY With nearly 14.5 million cancer survivors currently alive in the United States, it is expected this will rise to roughly 19 million by 2024. As more people will age with a history of cancer than ever before, it is important to consider how experiences of cancer affect the life course through the bending of time and its interpretation. As such, aging as a cancer survivor must be at the forefront of health maintenance across the life course. DESIGN AND METHODS Through reference to my own cancer experiences in an auto-ethnographic format, this article interprets the illness experience as co-occurring in a young, aging body. This enhances our understanding of biographical reconstruction and individual liminality through descriptions of wisdom imparted by the cancer experience itself. Knowledge and wisdom are further interpreted as enhancing researchers' understandings of cancer and cancer survivorship. RESULTS In this article, I use my illness experiences as a young person to describe evolving interpretations of the life course, the aging body, and the self. IMPLICATIONS Concepts presented in this article aid researchers' understanding of how wisdom might be achieved through the experience of protracted illness over time. Such knowledge has important implications for the management of cancer as chronic, which may be most clearly described through the lens of the ill person.
The Brief Case: Dyspnea in a profoundly immunocompromised man

A 61-year-old male presented to a hospital in Missouri with several months of progressive shortness of breath and low-grade fevers. He had a past medical history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, which was treated with a matched unrelated donor bone marrow
A Semantic Data Parallel Query Method Based on Hadoop

To achieve efficient large-scale RDF data queries, we designed a parallel two-phase query strategy-PAQS for large-scale RDF data based on MapReduce, which is divided into two stages: the SPARQL pretreatment stage and the distributed query execution stage. In the SPARQL pretreatment stage, a SPARQL query classification algorithm is implemented, which determines the join order of connection variables by calculating the correlation between the variables in a SPARQL query statement; then, the join between SPARQL clauses is divided into the minimum number of MapReduce jobs according to the connection variables. The distributed query execution phase accomplishes large-scale RDF data query concurrently based on MapReduce jobs from the SPARQL pretreatment stage. The experimental results on the LUMB benchmark set indicate that PAQS can query large-scale RDF data with good efficiency, stability, and scalability.
Cerebrovascular reactivity mapping without gas challenges

Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), the ability of cerebral vessels to dilate or constrict, has been shown to provide valuable information in the diagnosis and treatment evaluation of patients with various cerebrovascular conditions. CVR mapping is typically performed using hypercapnic gas inhalation as a vasoactive challenge while collecting BOLD images, but the inherent need of gas inhalation and the associated apparatus setup present a practical obstacle in applying it in routine clinical use. Therefore, we aimed to develop a new method to map CVR using resting-state BOLD data without the need of gas inhalation. This approach exploits the natural variation in respiration and measures its influence on BOLD MRI signal. In this work, we first identified a surrogate of the arterial CO2 fluctuation during spontaneous breathing from the global BOLD signal. Second, we tested the feasibility and reproducibility of the proposed approach to use the above-mentioned surrogate as a regressor to estimate voxel-wise CVR. Third, we validated the “resting-state CVR map” with a conventional CVR map obtained with hypercapnic gas inhalation in healthy volunteers. Finally, we tested the utility of this new approach in detecting abnormal CVR in a group of patients with Moyamoya disease, and again validated the results using the conventional gas inhalation method. Our results showed that global BOLD signal fluctuation in the frequency range of 0.02–0.04 Hz contains the most prominent contribution from natural variation in arterial CO2. The CVR map calculated using this signal as a regressor is reproducible across runs (ICC=0.91±0.06), and manifests a strong spatial correlation with results measured with a conventional hypercapnia-based method in healthy subjects (r=0.88, p<0.001). We also found that resting-state CVR was able to identify vasodilatory deficit in patients with steno-occlusive disease, the spatial pattern of which matches that obtained using the conventional gas method (r=0.71±0.18). These results suggest that CVR obtained with resting-state BOLD may be a useful alternative in detecting vascular deficits in clinical applications when gas challenge is not feasible.
Renal cell carcinoma.

