cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Persistent Increase in Microglial RAGE Contributes to Chronic Stress–Induced Priming of Depressive-like Behavior

Abstract Background Chronic stress–induced inflammatory responses occur in part via danger-associated molecular pattern (DAMP) molecules, such as high mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1), but the receptor(s) underlying DAMP signaling have not been identified. Methods Microglia morphology and DAMP signaling in enriched rat hippocampal microglia were examined during the development and expression of chronic unpredictable stress (CUS)–induced behavioral deficits, including long-term, persistent changes after CUS. Results The results show that CUS promotes significant morphological changes and causes robust upregulation of HMGB1 messenger RNA in enriched hippocampal microglia, an effect that persists for up to 6 weeks after CUS exposure. This coincides with robust and persistent upregulation of receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) messenger RNA, but not toll-like receptor 4 in hippocampal microglia. CUS also increased surface expression of RAGE protein on hippocampal microglia as determined by flow cytometry and returned to basal levels 5 weeks after CUS. Importantly, exposure to short-term stress was sufficient to increase RAGE surface expression as well as anhedonic behavior, reflecting a primed state that results from a persistent increase in RAGE messenger RNA expression. Further evidence for DAMP signaling in behavioral responses is provided by evidence that HMGB1 infusion into the hippocampus was sufficient to cause anhedonic behavior and by evidence that RAGE knockout mice were resilient to stress-induced anhedonia. Conclusions Together, the results provide evidence of persistent microglial HMGB1-RAGE expression that increases vulnerability to depressive-like behaviors long after chronic stress exposure.
Human Rights in Children's Literature: Imagination and the Narrative of Law

The United Nations' 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was the first international treaty for children's rights. While children's rights law and human rights law overlap, the CRC more...
How Health Department Contextual Factors Affect Public Health Preparedness (PHP) and Perceptions of the 15 PHP Capabilities

Objectives. To assess how health department contextual factors influence perceptions of the 15 Public Health Preparedness Capabilities, developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to provide guidance on organizing preparedness activities.Methods. We conducted an online survey and focus group between September 2015 and May 2016 with directors of preparedness programs in state, metropolitan, and territorial jurisdictions funded by CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) cooperative agreement. The survey collected demographic information and data on contextual factors including leadership, partnerships, organizational structure, resources and structural capacity, and data and evaluation.Results. Seventy-seven percent (48 of 62) of PHEP directors completed the survey and 8 participated in the focus group. Respondents were experienced directors (mean = 10.6 years), and 58% led 7 or more emergency responses. Leadership, partnerships, and access to fiscal and human resources were ...
A 19–40 GHz bi-directional MEMS tunable all silicon evanescent-mode cavity filter

This paper presents, for the first time, a new tuning technology based on bi-directional MEMS actuators for high-quality all-silicon evanescent mode cavity filters. Such bi-directional tunability provides a feasible solution to restore frequency tunability from degradation caused by aging effects such as creep and stress relaxation. The fabricated proof-of-concept filter demonstrates a measured tuning range from 18.9 to 39.6 GHz, in which the forward (main) actuation tunes from 21.3 to 39.6 GHz with 120 V and the reverse (corrective) actuation tunes from 21.3 down to 18.9 GHz with 2 V. The measured filter insertion loss varies from 3.14 to 0.78 dB and its instantaneous bandwidth from 0.31 to 1.81 GHz. The unloaded quality factor is extracted as 265–510 which is comparable to the state-of-the-art filter of this type employing conventional uni-directional tuners.
Hidden Markov Models

We divide this brief account of hidden Markov models into three sections: (i) a description of the properties of these models, (ii) the three main algorithms of the models, (iii) applications. For a more complete account of these models, see Rabiner (1989).
Pneumocystis and glucocorticoid use: to prophylax or not to prophylax (and when?); that is the question

Pneumocystis jiroveci is an opportunistic fungus with the ability to cause lethal pneumonia in those with advanced immunosuppression.1 Fortunately, this outcome is preventable with prophylaxis. Unfortunately, however, deciding who is immunosuppressed enough to justify prophylaxis can be a confusing subject, particularly among rheumatology patients where immunosuppression waxes and wanes based on the use of immunosuppressive therapies and the contribution of the underlying inflammatory disease. Foggy notions persist regarding who is at risk, the level of absolute risk where the risk-benefit of using trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (TMP/SMX) or other prophylaxis is worthwhile, and when can prophylaxis be safely stopped.2 The article by Park et al published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases 3 sheds light on these important questions, such that a picture of how to approach this issue clinically might finally be more clear for the practicing rheumatologist. Given the difficulty studying these questions in a randomised controlled trial fashion, comparative effectiveness studies such as this one might provide the next best thing. In the article, the authors address the following questions: in patients starting high-dose glucocorticoids and taking them greater than 4 weeks, what is the risk of pneumocystic jiroveci pneumonia (PJP) (and the risk factors for it) and how does risk relate to dose? Further, they evaluate the efficacy of TMP/SMX prophylaxis. To answer these questions, they retrospectively identified an institutional cohort of rheumatology patients in Korea treated with ‘high-dose’ glucocorticoids (>30 mg/day) for 4 or more weeks. Within this cohort, they selected patients offered TMP/SMX prophylaxis and compared their incidence of PJP with the remainder of the group that did not receive prophylaxis. There were important underlying differences between the groups, as one might expect, and it was clear that the treating physicians had generally chosen to give TMP/SMX to those they had perceived at higher risk for …
It’s a Boy! Evidence for Sex Ratio Adjustment in Humans

