cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Calcium Ions and the Regulation of Motility in Paramecium

Paramecium is a large unicell: of the most commonly studied species, P. tetraurelia can reach 150-200 µm in length, while P. caudatum may exceed 300 µm. The cell body of both species supports 5000-6000 cilia, which are individually covered by a membrane that collectively accounts for about half of the total cell surface area. The ciliary and somatic membranes are physically contiguous, but their biochemical compositions are quite distinct. How this segregation is achieved is an interesting problem in itself (for more details, the reader is referred to chapters in this volume by Bouck et al., Williams, Chailley et al., and Kaneshiro), but it ensures a functional specialization of the two surfaces. A primary role of the ciliary membrane is in providing a barrier between the locomotory apparatus of the cilium (the axoneme) and the external environment, but it is also involved in establishing physical contact between mating-competent cells. This cell agglutination reaction is discussed in some detail by Watanabe (this volume). Also, there is evidence to suggest that cilia may be sensitive to chemicals in the environment (Preston and Usherwood, 1988). However, it is perhaps in its role as an ion-selective filter that the ciliary membrane is most important to the day-to-day survival of the unicell.
Long-term Outcome after Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Compared with Minimally Invasive Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery in the Elderly.

BACKGROUND Elderly patients with unstable coronary artery disease (CAD) have better outcomes with coronary revascularization than conservative treatment. With the improvement in percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) techniques using drug eluting-stents, this became an attractive option in elderly. Minimally invasive coronary artery bypass grafting (MICS-CABG) is a safe and effective alternative to conventional CABG. We aimed to explore the long-term outcomes after PCI vs MICS-CABG in ≥75 year-old patients with severe CAD. METHODS A total of 1454 elderly patients (≥75 year-old patients) underwent coronary artery revascularization between January 2005 and December 2009. Patients were selected in the study if they have one of the Class-I indications for CABG. Groups were divided according to the type of procedure, PCI or MICS-CABG, and 5 year follow-up. RESULTS Among 175 elderly patients, 109 underwent PCI and 66 had MICS-CABG. There was no significant difference observed in both groups with long-term all-cause mortality (31 PCI vs 21% MICS-CABG, p=0.151) and the overall 5 year survival was similar on Kaplan-Meier curve (Log rank p=0.318). The average length of stay in hospital was significantly shorter in the PCI than in the MICS-CABG group (4.3 vs 7.8 days, p<0.001). Only 4.7% of the PCI group were discharged to rehabilitation facility compared with 43.9% of the MICS-CABG group (p<0.001). The rate of repeat revascularization was significantly higher in the PCI group than in the MICS-CABG group (15 vs 3%, p=0.014). CONCLUSION Among elderly patients, long-term all-cause mortality is similar after PCI and MICS-CABG. However, there is a significantly higher rate of repeat revascularization after PCI.
Inspiration breath-hold data acquisition for thoracic PET/CT without respiratory gating system: A phantom study for quantitative assessment.

2125 Objectives Respiratory motion artifact on PET/CT disturbs accurate diagnosis of lesions. To reduce this artifact, respiratory gated PET/CT Imaging was reported to be useful. As a simple alternative, we propose an inspiration breath-hold PET data acquisition method without respiratory gating system. Methods In this method, patients are asked to hold breath in inspiratory state for 10-15sec then allowed to breathe freely for next 15sec. Repeating this cycle 6-12times during dynamic PET data acquisition, frames showing good registration with inspiratory CT were selected by visual inspection and merged to obtain PET images in inspiratory state. With this method, inspiratory PET images could be obtained without a respiratory gating system. We investigated quantitatively of the PET images acquired by this method using a hot lesions phantom. Radioactivity concentration was measured on the images obtained by different acquisition times, and compared with the reference imager (300sec). Results On the images obtained by acquisition time of 20sec, radioactivities of all spheric hot lesions were overestimated by 30%, compared with the reference image. However, by merging the images, image quality was improved and the overestimation was reduced to 10% and 5% in the images by acquisition time of 60 and 120 sec. Conclusions This method could provide inspiratory PET images in good quality without any system by additional 5min. Quantitativity of the merged PET image was well preserved for the lesion sizes studied. Considering the image quality obtained with this method and that maximal SUV are usually used for evaluating regional uptake in clinical situation, this method could be clinically useful.
Inflammatory breast cancer.

A 55-year-old woman presented with a few months’ complaints of weight loss, fatigue, shortness of breath and a rapidly growing right breast mass. She had no family history of breast cancer. Physical examination showed a cachectic patient with a firm, indurated, …
Studies of the amnesic properties of scopolamine

Prior exposure to a stimulus results in a long-term loss of the effectiveness of that stimulus. Administration of scopolamine before such exposure attenuates this loss of effectiveness in animals subsequently tested without drug. These animals behave much as if they have not had prior exposure at all.
ELECTROPHORETIC ANALYSIS OF ABNORMAL DEVELOPMENT.

