cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
The New Industrial Agriculture: The Regional Integration of Specialty Crop Production

Studies within the theoretical framework of “the new industrial geography” have depended on manufacturing and service industries, overlooking the primary sector. When compared with manufacture, agriculture exhibits similarities and distinctions which reveal the particular historical role of natural processes and cycles in restricting the conditions of profitable production, systematically distinguishing agriculture from manufacturing and encouraging subsectoral differentiation around particular commodity complexes. This case study of specialty crop production shows that agriculture is also being restructured—vertically integrated by the concentration of control (within marketing and processing firms) over the production process at the same time as production activities within the farm and the sector are vertically disintegrated through a complex web of capacity and specialty subcontracting. Discovery of these integrated processes can lead to new understanding of the forces which produce agricultural regions.
α-Synuclein-Induced Membrane Remodeling Is Driven by Binding Affinity, Partition Depth, and Interleaflet Order Asymmetry

We have investigated the membrane remodeling capacity of the N-terminal membrane-binding domain of α-synuclein (α-Syn100). Using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and vesicle clearance assays, we show that α-Syn100 fully tubulates POPG vesicles, the first demonstration that the amphipathic helix on its own is capable of this effect. We also show that at equal density of membrane-bound protein, α-Syn has dramatically reduced affinity for, and does not tubulate, vesicles composed of a 1:1 POPG:POPC mixture. Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations suggested that the difference between the pure POPG and mixture results may be attributed to differences in the protein's partition depth, the membrane's hydrophobic thickness, and disruption of acyl chain order. To explore the importance of these attributes compared with the role of the reduced binding energy, we created an α-Syn100 variant in which we removed the hydrophobic core of the non-amyloid component (NAC) domain and tested its impact on pure POPG vesicles. We observed a substantial reduction in binding affinity and tubulation, and simulations of the NAC-null protein suggested that the reduced binding energy increases the protein mobility on the bilayer surface, likely impacting the protein's ability to assemble into organized pretubule structures. We also used simulations to explore a potential role for interleaflet coupling as an additional driving force for tubulation. We conclude that symmetry across the leaflets in the tubulated state maximizes the interaction energy of the two leaflets and relieves the strain induced by the hydrophobic void beneath the amphipathic helix.
The Role of Public Opinion in US and Canadian Immigration Policies

ABSTRACTConsidering that the United States and Canada are neighboring North American countries with fairly similar liberal democratic political cultures, their immigration policies are noticeably different. While US policies prioritize family reunification, Canadian policies favor labor demands and employability. This difference reflects the varying degrees to which the public influences their respective immigration policies. Examining contemporary immigration policies of the United States and Canada, this paper compares the role of public opinion in each, and argues that public opinion plays a more prominent role in immigration policies in the United States than it does in Canada. This observation is due in part to the partisan nature of the US political structure and to the cohesiveness among immigrants, particularly Latinos. Canada, in contrast, favors a policy of multiculturalism that empowers immigrant groups and limits individual groups’ capacity and inclination to dominate policy decisions.
Experimental study on static friction coefficient of granite survey

In order to reveal the constructional feature of the deep rock mass,taking granite,the typical rock in deep rock mass for example,the study of single face and double face static friction of granule granite,whose roughness is six,was made by using the self-made multi-functional test system of deep rock mass dynamic specialty.Four different operating conditions in the biggest static friction force test of single face and two different operating conditions of double face were measured,and the static friction coefficient 0.572 was obtained.With the study,law and characteristic for static friction between granite rock mass were revealed,and metrical way and technique for maximal static friction coefficient were sought.When the response curve of displacement becomes bold,the friction between blocks is max.Take measuring the max static friction between the signal and both sides of the blocks for the basic measuring method and technology,which establishs the foundation for experimental study on kinetic characteristic of deep rock masses.
Research Progress of Rice Heat Tolerance at Grain Filling Stage

Grain filling stage is a crucial stage for the formation of grain yield and quality in rice.By influencing the C and N metabolism pathways and the expression of starch synthesis-related genes,high temperature stress occurring in the grain filling stage may result in lower grain yield and poorer grain quality because of decreased photosynthetic rate,blocked respiratory chain,declined starch synthesis and related enzyme activities.The authors reviewed the effects of high temperature stress on the physiological and biochemistry characteristics and the progress of research on QTL mapping,gene expression and proteomics of heat tolerance at rice grain filling stage,and put forward some suggestions for future research of rice heat tolerance.
Whose Rights Are Right? The Competing Logics of Rights and Why They Matter

