cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Discriminating Groups of Organisms

A common problem in morphometric studies is to determine whether, and in what ways, two or more previously established groups of organisms differ. Discrimination of predefined groups is a very different problem than trying to characterize the patterns of morphological variation among individuals, and so the kinds of morphometric tools used for these two kinds of questions differ. In this paper I review the basic procedures used for discriminating groups of organisms based on morphological characteristics – measures of size and shape. A critical reading of morphometric discrimination studies of various kinds of organisms in recent years suggests that a review of procedures is warranted, particularly with regard to the kinds of assumptions being made. I will discuss the main concepts and methods used in problems of discrimination, first using conventional morphometric characters (measured distances between putatively homologous landmarks), and then using landmarks directly with geometric morphometric approaches.
Alterations in gamma-aminobutyric acid receptor sensitivity following acute and chronic ethanol treatments.

: The effects of acute and chronic ethanol ingestion on the binding of the inhibitory neurotransmitter 3H-γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) was investigated in inbred strains of mice. Acute effects were analyzed in DBA/2J (alcohol avoiding) and C57BL/6J (alcohol preferring) mice, while chronic effects were analyzed in C57 mice. Acute ethanol (4 g/kg) produced a significant increase in the binding capacity of the low-affinity γ-aminobutyric acid binding site in both C57 (12%) and DBA (23%) mice, without significantly altering other binding parameters. The enhanced binding capacity may be responsible for the behavioral depression associated with ethanol use. Chronically treated C57 mice exhibited a decrease in the density of low-affinity GABA receptor sites. These results suggest the possible involvement of γ-aminobutyric acid synaptic function in the neuropharmacological effects of ethanol. The possibility that chronic ethanol administration may result in adaptation of γ-aminobutyric acid receptors to the continuous presence of ethanol-induced central nervous system depression is discussed.
A platform for secure static binary instrumentation

Program instrumentation techniques form the basis of many recent software security defenses, including defenses against common exploits and security policy enforcement. As compared to source-code instrumentation, binary instrumentation is easier to use and more broadly applicable due to the ready availability of binary code. Two key features needed for security instrumentations are (a) it should be applied to all application code, including code contained in various system and application libraries, and (b) it should be non-bypassable. So far, dynamic binary instrumentation (DBI) techniques have provided these features, whereas static binary instrumentation (SBI) techniques have lacked them. These features, combined with ease of use, have made DBI the de facto choice for security instrumentations. However, DBI techniques can incur high overheads in several common usage scenarios, such as application startups, system-calls, and many real-world applications. We therefore develop a new platform for secure static binary instrumentation (PSI) that overcomes these drawbacks of DBI techniques, while retaining the security, robustness and ease-of-use features. We illustrate the versatility of PSI by developing several instrumentation applications: basic block counting, shadow stack defense against control-flow hijack and return-oriented programming attacks, and system call and library policy enforcement. While being competitive with the best DBI tools on CPU-intensive SPEC 2006 benchmark, PSI provides an order of magnitude reduction in overheads on a collection of real-world applications.
The Asymptotic Optimality of the SPT Rule for the Flow Shop Mean Completion Time Problem

In the flow shop mean completion time problem, a set of jobs has to be processed onm-machines. Every machine has to process each one of the jobs, and every job has the same routing through the machines. The objective is to determine a sequence of the jobs on the machines so as to minimize the sum of the completion times of all jobs on the final machine. In this paper, we prove the asymptotic optimality of the Shortest Processing Time algorithm for any continuous, independent, and identically distributed job processing times.
To write "like a woman": transformations of identity in the work of Willa Cather.

Willa Cather's early life resembles one of the histories in Jonathan Katz's Gay American History. Her cross-dressing, invention of a male psuedonym, and details of behavior, together with her love for two women in her adulthood, Isabelle McClung and Edith Lewis, make it clear that Cather was a lesbian. Defensive about One of Ours, Cather nonetheless wrote much of her fiction in a male persona-A Lost Lady, The Professor's House, "Tom Outland's Story," Death Comes to the Archbishop, O Pioneers!, My Antonia, and One of Ours, as well as numerous short stories. Much of the fictional material in these works is curiously inconsistent with the male persona, but instead resembles lesbian experiences: the inaccessibility (to the narrator) of women who are nonetheless accessible to other men, absolute heartbreak at the untouchability of the women rather than anger of guilt of the search for sexual release elsewhere, and the women's intimacy with the men involved, as in One of Ours or O Pioneers!, without any suggest...
Conceptual Model of Health-Related Quality of Life

