cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pragmatism, Transcendental Arguments, and the Technological

When Heidegger remarked, close to the beginning of his famous essay, “The Question concerning Technology,”1 that “the essence of technology is by no means anything technological [or, perhaps better, ‘technical’] ,”2 he imposed an obligation — doubtless a fair one — on all who might attempt to answer, to characterize technology in terms of man’s ultimate relationship to reality. That burden is a heavy one but not altogether unwelcome: initially at least, because it seems to insure the least partisan and most comprehensive approach to the issue one can imagine, and because it permits us to focus the question through Heidegger’s important and original perception without betraying any support for Heidegger’s own rather extraordinary account; and ultimately, because it permits us to come to grips in an efficient way with a more plausible theory of technology, in fact a theory opposed to Heidegger’s, more congruent with alternative conceptions (favored elsewhere within philosophical reflection) of man’s relation to reality, less tendentious, and more manageable with regard to the developing record of Western speculation.
Quantifying the True Cost of Transit: Case Study of Bus Routes in Boulder, Colorado

Quantification of the affordability of public transit must consider factors beyond the farebox cost. Monetization of the cost of service reliability was made possible by the availability of automatic vehicle locator (AVL) data, examined in this study of the Regional Transportation District (RTD) in the Denver, Colorado, metropolitan region in 2014. When time was valued at seven-tenths of an individual’s hourly wage, AVL data for the Dash route, which served Boulder, Colorado, showed that, taken together, the hidden cost of unreliable transit service and the incremental time to take transit rather than to drive could be up to 52% higher than the farebox cost alone for those that earned Colorado’s minimum wage. Over the course of a year, this monetized opportunity cost became equivalent to 269 one-way fares on a locally priced RTD route. Reliable service is a subjective parameter, and different definitions of reliability yield different monetized costs from the data set. For riders who depend on transit to ...
Bulimia Nervosa: Predictors of Recovery and Treatment Intervention

Abstract Recovering from bulimia nervosa is a complex process. A positive self/body image, strong relationships with others, and maintaining an ideal body weight are all factors that indicate a person will have greater success at recovering from the disorder. By addressing these factors in the different treatment approaches that are available for bulimics the likelihood of success improves. Health educators have the responsibility to inform students about bulimia nervosa and refer students for further assistance.
Physician specialty advertising. The tendency to deceive

(1990). Physician specialty advertising. Journal of Legal Medicine: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 351-371.
Resurrection of Cupidaspis with the Description of a New Species

The genus Cupidaspis MacGillivray, (Coccoidea: Diaspididae) type-species Leucaspis cupressi Coleman, is restored. Cupidaspis differs from Lineaspis Mac-Gillivray by lacking perivulvar pores, gland spines between median lobes, and elongate setae on the antennal tubercles. Cupidaspis beshcarae n. sp. is described and illustrated from specimens collected on Juniperus osteosperma at Grand Canyon, Ariz. A key to the species of Cupidaspis is presented.
METABOLIC COST OF UNLOADED VERSUS RAMP EXERCISE: MECHANISMS OF EXERCISE INTOLERANCE IN HEART FAILURE PRESERVED EJECTION FRACTION

Exercise intolerance is a cardinal symptom of heart failure with preserved ejection (HFpEF). Mechanisms contributing to exercise intolerance in HFpEF remain incompletely understood. We performed cycle ergometry cardiopulmonary exercise testing in 31 HFpEF patients and 33 controls. Aerobic
ANTECEDENTS TO RADICAL INNOVATIONS: A LONGITUDINAL LOOK AT FIRMS IN THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY BY AGGREGATION OF PATENTS

Radicalness of innovation is often contingent upon access to technologies whose applications exceed their technological definition (technology distinctness (TD)) and sourcing innovation outside a firm’s focal industry (exterior sourcing (ES)). However, going outside one’s focal industry can be expensive and can lead to inconclusive results. We posit that exterior sourcing and technology distinctness, both have inverse U relationship with radicalness. In addition, we argue that exterior sourcing negatively moderates the relationship between technology distinctness and radicalness such that high technology distinctness, and fewer and focused exterior sourcing will have the strongest relationship with radicalness. To test our assertions, we used patent filings between 1996 and 2009 from the information technology (IT) industry from the standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 database. The empirical evidence supported our claims. Findings suggest that there is an optimum recombination of exterior sourcing and technology distinctness in which radicalness is maximised. We conclude the paper by summarising the key findings, discussing implications for theory and practice, and suggesting avenues for future research.
The Impact of Individual Anthropogenic Emissions Sectors on the Global Burden of Human Mortality due to Ambient Air Pollution

Background:Exposure to ozone and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) can cause adverse health effects, including premature mortality due to cardiopulmonary diseases and lung cancer. Recent studies quan...
A case report and literature review of labial duct calculus