Since the beginning of human existence, there has been a keen interest in the factors that influence whether a boy or girl is produced and the development of practices or methods to control it. While the overall natal ratio of boys to girls produced by humans hovers at a stable 1.06 boys for every girl, there is now evidence that these sex ratios vary substantially among populations, in response to severe life events, in conjunction with the position and timing of intercourse, and even with ambient temperature. In this chapter, I compile the evidence implicating many of these factors as modulators of offspring sex ratios in humans and discuss how these influences may interact to determine whether a boy or a girl is produced.
Can Professional Skepticism Be Learned? Evidence from China.

The purpose of the present study was to explore whether professional skepticism can be learned in a classroom setting, an issue that has received scant attention in the prior literature. A question...
Physical Wellness Among Gaming Adults: Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Video and hobby gaming are immensely popular among adults; however, associations between gaming and health have primarily been investigated in children and adolescents. Furthermore, most research has focused on electronic gaming, despite traditional hobby gaming gaining prominence. Objective: To determine whether the number of platforms used, platform preference, and gaming time are associated with obesity, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and cardiovascular risk factors in an adult gaming population. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional analysis using data obtained from 292 participants who attended a large Midwestern gaming convention. We collected data using a computer-based questionnaire that comprised questions on gaming behavior, demographics, physical activity (using the International Physical Activity Questionnaire), and health characteristics. In addition, we used multivariable-adjusted linear and logistic regression to model health outcomes as a function of the number of platforms used, platform preference, and weekday and weekend gaming time quartile. Results: After adjusting for covariates, we observed a significant linear trend for increasing odds of being obese and higher weekend sitting time by the number of platforms used (P=.03 for both). The platform preference and weekend gaming time quartile exhibited significant associations with odds of meeting physical activity recommendations (P=.047 and P=.03, respectively). In addition, we observed higher odds of being obese among those reporting that they sat most or all of the time while gaming [odds ratio (OR) 2.69 (95% CI 1.14-6.31) and OR 2.71 (95% CI 1.06-6.93), respectively]. Conclusions: In adult gamers, the number of platforms used, which platforms they prefer to play on, and the amount of time spent gaming on weekends could have significant implications for their odds of being obese and meeting physical activity recommendations.
How to Prepare and Develop Scholarly Manuscripts

(1980). How to Prepare and Develop Scholarly Manuscripts. Health Education: Vol. 11, No. 6, pp. 36-37.
LARGE-SCALE SYSTEMS: STRUCTURE, STABILITY, RELIABILITY

This paper presents an overview of the progress report describing the results obtained at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Santa Clara, during three years of research sponsored by the Division of Electric Energy Systems of the Department of Energy. The broad objective of the research has been to study the relationship between structure, stability and reliability of large scale systems via the decomposition principle, with the theoretical developments directed towards analysis and control of interconnected power systems. The central new concept formulated in the research is that of generalized decompositions . The concept has been introduced to partition models of power systems into overlapping subsystems. Such unorthodox decompositions have been necessary in order to obtain the subsystems which represent physical entities. In this way, the subsequent analysis can take advantage of the special structural features of the models under consideration, and produce results with significant conceptual implications. Decentralized control strategies with overlapping information sets have been developed, which can be made compatible with the subsystems obtained by a generalized decomposition. The most attractive property of the overlapping decentralized control schemes is that they are robust with respect to structural perturbations of the interconnected system, and can serve as a basis for building fault-tolerant control schemes with inherent dynamic reliability enhancement using the new multiple controller configurations.
Adjustment, Social Support, and Life Events Across Pregnancy and the Puerperium

Pregnancy and the puerperium were both associated with some increase in level of depressive symptomatology, particularly the third trimester of pregnancy and the first 3 weeks postpartum. These differences were reflected in a higher incidence of blues in the childbearing subjects in the first week after delivery but not in diagnosed depression during pregnancy or in the first 9 weeks after delivery. Although risk for depression in childbearing women was the major focus of our work, we were also interested in outcomes and processes that reflected social functioning and the women’s interactions with their social environments. For example, does childbearing impact on a woman’s relationship with her partner, family members, and friends?
Flavored Milk, Dietary Quality, and Childhood Nutrition