Purpose: To revise the Wilson and Cleary model of health-related quality of life (HRQoL), with suggestions for applying each of the components, and to facilitate the use of HRQoL in nursing and health care. Organizing Construct: HRQoL, based on relevant literature over the past 20 years. Methods: The original model was revised in three substantive ways: (a) indicating that biological function is influenced by characteristics of both individuals and environments; (b) deleting nonmedical factors; and (c) deleting the labels on the arrows that tend to restrict characterization of the relationships. Findings: Theoretical background is provided for each of the major components of the model, and examples of instruments to measure them, were added. Conclusions: In quality-of-life research, the current challenge is to devise models to clarify the elements of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and the causal relationships among them. This revision of Wilson and Cleary's model includes a taxonomy of the variables that often have been used to measure HRQoL. This revision should be useful in research and clinical practice.
Improved Control Acquisition Scheme for the IEEE 896 Futurebus

An added preemption facility clearly improves earlier schemes for implementing this backplane bus used with 32-bit microprocessors.
The Pursuit of Happiness in the City: Changing Opportunities and Options in America ( The Prothero Lecture )

In 1790 a population numbering less than four millions was said, according to a later census calculation, to be almost 95 per cent rural in residence and, by implication, proportionately agricultural in occupation. By 1970 a population well in excess of 204 millions was almost 75 per cent urbanized and, in terms of labour force, less than 5 percent involved in agricultural pursuits.
Timing Performance Control in Web Server Systems Utilizing Server Internal State Information

How to effectively allocate system resource to meet the service level agreement (SLA) of Web servers is a challenging problem. In this paper, we propose an improved scheme for autonomous timing performance control in Web servers under highly dynamic traffic loads. We devise a novel delay regulation technique called queue length model based feedback control utilizing server internal state information to reduce response time variance in presence of bursty traffic. Both simulation and experimental studies using synthesized workloads and real-world Web traces demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach
Transplantation of developing kidneys

The number of kidney transplantations performed per year is limited by the availability of donor organs. One novel solution to this shortage envisions growing new kidneys in situ through xenotransplantation of renal anlagen. To be successful, such an approach will require that: (1) transplants are grown in a location that renders possible their subsequent excretory function, (2) developed transplants have normal morphological characteristics and function, (3) transplanted metanephroi become well integrated into the host in terms of inducing a state of immune tolerance and being vascularized by host vessels, and (4) source material for metanephros transplants is readily available. This review summarizes experimental data relating to these requirements for the transplantation of developing kidneys.
P05.29. Does yoga improve smoking cessation outcomes? A systematic review of the literature.

Methods A systematic search, review and synthesis of existing literature on yoga interventions for smoking cessation was conducted. Online literature searches through MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EBM, PubMed, clinicaltrials.gov and NIH RePORTER were carried out using an array of search terms and combinations. Manual search of reference lists and specific authors was also performed. Studies were selected that had: (1) smoking-related primary outcomes and, (2) an intervention consisting of yoga or a component of yoga (e.g. pranayama).
Estimation of evaporation over the upper Blue Nile basin by combining observations from satellites and river flow gauges

Reliable estimates of regional evapotranspiration are necessary to improve water resources management and planning. However, direct measurements of evaporation are expensive and difficult to obtain. Some of the difficulties are illustrated in a comparison of several satellite-based estimates of evapotranspiration for the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin in Ethiopia. These estimates disagree both temporally and spatially. All the available data products underestimate evapotranspiration leading to basin-scale mass balance errors on the order of 35 percent of the mean annual rainfall. This paper presents a methodology that combines satellite observations of rainfall, terrestrial water storage as well as river-flow gauge measurements to estimate actual evapotranspiration over the UBN basin. The estimates derived from these inputs are constrained using a one-layer soil water balance and routing model. Our results describe physically consistent long-term spatial and temporal distributions of key hydrologic variables, including rainfall, evapotranspiration, and river-flow. We estimate an annual evapotranspiration over the UBN basin of about 2.55 mm per day. Spatial and temporal evapotranspiration trends are revealed by dividing the basin into smaller subbasins. The methodology described here is applicable to other basins with limited observational coverage that are facing similar future challenges of water scarcity and climate change.
OVERVIEW OF FISSION SAFETY FOR LASER ICF FISSION ENERGY

This paper reviews fission safety design principles and approaches for coupling inertial confinement fusion (ICF) to a subcritical fission blanket, in Laser ICF Fission Energy (LIFE) power plants. ...
Abstract 14879: High dose Vitamin D Supplementation Attenuates Left Atrial Enlargement in African American Men with Hypovitaminosis D and Dysglycemia: Results of the D-Vitamin Intervention in Veteran Administration (DIVA) Randomized Controlled Trial

Introduction: Vitamin D deficiency is common among African American men (AAM) in the United States and is associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk. This study evaluated the effect of high-dose vitamin D supplementation on echocardiographic parameters in AAM with dysglycemia and hypovitaminosis D. Hypothesis: High dose vitamin D therapy will improve structural and diastolic echocardiographic parameters. Methods: AAM with dysglycemia (A1C 5.7-6.9% and no hypoglycemic drugs) and low vitamin D levels (25OHD: 5.0-29ng/ml) were randomized to high-dose ergocalciferol (50,000 IU/week) or placebo. Echocardiography was performed at baseline and at 1 year. Ejection fraction (EF), septal and posterior wall thickness, left ventricular end diastolic diameter (LVEDd), left ventricular end systolic diameter (LVEDs), left atrial (LA) area, LA length, LA volume, E, A, septal and lateral e’ and a’, deceleration time (DT), and isovolumetric relaxation time (IVRT) were measured. Results: 81/158 (51%) patients rec...
Edgeworth Price Cycles in Gasoline: Evidence from the U.S.