SummaryAs a result of a teratogenic maternal folic acid deficiency, discrete changes are produced in the molecular composition of abnormally developing embryos. Furthermore, these changes continue in the embryo after the mother has been returned to a complete ration. The adverse effects on the development of new enzymatic forms appeared to be both qualitative and quantitative. Although there was a general trend for delayed and asynchronous appearance of specific molecules in the abnormally developing embryos, this was not invariably the case and some of the enzymes did appear on schedule and at or near control amounts in the experimental animals. Thus the retardation in the appearance of certain enzyme forms resulting from folic acid deficiency would appear to be selective.
Ion Induced Grain Growth in Pd

Ion irradiation induced grain growth size distributions in Pd are examined at low temperatures. Two features are observed: 1) A majority of the grains saturate in size. 2) Some grains achieve sizes much larger than the average grain size and continue to grow with ion dose. However, by careful choice of ion mass and ion dose, it is possible to produce a sample possessing a monomodal grain size. This process will have applications in producing thin films of nanocrystalline materials.
Community psychologists who go beyond the profession a commentary.

SUMMARY A “calling” is typically a compelling sense of purpose that arises from a place different from the calculus that leads to a choice of profession. Yet in the case of community psychology, the five people profiled in this essay have both an impressive professional portfolio and a sense of social mission. This essay explores the two sides of their work, and more broadly the challenges facing those who work as agents of change, while at the same time advancing and achieving notable accomplishments in systems that are at once sources of social problems and resources for solving them.
Congenital Extrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt (Abernethy Malformation Type Ib) With Associated Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Case Report and Literature Review.

Abstract Abernethy malformation, also termed congenital portosystemic shunt and congenital absence of portal vein (CAPV) is the result of malformation of the splanchnic venous system. Congenital portosystemic shunts are divided into extra-and intrahepatic shunts. Two shunts have been defined: type I is characterized by the complete diversion of portal blood into the vena cava with an associated congenital absence of the portal vein. Type II is defined by an intact but diverted portal vein through a side-to-side, extrahepatic connection to the vena cava. The clinical manifestations of Abernethy malformation are diverse with a typical presentation consisting of hypoxia and hepto-pulmonary syndrome. Histologically, focal nodular hyperplasia, nodular regenerative hyperplasia, liver adenoma, hepatoblastoma, and hepatocellular carcinoma have all been reported. Herein we report a case of Abernethy malformation, type Ib, in a 12 month old male who was found to have a small hepatocellular carcinoma at the time of ...
Twenty-Year Outcome of Cutaneous Vesicostomy

AbstractForty cutaneous vesicostomy urinary diversions were done at our hospital from 1958 to 1961. Of these cases 30 patients have been followed every 6 months or until death. The vesicostomy-related failure rate was 8.6 per cent, with new stones forming in 3 additional kidneys. Cutaneous vesicostomy provides long-term preservation of renal function in patients requiring urinary diversion. However, close followup is mandatory to ensure a good result.
Using Mechanical Turk for research on cancer survivors.

Objective The successful recruitment and study of cancer survivors within psycho-oncology research can be challenging, time-consuming, and expensive, particularly for key subgroups such as young adult cancer survivors. Online crowdsourcing platforms offer a potential solution that has not yet been investigated with regard to cancer populations. The current study assessed the presence of cancer survivors on Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and the feasibility of using MTurk as an efficient, cost-effective, and reliable psycho-oncology recruitment and research platform. Methods During a <4-month period, cancer survivors living in the United States were recruited on MTurk to complete two assessments, spaced 1 week apart, relating to psychosocial and cancer-related functioning. The reliability and validity of responses were investigated. Results Within a <4-month period, 464 self-identified cancer survivors on MTurk consented to and completed an online assessment. The vast majority (79.09%) provided reliable and valid study data according to multiple indices. The sample was highly diverse in terms of U.S. geography, socioeconomic status, and cancer type, and reflected a particularly strong presence of distressed and young adult cancer survivors (median age = 36 years). A majority of participants (58.19%) responded to a second survey sent one week later. Conclusions Online crowdsourcing represents a feasible, efficient, and cost-effective recruitment and research platform for cancer survivors, particularly for young adult cancer survivors and those with significant distress. We discuss remaining challenges and future recommendations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Viewing and Inducing Symmetry Breaking at the Single‐Molecule Limit

Symmetry breaking by photons, electrons, and molecular interactions lies at the heart of many important problems as varied as the origin of homochiral life to enantioselective drug production. Herein we report a system in which symmetry breaking can be induced and measured in situ at the single-molecule level using scanning tunneling microscopy. We demonstrate that electrical excitation of a prochiral molecule on an achiral surface produces large enantiomeric excesses in the chiral adsorbed state of up to 39%. The degree of symmetry breaking was monitored as a function of scanning probe tip state, and the results revealed that enantiomeric excesses are correlated with the intrinsic chirality in scanning probe tips themselves, as evidenced by height differences between single molecule enantiomers. While this work has consequences for the study of two-dimensional chirality, more importantly, it offers a new method for interrogating the coupling of photons, electrons, and combinations of physical fields to achiral starting systems in a reproducible manner. This will allow the mechanism of chirality transfer to be studied in a system in which enantiomeric excesses are quantified accurately by counting individual molecules. Chirality 24:1051–1054, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Use of the Quinolones in Immunocompromised Patients