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is traditionally considered to be a “radioresistant” malignancy. Surgery has been the mainstay of treatment in the management of primary RCC, from open to laparoscopic and more recently robotic radical nephrectomy. For selected patients, nephron-sparing partial nephrectomy is performed. Other local therapy options include radiofrequency ablation (RFA), cryoablation, and other ablative procedures. Adjuvant radiotherapy after nephrectomy in high-risk patients has been shown to improve local control but not overall survival. These patients have high propensity for developing distant metastases which may explain the lack of survival benefits with adjuvant radiotherapy. In addition, it is also very difficult to deliver high dose radiation with conventional technique because of the radiation tolerance of normal tissues, especially the small bowels. With the approved use of various effective targeted agents, patients with high risk and metastatic RCC are now surviving longer and the role of local therapy for both primary and metastatic RCC has also become more important. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) has been shown to be very effective in the management of RCC brain metastases. Extracranially, conventional radiotherapy has played an important role in the palliation of metastatic RCC associated symptoms such as pain. Stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT), a continuum of technological advances in SRS from intracranial to extracranial application, has now evolved to show promise in the local management of primary RCC, local recurrence, and various metastatic sites.
PROBIOTICS PREVENTS OVARIECTOMY INDUCED BONE LOSS AND INDUCE BONE ANABOLISM IN NORMAL MICE BY DECREASING GUT PERMEABILITY AND INDUCING WNT10B PRODUCTION.

To investigate the bone effects of probiotics mice were ovariectomized (ovx) and treated for 4 weeks with vehicle or the probiotics L. rhamnosus GG (LGG) and VSL#3. In a second experiment LGG was administered to intact mice. LGG or VSL#3 completely prevented the loss of bone volume induced by ovx. Moreover, LGG induced increased bone formation and bone volume when fed to intact mice. Ovx increases gut permeability by decreasing the gut epithelial tight junction proteins. Increased gut permeability causes enhanced production of the inflammatory/osteoclastogenic factors RANKL, TNF and IL-17 in the intestine and the bone marrow. Treatment with LGG and VSL#3 normalized epithelial tight junction proteins thus preventing the detrimental effects of ovx on gut permeability and cytokine production in the gut and the bone marrow. Mechanistic studies in intact mice revealed that LGG increases osteoblast differentiation by activating Wnt signaling. In summary, administration of probiotics prevents the increase in gut permeability induced by estrogen deficiency, thereby dampening the ensuing osteoclastogenic immune cell response. In addition, in estrogen replete mice LGG increase bone formation and bone mass by stimulating osteoblastogenesis. Probiotics supplementation may thus represent an effective therapeutic strategy for the prevention and treatment of postmenopausal bone loss.
Elements of Band Structure

Origin of electron bands from atomic proximity, or from atomic periodicity in a crystal lattice are indicated. The proximity approach retains chemical atom identity. Atomic level splitting is tabulated and tunneling for electron transfer is discussed. Electronic structure of amorphous semiconductors are identified. Computed eigenvalue spectrum; Periodicity approach; Schrodinger equation for electron wave; k-vector; electron momentum; de Broglie wavelength; value; electron eigenstates; Bloch function; plane wave; Kronig-Penney Potential; explicit mathematics of band model; E(k) diagram; reduced k-vector; Newtonian description of quasi-free electrons; Kinetic electron energy; effective mass discussion; Comparison of periodicity vs. proximity approach; Band edge fuzzing of amorphous semiconductors; Discrete levels in band gap; plausibility approach.
Collaborative Optimization for Collective Decision-making in Continuous Spaces

Many societal decision problems lie in high-dimensional continuous spaces not amenable to the voting techniques common for their discrete or single-dimensional counterparts. These problems are typically discretized before running an election or decided upon through negotiation by representatives. We propose a meta-algorithm called Iterative Local Voting for collective decision-making in this setting, in which voters are sequentially sampled and asked to modify a candidate solution within some local neighborhood of its current value, as defined by a ball in some chosen norm. In general, such schemes do not converge, or, when they do, the resulting solution does not have a natural description. We first prove the convergence of this algorithm under appropriate choices of neighborhoods to plausible solutions in certain natural settings: when the voters' utilities can be expressed in terms of some form of distance from their ideal solution, and when these utilities are additively decomposable across dimensions. In many of these cases, we obtain convergence to the societal welfare maximizing solution. We then describe an experiment in which we test our algorithm for the decision of the U.S. Federal Budget on Mechanical Turk with over 4,000 workers, employing neighborhoods defined by §L1, §L2 and §L∞ balls. We make several observations that inform future implementations of such a procedure.
Following the research internationally: what we learned about communication design and ethics in India

As scholars conducting international research for the first time, we found the existing literature allowed us to do some things well but left us lacking in other areas. From our experiences, we learned that researchers should be prepared to study and work in ways that recontextualize their understanding of the world based on the unique place in which they are working. Further, researchers should take into account their own footprint as they transit, stay, eat, and work in areas of the world less familiar to them. Ethical research must also consider the positionality of study participants, accounting for the ways in which they also experience privilege.
Safety of a High-Dose Tranexamic Acid Protocol in Complex Adult Spinal Deformity: Analysis of 100 Consecutive Cases