In the general debate surrounding added sugars in the diet, what is typically lost is the rational appreciation for the fact that a moderate amount of added sugars may actually improve the nutritional quality of any given diet. In fact, moderate amounts of sugar added to nutrient-dense foods have been shown to enhance palatability, increasing the likelihood of their consumption, particularly among children. A case in point could be a basket of juicy, red strawberries. Clearly the berries are ripe, but upon tasting them, they’re found out to be tart. But if they were dipped in table sugar to sweeten them up, they become edible! The sugar made them more palatable. Less than a teaspoon of sucrose was used, in other words, less than 15 cal. But the small amount of sugar used meant the strawberries were eaten versus thrown away. Vitamin C, vitamin A, fiber, and an excellent source of many phytonutrients are ingested as a result. Indeed, the sweetness of naturally occurring sugars found in fruit is what attracted our prehistoric ancestors to consume fruits and other sweet tasting foods, which in turn increased their intake of carbohydrates, vitamins A and C, fiber, and the myriad of phytochemicals we are only now beginning to understand.
Ground States and Ordering in Semiconducting (Chalcopyrite)-(Zinc-Blende) Alloys

Chalcopyrite compounds such as ZnSnAs2 or CuInTe2 can all be viewed as derivative compounds of zinc blende, 1 see Fig. 1. In a zinc-blende compound such as GaAs, the Ga and As atoms each independently occupy one set of face-centered cubic (fcc) positions, see Fig. 1(a). In a chalcopyrite compound such as ZnSnAs2 [see Fig. 1(b)], As atoms occupy one set of fcc positions and Zn and Sn the other. For this example, the cations originate from columns II and IV of the Periodic Table and the average valence of the pair (ZnSn) is III. Chalcopyrite (C) is an example of an average-valence compound and has a space \(I\bar 42d\) group that is a subgroup of the zinc-blende (Z) space group \(F\bar 43m\). Similarly, there exist chalcopyrite compounds derived from II-VI compounds, e.g., CuInTe2.
Weighting Model Based on Group Dynamics to Measure Convergence in Multi-party Dialogue.

This paper proposes a new weighting method for extending a dyad-level measure of convergence to multi-party dialogues by considering group dynamics instead of simply averaging. Experiments indicate the usefulness of the proposed weighted measure and also show that in general a proper weighting of the dyad-level measures performs better than non-weighted averaging in multiple tasks.
Role of cardiovascular imaging for the diagnosis and prognosis of cardiac amyloidosis

Cardiac amyloidosis (CA) describes the pathological process of amyloid protein deposition in the extracellular space of the myocardium. Unfortunately, the diagnosis of CA is often made late and when the disease process is advanced. However, advances in cardiovascular imaging have allowed for better prognostication and establishing diagnostic pathways with high sensitivity and specificity. This review discusses the role of echocardiography, cardiac MRI and nuclear cardiology in current clinical practice for diagnosis and prognosis of CA.
Nursing Challenges Caring for HSCT Patients with Gvhd

Topic Significance & Study Purpose/Background/Rationale Nursing care of BMT patients is complicated. Trends in BMT demonstrated improved survival with patients experiencing better quality of life (QOL) during treatment, early recovery and long term because of expanding pool of stem cell sources, more effective less toxic regimens, new supportive care drugs, maintenance therapy and specialized medical and nursing care. Nonetheless, disease recurrence, graft versus host disease (GVHD), organ failure and secondary cancer are common causes of late death. Nursing considerations of HSCT patients with GVHD requires an additional set of skills and knowledge that include side effects both expected and less common, assessment skills, treatment administration both standard and novel, and acute or intensive care. Nursing care of patients with acute and chronic GVHD also require symptom recognition and knowledge of treatment modalities, management and care of both physical and psychosocial elements, and requires consistent coordination of care for possible prolonged period of time. The nurses' role is to advocate for the HSCT patient and that may include preparing for end of life if the patient's disease is refractory to treatment for GVHD. Methods, Intervention, & Analysis Specialized GVHD clinics have been set up at many larger centers. This is a multidisciplinary clinic that includes the clinic nurse, APP, BMT physician who specializes in GVHD, dermatologist and other experts in the field of gynecology, physical therapy, occupational therapy, GI medicine, pulmonary, pathology, symptom research, infectious disease, endocrinology, dental and ophthalmology. The patient is always in the central in the clinic focus. Findings & Interpretation Nursing care of BMT patients with skin GVHD will be determined by the degree of skin alteration with distinct decisions made about hygiene, both topical and systemic treatment, infection prevention, relief of discomfort, functional ability (ADL) and body image alteration. Care of the patient with chronic GVHD will also focus on prevention and early detection. Discussion & Implications Patient education about such aspects as sun protection, skin assessment, and recognition of risk for skin and oral cancer are important and covered in our survivorship program patient visit at or around day 100. A one-page handout on "Nursing Care Consideration of Skin GVHD" will be discussed.
DECISION ANALYSIS OF ENERGY ALTERNATIVES: A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK FOR DECISION-MAKING

