cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Using Microformats: Gateway to the Semantic Web

This tutorial explains and describes the use of several microformats, which make information marked up in HTML available for use in applications outside traditional Web browsers. Because microformats consist of minor additions to the HTML backbone of common Web pages, they represent a simple but significant move toward what Tim Berners-Lee has called the ldquosemantic Webrdquo-but without requiring the technical and practical shifts and time demands of a complete XML-based semantic-Web-development approach. Microformats also provide technical communicators with literacies and a conceptual foundation to approach more advanced semantic Web technologies and suggest ways to refine current Web design practice.
Advanced topics in evidence-based urologic oncology: Economic analysis

Urologists, regardless of whether they practice in the community or in an academic institution, make decisions not only about their individual patients but also about hospital and health care policy by providing input to various committees that influence the adoption of new diagnostic and therapeutic technology. In an era of increasing awareness of healthcare costs, economic analyses that consider not only the potential benefit and harm of a given intervention but also the costs of the intervention, are increasingly important. This review article introduces a framework to critically appraise an economic analysis for its validity, impact, and applicability to patient care using an example from the urologic literature.
Synthesizing hardware from sketches

This paper proposes to adapt sketching, a software synthesis technique, to hardware development. In sketching, the designer develops an incomplete hardware description, providing the "insight" into the design. The synthesizer completes the design to match an executable specification. This style of synthesis liberates the designer from tedious and error-prone details---such as timing delays, wiring in combinational circuits and initialization of lookup tables---while allowing him to control low-level aspects of the design. The main benefit will be a reduction of the time-to-market without impairing system performance.
Accelerating Full-System Simulation through Characterizing and Predicting Operating System Performance

The ongoing trend of increasing computer hardware and software complexity has resulted in the increase in complexity and overheads of cycle-accurate processor system simulation, especially in full-system simulation which not only simulates user applications, but also the operating system (OS) and system libraries. This paper seeks to address how to accelerate full-system simulation through studying, characterizing, and predicting the performance behavior of OS services. Through studying the performance behavior of OS services, we found that each OS service exhibits multiple but limited behavior points that are repeated frequently. OS services also exhibit application-specific performance behavior and largely irregular patterns of occurrences. We exploit the observation to speed up full system simulation. A simulation run is divided into two non-overlapping periods: a learning period in which performance behavior of instances of an OS service are characterized and recorded, and a prediction period in which detailed simulation is replaced with a much faster emulation mode. During a prediction period, the behavior signature of an instance of an OS service is obtained through emulation while performance of the instance is predicted based on its signature and records of the OS service's past performance behavior. Statistically-rigorous algorithms are used to determine when to switch between learning and prediction periods. We test our simulation acceleration method with a set of OS-intensive applications and a recent version of Linux OS running on top of a detailed processor and memory hierarchy model implemented on Simics, a popular full-system simulator. On average, the method needs the learning periods to cover only 11% of OS service invocations in order to produce highly accurate performance estimates. This leads to an estimated simulation speedup of 4.9times, with an average performance prediction error of only 3.2%, and a worst case error of 4.2%
Multi‐Country Perspectives on Healthy Ageing: a Review

Abstract. The invited symposium Multi-Country Perspectives in Healthy Ageing had two parts: Part I. Epidemiological Evidence of Healthy Ageing, presented in Honolulu; Part II. Epidemiological Implications for Healthy Ageing Policies, presented in Adelaide. The presentations in Honolulu highlighted the fact that routinely collected data are of greatest value (census data; demographics; health and social statistics) in comparing younger and older adult groups, contribute with data on selected mortality and enable international comparisons. Epidemiological data on health and function, lifestyles, living arrangements and use of services provide important sources of complementary information. These data help in designing and justifying special medicosocial services for older persons (eg. comprehensive geriatric assessments, hypertension clinics), and confirm the importance of environmental factors in the ageing process and the pay-off of preventive approaches later in life.
Parallel branch and bound algorithms on hypercube multiprocessors

Branch and Bound (BB) algorithms are a generalization of many search algorithms used in Artificial Intelligence and Operations Research. This paper presents our work on implementing BB algorithms on hypercube multiprocessors. The 0-1 integer linear programming (ILP) problem is taken as an example because it can be implemented to capture the essence of BB search algorithms without too many distracting problem specific details. A BB algorithm for the 0-1 ILP problem is discussed. Two parallel implementations of the algorithm on hypercube multiprocessors are presented. The two implementations demonstrate some of the tradeoffs involved in implementing these algorithms on multiprocessors with no shared memory, such as hypercubes. Experimental results from the NCUBE/six show the performance of the two implementations of the algorithm. Future research work is discussed.
The Social Cognitive Model of Counselor Training