Publisher Summary This chapter reviews the current spectrum of bacterial infections in immunosuppressed patients and discusses the role of the quinolones in infection prevention, empiric antimicrobial therapy, and the treatment of specific infections. The risk and spectrum of infection differ considerably in various subsets of immunocompromised patients, and they depend on the specific defect in host defenses that is present in a particular individual. Neutropenia is the factor that most frequently predisposes cancer patients to infection, and it occurs most often as the result of antineoplastic chemotherapy. The degree and duration of neutropenia are both important factors that influence the frequency and severity of infection. The fluoroquinolones play an important role in the overall management of infections in immunosuppressed individuals with several established indications. They are effective in reducing infections caused by the Gram-negative bacilli in neutropenic patients and, are better tolerated and have fewer side effects than the alternative prophylactic regimens. Combining them with agents such as rifampin, penicillins, or macrolides can significantly reduce the incidence of Gram-positive (particularly streptococcal) infections as well. In neutropenic patients, routine quinolone prophylaxis should be avoided and should only be considered in high risk patients who are expected to have profound and prolonged neutropenia. The fluoroquinolones are now considered as drugs of choice for the treatment of L. pneumophila infections, particularly in patients receiving immunosuppressive therapy. These agents are also useful in the treatment of mycobacterial disease, including multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, M. avium complex infection, and infection with rapidly growing mycobacteria such as M. fortuitum.
Tracking the Time Course of Meaning Activation

Publisher Summary This chapter reports two experiments in the application of event related potentials (ERPs) to the problem of lexical ambiguity resolution. The first is similar to ambiguity studies in using naming latency as the dependent measure. The primary purpose of the first experiment explained in the chapter is to insure that the stimulus materials constructed for this study would produce the expected priming effects for both contextually appropriate and inappropriate semantic associates of ambiguous words relative to unrelated target words. In the second experiment, ERPs were recorded to these same stimuli. The fact that ambiguous words have a single physical representation but two or more semantic representations makes them a useful tool for examining the balance between data-driven and concept-driven processes in word recognition.The phoneme monitoring paradigm relies on the assumption that accessing multiple meanings of a word drains more cognitive resources than accessing one meaning. Reaction times in the secondary task of phoneme monitoring are thus used as an index of the number of meanings that were accessed for a given word.
Self Concept Effects on Marketing Performance as Related To Job Satisfaction

Relationships among self concept, job performance, and job satisfaction drawn from Korman’s consistency theory were investigated. Contrary to theoretical predictions, low self concept was found to have a significant influence on the performance of marketing services for one service profession. Self concept was also examined for its mediation effect in the link between job performance and job satisfaction. Implications for future marketing research were discussed.
Palliseria (Middle Ordovician Gastropoda) from East-Central Alaska and its stratigraphic and biogeographic significance

Several unsilicified gastropod specimens were collected by John B. Mertie, Jr., on July 13, 1941, during a boat traverse along the Porcupine River of east-central Alaska. The specimens were originally deposited in the Ulrich (Cambrian and Ordovician) stratigraphic collections of the U.S. Geological Survey at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. The collection contains one specimen of Palliseria and three specimens of Maclurites, all of which are broken from the limestone. Despite the lack of much of the shell material, they are easily identified as to genus. One specimen identified as Palliseria is particularly significant.
Emotional Distress Increases the Likelihood of Undergoing Surgery among Men with Localized Prostate Cancer

Purpose: We determined whether among men with clinically localized prostate cancer, particularly men with low risk disease, greater emotional distress increases the likelihood of undergoing surgery vs radiation or active surveillance.Materials and Methods: Participants were 1,531 patients recruited from 2 academic and 3 community facilities (nonHispanic white 83%, nonHispanic black 11% and Hispanic 6%; low risk 36%, intermediate risk 49% and high risk 15%; choice of active surveillance 24%, radiation 27% and surgery 48%). Emotional distress was assessed shortly after diagnosis and after men made a treatment decision with the Distress Thermometer. We used multinomial logistic regression with robust standard errors to test if emotional distress at either point predicted treatment choice in the sample as a whole and after stratifying by D’Amico risk score.Results: In the sample as a whole the participants who were more emotionally distressed at diagnosis were more likely to choose surgery over active surveil...
Naloxone and Metabolites Quantification in Cord Blood of Prenatally Exposed Newborns and Correlations with Maternal Concentrations.