This paper describes an analytical procedure for extending the traditional economic criteria for decision-making to include environmental and other social risks. The methodology presented makes specific public policy decisions the focus for the analysis. It provides a framework for relating the many technical factors and value judgments that influence those decisions. In addition, it yields insights as to sensitive issues on which further analysis or research would be socially profitable in the context of the decisions at hand. To illustrate decision-making based on the analytical framework, the paper contains preliminary calculations of the economic and social costs of electric power generation from coal and nuclear fuels.
Comparison of Clinical Outcomes: Bivalirudin With Transfemoral Access Versus Heparin With Transradial Access in Patients With ST segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Introduction:The best combination of access site and anticoagulant used during primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients presenting with ST segment elevation myocardial infarction is not known.Methods:We conducted a retrospective cohort study of all patients >18 years of age who u
Easy-to-Use Sensors for Field Monitoring of Copper Contamination in Water and Pesticide-Sprayed Plants.

Copper (Cu2+)-containing pesticides are commonly used in agriculture to control fungal and bacterial diseases, but the release of large quantities of Cu2+ in water and soil can lead to harmful long...
A Systematic Review of Programs to Promote Aspects of Teen Parents' Self-sufficiency: Supporting Educational Outcomes and Healthy Birth Spacing.

Expectant and parenting teens experience many challenges to achieving self-sufficiency and promoting their children’s healthy development. Teen parents need support to help them address these challenges, and many different types of programs aim to support them. In this systematic review, we examine the research about programs that aim to support aspects of teen parents’ self-sufficiency by promoting their educational outcomes and healthy birth spacing. We conducted a comprehensive literature search of published and unpublished literature to identify studies of programs to support teen parents that met this review’s eligibility criteria. The quality and execution of the eligible study research designs were assessed to determine whether studies’ findings were at risk of bias. We then extracted information about study characteristics, outcomes, and program characteristics for studies considered to provide rigorous evidence. We identified 58 eligible studies. Twenty-three studies were considered to provide rigorous evidence about either education, contraceptive use, or repeat pregnancy or birth. Seventeen of these studies showed at least one favorable effect on an outcome in one of these domains, whereas the other six did not show any significant or substantial effects in these domains. These 17 studies represent 14 effective programs. Effective programs to support expectant and parenting teens have diverse characteristics, indicating there is no single approach for promoting teens’ education and healthy birth spacing. More rigorous studies of programs to support teen parents are needed to understand more about how to support teen fathers and the program characteristics associated with effectiveness.
Warmer isn't always better: Performance eurythermy in a cold‐climate gecko

Most aspects of the lives of ectotherms are temperature dependent. Achieving the warmer body temperatures (Tb s) typically required for optimal performance can be particularly challenging for nocturnal ectotherms. Homonota darwinii-the world's southernmost gecko-is broadly distributed in southern Argentina (35-52 °S latitude) where cold climates over parts of its range likely pose an additional performance challenge for this nocturnal lizard. We hypothesized that the southernmost populations of this species would be the most thermally challenged, as evidenced by a decline in temperature-dependent sprint performance with increasing latitude. A temperature-dependent depression in locomotory performance may indicate suboptimal performance in other thermally dependent traits linked to fitness (e.g., foraging efficiency, metabolism). We measured sprint performance at five ecologically relevant Tb s for four populations spanning most of the latitudinal range of H. darwinii. We also recorded annual operative temperatures (Te s) at each site on the surface and in refuges used by the geckos. Sprint data indicated differences in maximum performance over the range of H. darwinii, but not the latitudinal decline predicted. Instead, sprint performance was likely influenced by climatic variability associated with each site's elevation. Geckos from most populations had a broad range of Tb s over which sprint performance was optimal, albeit twofold to threefold lower than other geckos. This is indicative of eurythermy, the ability to perform well over a wide range of temperatures. We discuss this finding in the context of alternative hypotheses concerning performance tradeoffs in nocturnal ectotherms.
Chapter 3 – Sending and Receiving Messages