The 50th year anniversaries of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 as well as the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act provide an opportune moment to reflect of what we have learned about the role of rights, litigation and judicial decisions in the struggle for social justice. At first glance, the vast, multi-disciplinary literature on this topic seems incoherent, as scholars have simultaneously found that rights, litigation and judicial decisions almost never matter (and are "hollow hopes") and that they matter too much (and have hopelessly hamstrung policy and politics). Others argue that the effect of rights, litigation and judicial decisions are so contingent and context-specific that we should avoid any grand claims about their effects. This paper argues that the ostensible contradictions in the literature reflect three distinct conceptual approaches: (1) the quasi-experimental approach (which treats rights, litigation and judicial decisions as independent stimuli or "treatments" and seeks to isolate their direct effects on policy); (2) the constitutive approach (which treats rights, litigation and judicial decisions as socially constructed political resources and seeks to trace how activists use them in mobilizing interests and building social movements); and (3) the structural approach (which treats rights, litigation and judicial decisions as iterative framing mechanisms and seeks to analyze how they shape politics and political discourse over time). Once these implicit approaches come into focus, it is contended, we can see news ways of aggregating seemingly discordant findings, identifying points of genuine conflict and uncovering fruitful avenues of future inquiry.
Radiobiology of Stereotactic Radiosurgery and Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy

The initial description of clinical radiation biology arose in an era where most external beam treatments comprised multiple fractions of radiation delivered over a protracted period of time. The increasing adoption of image guided techniques has permitted the delivery of much larger single doses over shorter time periods. In this chapter we discuss those biological factors thought to impact clinical outcome, repair, reoxygenation, redistribution, repopulation, and radiosensitivity and compare and contrast their relevance in the era of hypofractionated treatment.
Signal Processing and Pattern Recognition for Structural Health Monitoring with PWAS Transducers

This chapter examines two aspects of considerable importance for the structural health monitoring (SHM) process: (i) signal processing and (ii) damage identification/pattern recognition algorithms. The SHM community is constantly exposed to various aspects of signal processing, spectra collection, data processing and analysis, pattern recognition, and decision-making. This chapter reviews some of these aspects. Both the state-of-the-art and general principles, on one hand, and specific examples, on the other hand, are presented. However, an exhaustive presentation of these vast topics is not attempted, since it would be beyond the scope and possibilities of a single chapter. The signal-processing subject is described in terms of two major algorithmic paths: the short-term Fourier transform (STFT) and the wavelet transform (WT). Both these approaches fall into the larger class of time-frequency analysis. The damage identification/pattern recognition process is discussed in the context of the analysis of spectrum features (e.g., resonance frequencies, resonance peaks). The existence of adequate algorithms would allow one to classify the spectral data into classes according to the damage state of the structure. An elementary classification problem would consist of distinguishing between “damaged” and “pristine” structures. More advanced techniques would allow classifying the structure’s health by assessing the progress of damage based on its severity and identify the damage location. Neural nets (NN) are presented as efficient classification algorithms. In particular, probabilistic neural nets (PNN) are discussed in some detail for SHM applications. Specific examples are presented and discussed in the context of the electromechanical (E/M) impedance method, which permits the direct determination of the structural modal spectrum at high frequencies.
Multi-task averaging: theory and practice

This dissertation addresses the problem of estimating the means of multiple distributions. I begin with a brief history of the mean, leading to a discussion and literature review of Stein estimation and multi-task learning. Using a multi-task regularized empirical risk formulation, an algorithm called multi-task averaging (MTA) is derived and analyzed. Two main results are discussed. First, I prove that the MTA solution matrix is right-stochastic, that is, the multi-task mean estimates are always convex combinations of single-task mean estimates. Second, in the two-task case, analysis shows that the MTA estimates have smaller risk than single-task estimates for a range of task similarity values. I use this analysis to derive a theoretically optimal similarity, which has an intuitive form. I then proceed to derive two practical and efficient MTA estimators for real data of any number of tasks: constant MTA and minimax MTA. Extensive simulations and four applications demonstrate that MTA often outperforms the battle-tested James-Stein estimator, as well as single-task estimation.
Über die allmähliche Verfertigung unseres Ichs durch das Leben

Heinrich von Kleist verfasste 1805 die Abhandlung Uber die allmahliche Verfertigung der Gedanken beim Reden, die allerdings erst postum 1878 veroffentlicht wurde. Darin vertrat er die Ansicht, dass wir unsere Gedanken meist wahrend des Sprechens entwickeln: Die Sprache ist die Wiege des Denkens, vor allem, wenn wir uns in Situationen befinden, in denen wir spontan auf Einwurfe und Fragen eines Gegenuber reagieren. Diesen Gedanken sowie die Formulierung Kleists aufgreifend und ausgehend von den Uberlegungen der vorangehenden Kapitel, kann man analog behaupten, dass auch die Entfaltung unseres Selbst sowie unserer personalen Identitat eine allmahliche Verfertigung bedeutet, bei der wir im Laufe unseres Daseins nach und nach bemerken, wer und wie wir sind und welche auseren und inneren Einflussgrosen fur diesen unseren Werdeprozess verantwortlich zeichnen.
Partitioning sparse rectangular matrices for parallel processing

