cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Lessons learned from pyrovalve testing

The Aerospace Corporation Explosive Ordnance Office and Propulsion Department have sponsored three Workshops on the application of explosively actuated valves in liquid propulsion systems used on space satellites. These valves are commonly referred to as Pyrovalves. There have been mission losses recently that have been attributed to improper application of these devices. The Workshops were a means to improve communication between explosive ordnance and propulsion disciplines and to better understand the anomalies and corrective actions. A key finding in these Workshops was that users had not functioned the Pyrovalves in volatile fuel environments used in flight applications. System level tests used inert simulators to reduce safety concerns. The aged recommendation, Test what you fly," had not been adhered to. Post anomaly testing has confirmed that some Pyrovalve designs, in some applications, can cause ignition of fuels when they are functioned. This paper discusses the Workshop findings and offers an epilogue on the development of a replacement for the Pyrovalve designs of concern.
Raman Scattering from Rapid Thermally Annealed Tungsten Silicide

Raman Scattering as a technique for studying the formation of tungsten silicide is presented. The tungsten silicide films were formed by rapid thermally annealing tungsten films that were sputter deposited on silicon substrates. The Raman scattering data is correlated with data from resistivity measurements, Auger and Rutherford Backscattering measurements, and scanning electron microscopy.
Wake Interaction Effects Using a Parallelized Free Vortex Wake Model

Turbine-wake interactions pose significant challenges in the development of optimal wind farm configurations. These interactions can lead to a marked reduction in wind farm power efficiency as well as an increase in structural loading, which reduces the functional lifetime. This work aims to develop a free vortex wake (FVW) model to capture turbine-wake interactions between multiple turbines. Analysis focuses on the impact of wake interaction on wake structure, rotor power, and blade root bending moments. Comparison to the DWM model demonstrates similar trends but also discrepancies in values. A parametric study yields expected power trends for all tested parameters. Additionally, a comparison of rotor power and bending moment standard deviations from the FVW and DWM models indicates that the FVW model produces higher standard deviations in wake-influenced turbines. This could have implications for prediction of turbine life and suggests that the transient as well as average response of turbines should be considered to fully capture the effects of wake interaction.
Insights into substrate binding to the oxygen-evolving complex of photosystem II from ammonia inhibition studies

Water oxidation in Photosystem II occurs at the oxygen-evolving complex (OEC), which cycles through distinct intermediates, S0–S4. The inhibitor ammonia selectively binds to the S2 state at an unresolved site that is not competitive with substrate water. By monitoring the yields of flash-induced oxygen production, we show that ammonia decreases the net efficiency of OEC turnover and slows the decay kinetics of S2 to S1. The temperature dependence of biphasic S2 decay kinetics provides activation energies that do not vary in control and ammonia conditions. We interpret our data in the broader context of previous studies by introducing a kinetic model for both the formation and decay of ammonia-bound S2. The model predicts ammonia binds to S2 rapidly (t1/2 = 1 ms) with a large equilibrium constant. This finding implies that ammonia decreases the reduction potential of S2 by at least 2.7 kcal mol–1 (>120 mV), which is not consistent with ammonia substitution of a terminal water ligand of Mn(IV). Instead, the...
Screened environment-dependent reactive empirical bond-order potential for atomistic simulations of carbon materials

A screened environment-dependent reactive empirical bond-order (SED-REBO) potential has been developed for large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of carbon materials. Based on the second-generation REBO potential developed by Brenner and co-workers [J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 14, 783 (2002)], the SED-REBO potential overcomes the deficiencies of the REBO potential, which arise from a short range of interatomic interactions and their abrupt switching off at the cutoff distance, by increasing the range of interatomic interactions and eliminating the explicit switching function while introducing a simple yet efficient screening function. The increased cutoff distance allows the inclusion of interactions critically important for the physically correct description of bond breaking and bond remaking. An analytic form of the attractive and repulsive pairwise terms was devised to automatically become zero at distances above the cutoff, thus, eliminating the need for the switching function. The screening function effectively screens off the second- and further-nearest-neighbor interactions for calculation of energy and forces in a smooth and continuous way for both compression and expansion. The pairwise attractive and repulsive terms were refitted within a wide range of interatomic distances to properly describe large compressions and expansions of diamond and graphene as well as their behavior near equilibrium. Good performances of the SED-REBO potential to describe bond-breaking processes at extreme tensile stresses are demonstrated in large-scale MD simulations of the nanoindentation of graphene membranes. A computationally efficient version of the SED-REBO potential is introduced for large-scale MD simulations of shock-wave compression in carbon materials. The SED-REBO potential is implemented as a module in the Large-Scale Atomic/Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator (LAMMPS) and is freely available.
Prostate Cancer Bone Metastasis