Publisher Summary This chapter covers the basics of message construction and parsing. The TCP/IP protocols transport bytes of user data without examining or modifying them. This allows applications great flexibility in how they encode their information for transmission. For various reasons, most application protocols are defined in terms of discrete messages made up of sequences of fields. Each field contains a specific piece of information encoded as a sequence of bits. The application protocol specifies how these sequences of bits are to be formatted by the sender and interpreted, or parsed, by the receiver so that the latter can extract the meaning of each field. About the only constraint imposed by TCP/IP is that information must be sent and received in chunks whose length in bits is a multiple of eight. As a strongly typed language, Java requires that other types―String, int, and so on―be explicitly converted to these transmittable types. Fortunately, the language has a number of built-in facilities that make such conversions more convenient. It is explored how Java data types can be encoded in different ways, and how messages can be constructed from various types of information. Recent versions of Java include serialization capabilities―the Serializable and Externalizable interfaces—which provide for instances of supporting Java classes to be converted to and from byte sequences very easily. A basic tenet of good protocol design is that the protocol should constrain the implementor as little as possible and should minimize assumptions about the platform on which the protocol will be implemented.
Beyond Panel-based Testing: Exome analysis increases sensitivity for diagnosis of genetic kidney disease

Background Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a useful tool for evaluating patients with suspected genetic kidney disease. Clinical practice relies on the use of targeted gene panels that are ordered based on patient presentation. We compare the diagnostic yield of clinical panel-based testing to exome analysis. Methods In total, 324 consecutive patients underwent physician-ordered, panel-based NGS testing between December 2014 and October 2018. Gene panels were available for four clinical phenotypes, including atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (n=224), nephrotic syndrome (n=56), cystic kidney disease (n=26), and Alport syndrome (n=13). Variants were analyzed and clinical reports were signed out by a pathologist or clinical geneticist at the time of testing. Subsequently, all patients underwent retrospective exome analysis to detect additional clinically significant variants in kidney disease genes that were not analyzed as part of the initial clinical gene panel. Resulting variants were classified according to the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics 2015 guidelines. Results In the initial physician-ordered gene panels, we identified clinically significant pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in 13% of patients (n=42/324). CFHR3-CFHR1 homozygous deletion was detected in an additional 13 patients with aHUS without a pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant. Diagnostic yield of the initial physician-ordered gene panel was 20% and varied between groups. Retrospective exome analysis identified 18 patients with a previously unknown pathogenic or likely pathogenic variant in a kidney disease gene and eight patients with a high-risk APOL1 genotype. Overall, retrospective exome analysis increased the diagnostic yield of panel-based testing from 20% to 30%. Conclusions These results highlight the importance of a broad and collaborative approach between the clinical laboratory and their physician clients that employs additional analysis when a targeted panel of kidney disease–causing genes does not return a clinically meaningful result.
Association between hospital volume and failure-to-rescue for open repairs of juxtarenal aneurysms.

Abstract Background A nationwide variation in mortality stratified by hospital volume exists after open repair of complex abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs). In the present study, we assessed whether the rates of postoperative complications or failure-to-rescue (defined as death after a major postoperative complication) would better explain the lower mortality rates among higher volume hospitals. Methods Using the 2004 to 2018 Vascular Quality Initiative database, we identified all patients who had undergone open repair of elective or symptomatic AAAs, in which the proximal clamp sites were at least above one renal artery. We divided the patients into hospital quintiles according to the annual hospital volume and compared the risk-adjusted outcomes. Multivariable logistic regression, adjusted for patient characteristics, operative factors, and hospital volume, was used to evaluate three outcomes: 30-day mortality, overall complications, and failure-to-rescue. Results We identified 3566 patients who had undergone open repair of elective or symptomatic complex AAAs (median age, 71 years; 29% women; 4.1% black; 48% Medicare insurance). The unadjusted rates of 30-day postoperative mortality, overall complications, and failure-to-rescue were 5.0%, 44%, and 10%, respectively. Common complications included renal dysfunction (25%), cardiac dysrhythmia (14%), and pneumonia (14%), with the specific failure-to-rescue rate ranging from 12% to 22%. On adjusted analysis, the risk-adjusted mortality rate was 2.5 times greater for the lower volume hospitals relative to the higher volume hospitals (7.4% vs 3.0%; P Conclusions Higher volume hospitals had lower mortality rates after open repair of complex AAAs because they were better at the “rescue” of patients after the occurrence of postoperative complications. Both an understanding of the clinical mechanisms underlying this association and the regionalization of open repair might improve patient outcomes.
Four Reference Quality Genome Assemblies of Pyrenophora teres f. maculata: A Resource for Studying the Barley Spot Form Net Blotch Interaction.