Objective To quantify naloxone and metabolite concentrations in newborns prenatally exposed to sublingual buprenorphine/naloxone and to correlate neonatal and maternal metabolite concentrations. Methods This is a prospective observational cohort study. Eleven pregnant women treated for opioid use disorder with sublingual buprenorphine/naloxone were enrolled. Maternal and newborn blood was collected and analyzed for naloxone, buprenorphine, and metabolites via liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Descriptive statistics and correlation coefficients were utilized to analyze data. Results Maternal daily naloxone and buprenorphine doses were 1 to 5 mg and 4 to 20 mg, respectively; the mean (standard deviation) time from medication until delivery was 9.9 (4.3) hours. Naloxone was below the limits of quantification (LOQ) in five infants and six mothers with a range of less than LOQ to 0.3 μg/L. There was a strong positive correlation between maternal and newborn naloxone concentrations: Spearman's ρ = 0.89 (p Conclusion Naloxone and buprenorphine are transferred to the fetus during prenatal exposure to maternal sublingual buprenorphine/naloxone. The quantity of naloxone transferred from maternal circulation is minimal and highly correlated with maternal concentrations.
Active estimation of mass properties for safe cooperative lifting

This work considers estimation of mass parameters for multi-robot coordinated lifting in the context of coordinated aerial manipulation, and develops strategies for active parameter estimation for cooperative manipulation tasks through an information-theoretic framework. The active sensing problem is formulated based on application of increasing forces to the object and detection of small motions that occur when the center of pressure exits the convex hull formed by existing contacts. In order to enable identification of informative actions, we develop and employ a closed-form solution of Cauchy-Schwarz quadratic mutual information (I cs ) for non-parametric filters. The evaluation considers iterative selection from a finite set of measurements and demonstrates that choosing measurements to maximize I cs significantly improves the convergence rate of the parameter estimates compared to random and cyclic selection methods. This approach is extended to consider actuator constraints and feasible lifting configurations and achieves an 80% success rate in formation of feasible lifting configurations compared to a 53% baseline performance.
Controlling the Mind for the Body: The Deintellectualization of Women within the American Gothic

Focusing on the gothic genre, this chapter explores the darker side of intimate relationships within cinema and literature, particularly on the reoccurring narrative of men deintellectualizing women as a means of controlling both their minds and bodies for sexual, reproductive, commercial, and societal purposes, more specifically within Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives and the film Deadgirl. Using the work of Judith Butler, Barbara Creed, Laura Mulvey, Venetria Patton, and others, the chapter continues to discuss sex as a performative act that serves to materialize the body, the cult of womanhood, abjection, and the controlling male gaze. Its goal is to illuminate the idea of the gothic genre as being the genre of societal disruption—truly highlighting the fact that built into the norms of American society are true abject horrors that can largely go unseen and unspoken.
Transgender Medicare Beneficiaries and Chronic Conditions: Exploring Fee-for-Service Claims Data.

Abstract Purpose: Data on the health and well-being of the transgender population are limited. However, using claims data we can identify transgender Medicare beneficiaries (TMBs) with high confidence. We seek to describe the TMB population and provide comparisons of chronic disease burden between TMBs and cisgender Medicare beneficiaries (CMBs), thus laying a foundation for national level TMB health disparity research. Methods: Using a previously validated claims algorithm based on ICD-9-CM codes relating to transsexualism and gender identity disorder, we identified a cohort of TMBs using Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) claims data. We then describe the demographic characteristics and chronic disease burden of TMBs (N = 7454) and CMBs (N = 39,136,229). Results: Compared to CMBs, a greater observed proportion of TMBs are young (under age 65) and Black, although these differences vary by entitlement. Regardless of entitlement, TMBs have more chronic conditions than CMBs, and more TMBs have been diagnosed wi...
Quantification of Rotavirus Diarrheal Risk Due to Hydroclimatic Extremes Over South Asia: Prospects of Satellite-Based Observations in Detecting Outbreaks.

Rotavirus is the most common cause of diarrheal disease among children under 5. Especially in South Asia, rotavirus remains the leading cause of mortality in children due to diarrhea. As climatic extremes and safe water availability significantly influence diarrheal disease impacts in human populations, hydroclimatic information can be a potential tool for disease preparedness. In this study, we conducted a multivariate temporal and spatial assessment of 34 climate indices calculated from ground and satellite Earth observations to examine the role of temperature and rainfall extremes on the seasonality of rotavirus transmission in Bangladesh. We extracted rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement and temperature data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensors to validate the analyses and explore the potential of a satellite-based seasonal forecasting model. Our analyses found that the number of rainy days and nighttime temperature range from 16°C to 21°C are particularly influential on the winter transmission cycle of rotavirus. The lower number of wet days with suitable cold temperatures for an extended time accelerates the onset and intensity of the outbreaks. Temporal analysis over Dhaka also suggested that water logging during monsoon precipitation influences rotavirus outbreaks during a summer transmission cycle. The proposed model shows lag components, which allowed us to forecast the disease outbreaks 1 to 2 months in advance. The satellite data-driven forecasts also effectively captured the increased vulnerability of dry-cold regions of the country, compared to the wet-warm regions.
The safety barometer: How safe is my plant today? Is instantaneously measuring safety level utopia or realizable?