Objective To make clinical analysis on 1 case of labial duct calculus and literature review.Methods The patient underwent surgical resection under local anesthesia.The definite diagnosis was made based on the pathohistological characteristics.Results This case had a mucosal mass of lower lip,growing progressively,white colored,with gas pain occasionally.The laboratory examination results found no apparent abnormality.The pathological diagnosis was lower labial duct calculus with infection.Conclusion Minor salivary calculus has no clinical specificity,thus its diagnosis is very difficult and a misdiagnosis is easily made.The major diagnostic tool is the combination with postoperative pathology.
Using rules to specify classification strategies in the credit card industry

GE Capital Services (GECS) has 80 million holders of private label credit cards that are regularly classified into homogeneous groups. For example, in collections millions of delinquent accounts are classified daily by attributes such as the amount owed and the number of months late in payment, and in marketing millions of accounts are classified daily according to the promotional material to be sent with the bills. A classification strategy specifies the mapping from accounts to groups based on the attributes of the accounts. A concise and powerful method of specifying a classification strategy is through the use of rules, which test account attributes and determine classification groups. A set of rules, however, can be inconsistent when one or more rules make another rule useless (we say that this rule is covered). The Rule Coverage Problem (RCP) is determining if any rule in a sequence of rules is covered. We search for efficient (and possibly incomplete) algorithms for solving RCP (1) by reducing instances of RCP to known problems and applying solutions developed for them and (2) by extending the consensus procedure of Quine to solve RCP directly. We end up with three algorithms: one from reducing instances of RCP to instances of Co-SAT, which are solved using resolution; one from reducing instances of RCP to instances of Co-SAT, which are reduced to instances of the integer programming problem and solved using the simplex procedure; and one from solving RCP directly with the extended consensus procedure. This work contributes theoretically, empirically, and commercially. Theoretically, several original problems with practical applications are introduced and solved using three diverse methods. For one method the consensus procedure of Quine is extended and applied to create efficient algorithms. Empirically, several diverse algorithms for solving subproblems of RCP are implemented and compared on GECS data. Commercially, a solution of RCP is ported to a PC and combined with a user interface to create two software products that are in full production use, improving GECS's collection and marketing efforts. With 80 million credit card holders, small decreases in losses (from collecting better) or small increases in sales (from marketing better) can significantly increase GECS's earnings.
Leptin rocks around the circadian CLOCK

Modern lifestyle is associated with longer waking hours and a shift to a more nocturnal schedule. Disruption of the circadian rhythm has been shown to promote obesity and metabolic complications. Recent research has shown that circadian disruption can abolish the normal diurnal variation in serum leptin, independently of changes in external food cues or physical activity. However, the underlying mechanism for this phenomenon and how it leads to weight gain were unknown. Now, Kettner et al . show that the peripheral circadian clock directly regulates leptin transcription in adipose tissue, and that the central circadian clock plays a dominant role in response to leptin signaling. Furthermore, the authors show that circadian disruption induces leptin resistance independent of other risk factors for obesity. The authors used a mouse jet-lag model to simulate circadian dysfunction and found that chronic jet-lag resulted in high, arrhythmic serum concentrations of leptin, which correlated with weight gain and increased fat mass, but no change in the diurnal profiles of food intake, physical activity, or energy expenditure. At the level of the adipose tissue, jet-lagged mice showed a disruption of circadian leptin expression. The key endogenous clock heterodimer BMAL1/CLOCK was shown to regulate leptin transcription through C/EBPα, and the circadian rhythm of this regulation was achieved through a differential effect of low (stimulating) versus high (inhibiting) concentrations of BMAL1/CLOCK, which correlate with different stages of sleep. Surprisingly, knock-out (KO) mice lacking key circadian genes (BMAL1, Cry, or Per), which were expected to have similar circadian dysfunction, exhibited distinct metabolic phenotypes. Although KO and chronic jet-lagged mice showed similar adipose tissue leptin dysregulation, striking differences were found in central leptin-mediated melanocortin signaling. Importantly, chronic jet-lagged mice had arrhythmic dampened pSTAT3 and POMC expression in arcuate nucleus neurons, despite high serum leptin concentrations. This was not rescued by exogenous leptin, indicating central leptin resistance. The mechanism for the differential central effects of different circadian gene KOs has yet to be established. Nevertheless, the demonstration that chronic jet-lag in WT mice was sufficient to induce leptin resistance and a progressive gain in body fat and weight, independent of all previously identified obesity risk factors, implicates chronic circadian dysfunction as a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic. N. M. Kettner et al ., Circadian dysfunction induces leptin resistance in mice. Cell Metab. 10.1016/j.cmet.2015.06.005 (2015). [[Abstract]][1] [1]: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413115002727
Power-Loss Analysis and Efficiency Maximization of a Silicon-Carbide MOSFET-Based Three-Phase 10-kW Bidirectional EV Charger Using Variable-DC-Bus Control