Prostate cancer is diagnosed in every one of eight American men. Approximately 1 in 15 of these men with a new prostate cancer diagnosis will have bone metastasis at presentation, and many more will go on to develop bone metastasis within their lifetime. Prostate cancer bone metastases have a predilection for the spine, and can lead to substantial quality of life problems, including pain, fracture, and spinal cord and nerve root compression. Drug therapies with bisphosphonates or RANK ligand inhibitors can delay the progression of bone metastasis and help prevent skeletal-related events. Androgen deprivation therapies and chemotherapies are also effective at delaying the progression of bone metastases in men with metastatic prostate cancer. Both surgery and radiation therapy, or their combinations, are excellent tools for either prophylactically or therapeutically treating lesions which can cause severe morbidity. Widespread bony metastases can also be treated with radionuclides, some of which have been shown to confer a survival advantage to the patient.
History, Nature, and Technology

In the middle of an extremely clever but temperate attempt to distinguish a truly modern conception of history — not in the thrall of ancient Greek conceptions or of biblical or Augustinian conceptions or of Hegelian or Marxist conceptions — Hannah Arendt commits a palpable blunder regarding the relationship between physical nature and human history. Her error is a touching one, because it is humanely motivated by a dread of the easy tolerance of a distinctly modern notion of history that Nazi totalitarianism could exploit, and indeed did exploit, to the shame of the whole world. She rightly sees that it is technology that bridges the difference between science and history. Understandably, she worries the conceptual marriage between a view of history in which the meaning of events is nothing but the instant purposes of human agents (a theory she assigns to Marxian praxis, which already prepares the ground for totalitarian opportunism) and an emergent technology (apotheosized in nuclear energy) that ushers in an age in which new but fundamental, hitherto unfamiliar, powers of nature are released, triggered, activated with utterly unforeseen consequences.
Differential Regulation of Duplicate Light-Dependent Protochlorophyllide Oxidoreductases in the Diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum

Background Diatoms (Bacilliariophyceae) encode two light-dependent protochlorophyllide oxidoreductases (POR1 and POR2) that catalyze the penultimate step of chlorophyll biosynthesis in the light. Algae live in dynamic environments whose changing light levels induce photoacclimative metabolic shifts, including altered cellular chlorophyll levels. We hypothesized that the two POR proteins may be differentially adaptive under varying light conditions. Using the diatom Phaeodactylum tricornutum as a test system, differences in POR protein abundance and por gene expression were examined when this organism was grown on an alternating light:dark cycles at different irradiances; exposed to continuous light; and challenged by a significant decrease in light availability. Results For cultures maintained on a 12h light: 12h dark photoperiod at 200μE m−2 s−1 (200L/D), both por genes were up-regulated during the light and down-regulated in the dark, though por1 transcript abundance rose and fell earlier than that of por2. Little concordance occurred between por1 mRNA and POR1 protein abundance. In contrast, por2 mRNA and POR2 protein abundances followed similar diurnal patterns. When 200L/D P. tricornutum cultures were transferred to continuous light (200L/L), the diurnal regulatory pattern of por1 mRNA abundance but not of por2 was disrupted, and POR1 but not POR2 protein abundance dropped steeply. Under 1200μE m−2 s−1 (1200L/D), both por1 mRNA and POR1 protein abundance displayed diurnal oscillations. A compromised diel por2 mRNA response under 1200L/D did not impact the oscillation in POR2 abundance. When cells grown at 1200L/D were then shifted to 50μE m−2 s−1 (50L/D), por1 and por2 mRNA levels decreased swiftly but briefly upon light reduction. Thereafter, POR1 but not POR2 protein levels rose significantly in response to this light stepdown. Conclusion Given the sensitivity of diatom por1/POR1 to real-time light cues and adherence of por2/POR2 regulation to the diurnal cycle, we suggest that POR1 supports photoacclimation, whereas POR2 is the workhorse for daily chlorophyll synthesis.
Spatially adaptive FLIP fluid simulations in bifrost

Spatial adaptivity has great promise for fluid simulation in visual effects. Given that a 2× increase in spatial resolution incurs an 8× increase in memory for 3D, using high resolution only where needed can offer a huge savings for many interesting scenarios. For example, figure 1 shows a large-scale simulation of a creature emerging from deep water: the depth is critical for the bulk motion, but the velocity field away from the creature and surface is relatively smooth and does not require as high resolution. Adaptive fluid simulation was proposed for graphics over a decade ago [Losasso et al. 2004], and the combination of FLIP and octrees seven years ago [Hong et al. 2009], yet it has been slow to catch on in the industry. Instead, FLIP with uniform resolution sparse voxel tiles has emerged as the standard approach. Sparse voxel tiles efficiently cover arbitrary domains, give excellent cache usage and low data structure overhead, and allow the use of popular voxel algorithms for level set computations etc. with barely any changes. By comparison, typical adaptive octree and/or tetrahedral mesh approaches incur sizeable overheads and may rule out many standard voxel algorithms. SPGrid [Setaluri et al. 2014] is one recent option for efficiently achieving octree-like adaptivity via multiple levels of sparse voxel tiles; in this talk we discuss a more aggressive approach using a wide-branching tile tree of voxels. We have fully implemented this in Bifrost in Autodesk Maya, demonstrating that even in uniform resolution we achieve the performance of optimized sparse voxel tile code, and that spatial adaptivity gives significant further improvements in both memory and runtime.
DELAYED ON RESPONSE OF THE CONE SYSTEM IN NIGHT BLINDNESS