Studies of gasoline prices in multiple countries have found a repeated sequence of asymmetric cycles where a sharp price increase is followed by gradual decreases. This price pattern is linked to Maskin & Tirole’s (1988) theoretical duopoly pricing game that produces a similar pattern, Edgeworth price cycles. We examine data on average daily city-level retail gasoline and diesel prices for 355 cities in the U.S. from 2001-2007 using multiple methods to identify price cycles. We show that a relatively small number of U.S. cities concentrated in a number of contiguous upper Midwestern states evidence Edgeworth cycle-like pricing behavior. Within our data set cities tend to either cycle in all years or they do not cycle at all. We examine prices in cycling and non-cycling cites controlling for other factors and find consumers are no worse off, and likely better off, on average, in cycling than non-cycling cities. Finally, unlike previous studies, we find that some vertically integrated (branded) retail gasoline stations are themselves potentially important drivers of the scale and scope of cycling in retail gasoline prices. REVISED: May 2011
Recent Developments in Diode-Pumped Rare Earth Lasers

The most attractive alternative to flashlamp pumping of solid state lasers is the diode laser. In the past two decades numerous laboratory devices have been assembled which incorporated single diode lasers, small laser diode arrays or LED’s for pumping of Nd:YAG, Nd:glass and a host of other Nd lasers. The low power output, low packaging density, and extremely high cost of diode lasers prevented any serious applications for laser pumping in the past.
Identification of inherently antioxidant regions in proteins with radical-directed dissociation mass spectrometry.

Antioxidant peptides such as glutathione play critically important roles within cells by opposing the action of oxidative species. Similarly all proteins may, as a secondary function, potentially contribute to the antioxidant capacity of the cellular milieu, though this possibility has not been thoroughly explored previously. Herein it is demonstrated that, in addition to radical quenching solution-phase behavior, antioxidant peptides display an astonishing ability to sequester radicals in the gas phase. Compared to other peptides of similar sequence and size, radical antioxidant peptides exhibit very little radical-directed dissociation when subjected to collisional activation in the gas phase. Importantly, this property can be leveraged in highly sensitive and rapid mass spectrometry based experiments to identify antioxidant peptides. Examination of peptides derived from human serum albumin (HSA), which is a protein known to behave as an antioxidant, revealed three previously unknown peptide regions tha...
Tissue Culture Studies on Vicia Faba

The notable effects of commercially available nucleic acids, their salts or their precursors incorporated in a culture medium on the mitotic pattern of cultured cells of Vicia faba L. under liquid shaking conditions have been reported.The cell aggregates growing in a control medium showed only an occasional abberration. In a medium containing nucleic acids or their salts, certain of the cell aggregates revealed evidence for the occurrence of fragmentation, formation of micronuclei, the so-called “reductional groupings” and other chromosomal abberrations. In terms of percentage, these were few. One notable and well-pronounced effect was that in presence of nucleic acids or their salts in the culture medium, there was a high incidence of polyploid cells at different stages of division. When cell aggregates were incubated in a medium containing nucleic acid precursors (thymidine, cytidine or uridine), there was also a high incidence of polyploid cells in active stages of division. This was very appreciable in the cytidine and uridine-treated cultures. Giant cells and giant nuclei were also seen very frequently in these cultured cells. Certain of the giant cells were seen in metaphase stages in cytidine- and uridine-treated cultures.From the evidence obtained in this study as well as from other workers, it is suggested that observations such as the occurrence of “reductional groupings” may not have any relationship between an additional supply of nucleic acids in a culture medium and the occurrence of reduction-division processes in somatic cells. The possibilities of using tissue culture techniques in studying mitotic processes in polyploid cells seem to be promising from this stucy.
Evaluation of the Peroxidase-Antiperoxidase Method for Demonstrating Cell Membrane B2-Microglobulin

The peroxidase-antiperoxidase (PAP) immunohistochemical technic was evaluated for its usefulness in studying B2-microglobulin (B2m) expression in the cell membrane of human tumor lines grown in athymic mice. Eleven human tumor xenograft lines expressing various amounts of B2m were used. B2m was assessed by three methods: PAP technic on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue; indirect immunofluorescence on frozen sections; and radioimmunoassay on soluble tumor extracts. The three technics gave comparable results, and the PAP technic proved to be useful in evaluating B2m.
New Approaches to Antibiotic Use and Review of Recently Approved Antimicrobial Agents