It is expected that wide-bandgap devices like silicon-carbide MOSFETs and gallium-nitride HEMTs could replace Si devices in power electronics converters to reach higher system efficiency. This paper adopts the conventional half-bridge LLC topology to realize a 10-kW all-SiC bidirectional charger used in electric vehicles. Though it is a well-known topology for the unidirectional charger, it has not been comprehensively explored for the bidirectional energy flow yet. A double-pulse-test (DPT) platform is utilized to provide accurate power losses. A state-space model is built to obtain accurate switching current waveforms, which is eventually combined with the DPT results to accurately predict the system efficiency. Based on this model, to further enhance the system efficiency, the dc-bus voltage is varied with LLC dc/dc converter running at the resonant frequency through the whole power range. Experimental results validated that the proposed approach could realize the bidirectional power flow. By varying the dc-bus voltage, the V2G and G2V modes reach $\sim 96$ % wall-to-battery efficiency.
Biomass consumption and smoke production by prehistoric and modern forest fires in western Washington.

Evaluation des surfaces brulees par an (incendies controles et flux sauvages) a l'epoque actuelle et a l'epoque prehistorique, ainsi que des quantites de materiaux combustibles par m 2 et par an. Consequences sur la visibilite et la qualite de l'air
Cortical physiology as a therapeutic target in Parkinson's disease related dementia and cognitive dysfunction: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Background: Dementia is the leading cause of nursing home placement in Parkinson's disease (PD), yet little is known about the causes of cognitive dysfunction in PD and there are no effective treatments. Our preliminary data and other published studies suggest that abnormalities in brain activity involving networks important for normal thinking and memory may contribute to cognitive dysfunction in PD and may represent a target for treatment. Methods/Design: A randomized control trial will be conducted to assess the therapeutic potential of bifrontal repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in modulating cortical activity related to cognitive dysfunction in PD. This study will be performed at the University of Colorado Denver, Anschutz Campus, in Aurora, Colorado. Fifty-five PD patients (> 40 years of age) with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia will be included and randomized in a 1:1 ratio to sham or real rTMS groups. Primary outcome measurement is the total score of the Mattis Dementia Rating Scale. Secondary outcome measurements are domain specific ratings of executive function, memory, language, attention, and visuospatial abilities. Discussion: If bifrontal rTMS results in positive changes to cognitive function in PD patients with mild cognitive impairment, this may represent a new and effective treatment for PD-related cognitive dysfunction. Secondly, evaluation of any bifrontal rTMS-induced changes to cognitive function will improve the current understanding of the mechanisms behind the causes of cognitive dysfunction in PD. Trial registration: Clinical Trials.gov identifier: NCT02346708; registered on 9 January 2015. Ethics: This study protocol was approved by the Colorado Multiple Institutional Review Board (COMIRB) (approval No. 13-2474) and will be performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Informed consent: Signed informed consent will be obtained from the patients or their guardians.
The role of employee wellness programme in the hospitality industry: a review of concepts, research, and practice

In the hospitality industry, employees are critical to firm success, through their intimate interactions with customers to create memorable experiences and relationships. A nascent strategy adopted...
Quantifying the trade‐off between carbon sequestration and albedo in midlatitude and high‐latitude North American forests

Afforestation is a viable and widely practiced method of sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, because of a change in surface albedo, placement of less reflective forests can cause an increase in net-absorbed radiation and localized surface warming. This effect is enhanced in northern high latitudes where the presence of snow cover exacerbates the albedo difference. Regions where afforestation could provide a climate benefit are determined by comparing net ecosystem production and net radiation differences from afforestation in midlatitude and high latitude of North America. Using the dynamic vegetation model Integrated Biosphere Simulator, agricultural version (Agro-IBIS), we find a boundary through North America where afforestation results in a positive equivalent carbon balance (cooling) to the south, and a negative equivalent carbon balance (warming) to the north. Including the effects of stand age and fraction cover affect whether a site contributes to mitigating global warming.
Are process nonlinearities encoded in meandering river planform morphology

Meandering river planform evolution is driven by the interaction of local nonlinear processes and cutoff dynamics. Despite the known nonlinear dynamics governing the evolution of meandering rivers, previous attempts have found at most a weak signature of these process nonlinearities on the static meander planform morphologies (form nonlinearities). In this work, we present a framework to measure form nonlinearity from centerline curvature signals and unambiguously quantify its presence in both a numerically simulated meandering river and three natural rivers. The degree of nonlinearity (DNL) metric is introduced to measure the strength of form nonlinearities embedded in the centerlines. The DNL's evolution through time is computed for annual observations over 30 years of an active, tropical meandering river and for the simulated centerline to understand how cutoffs and bend growths affect form nonlinearity. We find that although cutoffs reduce the overall form nonlinearity, they also act as a source of nonlinearity themselves by creating scales that contribute disproportionately to DNL.
Face percept formation in human ventral temporal cortex