During the last decade, serious accidents have continued to occur in the process industry. Apparently the scenarios of various undesired events leading to those accidents are still not sufficiently controlled. The key question is how potentially hazardous situations develop, what processes form the basis for this development, and how to control them? Safety level is not static but depends on many risk factors that change in presence and intensity over location and time. Safety level is dependent not only on technical process parameters that have immediate effects on the ‘frequency’ or probability of catastrophic consequences, but also depends on equipment integrity degradation, operational and management quality, attitudes, and cultural processes which may change over a prolonged time. The time and human interaction aspects make dynamic risk assessment complex. This paper will outline a conceptual approach using in addition to the regular process parameter signals received, also weak and slowly changing signals from various safety indicators, enabling to keep track of the risk factors. In theory this could lead to obtaining an instantaneous safety level ‘measure’ making possible forecast alarming for an imminent event to occur. Such concept could be regarded as a ‘writing’ safety barometer, or barograph. However, there are quite a number of problems to be solved which in the paper will be discussed.
Camera-Aware Multi-Resolution Analysis for Raw Image Sensor Data Compression

We propose novel lossless and lossy compression schemes for color filter array (CFA) sampled images based on the C amera- A ware M ulti- R esolution A nalysis, or CAMRA. Specifically, by CAMRA we refer to modifications that we make to wavelet transform of CFA sampled images in order to achieve a very high degree of decorrelation at the finest scale wavelet coefficients; and a series of color processing steps applied to the coarse scale wavelet coefficients, aimed at limiting the propagation of lossy compression errors through the subsequent camera processing pipeline. We validated our theoretical analysis and the performance of the proposed compression schemes using the images of natural scenes captured in a raw format. The experimental results verify that our proposed methods improve coding efficiency relative to the standard and the state-of-the-art compression schemes for CFA sampled images.
The effects of aging on auditory cortical function.

Abstract Age-related hearing loss is a prominent deficit, afflicting approximately half of the geriatric population. In many cases, the person may have no deficits in detecting sounds, but nonetheless suffers from a reduced ability to understand speech, particularly in a noisy environment. While rodent models have shown that there are a variety of age-related changes throughout the auditory neuraxis, far fewer studies have investigated the effects at the cortical level. Here I review recent evidence from a non-human primate model of age-related hearing loss at the level of the core (primary auditory cortex, A1) and belt (caudolateral field, CL) in young and aged animals with normal detection thresholds. The findings are that there is an increase in both the spontaneous and driven activity, an increase in spatial tuning, and a reduction in the temporal fidelity of the response in aged animals. These results are consistent with an age-related imbalance of excitation and inhibition in the auditory cortex. These spatial and temporal processing deficits could underlie the major complaint of geriatrics, that it is difficult to understand speech in noise.
Nutrient Interactions and Microbes

This paper is concerned with microbial processes that alter the composition of seawater; the alterations represent modifications of the environment that in turn can be expected to influence microbial activity. Such processes can be examined with a view to many of the chemical elements, which may be involved because they are essential to the growth and metabolism of plants and animals, which may be concentrated in or on the bodies of organisms either biochemically or physico-chemically, or which may have special stimulating or toxic effects. As suggested by the organizing committee, most of the presentation will deal with the elements considered in the “Redfield ratios”, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and dissolved oxygen. The discussion will, however, be extended to the consideration of oxygen-deficient and anoxic waters, in which the role of sulfur compounds becomes important, and some speculation as to the possible role of phosphate as a free energy source will be included. It will be important to review the assumptions implicit in the Redfield ratios and the departures in nature from the ratios and assumptions. The departures may sometimes be more interesting than the ratios themselves, because they may indicate significant peculiarities in the populations or in the environment.
The influence of habitat features on grassland birds nesting in the Prairie Pothole Region of North Dakota

iv CHAPTER 1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 2. EFFECTS OF FIELD SIZE AND LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION ON THE OCCURRENCE AND RELATIVE ABUNDANCE OF GRASSLAND BIRDS 20 CHAPTER 3. RELATION OF GRASSLAND BIRD ABUNDANCE TO MOWING OF CONSERVATION RESERVE PROGRAM FIELDS IN NORTH DAKOTA 87 CHAPTER 4. THE INFLUENCE OF LANDSCAPE COMPOSITION ON THE RELATIONSHIPS AMONG NEST SUCCESS, FIELD SIZE, AND EDGES 113 CHAPTER 5. THE EFFECTS OF LANDSCAPE STRUCTURE AND PREDATOR ACTIVITY ON THE NEST SUCCESS OF UPLAND-NESTING DUCKS 150 CHAPTER 6. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 198 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 203
Integrating Social Justice and Political Engagement into Engineering