Antimicrobial drug-resistance continues to force adaptation in our clinical practice. We explore new evidence regarding adjunctive antibiotic therapy for skin and soft tissue abscesses as well as duration of therapy for intra-abdominal abscesses. As new evidence refines optimal practice, it is essential to support clinicians in adopting practice patterns concordant with evidence-based guidelines. We review a simple approach that can 'nudge' clinicians towards concordant practices. Finally, the use of novel antimicrobials will play an increasingly important role in contemporary therapy. We review five new antimicrobials recently FDA-approved for use in drug-resistant infections: dalbavancin, oritavancin, ceftaroline, ceftolozane-tazobactam, and ceftazidime-avibactam.
The forgotten pillar: a definition for the measurement of social sustainability in American cities

ABSTRACTThis article provides a timely review of the interdisciplinary and disjointed literature on social sustainability and identifies some readily available measures of this concept for American cities. Based upon a comprehensive review of the literature, four broad dimensions are identified as being reflective of social sustainability: equal access and opportunity, environmental justice, community and the value of place, and basic human needs. Breaking these four dimensions into measurable indicators, this research provides a method for researchers and for American cities to begin to evaluate and to assess social sustainability efforts within their jurisdictions.
Resilience for extreme scale computing

Supercomputing systems are essential for making progress in the areas of science and industries, from quantum mechanics, to oil and gas exploration. The ever-increasing demand of computing power has driven the development of extreme large systems that consists of millions of common-off-the-shelf components. As those systems approach technology and operational cost limits, new challenges arise, especially in the area of resilience, which make supercomputing environments extremely unstable and unreliable.
Electronic characterization of Geobacter sulfurreducens pilins in self-assembled monolayers unmasks tunnelling and hopping conduction pathways

The metal-reducing bacterium Geobacter sulfurreducens produces protein nanowires (pili) for fast discharge of respiratory electrons to extracellular electron acceptors such as iron oxides and uranium. Charge transport along the pili requires aromatic residues, which cluster once the peptide subunits (pilins) assemble keeping inter-aromic distances and geometries optimal for multistep hopping. The presence of intramolecular aromatic contacts and the predominantly α-helical conformation of the pilins has been proposed to contribute to charge transport and rectification. To test this, we self-assembled recombinant, thiolated pilins as a monolayer on gold electrodes and demonstrated their conductivity by conductive probe atomic force microscopy. The studies unmasked a crossover from exponential to weak distance dependence of conductivity and shifts in the mechanical properties of the film that are consistent with a transition from interchain tunneling in the upper, aromatic-free regions of the helices to intramolecular hopping via aromatic residues at the amino terminus. Furthermore, the mechanistic stratification effectively "doped" the pilins at the amino terminus, favoring electron flow in the direction opposite to the helix dipole. However, the effect of aromatic dopants on rectification is voltage-dependent and observed only at the low (100 mV) voltages that operate in biological systems. The results thus provide evidence for a peptide environment optimized for electron transfer at biological voltages and in the direction needed for the respiration of external electron acceptors. The implications of these results for the development of hybrid devices that harness the natural abilities of the pilins to bind and reduce metals are discussed.
Cholesterol-induced conformational changes in the sterol-sensing domain of the Scap protein suggest feedback mechanism to control cholesterol synthesis

Scap is a polytopic protein of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membranes that transports sterol regulatory element-binding proteins to the Golgi complex for proteolytic activation. Cholesterol accumulation in ER membranes prevents Scap transport and decreases cholesterol synthesis. Previously, we provided evidence that cholesterol inhibition is initiated when cholesterol binds to loop 1 of Scap, which projects into the ER lumen. Within cells, this binding causes loop 1 to dissociate from loop 7, another luminal Scap loop. However, we have been unable to demonstrate this dissociation when we added cholesterol to isolated complexes of loops 1 and 7. We therefore speculated that the dissociation requires a conformational change in the intervening polytopic sequence separating loops 1 and 7. Here we demonstrate such a change using a protease protection assay in sealed membrane vesicles. In the absence of cholesterol, trypsin or proteinase K cleaved cytosolic loop 4, generating a protected fragment that we visualized with a monoclonal antibody against loop 1. When cholesterol was added to these membranes, cleavage in loop 4 was abolished. Because loop 4 is part of the so-called sterol-sensing domain separating loops 1 and 7, these results support the hypothesis that cholesterol binding to loop 1 alters the conformation of the sterol-sensing domain. They also suggest that this conformational change helps transmit the cholesterol signal from loop 1 to loop 7, thereby allowing separation of the loops and facilitating the feedback inhibition of cholesterol synthesis. These insights suggest a new structural model for cholesterol-mediated regulation of Scap activity.
Safety of endoscopy in cancer patients on antiangiogenic agents: A retrospective multicenter outcomes study.