Philosophers have puzzled for millennia about how humans build abstract conceptual objects (house/face/tool) from the simple features of the world they see around them (line/patch/lighting). Unders...
Ambicor Two-Piece Inflatable Penile Prosthesis: Background and Contemporary Outcomes

Abstract Introduction The two-piece inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP; Ambicor) might be a preferred option for men with erectile dysfunction (ED) who have significant retroperitoneal scarring, limited manual dexterity, or other issues. There are reported differences in outcomes and patient and partner satisfaction between three-piece and two-piece IPPs. Aim To report contemporary outcomes, patient and partner satisfaction, and mechanical durability data of the two-piece compared with the three-piece IPP. Methods A PubMed search was performed related to two-piece penile prostheses. Emphasis was placed on perioperative outcomes and patient and/or partner satisfaction scores. Non–English-language articles were excluded. Main Outcome Measures Use of the Ambicor two-piece penile prosthesis was assessed by outlining the contemporary literature. The etiology of ED in this population, mechanical attributes, penile morphologic changes, satisfaction, and its use in special populations were reviewed. Results The most common etiology of ED for placement of the device remains a vasculogenic cause (range = 11–62%). Overall complication rates were 2.1% to 11.2% for the general population. Mechanical failure was seen in 0.7% to 6.1%. Infection rates were 0.7% to 4.8%. Spontaneous deflation was seen in approximately 25%. Higher complication rates were found in transgender patients after neophallus creation and the two-piece IPP could offer better durability compared with the three-piece IPP. Longer operative times, greater use of advanced dilation techniques, and greater length loss also have been reported. Overall satisfaction rates are higher than 85%. Conclusion The predominant etiology of ED for two-piece penile prosthesis placement is vasculogenic. There is a trend toward IPP insertion in patients after radical prostatectomy or who have spinal cord injury. The two-piece device has similar complication rates and high patient satisfaction scores compared with three-piece IPPs. Further larger prospective studies are needed to validate our findings, resolve discrepancies in published outcomes, and contribute to the sparse data on this subject. Ko OS, Bennett NE. Ambicor Two-Piece Inflatable Penile Prosthesis: Background and Contemporary Outcomes. Sex Med Rev 2018;6:319–327.
Scorned Subjects in Colonial Objects

Focusing on colonial Spanish America, we explore scorned subjects—indigenous things that were identified as vital, sentient subjects by the people who made and used them but reclassified as “object...
Preferences for bowtie design: an investigation into the FEA needs of male consumers in the United States

Contemporary men wear bowties as part of formal and casual attire. Since clothing is a form of personal expression, the purpose of this study was to explore the needs of current male consumers in r...
An improved L-shaped method for two-stage convex 0–1 mixed integer nonlinear stochastic programs

Abstract In this paper, we propose an improved L-shaped method to solve large-scale two-stage convex 0–1 mixed-integer nonlinear stochastic programs with mixed-integer variables in both first and second stage decisions and with relatively complete recourse. To address the difficulties in solving large problems, we propose a Benders-like decomposition algorithm that includes both (strengthened) Benders cuts and Lagrangean cuts in the Benders master problem. The proposed algorithm is applied to solve a batch plant design problem under demand uncertainty, and a planning problem under demand and price uncertainty. It is shown that the proposed algorithm outperforms the commercial solvers, DICOPT, SBB, Alpha-ECP, and BARON, for the problems with a large number of scenarios. Also, although the proposed algorithm cannot close the duality gap, it is proved that it can yield a lower bound that is at least as tight as the one from Lagrangean decomposition.
Influence of Impact Conditions on Feedstock Deposition Behavior of Cold-Sprayed Fe-Based Metallic Glass

Cold spray is a promising method by which to deposit dense Fe-based metallic glass coatings on conventional metal substrates. Relatively low process temperatures offer the potential to prevent the crystallization of amorphous feedstock powders while still providing adequate particle softening for bonding and coating formation. In this study, Fe48Mo14Cr15Y2C15B6 powder was sprayed onto a mild steel substrate, using a variety of process conditions, to investigate the feasibility of forming well-bonded amorphous Fe-based coatings. Particle splat adhesion was examined relative to impact conditions, and the limiting values of temperature and velocity associated with successful softening and adhesion were empirically established. Variability of particle sizes, impact temperatures, and impact velocities resulted in splat morphologies ranging from well-adhered deformed particles to substrate craters formed by rebounded particles and a variety of particle/substrate interface conditions. Transmission electron microscopy studies revealed the presence of a thin oxide layer between well-adhered particles and the substrate, suggesting that bonding is feasible even with an increased oxygen content at the interface. Results indicate that the proper optimization of cold spray process parameters supports the formation of Fe-based metallic glass coatings that successfully retain their amorphous structure, as well as the superior corrosion and wear-resistant properties of the feedstock powder.
Pediatric Elimination Disorders