The authors are interested in partitioning sparse rectangular matrices for parallel processing. The partitioning problem has been well-studied in the square symmetric case, but the rectangular problem has received very little attention. They will formalize the rectangular matrix partitioning problem and discuss several methods for solving it. They will extend the spectral partitioning method for symmetric matrices to the rectangular case and compare this method to three new methods -- the alternating partitioning method and two hybrid methods. The hybrid methods will be shown to be best.
Case study: Applying formal methods to the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II

Requirements State Machine Language (RSML) evolved from statecharts during the development of the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) II system requirements specification. This paper describes RSML and the TCAS II system requirements specification, which was reverse-engineered from pseudocode. This case study illustrates how formal methods have been applied to a safety-critical system, improving the assurance of safety in three areas: product review, process and personnel certification, and functional testing. >
Absorption of Sound in Seawater

Abstract This chapter discusses the absorption of sound in seawater and its dependence upon factors, such as salinity, temperature, pH, and pressure. A key mechanism is the molecular chemical relaxation process associated with magnesium sulfate (MgSO4), and boric acid (B(OH)3) in seawater. From a few hundred hertz to a few kilohertz the boric acid molecular chemical relaxation appears to be the dominant source of observed absorption, while above a few kilohertz magnesium sulfate chemical relaxation appears to dominate. Selected experimental results from data collected over the past few decades in field and laboratory experiments are discussed. The formulas developed by Francois and Garrison for the absorption of sound as a function of salinity, pH, pressure (depth), and temperature over the range from about 100 Hz to 1 MHz along with the Ainslie and McColm fast running approximation for the Francois and Garrison formulation are summarized.
Self-Concept and Identity Development

Introduce sociological perspectives on the development of self-identify and its stages Discuss the role of social processes in identity formation and self-presentation Understand how self-concept and identity influence human behavior
Providers’ perspectives of barriers experienced in maternal health care among Marshallese women

Abstract Problem Pacific Islanders are disproportionately burdened by poorer maternal health outcomes with higher rates of pre-term births, low birth weight babies, infant mortality, and inadequate or no prenatal care. Purpose The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to explore maternal health care providers’ perceptions and experiences of barriers in providing care to Marshallese women, and (2) providers perceived barriers of access to care among Marshallese women. This is the first paper to explore perceived barriers to maternal health care among a Marshallese community from maternal health care providers’ perspectives in the United States. Methods A phenomenological, qualitative design, using a focus group and in-depth interviews with 20 maternal health care providers residing in northwest Arkansas was chosen. Findings Several perceived barriers were noted, including transportation, lack of health insurance, communication and language, and socio-cultural barriers that described an incongruence between traditional and Western medical models of care. There was an overall discord between the collectivist cultural identity of Marshallese families and the individualistic maternal health care system that merits further research. Discussion Solutions to these barriers, such as increased cultural competency training for maternal health care providers and the incorporation of community health workers are discussed.
Active network middleware with opennetVM

Communication Networks are no longer just pipes that move data from place to place. They are becoming powerful, software-based infrastructures capable of transforming and inspecting data as it moves between hosts. Two trends reflect this: the use of Software Defined Networks (SDN) to dynamically manage the network control plane (i.e., routing), and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) to provide a high-performance network data plane (e.g., middleboxes - services like firewalls, proxies, etc.). NFV promises to enable a vast array of in-network software functions running efficiently in virtualized environments. This is a paradigm shift from traditional networks that relied on purpose-built, costly and inflexible hardware middleboxes. To accelerate research and development of network middleware, we have developed OpenNetVM, an open-source (BSD license) software infrastructure for high speed packet processing.
Mosquito and Tick-borne Illnesses in the United States. Guidelines for the Recognition and Empiric Treatment of Zoonotic Diseases in the Wilderness.