Some forms of night blindness are accompanied by a "negative" cone electroretinogram (ERG) that consists of a prolonged negative response to light onset with a normal or enhanced response to light offset (Miyake et al., 1987; Young, 1991; Alexander et al., 1992; Fishman et al., 1996).
A Monte-Carlo Study of the Driven Transport in a Non-Equilibrium Steady-State (NESS) System

An interacting lattice gas model is used to study the transport properties of a binary fluid mixture in presence of a linear gradient field. RMS displacement of particles show unusual power-law behavior with time. Variation of conductivity with the range of interaction is found to depend on the concentration of the carriers.
Gritos en el desierto: Denuncia y resistencia en las obras de las escritoras Wayuu Estercilia Simanca Pushaina y Vicenta Maria Siosi Pino

i Agradecimientos iii Lista de figuras vii Capitulo 1 Introduccion 1 1.1 Breve contexto historico 5 1.2 Contexto cultural: Los Wayuu 10 1.3 Contexto literario: La expresion Wayuu y su alcance 21 1.4 Acercamiento teorico 26 Capitulo 2 Literatura infantil y escritura Wayuu 31 2.1 Infantilizacion de los indigenas 32 2.2 El genero literario y el rol de los “mediadores artisticos” 36 2.3 Interpretacion de paratextos 40 2.4 Realidades de un mercado restringido 48 Capitulo 3 Analisis textual: Denuncia e intentos de reconciliacion 52 3.1 Criticas abiertas 55 3.2 Cuestionamiento de los valores de la cultura dominante 69 3.3 El levantamiento de los mas pequenos 75 3.4 Voltear el bautizo 79
El fenómeno religioso entendido desde la apertura a la trascendencia: ¿posibilidad o límite? Una mirada crítica desde el pensamiento de Charles Taylor

There are different ways to understand and to define religion. The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor —who has been working the religious phenomenon during the last years— has tried to define religion through transcendence. This definition is not exempt of difficulties and critics: one of them focuses on the idea that religion proposes too high human ideals such as asceticism, mortification or the renounce to the ordinary objectives of human life. The second critic focuses on the idea that religion is not able to assume and recognize violence and conflict as a very important aspect in human kind. Thus, religion tends to expurgate it from reality. This article will give an overview of these critics and which can be the main ways to answer them.
How to Use Teaching Scripts to Make Teaching More Effective and Efficient

It is challenging to identify the “teachable moments” that arise in busy clinical settings. When a teachable moment is identified, few teachers can deliver eloquent lessons extemporaneously. The teaching script is a strategy that many exemplary teachers use to efficiently and effectively enhance learning in clinical settings. This chapter presents a strategy for being prepared for “teachable moments” by creating and using teaching scripts in the clinical setting.
Electrode pressure application and measurement system during CMAP studies: preliminary results

Parameters related to conduction velocity are more commonly assessed during CMAP studies excluding amplitude information. Our study suggests that the pressure on measurement electrodes could be responsible for variability in amplitude information during CMAP studies. A new device and method showed promise in CMAP amplitude reliability.
Complete power sensor calibration using a VNA

Typically, power sensors are calibrated for input reflection coefficient, calibration efficiency factor and linearity. Some new power sensors also need absolute power calibration. Multiple systems are used to measure each of the parameters. With an appropriately configured VNA, all the measurements can be performed with a single connection and set up. This paper shows how it is done and expected uncertainties.
Ion Elevators and Escalators in Multilevel Structures for Lossless Ion Manipulations

We describe two approaches based upon ion “elevator” and “escalator” components that allow moving ions to different levels in structures for lossless ion manipulations (SLIM). Guided by ion motion simulations, we designed elevator and escalator components based upon ion current measurements providing essentially lossless transmission in multilevel designs. The ion elevator design allowed ions to efficiently bridge a 4 mm gap between levels. The component was integrated in a SLIM and coupled to a QTOF mass spectrometer using an ion funnel interface to evaluate the m/z range transmitted as compared to transmission within a level (e.g., in a linear section). The analysis of singly charged ions of m/z 600–2700 produced similar mass spectra for both elevator and straight (linear motion) components. In the ion escalator design, traveling waves (TW) were utilized to transport ions efficiently between two SLIM levels. Ion current measurements and ion mobility (IM) spectrometry analysis illustrated that ions can b...
The Anatomy of Acquired Disorders of Reading

Like most neurologists of my generation I had been trained to an overwhelming skepticism toward the view that there were highly characteristic aphasic syndromes associated with different lesions of the brain. Even more forcefully I had accepted the view that any attempt at ‘explaining’ the syndromes on the basis of anatomy was a futile endeavor. Although Sir Charles Symonds had during my years at Queen Square stood almost alone against this view, I had been so caught up in the standard approach that I disregarded his perceptive teachings.
MISREPRESENTING MARX: A LESSON IN HISTORICAL METHOD