Pediatric elimination disorders are poorly understood by parents and teachers and often mistreated by medical and mental health professionals. Most children with these problems do not even receive treatment, often suffering for years (Foxman, Valdez & Brook, 1986). Fishman, Rappaport, Schonwald, and Nurko (2003) found that approximately one third of parents mistakenly believed that the cause of their child’s encopresis was “emotional” in nature, while other parents believed that attention seeking and laziness were causes. This is unfortunate because the consequences of having enuresis or encopresis can be profound for the child and his family. Psychologists working in schools have a tremendous opportunity to alter these inaccurate and unhelpful beliefs and consequently change the trajectory of the lives of these children.
Childhood Poverty: Implications for School Readiness and Early Childhood Education

In this chapter, we examine associations between poverty and young children’s development, up to age 5-years when most children leave early education programs and enter formal schooling.1 First, we explore the complexities in measuring poverty and studying its effects on young children. In so doing, we review key large-scale, national studies that have been used to examine poverty’s effects on child development. Second, findings gleaned from these studies on direct associations between poverty and children’s cognitive, verbal, and behavioral outcomes during the first 5 years of life are reviewed. The extent to which depth and persistence of poverty moderate these associations is also addressed in this section. Third, we consider the potential pathways through which poverty may influence child development. Here, two theories frame the discussion, one emphasizing the role of familial relationships and parenting (Conger & Elder, 1994; Elder & Caspi, 1988; McLoyd, 1990) and another stressing the impact of parental investments in resources for children (Becker, 1991; Mayer, 1997). We address links between family poverty and maternal mental health and parent-child interactions as part of the former model. The latter theory encompasses associations between poverty status and factors such as the quality of home environment, neighborhoods, nonmaternal child care, and health and nutrition. Finally, we consider the role of public policy in the lives of children growing up in poverty. Early intervention programs and welfare policy are highlighted as two policy areas that have changed over the past decade and play a significant role in the lives of young children living in poverty. Early intervention programs, particularly those including center-based services beginning in infancy, have shown immediate and strong positive effects on low-income children’s IQ scores (Campbell & Ramey, 1994) and sociobehavioral outcomes (Yoshikawa, 1995). The welfare reform bill passed in 1996, which mandated work requirements and time restrictions for recipients, dramatically altered the daily lives of female-headed households with young children. Results from preliminary welfare reform experiments suggest that although the effects of earning supplements for welfare recipients had a positive impact on preschool and young school-age children, work requirements and time limits had mixed impacts (Morris, Huston, Duncan, Crosby, & Bos, 2001). In our discussion of both initiatives, we present early childhood as a time of great vulnerability and great opportunity for children.
Annals On Call - Estimating Stroke Risk in Atrial Fibrillation

In this episode of Annals On Call, Dr. Centor discusses the estimation of stroke risk in patients with atrial fibrillation with Dr. Gustavo Heudebert, a professor of medicine at the University of A...
Evidence for an inactive plasma membrane-associated precursor of active cytoplasmic ornithine decarboxylase in developing embryos of Muscadomestica

Abstract During embryonic development of Musca domestica inactive ornithine decarboxylase protein appears in the embryos at 6 h postoviposition, increases in concentration and reaches a maximum level at 9 h postoviposition. The inactive enzyme is associated with the plasma membrane and appears to be the precursor for active ornithine decarboxylase, which is associated with the cytosolic fraction just prior to hatching. Both ornithine decarboxylase protein and enzymatic activity disappear during the early larval stage of this insect.
Demand drivers for charging infrastructure-charging behavior of plug-in electric vehicle commuters

Abstract The public as well as the private sector that includes automakers and charging network companies are increasingly investing in building charging infrastructure to encourage the adoption and use of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) as well as to ensure that current facilities are not congested. However, building infrastructure is costly and, like road congestion, when there is significant uptake of PEVs we may not be able to “build out of congestion.” Modelling the choice of charging infrastructure of more than 3000 PEV drivers who had the opportunity to select among home, work, and public locations, we focus on understanding the importance of factors driving demand such as: the cost of charging, driver characteristics, access to charging infrastructure, and vehicle characteristics. We find that differences in the cost of charging play an important role in the demand for charging location. PEV drivers tend to substitute toward workplace charging when they pay a higher electricity rate at home, more so when the former is free. Additionally, socio-demographic factors like dwelling type and gender, as well as vehicle technology like electric range, influence the choice of charging location.
Impact of Animal Characters at a Zoo Concession Stand on Healthy Food Sales.