Abstract Study Design Retrospective review of high-dose tranexamic acid (TXA) use in consecutive patients. Objective To determine the safety profile of a high-dose TXA protocol in complex adult spinal deformity patients. Summary of Background Data Adult spinal deformity (ASD) surgery may involve significant amounts of blood loss, especially when various osteotomy techniques are used. Antifibrinolytic agents such as TXA have been used to reduce intraoperative blood loss. However, there is no universally accepted dosing protocol for its use during complex ASD surgery. Methods Consecutive patients undergoing spinal deformity correction over a 14-month period at a single institution were identified. Inclusion criteria were adults (age ≥18 years) who underwent posterior spinal fusion of at least 5 levels and use of our standard TXA protocol of 50 mg/kg intravenous loading dose followed by a 5-mg/kg/h infusion until skin closure. Patient demographics, estimated blood loss (EBL), operative time, transfusion rates, complications, and other procedure-specific information were recorded. Results A total of 100 adult patients were included. All operative procedures were performed by the senior surgeon. The mean age was 47.3 years, and 71% of patients were female. Average body mass index was 24.9. The average fusion length was 14 levels; 33/100 patients had fusion constructs of 17 levels or more. Pedicle subtraction osteotomy was performed in 9 patients and vertebral column resections were performed in 14 patients. There were 45/100 patients who had a primary procedure, whereas the rest were revisions. Mean EBL was 1,336 mL (98 mL/level, 31% estimated blood volume). There were three thromboembolic complications, including one pulmonary embolism and two deep vein thromboses (DVTs), which were all treated successfully with anticoagulation. There were no cases of myocardial infarction, seizure, stroke, or acute renal failure. Conclusions This is the first study to demonstrate the use of high-dose TXA in a complex ASD population. Larger prospective studies are needed to assess the efficacy and safety of high-dose TXA in ASD. Level of Evidence Level IV, therapeutic.
Application of Wavelets in Process Control

This chapter provides an overview of wavelets from a process control perspective. The time-frequency localization and multiresolution properties of wavelets are discussed in the context of control applications. We also discuss various control problems where wavelets could be particularly advantageous. We illustrate the benefits of wavelet formulations by presenting wavelet domain approaches to basis reduction and frequency domain tuning in model predictive control problems.
Tissue Helminths: Snails, Rats, Cobras and Parasites in the Brain

In the 1970s Malaysia’s palm oil industry was booming. The country had relied on tin and rubber to fuel its economy when it was still a British colony, but after independence in 1957 it looked around to broaden its economy by adding new products to expand its basket of commodities for export. So the agribusiness widened to include pepper, cocoa, tea, coffee and palm oil. It was the palm oil industry that really took off, as a combination of suitable climate, soil type, cheap labor, good infrastructure and an expanding global market for consumer products all coincided in the 1960s and early 1970s. Palm oil was an inexpensive and versatile ingredient in the manufacture of a constellation of consumer products: cosmetics, soap, shampoo, cooking oil, skin lotion, animal feed, food additive, etc. and it propelled the Malaysian economy into high gear during that period. Therefore new oil palm plantations proliferated rapidly across the coastal flatlands of Peninsular Malaysia.
Setting Dissolution Specifications for Modified-Release Dosage Forms

Dissolution specifications are used for quality assurance and may also serve as a surrogate for in vivo bioavailability. These limits can guide formulation development and eliminate the need for bioavailability studies for scale up and post approval changes. Several methods for setting dissolution specifications have been reviewed in this chapter. A summary of the advantages and disadvantages for each method can be found in Table 1. When choosing a method for setting dissolution specifications, it is important to 1) have a discriminating dissolution system, 2) incorporate in vivo data, 3) include intersubject variability, and 4) predict plasma concentration-time profiles. Predicting plasma concentration curves allows one to see how the change in formulation or dissolution limits perform in vivo. Dissolution specifications should be set so that all formulations that have dissolution profiles within the limits of the specifications are bioequivalent. This can be assured if the boundaries are tested for bioequivalence. Minimally, the formulations that have dissolution profiles within the limits of the specifications should be bioequivalent to the pivotal batch. A population prediction of the plasma concentration-time profiles for the upper and lower limit would incorporate the true intersubject variability for the formulation.
Belief Function Approach to Evidential Reasoning in Causal Maps