Background In the United States, tick-borne illnesses account for a significant number of patients that have been seen and treated by health care facilities. This in turn, has resulted in a significant morbidity and mortality and economic costs to the country. Methods The distribution of these illnesses is geographically variable and is related to the climate as well. Many of these illnesses can be diagnosed and treated successfully, if recognized and started on appropriate antimicrobial therapy early in the disease process. Patient with illnesses such as Lyme disease, Wet Nile illness can result in chronic debilitating diseases if not recognized early and treated. Conclusion This paper covers illnesses such as Lyme disease, West Nile illness, Rocky Mountain Spotted fever, Ehrlichia, Tularemia, typhus, mosquito borne illnesses such as enteroviruses, arboviruses as well as arthropod and rodent borne virus infections as well. It covers the epidemiology, clinical features and diagnostic tools needed to make the diagnosis and treat these patients as well.
Procedural Learning in Animals

Procedural learning and memory involve the acquisition, consolidation, and retrieval of individual representations that are behaviorally expressed in an inflexible manner. Acquisition of stimulus–response and stimulus–affect associations represents prominent forms of procedural learning. Extensive evidence indicates that these forms of procedural learning are mediated by relatively independent neural systems that contain the dorsal striatum and amygdala as primary components, respectively. This article provides a brief description of evidence implicating the dorsal striatum and amygdala in procedural learning and memory, focusing on studies employing brain lesion and pharmacological approaches in lower animals.
Abstract 595: Blocking Cadherin-11 Adhesion After Myocardial Infarction Preserves Cardiac Function

Introduction: Over one million Americans experience myocardial infarction (MI) every year, and the resulting scar and subsequent cardiac fibrosis contribute to heart failure and death. The cells pr...
Constructing Critical Conversations in Social Work Supervision: Creating Change

Clinical social work supervision is not immune to enactments of racial and social injustice, prejudice, power and privilege rampant in our social environment and institutions. These dynamics are active in all social interactions. Most often felt on impact, these remain underground and unevenly experienced—though predominantly by people representing intersecting marginalized identities. Such real enactments can be misunderstood or avoided in social work supervision. Negative consequences not only impede learning for the supervisee and supervisor, and affect clinical understanding of client care they also perpetuate injustice based on power and social locations. Social work supervision provides space for critical analysis to identify and alter dynamics of power, privilege, and social oppression. The critical conversations (CC) model provides a framework to illuminate and examine power dynamics in order to produce change with parallel insight and action—supervisee, supervisor, and client care. Supervisee and supervisor gain capacity to engage in reflection, examine personal and professional values, hold tension and tolerate ambiguity, use one self critically, articulate ideas and insights thoughtfully and effectively, as well as inform clinical understanding of clients. The need for critical dialogue in social work supervision regarding dynamics of sameness, differences, intersectional identities, power and privilege is emphasized. Theoretical grounding is offered to elucidate how complex structural forces of oppression and privilege, cultural patterns and narratives are internalized. A definition of CC, its theoretical underpinnings and the CC model are presented with a case scenario to illuminate the application of the CC model in clinical supervision.
Efficient Ammonia Decomposition in a Catalytic Membrane Reactor To Enable Hydrogen Storage and Utilization

Liquid ammonia is a high-density (17.7 wt %) hydrogen carrier with a well-established production and distribution infrastructure. Efficient decomposition and purification are essential for its use ...
Effect of XML markup on retrieval of clinical documents.

OBJECTIVE To determine the effect on clinical information retrieval of structuring typical clinical documents in XML, according to the general guidelines of Health Level Seven's Clinical Document Architecture. METHODS One thousand clinical documents of eight frequently occurring types were deidentified and marked up in XML for access using a Web browser. Fifty information-seeking tasks were posed to subjects. The tasks were comprised of two typical clinical question types-individual patient results reporting and cohort identification. A control group of physician subjects could perform only free-text, keyword searching. The treatment group's interface permitted field-based searching of particular sections within each document. Differences in precision and other measures of search success across and between question types were investigated for statistical significance. RESULTS No statistically significant differences were found between the control and treatment conditions in mean time elapsed or the mean number of records in the final result set. In fact, tasks performed in the treatment condition required a mean number of more steps in the search sequence to a degree that was statistically significant. Tasks performed in the treatment condition had a statistically significant lower rate of mean precision. There was no statistically significant difference between the means of relevance of the individual patient and cohort identification tasks. CONCLUSION These findings are in line with Tange et al. who found that coarser granularity of clinical narrative gave better results. The results of this experiment also have implications for automatic text processing. Complex tag sets cannot ultimately resolve problems of unstandardized structure; the lack of existing structure within clinical documents is itself a significant limitation.
Robust Policies for a Multiple-Pursuer Single-Evader Differential Game

Analysis of the pursuit–evasion differential game consisting of multiple pursuers and single evader with simple motion is difficult due to the well-known curse of dimensionality. Policies have been proposed for this scenario, and we show that these policies are global Stackelberg equilibrium strategies. However, we also show that they are not saddle-point equilibria in the feedback sense. The argument is twofold: cases where the saddle-point condition is violated and cases where the strategy profiles are not time consistent (subgame perfect). The issue of capturability is explored, and sufficient conditions for guaranteed capture are provided. A new pursuit policy is proposed which guarantees capture while also providing an upper bound for capture time. The evader policy corresponding to the global Stackelberg equilibrium is shown to provide a lower bound for capture time. Thus, these policies are robust from the pursuer and evader perspectives, respectively, should they implement them. Several other interesting pursuit and evasion policies are explored and compared with the robust policies in a series of experiments.
Methodology to separate the two burn stages of natural-gas lean premixed-combustion inside a diesel geometry