Many engineering activists have emphasized the need to reframe engineering as a sociotechnical field in order to expand engineers' contributions to social justice and peace. Yet, reframing engineering as sociotechnical does not always lead to critical engagement with social justice. We provide several examples of how “social” aspects have been brought into engineering in a depoliticized manner that limits engagement with political and social justice goals. We link these examples to Cech’s three pillars of the “culture of disengagement” in engineering: social/technical dualisms, meritocracy, and depoliticization. We argue that reframing engineering as sociotechnical addresses the first pillar, the social/technical dualism, but does not necessarily include the second and third pillars. We propose that all three pillars can be addressed through integrating explicit attention to political engagement and social justice in efforts to reframe engineering as a sociotechnical field. Doing so can increase engineers’ capacity to contribute to social justice and peace.
Walking the Places of Exception: The Tule Lake National Monument

In places of exception, human lives cease to be, as Judith Butler (2004) explains, “grievable” (p. 20). Places of exception take form in prisons, jails, concentration camps, immigration detention centers, Indigenous boarding schools, suspension rooms in schools, and the refugee camp. While their contexts and architectures vary, these places share a political logic and purpose, designed to exclude or contain persons and populations deemed security threats to the state (Agamben, 1998, 1999, 2005). Often located in remote areas, these sites permit persons to be stripped of certain rights and obligations. Their bodies are rendered vulnerable to harm and, in the most egregious cases, mass murder. Places of exception are part of the “cartographies of dispossession—the kind that rips away, distances, alienates” (Morrill & Tuck, 2016, p. 4). When such places fall out of use, their material structures are disassembled, relocated, and repurposed. Still, the vestiges of the camps remain: the foundation of a latrine, the ruins of a mess hall, the white shards of pottery. Walking these places of exception, we are haunted by the residue of the social violence that occurred in these sites (Gordon, 2008; Trigg, 2012).
Club Fit: Development of a Physical Activity and Healthy Eating Intervention at a Boys & Girls Club After School Program

Children and adolescents from minority and low income backgrounds face social and environmental challenges to engaging in physical activity and healthy eating to maintain a healthy weight. In this study, we present pilot work to develop and implement a multi-component physical activity and healthy eating intervention at a Boys & Girls Club (BGC) afterschool program. Using a community-based participatory approach, BGC staff and academic researchers developed intervention components informed by formative studies and based on a Social Ecological Theory framework. Components included healthy eating and physical activity policy implementation, staff training, a challenge and self-monitoring program for healthy behaviors, a peer-coaching program for healthy behaviors, and a social marketing campaign. We assessed pilot feasibility through a single group, pre-post study design with measures collected at baseline and 6 months. The sample included 61 children with a mean age of 10.4 years. Mean (SD) body mass index (BMI) percentile was 72.8 (28.9); 47.5% were in the healthy weight range for their age. We found statistically significant improvements of self-efficacy and motivation for physical activity. Self-efficacy and motivation for fruit and vegetable consumption, sugary beverage consumption, and screen time improved but were not statistically different from baseline. We found no improvements of perceived social support, objectively measured physical activity, or self-reported dietary quality. Though BMI did not improve overall, a dose effect was observed such that attendance in Club Fit specific programming was significantly correlated with decreased BMI z scores. Processes and products from this study may be helpful to other communities aiming to address childhood obesity prevention through afterschool programs.
Laryngeal Electromyographic Findings in a Cohort of Recalcitrant Chronic Neurogenic Cough Patients.

Summary Objectives To evaluate the laryngeal electromyography findings of bilateral thyroarytenoid muscles in 10 patients with chronic, intractable coughing. Methods This is a retrospective cohort case series. Clinical records were reviewed for demographic information, symptoms, and findings on bilateral laryngeal EMG for 10 patients referred for chronic coughing. Results All thyroarytenoid muscles tested demonstrated electromyographic evidence of neuropathy, with signs of denervation and reinnervation. There was reduced recruitment in all 20 thyroarytenoid muscles studied. In addition, polyphasic motor units were seen in all thyroarytenoid muscles, with increased amplitude in 18 of 20 thyroarytenoid muscles and increased duration in 17 of 20 thyroarytenoid muscles. Additionally, there was electromyographic evidence of synkinesis in 19 of 20 thyroarytenoid muscles studied, a sign of aberrant reinnervation. Conclusion Patients with intractable coughing, despite numerous modalities of treatment, potentially have bilateral neuropathy of the recurrent laryngeal nerves suggesting the potential peripheral as well as central neuropathic changes as the etiology.
Analytical Earth-Aerocapture Guidance with Near-Optimal Performance

An aerocapture maneuver employs a single atmospheric pass to reduce orbital energy and establish a closed orbit. Modulating the spacecraft’s vertical lift component (via bank control) during atmosp...
Disruptions of Solenopsis invicta Pheromone Trails