The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate the use of evidential reasoning approach under Dempster-Shafer (D-S) theory of belief functions to analyze revealed causal maps. Revealed causal mapping (RCM) technique, as applied in this chapter, is a qualitative method used to develop or extend understanding of a phenomenon within a specific context. The map can be used to develop models, either as grounded theory or evocative theory building. The example referenced in this study used interview data as the primary source in the RCM method. The participants from information technology (IT) organizations provided the concepts to describe the target phenomenon of Job Satisfaction; they also identified the associations between the concepts. The researchers used coding rules to aggregate similar concepts to produce a composite RCM. The researchers proposed potential evidence measures that could be used to evaluate the model. This chapter discusses the steps necessary to transform a causal map into an evidential diagram. The evidential diagram can then be analyzed using belief functions technique with survey data, thereby extending the research from a discovery and explanation stage to testing and prediction. An example is provided to demonstrate these steps. This chapter also provides the basics of Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions and a step-by-step description of the propagation process of beliefs in tree like evidential diagrams.
Selenium supplementation of lung epithelial cells enhances nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) activation following thioredoxin reductase inhibition.

The trace element selenium (Se) contributes to redox signaling, antioxidant defense, and immune responses in critically ill neonatal and adult patients. Se is required for the synthesis and function of selenoenzymes including thioredoxin (Trx) reductase-1 (TXNRD1) and glutathione peroxidases (GPx). We have previously identified TXNRD1, primarily expressed by airway epithelia, as a promising therapeutic target to prevent lung injury, likely via nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2)-dependent mechanisms. The present studies utilized the TXNRD1 inhibitor auranofin (AFN) to test the hypothesis that Se positively influences Nrf2 activation and selenoenzyme responses in lung epithelial cells. Murine transformed Club cells (mtCCs) were supplemented with 0, 10, 25, or 100 nM Na2SeO3 to create a range of Se conditions and were cultured in the presence or absence of 0.5 μM AFN. TXNRD1 and GPX2 protein expression and enzymatic activity were significantly greater upon Se supplementation (p < 0.05). AFN treatment (0.5 μM AFN for 1 h) significantly inhibited TXNRD1 but not GPx activity (p < 0.001). Recovery of TXNRD1 activity following AFN treatment was significantly enhanced by Se supplementation (p < 0.041). Finally, AFN-induced Nrf2 transcriptional activation was significantly greater in mtCCs supplemented in 25 or 100 nM Na2SeO3 when compared to non-supplemented controls (p < 0.05). Our novel studies indicate that Se levels positively influence Nrf2 activation and selenoenzyme responses following TXNRD1 inhibition. These data suggest that Se status significantly influences physiologic responses to TXNRD1 inhibitors. In conclusion, correction of clinical Se deficiency, if present, will be necessary for optimal therapeutic effectiveness of TXNRD1 inhibitors in the prevention of lung disease.
Expectation of the largest bet size in the Labouchere system

For the Labouchere system with winning probability $p$ at each coup, we prove that the expectation of the largest bet size under any initial list is finite if $p>\frac{1} {2}$, and is infinite if $p\le \frac{1} {2}$, solving the open conjecture in [6]. The same result holds for a general family of betting systems, and the proof builds upon a recursive representation of the optimal betting system in the larger family.
The role of respondent gender and sexual orientation in shaping punitive attitudes and perceptions of responsibility for same- and opposite-sex student-teacher relationships

The sexual double standard posits that men and women are perceived differently for their sexual experiences, including experiences of sexual violence and misconduct. This study explores these gende...
Classrooms and Cognition.

Classroom practice should be directly related to a theory of learning. Mathematics educators have used the works of theorists such as Skinner , Piaget, and Bruner to guide their work. Recent innovations in classroom practice include listening to students' explanations of their mathematical reasoning processes, recognizing students' potential for mathematical reasoning, recognizing the number and complexity of processes necessary for the solution of problems, and providing experiences that encourage students to construct assimilation paradigms to help them reconcile new concepts with their current knowledge base and thus construct new knowledge. Do we have a sound base of theoretical support for these new practices? The author argues that the requisite theories do exist, but probably not as a single unified theory at the present time.
Assessing the Hazard of E-Cigarette Flavor Mixtures using Zebrafish