Abstract Heavy-duty diesel engines can be modified to natural-gas spark-ignition operation by replacing the fuel injector with a spark plug and fumigating the gas inside the intake manifold. As natural gas premixed combustion in a diesel geometry is a two-stage combustion process with each stage influencing engine efficiency and emissions, determining the end of the fast burn inside the bowl can help optimize engine operation. This study proposed a methodology that identifies the burn inside the bowl using the inflection points of the heat release rate. A 3D CFD simulation that changed spark timing, equivalence ratio, and engine speed showed that this methodology can separate the fast combustion stage from the rest of the combustion event compared to the conventional spark-ignition theory that could not. In addition, this methodology showed that operating conditions controlled the flame location and combustion behavior inside the squish. For example, advanced spark timing, higher equivalence ratio, and lower engine speed advanced the transition point between the fast and the slow combustion stages but increased the mass of fuel inside the squish region. Moreover, the flame speed inside the bowl was ∼3 times higher than that inside the squish region. In addition, the lower burning rate after the transition point can decrease engine efficiency. Moreover, a higher engine speed optimized in-cylinder conditions at the transition between the two combustion events (which would suggest a better late combustion stage) but decreased the time available to complete the late combustion, which will probably increase emissions compared to conventional spark-ignition engines.
A preliminary study of a composite sleep health score: associations with psychological distress, body mass index, and physical functioning in a low-income African American community.

Abstract Objectives Although multiple individual sleep measures (eg, sleep duration, satisfaction) have been linked to a wide range of physical and mental health conditions, scant research has examined how individual sleep dimensions may act independently or additively to influence health. The current study investigates associations of 5 sleep dimensions (duration, satisfaction, efficiency, timing, and regularity), analyzed separately and simultaneously, with psychological distress, body mass index, and physical functioning among a low-income, predominantly African American population. Design We constructed a composite sleep health (SH) score from the sum of scores, representing “good’ and “poor” ranges of 5 sleep measures (range 0-5). Setting Two low-income, predominantly African American neighborhoods in Pittsburgh. Participants Participants included 738 community-dwelling adults (78% female and 98% black). Measurements Actigraphy-based measures of sleep duration, regularity, timing, and efficiency, and self-reported sleep satisfaction. Outcomes included self-reported psychological distress, physical functioning, and measured body mass index (BMI). Results Each 1-unit higher SH score was associated with 0.55-unit lower psychological distress score (range 0-24) and 2.23-unit higher physical functioning score. Participants with at least 2, 3, or 4 sleep dimensions in the “healthy” range, vs fewer, had lower psychological distress scores. Greater sleep satisfaction was associated with higher physical functioning, and longer sleep duration was associated with lower physical functioning. Neither the composite SH score nor any of the individual sleep dimensions were associated with BMI. Conclusions Assessing multiple sleep dimensions may provide a more comprehensive understanding of associations of sleep with psychological distress than assessing any single sleep dimension. Although no sleep measures were related to BMI in the current sample, analyses should be replicated in other samples to determine generalizability.
Using Two IMU Sensors to Simulate Lower Body Stance

This paper presents initial findings that are a stepping stone to creating a sensor suite that monitors human posture with limited inertial measurement units. The focus is on using two inertial measurement units, one on each lower leg, to try to recreate the posture of the lower body. We compare a complementary filter and a biologically inspired filter for defining leg angle. Our results show that lower leg stance and hip position can be calculated through the use of both filters, with the complementary filter offering a less computationally intensive result while also being more accurate at tracking.
A Nonmodal Instability Perspective of the Declining Northern Midlatitude Synoptic Variability in Boreal Summer

AbstractThe Pacific–North America–North Atlantic sector in general experienced a dryer and warmer climate in summer during the past 40 years. These changes are partly associated with declining midl...
Protocol optimization for a fast, simple and economical chemical reduction synthesis of antimicrobial silver nanoparticles in non-specialized facilities.

Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) can be difficult or expensive to obtain or synthesize for laboratories in resource-limited facilities. The purpose of this work was to optimize a synthesis method for a fast, facile, and cost-effective synthesis of AgNPs with antimicrobial activity, which can be readily implemented in non-specialized facilities and laboratories. The optimized method uses a rather simple and rapid chemical reduction process that involves the addition of a polyvinylpyrrolidone solution to a warmed silver nitrate solution under constant vigorous stirring, immediately followed by the addition of sodium borohydride. The total synthesis time is less than 15 min. The obtained AgNPs exhibit an aspect ratio close to 1, with an average size of 6.18 ± 5 nm. AgNPs displayed potent antimicrobial activity, with Minimal Inhibitory Concentration values of ≤ 4 µg mL−1 for Staphylococcus aureus and ≤ 2 µg mL−1 for Candida albicans. The resulting method is robust and highly reproducible, as demonstrated by the characterization of AgNPs from different rounds of syntheses and their antimicrobial activity.
Network-Level Risk-Based Framework for Optimal Bridge Adaptation Management Considering Scour and Climate Change

AbstractTransportation networks, as an essential ingredient of civil infrastructure, are subjected to various natural hazards over their service life. Failure of bridges may severely disrupt the se...
Emergency Medical Services: An Under-Utilized Group for Improved Chemical Security Surveillance?

Emergency medical services (EMS) personnel are a potential asset in the detection of chemical security incidents or breaches. As medical providers, EMS has access to areas that other groups, like l...
Risk Stratification in COVID-19: A Review

Following the first few reports of a novel coronavirus affecting a large number of Chinese residents in the city of Wuhan, it was rapidly clear that the disease did not affect everyone to the same degree. Often this is based on socio-political factors, leadership and resilience of the public health infrastructure. The predicted surge in infections due to high viral transmission rates threatened to overwhelm every healthcare system in the world. However, it has become clear that the experience of different population groups or subsets with variable characteristics was not the same. This review assesses pre-existing conditions that were identified as pathophysiological or sociodemographic risk factors of COVID-19. This will allow policymakers to decide what mitigation is needed to reduce those risks and protect the public from infections.
One Health in hospitals: how understanding the dynamics of people, animals, and the hospital built-environment can be used to better inform interventions for antimicrobial-resistant gram-positive infections

Despite improvements in hospital infection prevention and control, healthcare associated infections (HAIs) remain a challenge with significant patient morbidity, mortality, and cost for the healthcare system. In this review, we use a One Health framework (human, animal, and environmental health) to explain the epidemiology, demonstrate key knowledge gaps in infection prevention policy, and explore improvements to control Gram-positive pathogens in the healthcare environment. We discuss patient and healthcare worker interactions with the hospital environment that can lead to transmission of the most common Gram-positive hospital pathogens – methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridioides (Clostridium) difficile, and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus – and detail interventions that target these two One Health domains. We discuss the role of animals in the healthcare settings, knowledge gaps regarding their role in pathogen transmission, and the absence of infection risk mitigation strategies targeting animals. We advocate for novel infection prevention and control programs, founded on the pillars of One Health, to reduce Gram-positive hospital-associated pathogen transmission.
Long-Term, All-Day Exposure to Circadian-Effective Light Improves Sleep, Mood, and Behavior in Persons with Dementia.

Background Persons with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) frequently experience sleep-wake (circadian) cycle disturbances that lead them to remain awake at night, causing stress and fatigue for families and caregivers. Light therapy shows promise as a nonpharmacological treatment for regulating sleep in this population. Objective We investigated the long-term impact of a circadian-effective lighting intervention on sleep, mood, and behavior problems in persons with ADRD. Methods This 25-week clinical trial administered an all-day lighting intervention to 47 patients with ADRD in 9 senior-care facilities, employing wrist-worn actigraphy measures and standardized measures of sleep quality, mood, and behavior. Results The intervention significantly improved Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores, from an estimated mean±SEM of 11.89±0.53 at baseline to 5.36±0.63 at the end of the intervention. Additional improvements were noted for sleep efficiency data from actigraph measurements. The intervention significantly reduced Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia scores (mean±SEM of 11.36±0.74 at baseline and 4.18±0.88 at the end of the intervention) and Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory scores (mean±SEM of 47.10±1.98 at baseline and 35.33±2.23 at the end of the intervention). Conclusion A regular circadian-effective daytime lighting intervention can improve sleep at night and reduce depression and agitation in patients with dementia living in controlled environments. More importantly, the positive effects of the tailored lighting intervention on these outcomes appear to be cumulative over time.
Torsion of the vermiform appendix in a 16-year-old young man: surgical-radiologic correlation

Abstract Torsion of the vermiform appendix is a rare cause of appendicitis. As it results in ischemia of the appendix, it is usually reported as causing the same symptoms and presentation observed in other cases of appendicitis. Torsion can be primary, in the setting of an otherwise normal appendix, or secondary, when associated with an abnormality such as a mucocele or mass. Despite its rarity, appendiceal torsion has been observed in a wide distribution of age groups, from young children to the elderly. In this report, we describe the case of a 16-year-old young man who presented to an outside facility with several days of pain in the right lower quadrant, and was found to have CT scan findings suspicious for torsion of the appendiceal base. He was transferred to our facility and underwent diagnostic laparoscopy which revealed a 720-degree clockwise torsion of the vermiform appendix about its base, and he was treated with stapled appendectomy. As symptoms from appendiceal torsion will usually be identical to those of more conventional appendicitis, correlation of radiographic findings, when available, with symptoms is useful in identifying torsion as the etiology of the patient's appendicitis and for planning the appropriate operative approach.
Avoiding Authoritarianism in the Administrative Procedure Act