Abstract Objective The primary objectives of the study were to examine: 1) how increased availability of healthier items at a zoo concession stand affects sales and 2) how animal character marketing on zoo menu boards affects sales revenue. Methods An intervention was conducted over an 8-week period. On alternating weeks, zoo animal characters were systematically paired with and removed from healthy food items on a zoo concession menu board. Sales and revenue data were analyzed using frequencies, a Poisson regression model, and a negative binomial regression model, respectively. Results Newly introduced healthy items represented 8.2% of sales and 4.9% of revenue. Healthy item unit sales were significantly higher (P = .006) during the weeks animal cartoon characters were displayed, although there was no impact on revenue. Conclusions and Implications Findings suggest nonbranded character marketing is a viable strategy for promoting healthy products in family-friendly venues where concessions are sold.
Thoughts and suggestions on modern construction of disease prevention and control system

The critical period for the prevention and control of COVID-19 in China, in response to requirements for accelerating the modernization of the disease prevention and control system, we analyzed and summarized the current situation, existing problems, and deficiencies in China's modernization of disease prevention and control system. In addition, we put forward the contents and countermeasures for the modernization of the disease prevention and control system. The modernization of the disease prevention and control system should be built around governance modernization, talent modernization, equipment modernization, scientific research modernization, and modernization of the regulatory system. The countermeasures and suggestions need to reposition the disease prevention and control system, rationalize the management system and operating mechanism, strengthen the modernization of talents and equipment, strengthen scientific research on disease prevention and control, and further improve the disease prevention and control legal system.
Phased nucleotide inserts for sequencing low-diversity RNA samples from in vitro selection experiments

In vitro selection combined with high-throughput sequencing is a powerful experimental approach with broad application in the engineering and characterization of RNA molecules. Diverse pools of starting sequences used for selection are often flanked by fixed sequences used as primer binding sites. These low diversity regions often lead to data loss from complications with Illumina image processing algorithms. A common method to alleviate this problem is the addition of fragmented bacteriophage PhiX genome, which improves sequence quality but sacrifices a portion of usable sequencing reads. An alternative approach is to insert nucleotides of variable length and composition ("phased inserts") at the beginning of each molecule when adding sequencing adaptors. This approach preserves read depth but reduces the length of each read. Here, we test the ability of phased inserts to replace PhiX in a low-diversity sample generated for a high-throughput sequencing based ribozyme activity screen. We designed a pool of 4096 RNA sequence variants of the self-cleaving twister ribozyme from Oryza sativa For each unique sequence, we determined the fraction of ribozyme cleaved during in vitro transcription via deep sequencing on an Illumina MiSeq. We found that libraries with the phased inserts produced high-quality sequence data without the addition of PhiX. We found good agreement between previously published data on twister ribozyme variants and our data produced with phased inserts even when PhiX was omitted. We conclude that phased inserts can be implemented following in vitro selection experiments to reduce or eliminate the use of PhiX and maximize read depth.
Primary immunodeficiency and vaccination

原发性免疫缺陷病（PID）多在婴幼儿时期发病。PID与预防接种的问题主要有3方面。早期识别和诊断PID是重要前提；PID患儿可接种灭活疫苗，少数PID需经免疫专科医生评估谨慎决定是否接种减毒活疫苗；当患儿出现减毒活疫苗株感染时，应免疫评估排除存在PID的可能。.
Uncovering the role of the gut microbiota in immune checkpoint blockade therapy: A mini-review

In recent years, the microbiota has been implicated as a key factor associated with both response and toxicity from immune checkpoint blockade therapy. Numerous studies have been published that specifically highlight the importance of the microbiome as a distinct influencer of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 and anti-CTLA-4 activity in cancer patients, but a full understanding of mechanisms behind these interactions has yet to be achieved. With greater insight into how the microbiome can modulate immune checkpoint blockade comes the potential to target the microbiome to improve response rates and minimize toxicities. This mini-review looks at noteworthy studies that have explored the relationship between the microbiome and immune checkpoint blockade response and toxicity in both preclinical and clinical studies, with an emphasis on current hypotheses regarding mechanisms of action and potential microbiome-targeted therapeutic strategies under development.
Civic Environmentalism: Integrating Social Studies and Environmental Education through Curricular Models

Presently, we are being inundated with climate news and its ever-expanding impact on the world around us. We are at a tipping point and how we choose to respond will have long-term consequences for current and future generations. Historically, we have responded with the view that these issues are scientific and not social and have been addressed through scientific advancements. However, this approach has fallen short. Specifically, this is due to social studies and civic responsibility being framed as entirely separate from environmental education and environmental responsibility. Therefore, we need to reframe our thinking and view these areas as cohesive and civic responsibility includes environmental responsibility. The purpose of this paper is to describe the need for integrating social studies education and environmental education to foster a new framework of civic environmentalism. Civic environmentalism is the extension of civic responsibility to include all human and non-human life forms and the entire natural world around us. We showcase that this can be achieved through new ways of curricular modeling to create an integration between these two areas which have been traditionally viewed as separate. We present the frameworks of two nations who have started to reframe their perspectives as well as various practitioner models. We believe that civic environmentalism and an accepted responsibility to the environment is essential for all of the world’s inhabitants.
Utility of routine intraoperative cholangiogram during cholecystectomy in children: A nationwide analysis of outcomes and readmissions.