Pyrenophora teres is the causal agent of net blotch, the most devastating foliar disease of barley. In nature, net blotch is seen in two forms, net form net blotch, caused by P. teres f. teres, and...
Future and Other Robotic Platforms

Robotic surgery has arisen in an effort to overcome the innate limitations to laparoscopy while maintaining the benefits of a minimally invasive surgical approach. Despite initial lack of widespread acceptance given, concerns for increased cost compared to laparoscopy, the robotic platform can now be found across all domains of surgery, including general, colorectal, cardiac, thoracic, head and neck, gynecologic, and urologic surgery. As minimally invasive approaches begin to demonstrate equivalent outcomes as open and laparoscopic procedures, enthusiasm for robotics continues to gain momentum. As enthusiasm grows, so does innovation, improvement in current systems, and development of new robotic platforms. Once dominated by a single system, the field of robotics is burgeoning as new robotic systems continue emerge to compete with the industry. This chapter reviews current surgical systems and highlights new and upcoming technology within the field of robotics.
Control or Affect? The Paradox of 3D‐Printed Wood

As one of the oldest and most pervasive building materials, wood is so commonplace that its unique qualities or capacities are often overlooked. “It is in fact so familiar that we often dismiss it ...
Pornography Use and Intimate Partner Violence Among a Sample of U.S. Army Soldiers in 2018: A Cross-Sectional Study.

The objective of the present study was to determine whether there is an association between pornography use and reported intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration among a sample of soldiers in the US Army. The study was a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data collected from soldiers at a military installation in 2018 (n = 9,052). IPV was defined as any self-reported perpetration of physical, sexual, or psychological abuse of an intimate partner. Multivariable negative binomial regressions were used to assess the association between pornography use and any lifetime perpetration of IPV, controlling for gender, age group, race/ethnicity, relationship status, educational status, military rank, hazardous drinking, depression, stimulant use, depressant use, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Of the population analyzed, 41% of soldiers reported any pornography use per week, and 9.6% reported perpetrating any form of IPV. Soldiers who reported pornography use had between a 1.72- and 3.56-fold greater likelihood of reporting any lifetime perpetration of IPV, controlling for covariates. Given the prevalence and detrimental effects of IPV, longitudinal studies should be designed to further understand predictors of IPV in military populations.
Diving Under the SuRRFace: Achieving More Than Just Compliance with ACGME Scholarly Activity Mandate.

OBJECTIVE To determine if building a digital technology supported infrastructure improves general surgery residents’ confidence to conduct clinical research. DESIGN We developed and introduced a multimodal virtual Surgery Resident Research Forum (SuRRF) in July 2019. An anonymized survey asked residents to rate their confidence using a five-point Likert scale in various fields pre- and post-intervention. Fields included: finding a research mentor, developing a project, conducting research, performing an effective literature search, navigating internal and external resources, and ability to complete a research project. SETTING Northwell Health – North Shore University Hospital / Long Island Jewish Medical Center: academic tertiary care centers. PARTICIPANTS All 58 residents in our general surgery program, including research residents, were eligible to participate in our study. RESULTS Survey response rate was 55% (28 clinical residents, 4 research fellows). Post-implementation of SuRRF, all respondents (PGY1-5) reported an increase in awareness of abstract/conferences submission deadlines (2.34 ± 1.1 pre- vs. 3.75 ± 1.1 post-implementation, p = 0.004) and ability to navigate institutional electronic medical information library resources (2.2 ± 1.0 pre- vs. 3.62 ± 1.2 post-implementation, p = 0.000). Junior residents (PGY1-3) had improvement in all areas except for finding a mentor and improving their confidence with literature review. CONCLUSIONS Creation of a resident-led virtual laboratory infrastructure increases participation, improves perception of research abilities, and improves attitudes towards performing clinical research among general surgery residents. Future research will follow the impact of this virtual laboratory on publications and grants.
Data Uncertainty in Markov Chains: Application to Cost-Effectiveness Analyses of Medical Innovations

Cost-effectiveness studies of medical innovations often suffer from data inadequacy. When Markov chains are used as a modeling framework for such studies, this data inadequacy can manifest itself as imprecision in the elements of the transition matrix. In this paper, we study how to compute maximal and minimal values for the discounted value of the chain with respect to a vector of state-wise costs or rewards as these uncertain transition parameters jointly vary within a given uncertainty set. We show that these problems are computationally tractable if the uncertainty set has a row-wise structure. Conversely, we prove that the row-wise structure is necessary for tractability. Without it, the problems become computationally intractable strongly NP-hard. We apply our model to assess the cost-effectiveness of fecal immunochemical testing FIT, a new screening method for colorectal cancer. Our results show that despite the large uncertainty in FIT's performance, it could be cost-effective relative to the prevailing screening method of colonoscopy. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/opre.2017.1685 .
Automatic program transformations for virtual memory computers