Solenopsis invicta, commonly known as the red imported fire ant, is an invasive species to the United States whose history began in the early 20th century. Given time and increasing human interaction, the species was able proliferate in much of the Southwest. This artificial migration, coupled with the species’ anatomy, defense mechanisms and aggressiveness. has caused increasingly important issues with colonies forming near households and affecting crop yields. The highly potent venom can cause painful skin rashes and can even induce death in certain members of population. However, these ants rarely sting as individuals, but rather as a group- as a mechanism of defense in response to, for example, habitat disruption. To achieve such collaborative action, these insects release pheromones. And one in specific, Z, Z, Z-Allofarnesene, aids in the formation of ant trails. Therefore, given the medical impact of the specie,s one is able to see the importance of developing alternative methods of disrupting this specific pheromone transmission. This study utilizes common household items (lemon juice, vinegar, black pepper, cinnamon, and paprika) to test the efficacy of pheromone disruption. The results yielded the conclusion that products containing highly volatile functional groups in a certain odorous physical state have a significantly higher impact on pheromone trails.
Quantifying biofilm propagation on chemically modified surfaces

Conditions affecting biofilm formation differ among bacterial species and this presents a challenge to studying biofilms in the lab. This work leverages functionalized silanes to control surface chemistry in the study of early biofilm propagation, quantified with a semi-automated image processing algorithm. These methods support the study of Pantoea sp. YR343, a gram-negative bacterium isolated from the poplar rhizosphere. We found that Pantoea sp. YR343 does not readily attach to hydrophilic surfaces but will form biofilms with a honeycomb morphology on hydrophobic surfaces. Our image processing algorithm described here was used to quantify this honeycomb morphology over time and displayed a logarithmic behavior in the propagation of the honeycomb biofilm. This methodology was repeated with a flagella-deficient fliR mutant of Pantoea sp. YR343 which resulted in reduced surface attachment. Quantifiable differences between Pantoea WT and ΔfliR biofilm morphologies were captured by the image processing algorithm, further demonstrating the insight gained from these methods.
The Effects of Vehicle Automation on Driver Engagement: The Case of Adaptive Cruise Control and Mind Wandering.

ObjectiveThis field study examined the effects of adaptive cruise control (ACC) on mind wandering prevalence.BackgroundACC relieves the driver of the need to regulate vehicle speed and following di...
Packing Morphology-Dependent Singlet Fission in Single Crystal Anthradithiophene Derivatives

Single crystal excited state dynamics in functionalized anthradithiophene (ADT) derivatives were compared across four distinct packing morphologies. Using polarization-dependent transient absorption microscopy, morphology-dependent singlet fission was observed in only three of the four ADT derivatives.
Updating the Fast Grain Boundary program: Temperature-time paths from intragrain oxygen isotope zoning

Abstract This contribution presents a rewritten and expanded version of the Fast Grain Boundary (FGB) program (Eiler et al., 1994) with the motivation of adding to the geochemical tools available for reconstructing temperature-time (T–t) histories that inform studies of tectonics and crustal evolution. Both the original and the new FGB programs model the oxygen-isotope compositional evolution of a rock resulting from diffusive oxygen isotope exchange between minerals. The new FGB program is coded in Python and includes a graphical user interface. Additionally, C-compiled versions of the code are available that provide a 20x speedup of model calculations. The new implementation also allows for inversion of the FGB model to extract unbiased thermal histories from oxygen isotope data. The Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm is applied to search for cooling histories that maximize agreement between the model output and the measured oxygen isotope data. Tests with synthetic datasets show that the LM algorithm is able to distinguish between simple linear cooling and more complex thermal histories that include reheating events. Inversion of a natural oxygen isotope zoning dataset from titanite shows that, within the resolution of the models and data, the Adirondack Mountains sample location experienced rapid (30–70 °C/m.y.), monotonic cooling from 700 to 500 °C. We develop a heuristic guide to sampling and analytical approaches that improve the resolution of inversion solutions for current SIMS analytical capabilities, and we suggest targets for future improvements of SIMS analysis. Our tests indicate that the current SIMS analytical precision for in situ oxygen isotope measurements is sufficient to allow for temperature-time path recovery with thermal resolution of 25–50 °C and temporal resolution of 2–3 million years.
A decomposition method for distributionally-robust two-stage stochastic mixed-integer conic programs

We develop a decomposition algorithm for distributionally-robust two-stage stochastic mixed-integer convex conic programs, and its important special case of distributionally-robust two-stage stochastic mixed-integer second order conic programs. This generalizes the algorithm proposed by Sen and Sherali [Mathematical Programming 106(2): 203–223, 2006]. We show that the proposed algorithm is finitely convergent if the second-stage problems are solved to optimality at incumbent first stage solutions, and solution to an optimization problem to identify worst-case probability distribution is available. The second stage problems can be solved using a branch and cut algorithm, or a parametric cuts based algorithm presented in this paper. The decomposition algorithm is illustrated with an example. Computational results on a stochastic programming generalization of a facility location problem show significant solution time improvements from the proposed approach. Solutions for many models that are intractable for an extensive form formulation become possible. Computational results also show that for the same amount of computational effort the optimality gaps for distributionally robust instances and their stochastic programming counterpart are similar.
Tolerance of aromatase inhibitors in post-menopausal patients with early-stage hormone receptor positive (HR+) breast cancer: A real-world retrospective analysis in a large oncotype database.