Abstract Purpose This study aims to determine postoperative outcomes and readmissions in pediatric cholecystectomy with routine intraoperative cholangiogram (IOC) utilization. Methods The Nationwide Readmissions Database 2010–2014 was queried for all pediatric cholecystectomies. A propensity score-matched analysis (PSMA) with over 30 covariates was performed between cholecystectomy alone (CCY) versus those with routine IOC (CCY + IOC, no biliary obstruction, dilatation, or pancreatitis). χ2 analysis or Mann-Whitney U were used for statistical analysis with p Results 34,390 cholecystectomies were performed: 92% were laparoscopic, most were teenage females (75%, 15 years [13–17]) and did not undergo IOC (75%). Postoperative mortality rate was 0.1%. The PSMA cohort comprised of 1412 CCY and 1453 CCY + IOC. Patients with CCY alone had higher rates of 30-day (7% vs 5%), 1-year readmissions (13% vs 11%) and had higher rates of overall complications (22% vs 12%) compared with CCY + IOC, all p Conclusion This nationwide PSMA suggests pediatric CCY with routine IOC is associated with decreased readmissions, overall resource utilization, complications, and bile duct injuries. Type of Study Retrospective Comparative Study. Level of Evidence Level III.
GVPROF: A Value Profiler for GPU-Based Clusters

GPGPUs are widely used in high-performance computing systems to accelerate scientific and machine learning workloads. Developing efficient GPU kernels is critically important to obtain “bare-metal” performance on GPU-based clusters. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of GVPROF, the first value profiler that pinpoints value-related inefficiencies in applications running on NVIDIA GPU-based clusters. The novelty of GVPROF resides in its ability to detect temporal and spatial value redundancies, which provides useful information to guide code optimization. GVPROF can monitor production multi-node multi-GPU executions in clusters. Our experiments with well-known GPU benchmarks and HPC applications show that GVPROF incurs acceptable overhead and scales to large executions. Using GVPROF, we optimized several HPC and machine learning workloads on one NVIDIA V100 GPU. In one case study of LAMMPS, optimizations based on information from GVProf led to whole-program speedups ranging from 1.37x on a single GPU to 1.08x on 64 GPUs.
Narrative Energies & The War of the Worlds

The War of the Worlds stages an environmental catastrophe that would have seemed all-too-familiar to Victorian readers of John Ruskin’s The Storm-Clouds of the Nineteenth Century. Nonetheless, as the instigators of environmental catastrophe, Wells’s Martians prove a rather slippery (and smoky) metaphor. Along with a darkening sky, they figure on the one hand as the Darwinian specter of an invasive species and on the other, as our own colonial and technological doppelganger. But as such, they enable Wells to critique the ways we respond to catastrophe. Testing and rejecting the efficacy of apocalyptic narratives—religious, scientific and literary—Wells ultimately re-deploys all of these to posit an alternative way to inhabit our earth. Eschewing traditional novelistic models of the individual, The War of the Worlds fosters a greater perspectival mobility that invites human readers to imagine themselves elsewhere in our planet’s ecosystem even as we take responsibility for humanity’s effects on it.
A Quantum Leap for Fairness: Quantum Bayesian Approach for Fair Decision Making

With the increasing demand for using artificial intelligence algorithms, the need for a fairness-oriented design in automated decision-making systems emerges as a major concern. Since poorly designed algorithms that ignore the fairness criterion in sensitive attributes (e.g., age, race, and gender) may generate or strengthen bias towards specific groups, researchers try to improve the fairness of AI algorithms without compromising their accuracy. Although many studies focused on the optimization of the trade-off between fairness and accuracy in recent years, understanding the sources of unfairness in decision-making is an essential challenge. To tackle this problem, researchers proposed fair causal learning approaches, which enable us to model cause and effects knowledge structure, to discover the sources of the bias, and to prevent unfair decision-making by amplifying transparency and explainability of AI algorithms. These studies consider fair causal learning problems based on the assumption that the underlying probabilistic model of the world is known; whereas, it is well-known that humans do not obey the classical probability rules in making decisions due to emotional changes, subconscious feelings, and subjective biases, and this yields uncertainty in underlying probabilistic models. In this study, we aim to introduce quantum Bayesian approach as a candidate for fair decision-making in causal learning, motivated by the human decision-making literature in cognitive science. We demonstrated that quantum Bayesian perspective creates well-performing fair decision rules under high uncertainty on the well-known COMPAS (Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions) data set.
Self-reported measures of work satisfaction, receptivity towards organizational change, and ratings of quality management initiatives of campus facilities' workers in the state universities of Iowa