In this book Jonathan Sperber deploys his extensive knowledge of nineteenth-century European social and political history, and his diligent research into sources that have become readily available only recently, to produce a substantial biography of Karl Marx. We find, however, that Sperber is mistaken in his treatment of Marx's ideas and of the intellectual contexts within which Marx worked. In fact, we suggest that he is systematically mistaken in this regard. We locate a root source of the error in his reductive approach to theoretical ideas. In section I we focus on the claim, taken for granted in the book, that Marx's ideas are instantiations of “materialism.” By detailed reference to the record of Marx's writings, we show that there is no justification for describing Marx as a “materialist” in the usually accepted senses of that term. In section II we review how Soviet and other interpreters of Marx, taking their lead from the later Engels, insisted that “materialism” was fundamental to Marxism. We suggest that Sperber's presentation of Marx's thinking as “materialist and atheist” aligns far better with such interpretations than it does with what Marx actually wrote. In sections III and IV we criticize Sperber's “contextualist” approach to dealing with ideas in history. His approach may seem reminiscent of Quentin Skinner’ s, but where Skinner deploys the discursive conventions prevailing in a past time to illuminate theoretical ideas, Sperber reduces theoretical ideas to context. We name Sperber's approach “theoretical nominalism,” a term that we use to denote the view that theoretical ideas are nothing but interventions into particular situations. We end by suggesting that greater attentiveness to philosophy and theory would have enriched Sperber's efforts in this book.
Energy and Delay-Aware Traffic Control and Management in Large Scale Networks

Reducing power and energy consumption in large scale networks remains a challenging problem. The increasing need to support multimedia applications in future Internets further compound this problem. This paper addresses a key issue of how to efficiently assign per-router flow delays and set per-processor execution speeds, along a routing path, to jointly minimize energy consumption and meet end-to-end delay requirements of the underlying applications. To this end, we propose a DVFS-enabled, energy-aware strategy to optimize the energy consumption of network components through scaling their processor execution speeds. The strategy takes into consideration the workload and the delay requirements of the applications. Given a flow specification, which characterizes the flow's traffic rate and QoS performance requirements, a per-router feasible minimum and maximum delay values are computed. Using these values, the energy- and delay-aware problem is modeled as a routing path energy-minimization problem to determine, for each router along the path, the processing router execution rate and the flow per-router delay budget that minimize energy without violating the flow's end-to-end delay requirement. A simulation-based analysis shows that energy minimization can be achieved without QoS violation. The results show that up to 88:33% dynamic energy saving and up to 26:76% power saving of the total power consumption can be achieved by the proposed strategy.
Migration and Disease in the Black Sea Region: Ottoman-Russian Relations in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries: Robarts, Andrew London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic 280 pp., $114.00 ISBN 978-1-4742-5949-1 Publication Date: December 2016

Andrew Robarts, assistant professor of history at the Rhode Island School of Design, has written an engaging book on Ottoman-Russian relations in the Black Sea region from the 1760s to the 1830s. H...
Proceedings of the 12th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining

This volume serves as the written record of the Twelfth ACM SIGKDD International Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD-06) held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on August 20- 23, 2006. The KDD conference provides a forum for novel research results and important applications in the area of data mining and knowledge discovery. The vibrancy, excitement and breadth of the field is reflected by the strong lineup of research papers, invited talks, tutorials and workshops at the conference.KDD received a record number 457 Research Track submissions this year. The program committee accepted 50 papers for oral presentation at the conference and 55 for poster presentation. The Industrial and Government Applications Track received 74 submissions and accepted seven for oral presentation and eight for poster presentation.In addition to paper presentations, the conference also featured eight tutorials, nine workshops, one panel and invited talks by Rakesh Agrawal, Andrew Moore, and John Stankovic. The Industrial and Government Applications track this year also included invited talks by Michael Cavaretta, Jeff Jonas, William Kahn, and Andrew McCallum.
Design of a mechatronic positioner for a holographic otoscope system

We are developing an advanced computer-controlled digital optoelectronic holographic system (DOEHS) with the ability to measure both shape and acoustically induced deformations of the tympanic membrane of several species, including humans. The DOEHS have been deployed for testing and use in clinical environment. The DOEHS consists of laser delivery (LD), optical head (OH), sound presentation (SP), computing platform (CP), and a mechatronic otoscope positioner (MOP) subsystems. In this paper, we present advances in our development of the MOP subsystem, which is capable of positioning the OH subsystem near the patient’s ear and maintaining of its relative position and orientation during holographic eardrum examinations. Our work focuses on the development and implementation of various approaches for mechanical stabilization of the MOP-OH subsystems, including custom designed packaging of the OH as well as automatic interferometric compensation against measuring disturbances induced by periodic oscillations, such as those produced by heartbeat and breathing of a patient during examination. We present preliminary results of our investigations of acoustically induced motions on tympanic membranes by measurements with our DOEHS enabled with a structurally stable MOP subsystem.
Abstract 2923: AV and VV Optimization Causes Incremental Improvement in Cardiac Output and Synchrony Post Cardiac Resynchronization Treatment