Background/aims The use of antiangiogenic agents (AAs) in cancer treatment has increased because they offer survival benefit in combination with cytotoxic chemotherapy. Given their potential to cause gastrointestinal (GI) perforation and bleeding, it is currently recommended that AAs be held for 28 days before and after surgery. However, there are no specific guidelines which address their use around endoscopic procedures because data regarding the safety of endoscopy in cancer patients while on AAs is scarce despite the fact that these patients often require endoscopy. This study investigated the safety of endoscopy in cancer patients receiving AAs. Methods This is a retrospective multicenter study of a consecutive case series of 445 cancer patients undergoing endoscopy within 31 days of administration of AAs at 5 specialized cancer centers between April 2008 and August 2014. Endoscopies were classified into two different categories based on the risk of GI bleeding and perforation: low and high. The primary outcome measures were procedure-related adverse events (AEs) and death within 30 days of endoscopy. The severity of AEs was classified according to the common terminology criteria for adverse events (CTCAE) version 4.0. The incidence of AEs and mortality was calculated using the total number of patients as the denominator. Results 445 cancer patients with a mean age of 54 years underwent a total of 545 endoscopies. Median time duration from AAs to endoscopy was 11 days. Of 545 endoscopic procedures, 398 (73%) were low-risk and 147 (27%) were high-risk. There were 3 procedure-related AEs: esophageal perforation (grade 3) two days after an EGD, pancreatitis (grade 5) a day after failed ERCP, and bleeding from the gastrostomy site (grade 1) two days after an EGD. Of 445 patients, 29 (6.5%) died within 30 days of the procedure with no deaths deemed procedure-related. The most common causes of death were terminal cancer (n = 10), hepatic decompensation (n = 5) and sepsis (n = 4). Conclusion In this retrospective study, the rate of endoscopy-related AEs in patients on AAs appears to be low when performed in specialized cancer centers. However, future prospective studies are needed to confirm this finding.
Angle-ply biomaterial scaffold for annulus fibrosus repair replicates native tissue mechanical properties, restores spinal kinematics, and supports cell viability.

Abstract Annulus fibrosus (AF) damage commonly occurs due to intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration/herniation. The dynamic mechanical role of the AF is essential for proper IVD function and thus it is imperative that biomaterials developed to repair the AF withstand the mechanical rigors of the native tissue. Furthermore, these biomaterials must resist accelerated degradation within the proteolytic environment of degenerate IVDs while supporting integration with host tissue. We have previously reported a novel approach for developing collagen-based, multi-laminate AF repair patches (AFRPs) that mimic the angle-ply architecture and basic tensile properties of the human AF. Herein, we further evaluate AFRPs for their: tensile fatigue and impact burst strength, IVD attachment strength, and contribution to functional spinal unit (FSU) kinematics following IVD repair. Additionally, AFRP resistance to collagenase degradation and cytocompatibility were assessed following chemical crosslinking. In summary, AFRPs demonstrated enhanced durability at high applied stress amplitudes compared to human AF and withstood radially-directed biaxial stresses commonly borne by the native tissue prior to failure/detachment from IVDs. Moreover, FSUs repaired with AFRPs and nucleus pulposus (NP) surrogates had their axial kinematic parameters restored to intact levels. Finally, carbodiimide crosslinked AFRPs resisted accelerated collagenase digestion without detrimentally effecting AFRP tensile properties or cytocompatibility. Taken together, AFRPs demonstrate the mechanical robustness and enzymatic stability required for implantation into the damaged/degenerate IVD while supporting AF cell infiltration and viability. Statement of Significance The quality of life for millions of individuals globally is detrimentally impacted by IVD degeneration and herniation. These pathologies often result in the structural demise of IVD tissue, particularly the annulus fibrosus (AF). Biomaterials developed for AF repair have yet to demonstrate the mechanical strength and durability required for utilization in the spine. Herein, we demonstrate the development of an angle-ply AF repair patch (AFRP) that can resist the application of physiologically relevant stresses without failure and which contributes to the restoration of functional spinal unit axial kinematics following repair. Furthermore, we show that this biomaterial can resist accelerated degradation in a simulated degenerate environment and supports AF cell viability.
Constructing EVT-based confidence bounds using bootstrapping