Faced with increasing budgetary constraints, higher educational institutions across the United States are attempting to transform their organizational systems and processes. Quality management initiatives have become increasingly popular in several functions of universities and four-year colleges. In particular, campus facilities' departments have adopted total quality management (TQM) as the new philosophy. The major purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to measure job satisfaction, receptivity towards organizational change, and ratings of quality management initiatives as perceived by custodial workers employed in university campus facilities. A secondary purpose was to determine existing perceptions of custodial workers employed by the three major state universities of Iowa. Establishing self-reported measures related to job satisfaction, receptivity towards change, and ratings of quality management initiatives was considered significant as organizational transformations were ongoing at these institutions. The target population addressed included custodians employed in four different departments based at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and the University of Northern Iowa. In this study, the input of 370 custodial workers firom the three institutions were usable for statistical analysis, yielding an 88% response rate from the target population. The final instrument used for data collection contained 55 items. The reliability of the overall instrument was sufficiently high (0.88) for continued use in practical applications. Content validity as deemed by a knowledgeable panel of experts and construct validity as determined by a factor analysis, further demonstrated the usefulness
Debt relief and debt rescheduling

Abstract In this paper we study the implications of assuming that bank syndicates and debtor countries entered into implicit debt contracts during the 1970s. Our approach rests on the assumption that loan contracts charged a risk premium because banks entertained the possibility of borrowers' default. Contrary to the previous literature on sovereign debt and debt-overhang, we assume full coordination between banks and debtors in designing optimal debt contracts. In this respect, we find that debt relief may actually be consistent with full-precommitment situations. We present an application of the model to data from Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico.
Ethics in Qualitative Research

In simplest terms qualitative researchers attempt to understand people's lived experiences, patterns of discourse, and observable behaviors as they occur in natural settings. Such inquiry rarely results in numerical tallies, instead generating textual descriptions of unstructured data that are thought to represent phenomena of interest. These qualitative research data are analyzed in terms of data-generated themes that point to one or more interpretations of the findings. As a cyclical and iterative process, qualitative research does not proceed in a linear fashion, and this flexibility can make it hard to predict what will come up in terms of ethical issues as the research progresses. It may also be relatively intrusive because it often delves into the private realm and it is inherently interested in people's personal views. As a result of these and other factors, “qualitative inquiry raises distinctive ethical issues” that should be understood on their own, not just in comparison to quantitative research. Keywords: Ethics; Research Methods in Applied Linguistics; 2000 - present
Comparative study of TaN-TiN and TiN gate stacks for thermally stable PFETs

Thermally stable TiN and TaN-TiN laminate metal gates for PFETs are demonstrated using a conventional CMOS process flow with SiON gate dielectric. TaN-TiN laminate gates show enhanced drives (I/sub D/), higher transconductance (G/sub M/), higher mobility (/spl mu/ /sub EFF/, and reduced off current (I/sub OFF/) characteristics compared to TiN gates. The optimum thickness of TaN in the laminate stack is discussed. The as-deposited work function of the TaN-TiN laminate gate stack and TiN was found to be /spl sim/ 5.0eV.
Abstract W MP40: Pyruvate Protects Post-Hypoxic Neuronal Cells and a Blood Brain Barrier Model From rtPA Toxicity

Recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) is the only FDA-approved treatment for ischemic stroke. However, rtPA’s therapeutic window is limited to 4.5 h after stroke onset due to hemorrhagic transformation and neurotoxicity. Here, we demonstrated that the intermediary metabolite pyruvate protects neuronal cells and a blood brain barrier (BBB) model from delayed rtPA toxicity in an in vitro oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD, 0.5% O2)-reoxygenation model of ischemic stroke. After 3 or 6 h OGD, neuronal cells were reoxygenated with 11 mM glucose ± 8 mM pyruvate and/or 10 μg/ml rtPA. Cellular viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS), matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP2) activity, and cellular contents of NADPH, NADP+, ATP, MMP2, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-2 (TIMP2), and phosphor-activation of anti-apoptotic p70s6 kinase, Akt and Erk were measured. Pyruvate treatment after 3 h OGD decreased cell death by 80% in the absence (P < 0.01) and 64% in the presence (P < 0.01) of rtPA. After 6 h OGD, rtPA e...
Modeling the Effects of Genetic Factors on Late-Onset Diseases in Cohort Studies

Many late-onset diseases are caused by what appears to be a combination of a genetic predisposition to disease and environmental factors. The use of existing cohort studies provides an opportunity to infer genetic predisposition to disease on a representative sample of a study population, now that many such studies are gathering genetic information on the participants. One feature to using existing cohorts is that subjects may be censored due to death prior to genetic sampling, thereby adding a layer of complexity to the analysis. We develop a statistical framework to infer parameters of a latent variables model for disease onset. The latent variables model describes the role of genetic and modifiable risk factors on the onset ages of multiple diseases, and accounts for right-censoring of disease onset ages. The framework also allows for missing genetic information by inferring a subject's unknown genotype through appropriately incorporated covariate information. The model is applied to data gathered in the Framingham Heart Study for measuring the effect of different Apo-E genotypes on the occurrence of various cardiovascular disease events.