Improving the behavior of virtual memory systems is a popular subject, as evidenced by the vast number of papers in the literature. Typically, attempts to improve behavior fall into two areas—those which accept existing locality properties of programs and attempt to modify system parameters (e.g., memory allocated, window size for the working set policy, etc.), and those which attempt to reorganize programs in some way. The first approach treats programs behavioristically, i.e., without any attempt to change the original behavior of the program. This type of research generally attempts to deal with space allocation policies and replacement algorithms in order to improve the performance of the system, given the original behavior of the programs. The work of Denning, 12 , 13 Belady, 8 Chu and Opderbeck, 9 Smith, 21 Trivedi 22 and many others has contributed greatly to the evolution of operating systems and hardware for virtual memory systems.
Active imitation learning via reduction to I.I.D. active learning

In standard passive imitation learning, the goal is to learn a target policy by passively observing full execution trajectories of it. Unfortunately, generating such trajectories can require substantial expert effort and be impractical in some cases. In this paper, we consider active imitation learning with the goal of reducing this effort by querying the expert about the desired action at individual states, which are selected based on answers to past queries and the learner's interactions with an environment simulator. We introduce a new approach based on reducing active imitation learning to i.i.d. active learning, which can leverage progress in the i.i.d. setting. Our first contribution, is to analyze reductions for both non-stationary and stationary policies, showing that the label complexity (number of queries) of active imitation learning can be substantially less than passive learning. Our second contribution, is to introduce a practical algorithm inspired by the reductions, which is shown to be highly effective in four test domains compared to a number of alternatives.
AN INTERACTIVE DESIGN SUITE FOR THE MULTIVARIABLE NYQUIST ARRAY METHOD

Abstract Recent advances in the theoretical foundations of the multivariable Nyquist array (MNA) method as well as in dominance acquisition procedures and closed loop compensator design are incorporated into an interactive CAD design suite. The description of this CAD suite is the subject of this paper.
High-Dimensional Density Ratio Estimation with Extensions to Approximate Likelihood Computation

The ratio between two probability density functions is an important component of various tasks, including selection bias correction, novelty detection and classification. Recently, several estimators of this ratio have been proposed. Most of these methods fail if the sample space is high-dimensional, and hence require a dimension reduction step, the result of which can be a significant loss of information. Here we propose a simple-toimplement, fully nonparametric density ratio estimator that expands the ratio in terms of the eigenfunctions of a kernel-based operator; these functions reflect the underlying geometry of the data (e.g., submanifold structure), often leading to better estimates without an explicit dimension reduction step. We show how our general framework can be extended to address another important problem, the estimation of a likelihood function in situations where that function cannot be wellapproximated by an analytical form. One is often faced with this situation when performing statistical inference with data from the sciences, due the complexity of the data and of the processes that generated those data. We emphasize applications where using existing likelihood-free methods of inference would be challenging due to the high dimensionality of the sample space, but where our spectral series method yields a reasonable estimate of the likelihood function. We provide theoretical guarantees and illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed method with numerical experiments. Appearing in Proceedings of the 17 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS) 2014, Reykjavik, Iceland. JMLR: W&CP volume 33. Copyright 2014 by the authors.
The Scope of Private Securities Litigation: In Search of Liability Standards for Secondary Defendants

outside professionals should be held liable as primary violators under section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act. In keeping with the Court's current interpretive methodology, Central Bank and its progeny employ a textualist approach. In this Article, Professor Fisch argues that literal textualism is an inappropriate approach for interpreting the federal securities laws generally and misguided in light of legislative developments post-dating the Central Bank decision. Instead, Professor Fisch advocates an approach that weighs Congress's recent endorsement of liability for outside professionals against the potential for litigation abuses perceived by the Central Bank Court. The Article concludes that recent federal decisions have been unduly restrictive in their interpretation of section 10(b) liability, and suggests that courts give greater consideration to the nature of the professional-client relationship and the role of liability in furthering the integrity of the securities markets.
The role of information and communication technologies in postconflict reconstruction

This report concerns the relationship between information and communication technologies (ICTs) and post conflict reconstruction, especially with ways in which ICTs can be used by governments and donors to support the transition from violence to stability. The report is divided into two parts: part one presents an overview and framework for analysis; and part two presents' case studies. The World Bank Group (WBG) has been concerned with sustainable recovery from violent conflict since its origins in 1944 as indicated by the name of its leading institution, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The role of ICTs in development has also been prominent within the Bank's portfolio since the 1990s, as they have developed rapidly in technological complexity and geographic reach, becoming ever more central to government and business, to the sharing of knowledge, and to interactions between individuals and within communities. This report gives an overview of the relationship between conflict, reconstruction and the role of ICTs. It builds on experience within the Bank as well as on a wide range of practitioner, academic, and other literature. It draws on five case studies of aspects of ICT development in societies emerging from conflict, which were commissioned by the Bank and which are reported in subsequent chapters. These case studies were specifically chosen to reflect the experiences of widely differing countries, at different stages of recovery from conflict: Afghanistan following decades of civil war followed by international intervention; Liberia following a negotiated settlement to protracted civil war; Timor-Leste since its troubled acquisition of independence; Rwanda seeking stability in the aftermath of genocide; and Tunisia, which recently experienced not civil war but insurrection leading to a change of government.
Exact Sampling of Stationary and Time-Reversed Queues