BACKGROUND: Cardiac resynchronization treatment (CRT) causes improvement in cardiac function and synchrony in heart failure. The aim of this study was to determine whether echo-guided atrioventricular optimization (AVO) and optimization of V-V timing (VVO) of biventricular (Biv) pacemaker would cause incremental improvement in cardiac output and cardiac synchrony post CRT. METHODS: 23 pts, 65 ± 16 yrs, 78% M, 61% ischemic cardiomyopathy, 26% with LBBB, underwent CRT and then AVO and VVO 21 ± 29 days post CRT. 20 had percutaneous CRT (left ventricular (LV) lead in the posterolateral vein in 15 and in anterolateral vein in 5) and 3 had epicardial CRT. Nominal and 6 VV delays and 50–250 ms AV delays were tested in each pt. Optimal AV and VV delay was determined from the AV and VV interval corresponding to the maximum aortic velocity time interval (VTI) by pulsed wave (PW) Doppler. Tissue Doppler imaging (TDI) in the apical 4, 2 and 3 chamber views was performed pre CRT, post CRT, post AVO and post VVO using GE vivid 7 ultrasound system. Ejection septolateral delay, asynchrony index [standard deviation of time to peak systolic velocity (PSV) during aortic ejection in 12 LV segments], maximum difference in time to PSV in 12 LV segments during entire cardiac cycle, and septoposterior wall delay (SPWD) during ejection & post ejection phase were measured as criteria of mechanical asynchrony. RESULTS: LV ejection fraction improved from 26 ± 8% to 31 ± 7% and NYHA class from 3.4 ± 0.9 to 1.94 ± 0.6 (p CONCLUSIONS: Optimization of atrioventricular and interventricular interval of Biv pacemaker by evaluation of PW aortic VTI causes incremental improvement in cardiac output and LV synchrony in pts post CRT./>
Dynamic Time-frequency Feature Extraction for Brain Activity Recognition

The biomedical signal classification accuracy on motor imagery is not always satisfactory, partially because not all the important features have been effectively extracted. This paper proposes an improved dynamic feature extraction approach based on a time-frequency representation and an optimal sequence similarity measurement. Since the wavelet packet decomposition (WPD) generates more detailed signal variation information and the dynamic time warping (DTW) helps optimally measure the sequence similarity, more important features are kept for classification. We apply the extracted features from our proposed method to Electroencephalogram (EEG) based motor imagery through the OpenBCI device and obtain higher classification accuracy. Compared with traditional feature extraction methods, there is a significant classification accuracy improvement from 83.53% to 90.89%. Our work demonstrates the importance of the advanced feature extraction in time series data analysis, e.g. biomedical signal.
A User's Guide for Surgery Involving the Artificial Urinary Sphincter.

Abstract Introduction The artificial urinary sphincter (AUS) has long been regarded as the gold standard for surgical correction of male stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Despite impressive rates of initial success for restoration of continence, durability may wane to the point of considering revision surgery. Aim To provide a review of existing data as well as personal experience regarding patient selection, surgical technique, and postoperative troubleshooting for the AUS. Methods A systematic review of the peer-reviewed literature was performed to identify relevant and contemporary articles regarding perioperative and long-term management of the AUS. Additional input is presented based on clinical experience of the senior author. Main Outcome Measure The main outcome measures are durability, patient satisfaction, mechanical failure, and urethral erosion. Results In addition to a thorough history and examination, preoperative screening should include office cystoscopy to rule out bladder neck contracture in patients with a history of radical prostatectomy. Perineal cuff placement appears superior to alternative approaches. Prior radiation and use of the 3.5-cm cuff are risk factors for future erosion. Newer findings suggest that subsequent recurrence of SUI may be due to restrictive encapsulation, rather than true atrophy, with implications for revision surgery. Conclusion The AUS remains an excellent option for surgical correction of moderate to severe male SUI. Detailed preoperative evaluation and patient selection are critical. The challenge of downstream recurrent SUI after AUS can be effectively managed for most patients with a structured approach. Chouhan JD, Terlecki RP. A User’s Guide for Surgery Involving the Artificial Urinary Sphincter. Sex Med Rev 2019;7:167–177.
Rapid-Stretch Injury to Peripheral Nerves: Histologic Results