Certification of new technologies is a challenge today because of the increasing complexity of systems often described as systems of systems. This increase often leads to the need for large amounts of data for statistical analysis of these systems. With this comes the need for improved methods for uncertainty quantification especially with regards to data efficiency. One statistical methodology which holds promise in this regard is Extreme Value Theory (EVT) which states that the tails of distribution functions can be well approximated by a General Pareto Distribution (GPD). The techniques associated with EVT have been used extensively by statisticians in other domains such as insurance and finance, but have not been applied consistently to aerospace applications. The work presented in this paper is part of ongoing efforts in investigating the performance of EVT for conservative estimation of unknown heavy-tailed distributions, that is, the conservative distribution function overbounds the actual underlying distribution which the data is drawn from. Although prior work has shown that EVT is not directly conservative, an estimation approach based on confidence intervals of the GPD model's parameters is currently being assessed for its conservatism. In this paper the commmon statistical practice of bootstrapping data for the construction of confidence intervals is studied and compared to theoretical methods and experimental data for a variety of heavy-tailed distributions. In summary this paper shows that bootstrapping alone is not sufficient to guarantee conservative confidence intervals of the GPD parameters for the construction of an overbounding distribution of the unknown heavy-tailed distribution. The results are in line with the theoretical approach investigated previously.
Dual-Energy CT in Patients with an Acute Abdomen

Over the past two decades, multidetector computed tomography (CT) has become a powerful diagnostic tool in emergency medicine relied upon for a variety of conditions. More recently, the development of dual-energy CT technology has enhanced the ability of radiologists to diagnose and distinguish between a variety of conditions, improving accuracy and patient care. The ability to separate material density pairs allows for highly specific observations, and helps to avoid diagnostic pitfalls. Dual-energy CT has benefits in diagnosing conditions of the liver, gallbladder, kidneys, adrenals, pancreas, large and small bowel, as well as vascular structures. It also has benefits in diagnostic evaluation of patients in the setting of trauma. When its benefits are harnessed, dual-energy CT has the potential to significantly improve patient care in the emergency department.
International Social Work

Social workers are increasingly drawn to work in an international context. Their focus may be on social work education, research, community organization, and/or clinical services. This chapter discusses issues that may arise in the context of working cross-culturally across international borders and provides an overview of international conventions and agreements that are relevant in such situations.
Behavioral-Anatomical Studies of the Central Pathways Subserving Orofacial Pain

Somatosensory information (concerning, e.g., touch, pressure, pain) from the head, face, and oral cavity are received by the endings of primary afferent neurons with processes in the fifth cranial (trigeminal) nerve, and with cell bodies in the trigeminal (or Gasserian) ganglion. The central axon terminals of these ganglion neurons synapse within the trigeminal nuclear complex (TN) in the brainstem (see Figure 1). This complex is a long, sausage-shaped set of subnuclei extending from the caudal pons to the caudal medulla. Its two major histologically defined subdivisions include the most rostral nucleus principalis or main sensory trigeminal nucleus (MTN) and the immediately caudal spinal nucleus of the fifth cranial nerve (SPV). SPV itself has been subdivided into three subnuclei, which from rostral to caudal levels, respectively, include subnucleus oralis (SO), subnucleus interpolaris (SI), and subnucleus caudalis (SC). The primary afferent fibers entering the brainstem from the trigeminal ganglion descend laterally along side of the entire long nuclear complex in the primary descending trigeminal tract (TT), projecting terminating fibers into the nuclear complex from MTN to the most caudal SC region of SPV. Axons of secondary afferent neurons in TN relay the information and sweep medially through the brainstem mostly to the contralateral side as they ascend to the ventrobasal complex of thalamus for final relay to somatosensory cortex.
Exploring trauma-informed practice in public child welfare through qualitative data-mining of case records

The overwhelming majority of youth in the child welfare system (CWS) have experienced trauma. This qualitative data-mining study of case records explores how trauma manifests in child welfare and h...
Association between late-night tweeting and next-day game performance among professional basketball players.

Abstract Objectives In sports, decreased sleep duration is generally associated with poorer performance compared to adequate or enhanced sleep duration. Yet, these findings have primarily been taken from small numbers of athletes performing outside of real games or competitions. It remains unknown how acute decreased sleep duration impacts real-game performance among professional athletes. Here, we merged 2 publicly available datasets to jointly measure late-night social media activity (a proxy for sleep deprivation) and next-day game performance. Setting Professional basketball competition. Participants 112 players from the National Basketball Association. Measurements Time-stamped social media activity and in-game individual performance statistics. Results Late-night tweeting (compared to not late-night tweeting) is associated with within-person reductions in next-day game performance, including fewer points scored and fewer rebounds. However, we also observe less time played per game following late-night tweets and decreases in the negative outputs of turnovers and personal fouls. The critical measure of shooting accuracy – which is not time dependent – provides the clearest evidence of a performance penalty following late-night tweeting activity (between 11:00 pm and 7:00 am ); players successfully make shots at a rate 1.7 percentage points less following late-night tweeting. Conclusions Our findings suggest that acute sleep deprivation, as measured via late-night Twitter activity, is associated with changes in next-day game performance among professional National Basketball Association athletes. More broadly, the use of late-night social media activity may serve as a useful general proxy for sleep deprivation in other social, occupational, and physical performance-based contexts.
Modified Distribution Alignment for Domain Adaptation with Pre-trained Inception ResNet.