In the 1930s and 1940s, while Congress deliberated how to control the exploding federal bureaucracy, authoritarian regimes grew overseas, raising the specter that the United States would follow suit. Many Americans viewed the New Deal as “dictatorial central planning” and feared that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt would become the United States’ first authoritarian leader. That fear shaped the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (“APA”). Congress designed the APA’s constraints on agency procedure and provisions for judicial oversight to prevent agencies from becoming the tools of a dictator. Now the APA operates as the constitution for the Administrative State and has earned the title “superstatute.” Yet, seventy-five years after its enactment, the APA has failed to forestall the United States’ slide toward authoritarianism. This Article traces the APA’s anti-authoritarian lineage and begins to explore why it failed to live up to its billing.
Shelterin components modulate nucleic acids condensation and phase separation

Abstract Telomeres are nucleoprotein complexes that protect the ends of chromosomes and are essential for chromosome stability in Eukaryotes. In cells, individual telomeres form distinct globules of finite size that appear to be smaller than expected for bare DNA. Moreover, upon changes in their protein composition, telomeres can cluster to form telomere-induced-foci (TIFs) or co-localize with promyelocytic leukemia (PML) nuclear bodies. The physical basis for collapse of individual telomeres and coalescence of multiple ones remains unclear, as does the relationship between these two phenomena. By combining single-molecule measurements, optical microscopy, turbidity assays, and simulations, we show that the telomere scaffolding protein TRF2 can condense individual DNA chains and drives coalescence of multiple DNA molecules, leading to phase separation and the formation of liquid-like droplets. Addition of the TRF2 binding protein hRap1 modulates phase boundaries and tunes the specificity of solution demixing while simultaneously altering the degree of DNA compaction. Our results suggest that the condensation of single telomeres and formation of biomolecular condensates containing multiple telomeres are two different outcomes driven by the same set of molecular interactions. Moreover, binding partners, such as other telomere components, can alter those interactions to promote single-chain DNA compaction over multiple-chain phase separation.
The Social Stratification of English in New York City: Subjective evaluation of the variables

[Part III of the book, dealing with “Social evaluation” incorporates results from a series of field experiments that formed an essential part of the methodology. The experimental approach did not take hold in sociolinguistics in any way comparable to the studies of speech production that formed the basis of Part II. Though each of these experimental methods has had a history of replication and development, the studies that incorporate experiments are few by comparison with those that do not. The simplest experimental approach involves the reading of texts and word lists, and this of course is not uncommon. Minimal pairs are one step more complicated, since they involve a comparison of production and perception – complicated by the need to label those perceptions. The self-report test (Chapter 12) is not difficult to prepare – a simple recording of the range of phonetic variants that have already been coded for the study of speech production. Linguistic insecurity tests (Chapter 12) need somewhat more preparation. The matched-guise experiments that are the subject of this chapter demand the most time and effort for the production of the stimuli. The resources and information needed to prepare matched guise recordings will usually require a good year of exploratory work. I hope that the results of this chapter will justify that effort, and reinforce the view that a successful study of the speech community must give considerable attention to normative behavior.] We have completed our survey of social differentiation of five phonological variables in New York City, and we will now turn to the more obscure and difficult question of the subjective evaluation of the variables by our informants.
Applications of the Scan Statistic in DNA Sequence Analysis

Advances of biochemical techniques have made available large databases of long DNA sequences. These sequences reflect conglomerates of random and nonrandom letter strings from the nucleotide alphabet {A, C, G, T}. As the databases expand, mathematical methods play an increasingly important role in analyzing and interpreting the rapidly accumulating DNA data. In this chapter, we discuss a specific example of identifying nonrandom clusters of palindromes in a family of herpesvirus genomes using the r-scan statistic. Palindrome positions on the genome are modeled by i.i.d. random variables uniformly distributed on the unit interval (0,1). After a comparison of three Poisson-type approximations, the r-scan distribution is computed by a compound Poisson approximation proposed by Glaz (1994). Some of the significant palindrome clusters are located at genome regions containing origins of replication and regulatory signals of the herpesviruses.
Semantics in algebraic computation