Since 2007, electronic cigarette (e-cigarette) sales in the U.S. have surpassed those of tobacco cigarettes. This is due, in part, to manufacturer's claims that they are a safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes. However, formaldehyde, acrolein, and diacetyl have been detected in e-cigarettes and public knowledge of e-cigarette composition and ingredient bioactivity is conspicuously lacking. We evaluated the toxicity of nine e-cigarette flavor mixtures and their constituents in the developmental zebrafish, an excellent whole animal biosensor of chemical hazard. Seven of the nine flavors (78%) elicited adverse developmental responses at 1% by volume. The number of toxic endpoints varied greatly between flavors. Two flavors, Grape and Bubble Gum, had similar chemical compositions, but different toxicity profiles. We hypothesized that the toxicity was driven by a constituent present only in the Bubble Gum flavor, cinnamaldehyde. To replicate this toxicity, we built our own defined mixture. The addition of varying concentrations of cinnamaldehyde suggested that it drove the toxicity of these mixtures and that e-cigarette hazard can be flavor dependent.
Combined Heart-Kidney Transplant Versus Sequential Kidney Transplant in Heart Transplant Recipients.

ABSTRACT Objectives In patients with reduced kidney function there are no established guidelines to suggest combined heart-kidney transplant (HKTx) versus sequential kidney transplant (SKTx) using preoperative value of estimated glomerular filtration (eGFR). Methods The United Network for Organ Sharing database was queried from 2000 to 2015 to evaluate survival of HKTx and SKTx population stratified by preoperative eGFR rate Results In our analysis, patients who required SKTx are recipients that, after heart transplantation, developed or worsened kidney insufficiency due to calcineurin inhibitor nephrotoxicity. In recipients with eGFR Conclusions To optimize organ and patient survival, eGFR value can be utilized to discern between HKTx versus SKTx in patients with decreased renal function at the time of heart transplantation. Patients with eGFR
IMPACT OF BIFURCATION ANGLE ON MAJOR CARDIAC EVENTS AFTER CROSS OVER SINGLE STENT STRATEGY IN UNPROTECTED LEFT MAIN BIFURCATION LESION: 3-DIMENSIONAL QUANTITATIVE CORONARY ANGIOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS

The impact of the bifurcation angle (BA) between the left main (LM) and the main branch on clinical outcomes after single stenting has never been documented. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the BA on clinical outcomes after single cross-over LM to left anterior descending artery (LAD) stenting. A total of 170 patients who underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in unprotected LM bifurcation with successful single cross-over stenting from the LM into the LAD were enrolled. The main vessel angle between the LM and the LAD was computed in end-diastole before PCI with three-dimensional (3D) quantitative coronary angiography (QCA) software. The patients were classified into three groups according to tertiles of the main vessel angle. The cumulative incidence of major adverse cardiac event (MACE: cardiac death, myocardial infarction, any revascularization including target lesion revascularization) rates throughout a 12-month period were compared between the three groups. Baseline patient characteristics were not a significant difference between the three groups. Compared to the high angle group, the low angle group had a significantly higher incidence of MACE (p = 0.041). In conclusion, this study revealed that low BA between the LM and the LAD had an adverse clinical impact after single cross-over LM to LAD stenting.
Archetypes of Advocates

Advocacy and activism have become frequent topics of recent research. In this study we sought to discover whether there are patterns of advocacy and to identify patterns so that advocates and activ...
Incremental role of CT coronary angiography in the assessment of left ventricular diastolic function.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether Computed Tomography (CT) coronary angiography (CTCA) has clinical value for the assessment of left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction (DD) beyond traditional information on coronary artery anatomy. METHOD In this retrospective study, a consecutive group of 72 patients (mean age 59±13 years)-who met the eligibility criteria of sinus rhythm, no significant valvular abnormalities, and who had transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE)-were analysed. The CTCA was prospectively triggered during diastole. Outcomes of interest were CTCA derived LV and left atrial (LA) volumes, diastolic expansion (DE) index: LV volume÷LA volume and DE fraction (DEF): [(LV volume-LA volume)÷LV volume]×100. TTE-LA volume was measured as maximum, minimum and pre-A. Studied patients were divided according to the current classification of LVDD as a reference standard. A small subgroup of nine patients underwent further invasive cardiac catheterisation. RESULTS CTCA-LV and LA volumes were larger compared with TTE, 37%±20% and 11%±21%, respectively. CTCA-LA volume correlated well with all TTE-LA volumes (maximum: R2=0.58; pre-A wave: R2=0.39; minimum: R2=0.26; p 1.65 and DE <1.40 have good specificity (85% and 88%, respectively), and positive predictive value to differentiate LVDD. DE and DEF were dependent on the patients' age but independent of other variables. CONCLUSIONS CTCA derived diastasis volume indices can provide additional quantifiable information on LVDD.