Background Although most severe peripheral nerve injuries result from high-speed mechanisms, there is no laboratory model to replicate this clinical condition. Objective To qualitatively and quantitatively describe microanatomical injury of rapid stretch. Methods The sciatic nerves of 36 Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to rapid-stretch nerve injury, using fixed-direction strain produced via constrained weight drop applied to an intact nerve. Nerve injury severity was categorized by biomechanical parameters. Injury to nerve microarchitecture was quantified with serial longitudinal sectioning, with specific focus on the endoneurium, perineurium, and epineurium. Results Four grades of stretch injury severity were determined by mathematical cluster analysis: sham, elastic stretch, inelastic stretch, and stretch rupture. Two patterns of injury to endoneurial architecture were quantified: loss of fiber undulation (straightened fibers) and rupturing of individual fibers ("microruptures"). Straightening of nerve fibers was the earliest accommodation to stretch injury and accounted for elongation during elastic stretch. Microruptures were distributed along the length of the nerve and were more severe and involved greater volume of the nerve at higher biomechanical severity. Epineurium and perineurium disruption increased in frequency with progressive injury severity, yet did not predict transition from one injury grade to another (P = .3), nor was it a hallmark of severe injury. Conversely, accumulation of microruptures provided strong correlation to nerve injury severity (Pearson's R = .9897) and progression to mechanical failure. Conclusion Nerve architecture is injured in a graded fashion during stretch injury, which likely reflects tissue biomechanics. This study suggests new considerations in the theoretical framework of nerve stretch trauma.
Chiral and hyperbolic plasmons in novel 2-D materials

Abstract The advent of novel 2-D materials has brought to the spotlight the subject of surface polaritons in these materials. It is the goal of this chapter to provide a brief overview of the topic with the emphasis on isotropic, anisotropic, hyperbolic, and chiral plasmons. We derive dispersion equations for the plasmons in general 2-D material described by 2 × 2 conductivity tensor and discuss the concept of k-surfaces crucial for understanding properties of guided modes in anisotropic materials. We supplement results of the analysis by numerical simulations of the surface plasmons excited in the 2-D materials. We demonstrate that anisotropy and hyperbolicity allow for highly directional guiding of the plasmons in the form of subdiffractional beams. We discuss implications of the chirality for unidirectional guiding of the plasmons.
Nursing Considerations for Patients Treated with Targeted Therapies

Delivery of personalized, effective therapy to patients with metastatic lung cancer with an identified driver mutation can be challenging and rewarding. Nurses can make significant impacts in the management of these complex patients through access to therapy, education, telephone triage, interventions to improve adherence and persistence, and care coordination/navigation. A multidisciplinary team approach may improve patient quality of life and survival.
CrossFit Athletic Identity’s Relationship to Sponsor Recall, Recognition, and Purchase Intent

Background: The CrossFit Open is a physical activity competition that allows athletes from across the world to compete in fitness challenges online, whereby participants document their progress via an event website. No apparent studies have examined participant event sponsorship in a case where sponsor messages are delivered primarily via an event website. Furthermore, current research has yet to consider the differential impact of audience athletic identity on sponsor messaging in such a context. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between CrossFit Athletic Identity (CAI) and the ability to recall and recognize official sponsors of a participant event conducted on an online platform. Methodology: A cross-sectional research design was used with a convenience sample (n=170) of CrossFit Open participants from 36 affiliates in the South Central United States. A concurrent treatment validation with a subset of four participants utilized laboratory eye-tracking to evaluate the attention and viewing patterns within the CrossFit online platform. Results: CAI was not a significant predictor for sponsor recognition or recall (α = 0.05). Only one of the case study participants had a recorded brand image fixation (0.29 seconds) during the eye-tracking assessments of their typical website interaction. Conclusion: While CAI was not associated with improved sponsor recognition and recall, the assessment of the participant website interactions suggest that participants in this study were not likely exposed to sufficient sponsor images. This highlights the need for critical evaluation of event website designs using eye-tracking or some other metric of visual exposure.
10 – Multiple Regression

Multiple regression models are very powerful because they allow us to estimate the effects on a dependent variable of changing one variable, while holding the other explanatory variables constant—without actually holding the other variables constant. The multiple regression model can handle categorical variables by using dummy variables whose values are 0 or 1, depending on whether or not a certain characteristic is true. If there are k categories, we use k – 1 dummies. As with simple regression, the least squares procedure identifies the coefficient estimates that minimize the sum of squared prediction errors. The standard errors can be used for confidence intervals and hypothesis tests; R2 measures the goodness of fit. There is a multicollinearity problem if correlations among the explanatory variables cause the standard errors to be disappointingly high. There is no real cure other than obtaining data that are not so highly intercorrelated.
The flag manifold as a tool for analyzing and comparing data sets.

The shape and orientation of data clouds reflect variability in observations that can confound pattern recognition systems. Subspace methods, utilizing Grassmann manifolds, have been a great aid in dealing with such variability. However, this usefulness begins to falter when the data cloud contains sufficiently many outliers corresponding to stray elements from another class or when the number of data points is larger than the number of features. We illustrate how nested subspace methods, utilizing flag manifolds, can help to deal with such additional confounding factors. Flag manifolds, which are parameter spaces for nested subspaces, are a natural geometric generalization of Grassmann manifolds. To make practical comparisons on a flag manifold, algorithms are proposed for determining the distances between points $[A], [B]$ on a flag manifold, where $A$ and $B$ are arbitrary orthogonal matrix representatives for $[A]$ and $[B]$, and for determining the initial direction of these minimal length geodesics. The approach is illustrated in the context of (hyper) spectral imagery showing the impact of ambient dimension, sample dimension, and flag structure.
Examining Sources of Variation in Student Confusion in College Classes