We provide the first algorithm that, under minimal assumptions, allows simulation of the stationary waiting-time sequence of a single-server queue backward in time, jointly with the input processes of the queue (interarrival and service times). The single-server queue is useful in applications of Dominated Coupling from the Past (DCFTP), which is a well-known protocol for simulation without bias from steady-state distributions. Our algorithm terminates in finite time, assuming only finite mean of the interarrival and service times. To simulate the single-server queue in stationarity until the first idle period in finite expected termination time, we require the existence of finite variance. This requirement is also necessary for such idle time (which is a natural coalescence time in DCFTP applications) to have finite mean. Thus, in this sense, our algorithm is applicable under minimal assumptions.
Is age a negative prognostic indicator in HIV infection or AIDS

To better understand disease progression in older persons with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV infection or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), we studied patients aged 50 years and older hospitalized with a diagnosis of HIV infection or AIDS between January 1985 and October 1995. Data collected included demographics, opportunistic infections, comorbid disease, neurologic dysfunction, and antiretroviral therapy. A total of 86 patients with a mean age of 54.3 years was identified. Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia was the most frequent opportunistic infection (43%). Hypertension was the most common previous medical condition (38%). Other comorbid disease was present in less than 15% of the subjects. Fifty-seven patients (66%) had neurologic impairment, with 30 requiring treatment for delirium. In these 30, 23 (77%) had anemia, infection, or both. The median length of survival following the diagnosis of AIDS was 18.5 months, for HIV it was 48 months. The median survival following the diagnosis of AIDS in patients who received antiretroviral therapy was 22 months compared with 11 months for those who did not receive antiretroviral therapy (p < 0.0004). Multivariable analysis found that antiretroviral therapy was the only independent predictor of survival after the diagnosis of AIDS. In contrast to previous studies, the present findings suggest that older age may not necessarily be associated with more rapid disease progression and reduced survival times in persons with HIV infection or AIDS. In those patients with delirium, many may have readily treatable conditions (anemia and/or infection). The absence of significant comorbid disease and the access to antiretroviral therapy may be in part responsible for the longer survival times obtained in this cohort compared to that reported previously.
The auditory steady-state response (ASSR): a translational biomarker for schizophrenia

Electrophysiological methods have demonstrated disturbances of neural synchrony and oscillations in schizophrenia which affect a broad range of sensory and cognitive processes. These disturbances may account for a loss of neural integration and effective connectivity in the disorder. The mechanisms responsible for alterations in synchrony are not well delineated, but may reflect disturbed interactions within GABAergic and glutamatergic circuits, particularly in the gamma range. Auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) provide a non-invasive technique used to assess neural synchrony in schizophrenia and in animal models at specific response frequencies. ASSRs are electrophysiological responses entrained to the frequency and phase of a periodic auditory stimulus generated by auditory pathway and auditory cortex activity. Patients with schizophrenia show reduced ASSR power and phase locking to gamma range stimulation. We review alterations of ASSRs in schizophrenia, schizotypal personality disorder, and first-degree relatives of patients with schizophrenia. In vitro and in vivo approaches have been used to test cellular mechanisms for this pattern of findings. This translational, cross-species approach provides support for the role of N-methyl-D-aspartate and GABAergic dysregulation in the genesis of perturbed ASSRs in schizophrenia and persons at risk.
The Scholar Warrior: Visualizing the Kaleidoscope that is Entity Liability, Negotiating the Terrain and Finding a New Paradigm

The civil rights lawyer who pursues a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against a public entity must epitomize the Scholar Warrior, deftly balancing an ever splintering and multiplying framework of what constitutes public entity liability with the tact, fervor, and energy found in only the greatest of strategists and fighters. Two points in any discussion of municipal liability or Monel claims, better termed local public entity claims, are beyond dispute at this stage. First, there are manifold problems with Monell and its progeny. Second, the Supreme Court has increased its interest in addressing this issue in a way other than tinkering with minor aspects as each case is decided. This Essay/Commentary will unify the five Symposium presentations with the Scholar Warrior theme while exploring the future direction of public entity liability such that systemic problems are addressed and true reform can be attained.
Mechanistic Studies of Transition Metal-Mediated C–C Bond Activation

Organometallic compounds have been found to be of use in cleaving C–C bonds, as strong metal–carbon bonds can be formed to replace the bond that is broken. Studies of the mechanism of C–C cleavage can provide insight into how these bonds can be cleaved, and can give valuable information that can be used to develop new strategies for breaking C–C bonds and using the products in catalysis. In this chapter, we will examine a number of systems where mechanistic information has been obtained in C–C cleavage.