Deep neural networks have been widely used in computer vision. There are several well trained deep neural networks for the ImageNet classification challenge, which has played a significant role in image recognition. However, little work has explored pre-trained neural networks for image recognition in domain adaption. In this paper, we are the first to extract better-represented features from a pre-trained Inception ResNet model for domain adaptation. We then present a modified distribution alignment method for classification using the extracted features. We test our model using three benchmark datasets (Office+Caltech-10, Office-31, and Office-Home). Extensive experiments demonstrate significant improvements (4.8%, 5.5%, and 10%) in classification accuracy over the state-of-the-art.
Surgical Management of Allergic Disease to Treat Sleep Disturbance in Children and Adults

Allergic disease can have profound influence on sleep through several anatomical and physiological mechanisms. When medical therapies fail to adequately alleviate symptoms, surgery can play a role in improving sleep quality. Here we describe the treatment modalities available to address the allergic patient that presents with complaints of sleep disturbance and discuss relevant literature for these interventions.
Simultaneous use of alcohol and marijuana: patterns and individual differences

Background: Simultaneous alcohol and marijuana (SAM) use, or using alcohol and marijuana in such a way that their effects overlap, is associated with negative health and behavioral outcomes. Object...
Linking Knowledge to Action when Engagement is Out of Reach

Sustainability scientists argue that in order to make better use of scientific knowledge in public problem solving and decision making, researchers need to engage directly with decision makers. The problem in many policy settings, especially in developing countries, is that directly engaging with researchers is time consuming, and researchers are often not readily available to work with policy makers. Thus, for the purpose of time-sensitive or short-run decision making, policy actors may have little choice but to rely on existing research findings to inform decision making. One existing theory for understanding knowledge uptake would suggest that policy actors in this context, who receive information about new research findings, will take published findings to heart when they perceive them to be salient, credible, and legitimate; we develop a quantitative test of this theoretical framework. We further develop the theory by suggesting that the ways in which salience, credibility, and legitimacy influence action will depend on several conditions, including the format and source of the message, as well as the socio-demographic characteristics of the receiver. To test our arguments, we designed and conducted a survey experiment with real-world policy makers and practitioners in the public-health sector of Honduras. Our results confirm that salience, credibility, and legitimacy operate as joint mediators between knowledge and action, and that individual characteristics, especially the gender of those receiving the information, also matter for understanding why some civil servants report taking-up and acting on the knowledge being communicated.
Automatic Motion Tracking of Lips using Digital Video and OpenFace 2.0

Because the lips are external organs, they can be easily observed by means that are non-invasive, including simple video recording. The current paper introduces a free-of-charge, highly portable, automatic solution for extracting oral posture from digital video, based on an existing facetracking utility. We describe how this solution might benefit various lines of laboratory phonology research, including analysis of articulatory coordination and audiovisual speech, as well as phonetic fieldwork. We then provide a tutorial, framed as a simple experiment in metronomic speech. The tutorial describes how to configure the software to work with one’s digital camera of choice, how to extract relevant articulatory parameters from the face tracker, and how to approach statistical analysis. We have supplied pre-written Python scripts to aid the reader in following along with the experiment. The portability, ease, and affordability of the described solution have important implications for the accessibility of articulatory measurement, both in the lab and out in the field.
Inpatient Hypercoagulable Work-up in a Community Teaching Hospital: A Preventable Cost with No Added Benefit

Background: Thrombophilia testing in hospitalized patients is often inaccurate and rarely clinically useful especially in acute settings. Testing for inherited thrombophilia is often done in the setting of recurrent unprovoked venous thromboembolism (VTE). Several prospective studies have shown that heritable thrombophilia status is not statistically associated with recurrent VTE. Additionally, such testing may be confounded by ongoing disease or treatment. The cost per thrombophilia panel testing range anywhere between $1100 to $2400 based on estimation of charges billed by a large commercial laboratory. We aim to identify patterns and costs involved in inpatient thrombophilia testing in a community teaching hospital. Methods: The study was conducted as a part of our quality improvement initiative in a community teaching hospital. We performed a retrospective chart review of patients above the age of 18 years who had a clinically and radiologically confirmed diagnosis of venous thromboembolism during the year of 2016 and performed descriptive analysis. Institutional IRB was obtained and data was collected by reviewing the electronic medical records . Results: A total of 395 patients with the diagnosis of VTE were included (mean age 68.5, 54.2% female). At least one thrombophilia test was ordered in 66 of the 395 patients (16.7%). Around 38 (9.6%) patients were already on anticoagulation for atrial fibrillation/flutter, deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE) among whom 5/38 (13.2%) patients underwent thrombophilia testing. Number of patients with a prior history of DVT or PE or both were 67/395(20%). Out of these, 26/67 (38.8%) patients were on anticoagulation and 14/67 (20.9%)patients underwent thrombophilia testing during their hospital stay. Only 11/395 (2.8%) patients had a family history of DVT/PE among whom 4 were tested. The approximate cost of the testing was $132,000 considering roughly $2000 per test on an average for a total of 66 tests. Discussion: Thrombophilia testing in hospitalized patients adds little if at all any value to their acute management. However, it does add a significant unnecessary avoidable cost to the hospital. Although inpatient thrombophilia testing is not supported by current guidelines for inherited thrombophilia evaluation, the testing is often done in hospitalized patients with recurrent thromboembolism. Learning the pattern of thrombophilia testing in hospitalized patients will help us implement measures to prevent unnecessary testing and the significant costs associated with it. Conclusion: With the increasing emphasis on value-based health care, thrombophilia testing should be considered only if it affects overall patient management and preferably in an outpatient setting with appropriate indications. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Long-range energy transport in photosystem II