e12532Background: Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) compose the backbone of adjuvant endocrine therapy for early-stage HR+ breast cancer. Prior studies have demonstrated equivalence in efficacy between ar...
On the design and performance of InGaN/Si double-junction photocathodes

Through a combined theoretical and experimental study, we have investigated the synthesis and performance characteristics of InGaN/Si double-junction photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting devices, which promise a theoretical solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency ∼30% under AM 1.5G one-sun illumination. The double-junction photocathodes consist of a p+-InGaN top light absorber and a Si bottom p-n junction, which are connected through a nanowire tunnel junction. The effect of indium composition of the top light absorber as well as the impact of p-type Mg dopant incorporation on the PEC performance was studied. Experimentally, the sample with 32% indium composition showed a maximum photocurrent density of ∼9 mA/cm2 at 0.4 V vs reverse hydrogen electrode (RHE) with applied bias photon-to-current efficiency (ABPE) of ∼9.5%. An optimum p-type doping level ∼1 × 1017 cm−3 was also identified, which results in the best device performance as a result of optimum surface band bending as well as vertical charge carrier (hole) transport. These results also show a good agreement with our theoretical analysis. This work provides significant insights in advancing the design and development of high efficiency PEC devices for artificial photosynthesis using industry ready materials, e.g., Si and GaN, to achieve large-scale, low-cost onsite hydrogen fuel production.
Manual Therapy for Fibrosis-Related Late Effect Dysphagia in head and neck cancer survivors: the pilot MANTLE trial.

Introduction Late dysphagia that develops or persists years after head and neck cancer (HNC) is a disabling survivorship issue. Fibrosis is thought to stiffen connective tissues and compress peripheral nerve tracts, thereby contributing to diminished strength, flexibility, and in some cases denervation of swallowing muscles. Manual therapy (MT) is used in cancer survivors for pain and other indications, but it is unknown if increasing blood flow, flexibility and cervical range of motion (CROM) in the head and neck may improve late dysphagia. Methods and analysis Manual Therapy for Fibrosis-Related Late Effect Dysphagia (MANTLE) is a National Cancer Institute-funded prospective single-arm pilot trial evaluating the feasibility, safety and therapeutic potential of MT in patients with late dysphagia after radiotherapy (RT) for HNC. Disease-free survivors ≥2 years after curative-intent RT for HNC with at least moderate dysphagia and grade ≥2 Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events version 4.0 fibrosis are eligible. The target sample size is 24 participants who begin the MANTLE programme. MANTLE is delivered in 10 MT sessions over 6 weeks with an accompanying home exercise programme (HEP). Patients then transition to a 6-week post-washout period during which they complete the HEP and then return for a final post-washout evaluation. Feasibility (primary endpoint) and safety will be examined. Serial assessments include CROM, modified barium swallow studies, quantitative MRI, electromyography (optional) and patient-reported outcomes as secondary, tertiary and exploratory endpoints. Ethics and dissemination The research protocol and informed consent document was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication that will be made publicly available on PubMed Central on acceptance for publication, in compliance with NIH public access policy. Trial registration number NCT03612531.
Radiation Toxicity in Patients With Collagen Vascular Disease: A Meta-Analysis of Case-Control Studies.

Purpose Several retrospective series have reported that patients with collagen vascular disease (CVD) are at increased risk of radiation (RT) toxicity. However, the evidence is mixed, and many series lack control groups. We performed a meta-analysis including only case-cohort or randomized studies that examined the risk of RT toxicity for patients with CVD compared with controls. Methods and Materials Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guidelines were used to perform a comprehensive search identifying case-control or randomized studies reporting RT toxicity outcomes for patients with CVD versus controls. Data were synthesized from studies reporting grade 2 to 3 or more (G2/3 +) acute and late RT toxicities. Results were analyzed with fixed effects meta-analysis on the random-effects model for between-study heterogeneity; otherwise, the fixed-effects model was used. Hazard ratio or odds ratio (OR) were the effect-size estimators, as appropriate. Results Ten studies were included, with 4028 patients (CVD: 406, control: 3622). Patients with CVD had higher rates of acute G2/3 + toxicity (26.2% vs 16.5%, OR [odds ratio] 2.01; P Conclusions Moderate and severe toxicities are more likely in patients with CVD, with variable risk depending on toxicity grade, CVD subtype, treatment site, and dose. Severe toxicities are uncommon. These factors should be considered when informing patients of treatment-related risks and monitoring for morbid treatment sequelae.