I am interested in symbolic computation for theoretical research in algebraic topology. Most algebraic computations in topology are hand calculations; that is, they can be accomplished by the researcher in times ranging from hours to weeks, and they are aimed at discovering general patterns rather than producing specific formulas understood in advance. Furthermore, the range of algebraic constucts used in such calculations is very wide.
An alternative perspective on ischemic preconditioning derived from mathematical modeling

The usual roads taken in attempts to determine the mechanism of ischemic preconditioning have employed pharmacologic methods as the primary tool of investigation. Specifically, different agents have been used to either block the protection induced by ischemic preconditioning or agents have been administered prior to ischemia to mimic preconditioning. Although these approaches may yield valuable information, it is important to keep in mind that the actions of the agents employed may not be as discrete as we might think (or hope). For example, cellular second-messenger pathways are complex with multiple entry points and interconnections (5). Therefore a blocker of one receptor or pathway may also block others. Furthermore, many such agents have hemodynamic effects which adds an additional confounding factor when whole animal preparations are used.
A gene-anchored map position of the rat warfarin-resistance locus, Rw, and its orthologs in mice and humans

The locus underlying hereditary resistance to the anticoagulant warfarin (symbol in the rat, Rw ) was placed in relation to 8 positionally mapped gene-anchored microsatellite loci whose positions were known in the genome maps of the rat, mouse, and human. Rw segregated with the markers Myl2 (zero recombinants) and Itgam , Il4r , and Fgf2r (one recombinant each) during linkage analysis in a congenic warfarin- and bromadiolone-resistant laboratory strain of rats. Comparative ortholog mapping between rat, mouse, and human placed Rw onto mouse chromosome 7 at about 60 to 63 cM and onto one of the human chromosomes 10q25.3-26, 12q23-q24.3, and 16p13.1-p11.
A di-heme cytochrome c peroxidase from Nitrosomonas europaea catalytically active in both the oxidized and half-reduced states.

A di-c-heme containing cytochrome (cytochrome c553 peroxidase) has been isolated from the chemoautotrophic bacterium Nitrosomonas europaea. Sequence analysis of the N terminus and the two heme-containing peptides generated by digestion of the enzyme with trypsin show 40% homology overall to sequences reported for the di-heme peroxidase from Pseudomonas aeruginosa (Ronnberg, M., Kalkkinen, N., and Ellfolk, N. (1989) FEBS Lett. 250, 175-178). At room temperature and pH 7.0, one heme is low spin with Em7 = +450 mV and the other is high spin with Em7 = -260 mV. EPR spectra show a mixture of high spin and low spin signals at cryogenic temperatures. Anionic ligands (CN-, N3-, F-, CNO-) bind so as to perturb the high spin heme when cytochrome c553 peroxidase is either fully oxidized (FeLS3+:FeHS3+) or half-reduced (FeLS2+:FeHS3+). The EPR signal of the high potential, low spin heme in fully oxidized enzyme is unperturbed by the presence of the ligands. Furthermore, each ligand results in similar characteristic EPR signals for either oxidation state of the peroxidase. Both the fully oxidized and half-reduced oxidation states of cytochrome c553 peroxidase are catalytically active as evidenced by the enzyme's ability to oxidize horse heart cytochrome c in the presence of H2O2, as well as by optical changes associated with the addition of H2O2 to the peroxidase. In the presence of stoichiometric amounts of H2O2, the half-reduced enzyme is rapidly oxidized and the fully oxidized enzyme shows a significant decrease in absorbance in the Soret region of the optical spectrum coupled with a lesser increase near 600-650 nm. These latter optical changes are similar to what is observed in the formation of a porphyrin cation radical. This suggests that this di-heme peroxidase may form a compound I intermediate analogous to that formed by horseradish peroxidase.
System-level chip/package co-design for multi-core processors implemented with power-gating technique

Based on a system-level design methodology and a modified power delivery network model, optimization and benchmarking are performed for a processor implemented with the power-gating technique under various package configurations. Optimal widths of the sleep transistors are obtained based on how frequently the processors need to switch between active and idle state. Up to 75% of the energy-delay product saving is observed for the processors using power-gating technique with a low switching frequency. Additionally, the optimal position of the decap insertion is demonstrated to be application dependent.
Institutional and Independent Review Boards

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), or Independent Ethics Committees (IECs) as they are known around the world, are a cornerstone of the system of protections human research subjects. An IRB is a committee that functions as a regulatory and ethics review board for research that involves human subjects. In countries that regulate research in humans, IRBs/IECs are required to approve research studies prior to performing any research intervention, which includes screening, on any subject. In countries without research regulations, IRBs/IECs may also review research. This article focuses mainly on IRBs that are regulated by U.S. agencies. Keywords: Institutional Review Board (IRB); Independent Ethics Committee (IEC); human research ethics; human research regulation; research ethics; federal regulations