We simulate the long-range inter-complex electronic energy transfer in photosystem II-from the antenna complex, via a core complex, to the reaction center-using a non-Markovian (ZOFE) quantum master equation description that allows the electronic coherence involved in the energy transfer to be explicitly included at all length scales. This allows us to identify all locations where coherence is manifested and to further identify the pathways of the energy transfer in the full network of coupled chromophores using a description based on excitation probability currents. We investigate how the energy transfer depends on the initial excitation-localized, coherent initial excitation versus delocalized, incoherent initial excitation-and find that the overall energy transfer is remarkably robust with respect to such strong variations of the initial condition. To explore the importance of vibrationally enhanced transfer and to address the question of optimization in the system parameters, we systematically vary the strength of the coupling between the electronic and the vibrational degrees of freedom. We find that the natural parameters lie in a (broad) region that enables optimal transfer efficiency and that the overall long-range energy transfer on a ns time scale appears to be very robust with respect to variations in the vibronic coupling of up to an order of magnitude. Nevertheless, vibrationally enhanced transfer appears to be crucial to obtain a high transfer efficiency, with the latter falling sharply for couplings outside the optimal range. Comparison of our full quantum simulations to results obtained with a "classical" rate equation based on a modified-Redfield/generalized-Forster description previously used to simulate energy transfer dynamics in the entire photosystem II complex shows good agreement for the overall time scales of excitation energy transport.
Organic Phosphorus Compounds

The present invention relates to new organic phosphorus containing compounds which have been found to have surface active properties. The present compounds are new phosphinic acids of alkylated benzene hydrocarbons and amine derivatives or salts thereof. They may be generally represented by...
High-accuracy analytical solutions for the projected mass (counts) and surface density (brightness) of Einasto profiles

The Einasto profile has been successful in describing the density profiles of dark matter haloes in $\Lambda$CDM N-body simulations. It has also been able to describe multiple components in the surface brightness profiles of galaxies. However, analytically projecting it to calculate quantities under projection is challenging. In this paper, we will see the development of a highly accurate analytical approximation for the mass (or counts) enclosed in an infinitely long cylindrical column for Einasto profiles--also known as the projected mass (or counts)--using a novel methodology. We will then develop a self-consistent high-accuracy model for the surface density from the expression for the projected mass. Both models are quite accurate for a broad family of functions, with a shape parameter $\alpha$ varying by a factor of 100 in the range $0.05 \lesssim \alpha \lesssim 5.0$, with fractional errors $\sim 10^{-6}$ for $\alpha \lesssim 0.4$. Profiles with $\alpha \lesssim 0.4$ have been shown to fit the density profiles of dark matter haloes in N-body simulations as well as the luminosity profiles of the outer components of massive galaxies. Since the projected mass and the surface density are used in gravitational lensing, I will illustrate how these models facilitate (for the first time) analytical computation of several quantities of interest in lensing due to Einasto profiles. The models, however, are not limited to lensing and apply to similar quantities under projection, such as the projected luminosity, the projected (columnar) number counts and the projected density or the surface brightness.
Ontogenesis of the axolemma and axoglial relationships in myelinated fibers: electrophysiological and freeze-fracture correlates of membrane plasticity.

Publisher Summary Although it is well known that myelinated nerve fibers are differentiated, at the light microscopic level, into regions covered by myelin (internodes) and regions devoid of myelin (the nodes of Ranvier), it has only been in the past few years that details of axon membrane differentiation itself have been studied. It is now becoming apparent that the axon membrane (axolemma) exhibits an elegant differentiation in terms of its macromolecular architecture and that the nodal and internodal regions of this membrane can be shown to be different by morphological, electrophysiological, and pharmacological techniques. This differentiation of the mature axolemma into nodal and internodal domains with distinct properties has recently been reviewed. The chapter discusses studies from laboratories dealing with the electrophysiological and freeze-fracture aspects of axon-membrane reorganization during the ontogenesis of the trunk of the mammalian myelinated fiber. It describes the development of the axon membrane of the myelinated fiber. The axolemma exhibits a high degree of plasticity during development, with significant changes in axon-membrane structure being related to association with glial cells.