Students often experience confusion while learning, and if promptly resolved, it can promote engagement and deeper understanding. However, detecting student confusion and intervening in a timely and scalable manner challenges even seasoned instructors. To understand when and where students are most likely to be confused, we study the systematic occurrence of confusion in college classes among 29,511 students in twelve universities. We use a novel method for affect detection that allows students to self-report confusion on individual presentation slides during their classes. Across 1,366 class presentations, we find that confusion arises at different times during class and depends on class duration, class size, type of institution, and academic discipline. Confusion is most prevalent during short presentations, in small classes, low-tier institutions, and scientific disciplines.
Neurofilament à chaine légère : biomarqueur potentiel des amyloidoses héréditaires à transthyretine

Introduction L’amylose hereditaire a transthyretine (hATTR) est une maladie rare engageant le pronostic vital. Des biomarqueurs plasmatiques peuvent faciliter le diagnostic, evaluer le pronostic et permettre de surveiller la maladie. Objectifs Analyser l’evolution des biomarqueurs proteiques circulants en reponse au patisiran chez les patients atteints d’amylose hATTR avec polyneuropathie. Patients et methodes L’analyse proteomique a ete utilisee pour mesurer 1164 proteines dans des echantillons de plasma preleves sur des patients de l’etude de phase 3 APOLLO ayant recu soit du placebo soit du patisiran 0,3 mg/kg IV toutes les 3 semaines. Un modele mixte lineaire a permis de determiner l’impact du patisiran sur le profil de chaque taux de proteines a 0, 9 et 18 mois. Resultats 66 proteines ont montre un changement significatif de leur taux apres traitement par patisiran (p Discussion Les NfL peuvent servir de biomarqueur d’evolution des lesions nerveuses et de la polyneuropathie dues aux depots amyloides comme le montre la correlation avec le patisiran et l’evolution du mNIS + 7. Cela peut permettre un diagnostic precoce de la polyneuropathie chez les patients atteints d’amylose hATTR et le suivi de la progression/regression de la maladie dans le temps. Conclusion Le taux de neurofilaments a chaine legere peut servir de biomarqueur d’evolution des lesions nerveuses et de la polyneuropathie dans l’amylose hereditaire a transthyretine avec ou sans traitement.
Primary superficial synovial sarcoma: clinical and histopathological characteristics in eight cases with molecular confirmation.

Background and aims Synovial sarcoma (SS) is a spindled cell sarcoma demonstrating varying degrees of epithelial differentiation and characterized by a pathognomonic t(X;18) translocation. SS most frequently involves deep soft tissue of the extremities in young adults. Superficial SS involving dermis and/or subcutaneous tissue is exceedingly rare. Methods and results We identified 8 cases of primary superficial synovial sarcomas across 3 tertiary institutions. All cases were confined to the dermis/subcutis based on imaging or gross and microscopic examination. The average patient age was 36 years (range 14-50). The average tumor size was 2.4 cm (range 0.9-3.9 cm) and lesions showed classic monophasic (n=4) or biphasic (n=4) morphology. All tumors expressed keratin AE1/AE3 and/or EMA, but were negative for CD34. The diagnosis for each case was confirmed by molecular detection of t(X;18). Six of the eight cases were treated with curative excision while the other two received additional radiotherapy. Follow-up was available for six patients (mean 68 months, range 2-108 months) and no patient experienced recurrence or metastatic disease. Conclusions We present the largest series to date of primary superficial SS with molecular confirmation for all cases. SS should be considered when evaluating a cutaneous monomorphic spindle cell neoplasm. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
It's easier to contract than to pay: Judicial independence and US municipal default in the 19th century

Abstract It is well established in the literature that an independent judiciary can act as a signal of credibility by a sovereign state and as a guarantor of creditor rights. However, to date there has been little systematic work analyzing how an independent judiciary reacts to fiscal stress and public-sector default. This article addresses that very question by evaluating how and if judicial independence affects default rates using US municipal data through the nineteenth century. Overall, the results do indicate that greater judicial independence is associated with a significantly lower likelihood of default. This channel largely occurs through the method by which a member of a state's court of last resort is selected (either appointment or popular election) and term length.
Anastrozole regulates fatty acid synthase in breast cancer.

Our previous matched case-control study of postmenopausal women with resected early stage breast cancer revealed that only anastrozole, but not exemestane or letrozole, showed a significant association between the six-month estrogen concentrations and risk of breast cancer event. Anastrozole, but not exemestane or letrozole, is a ligand for estrogen receptor α (ERα). The mechanisms of endocrine resistance are heterogenous and with the new mechanism of anastrozole, we have found that treatment of anastrozole maintains fatty acid synthase (FASN) protein level by limiting the ubiquitin-mediated FASN degradation, leading to increased breast cancer cell growth. Mechanistically, anastrozole decreases guided entry of tail-anchored proteins factor 4 (GET4) expression, resulting in decreased BCL2-associated athanogene cochaperone 6 (BAG6) complex activity, which in turn, prevents RNF126-mediated degradation of FASN. Increased FASN protein level can induce a negative feedback loop mediated by the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. High levels of FASN are associated with poor outcome only in anastrozole-treated breast cancer patients, but not in patients treated with exemestane or letrozole. Repressing FASN causes regression of breast cancer cell growth. The anastrozole-FASN signaling pathway is eminently targetable in endocrine-resistant breast cancer.
Time is of the Essence: Impact of a More Aggressive Chemical Venous Thromboembolism Prophylaxis Regimen on Trauma Patients.

BACKGROUND Trauma patients are at high risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE). Opportunity for chemical VTE prophylaxis improvement was identified and practice was altered to start chemoprophylaxis on admission in most patients. The purpose of this study was to determine if early VTE prophylaxis is safe and reduces VTE. METHODS The trauma registry was queried over a 12-month period for patients admitted greater than 1 day for traumatic injury. The study spanned 6 months on either side of instituting aggressive chemoprophylaxis. Patients were risk adjusted on demographics, Injury Severity Score, transfusions, procedure type, length of stay, and mortality. Pre-intervention patients were then compared to patients in the aggressive cohort with the primary outcome of VTE. Secondary outcomes included transfusions, mortality, and length of stay (LOS). RESULTS 1597 patients were identified over the study period with 754 (47%) patients in the aggressive period. There were no differences in age, sex, Injury Severity Score, transfusions, procedures, or LOS between cohorts. Pre-algorithm patients were more likely to have penetrating mechanism (9.3% vs 6.6%; P = .009) and longer time to VTE prophylaxis (23.3 vs 13.9 hours; P < .001). No differences were noted in anticoagulant, VTE rate (2.0% vs 1.2%; P = .195), or mortality. Linear regression analysis identified time to chemical prophylaxis as significant predictor of VTE (β = 43.9, P < .001). CONCLUSIONS Early aggressive chemical VTE prophylaxis is safe without increasing transfusions. Venous thromboembolism rates were decreased, but did not reach statistical significance.
Liquefaction Study — A Decision Analysis Framework

A decision analysis framework is developed here to study the liquefaction problem. When the liquefaction risk of a site is found to be unacceptable, several alternatives could be attempted. However, economic as well as technical aspects need to be considerd in selecting the best solution. This type of study would be particularly helpful if the limitation or elimination of damage associated with liquefaction is a design criterion. In this paper, several design alternatives for a liquefaction study have been identified and a decision tree is used to organize essential information. A decision can be made with available information or with additional information if additional time and money are available. Collection of additional information may not be always desirable for all projects. It depends on many factors and they are identified here. If the additional information is disirable, the maximum amount of money that should be spent can also be estimated from this study.
The Charme of Abstract Entities

Abstraction is fundamental in combating the state explosion problem in model checking. Automatic techniques have been developed that eliminate presumed irrelevant detail from a model and then refine the abstraction until it is accurate enough to prove the given property. This abstraction refinement approach, initially proposed by Kurshan, has received great impulse from the use of efficient satisfiability solvers in the check for the existence of error traces in the concrete model. Today it is widely applied to the verification of both hardware and software. For complex proofs, the challenge is to keep the abstract model small while carrying out most of the work on it. We review and contrast several refinement techniques that have been developed with this objective. These techniques differ in aspects that range from the choice of decision procedures for the various tasks, to the recourse to syntactic or semantic approaches (e.g., “moving fence” vs. predicate abstraction), and to the analysis of bundles of error traces rather than individual ones.
Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

Schizophrenia, like all conceptualizations of psychopathology, is a hypothetical construct that clinicians and scientists have developed in an attempt to capture a complex reality. Generally, schizophrenia is a diagnosis applied to persons who manifest some combination of hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, and bizarre or disorganized behavior. Although these features are seen in persons diagnosed with schizophrenia, the heterogeneity of schizophrenia has hindered attempts at simple conceptualizations. Three issues in particular are emphasized in this chapter: chronic versus episodic course, positive versus negative symptoms, and the presence of affective symptoms. The conceptualization of schizophrenia in this chapter attempts to account for this heterogeneity while retaining the parsimonious assumption of an underlying schizophrenic process varying in severity as a function of genetic liability. By hypothesizing two affective neurobehavioral systems that contribute different types of nonspecific liability and have different affects on behavior, it might be possible to account for the important aspects of this heterogeneity without losing the construct of schizophrenia as a relatively distinct phenomenon. Keywords: delusions; hallucinations; psychosis; schizophrenia; schizophreniform; schizotypal
Sample size calculation for rank tests comparing K survival distributions.

Rank tests, such as logrank or Wilcoxon rank sum tests, have been popularly used to compare survival distributions of two or more groups in the presence of right censoring. However, there has been little research on sample size calculation methods for rank tests to compare more than two groups. An existing method is based on a crude approximation, which tends to underestimate sample size, i.e., the calculated sample size has lower power than projected. In this paper we propose an asymptotically correct method and an approximate method for sample size calculation. The proposed methods are compared to other methods through simulation studies.