This article articulates a social cognitive model of counselor training. The metaphor of a drama is used to present the model. The drama concerns the emerging efficacy of the counselor in working with clients. First, the uniqueness of the drama is described. Second, the cast of characters is presented, namely, the counselor in the major role with the supervisor and client in supporting roles. Third, the plot is developed, which involves the counselor as a human agent, constructing and regulating her or his actions while taking in feedback from the supervisor and client. Fourth, attention is given to the emergence of barriers that may derail the plot. Fifth, the intemal and extemal contexts of the drama are presented. Sixth, seven research propositions are generated to build on the current knowledge base. Finally, suggestions are provided to supervisors as they work with counselor trainees.
Inverse Modeling of Intra-annual Variability in the Subtropical North Pacific*

Abstract Climatological data on the oceanic and atmospheric variability are inverted to study seasonal variation of the Kuroshio Extension (KE) and the recirculation gyre to the south. The processed datasets include climatological fluxes of heat, salt, and momentum at the ocean surface; Levitus hydrography; TOPEX/Poseidon altimetry; and surface drifter data. A variational data assimilation technique is used to retrieve variability in the open ocean region (18°–42°N, 142°E–160°W) bounded at 1000 m from below. By optimizing the open boundary values of oceanic fields in combination with initial conditions and atmospheric forcing, model solutions that are consistent with various climatological datasets within limits of observational errors were found. Using this technique, the mean geographical positions of the Subtropical Mode Water (STMW) and Central Mode Water (CMW) formation sites were estimated, the structures were analyzed, and estimates of the mode water production rates were obtained. Computations ind...
Chapter 23: Defense Support of Civil Authorities Responding to Natural and Man-Made Disasters

Part I. of this chapter overviews the historic laws and policies that are the foundations for defense support to civilian authorities. This sets the stage for a non-exhaustive historical assessment in Part II of 20th and 21st century examples of defense support to civil authorities, broken down into the eras of: the early to mid-20th Century; mid to late-20th Century; the late 1970s through Early 1990s: and the so-called “Garden Plot” civil disturbance plan being revisited in real-world application; and the early 2000s through 2010s, putting the Federal Government’s National Response Plan (NRP) (later called National Response Framework - NRF) to test in contemporary operations including those ongoing at the time of this chapter’s writing. This will set the stage for the way ahead described in Part III, considering the current framework for future national response to disasters and emergencies.
How to Safely Augment Reality: Challenges and Directions

Augmented reality (AR) technologies, such as those in head-mounted displays like Microsoft HoloLens or in automotive windshields, are poised to change how people interact with their devices and the physical world. Though researchers have begun considering the security, privacy, and safety issues raised by these technologies, to date such efforts have focused on input, i.e., how to limit the amount of private information to which AR applications receive access. In this work, we focus on the challenge of output management: how can an AR operating system allow multiple concurrently running applications to safely augment the user's view of the world? That is, how can the OS prevent apps from (for example) interfering with content displayed by other apps or the user's perception of critical real-world context, while still allowing them sufficient flexibility to implement rich, immersive AR scenarios? We explore the design space for the management of visual AR output, propose a design that balances OS control with application flexibility, and lay out the research directions raised and enabled by this proposal.
Operation of an Electronic Nose Aboard the Space Shuttle and Directions for Research for a Second Generation Device

A flight experiment to test the operation of an Electronic Nose developed and built at JPL and Caltech was done aboard STS-95 in October-November, 1998. This ENose uses conductometric sensors made of insulating polymer-carbon composite films; it has a volume of 1.7 liters, weighs 1.4 kg including the operating computer and operates on 1.5 W average power. In the flight experiment, the ENose was operated continuously for 6 days and recorded the sensors’ response to changes in air in the mid-deck of the orbiter. The ENose had been trained to identify and quantify ten common contaminants at the 24-hour Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentration (SMAC) level. Most SMACs are on the order of 10-100 ppm. The experiment was controlled by collecting air samples daily and analyzing them using standard analytical techniques after the flight. The device is microgravity insensitive.
Roland Fryer: 2015 John Bates Clark Medalist

Roland Fryer has emerged during the last decade as a leading scholar of the US racial divide and as a major figure in the evaluation of education policies to narrow the racial achievement gap and improve the prospects of low-income and minority children. He has been bold and fearless in his willingness to apply rigorous economic theory, to collect new data, and to develop and implement appropriate and compelling empirical strategies (including randomized field experiments) to assess any serious hypothesis that might shed light on racial inequality and that may provide policy tools to improve the academic achievement and long-run outcomes of disadvantaged children. Fryer’s work is marked by a creative and entrepreneurial edge that has allowed him to carry out large-scale evaluations and interventions in the context of large school districts like New York, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas, often in the face of political opposition and bureaucratic inertia. His theoretical and empirical work on the “acting white” hypothesis of peer effects provides new insights into the barriers to increasing the educational investments of minorities and the socially excluded. Fryer’s research output related to racial inequality, the US racial achievement gap, and the design and evaluation of educational policies make him a worthy recipient of the 2015 John Bates Clark Medal. He was born in Daytona Beach, Florida. His tumultuous childhood and youth experiences in Florida and Texas have been well-documented in a profile in the New York Times Magazine (Dubner 2005). Roland went on to earn his BA from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1998 and his PhD in economics from Pennsylvania State
Revenue Maximization in Customer-to-Customer Markets

Customer-to-customer (C2C) markets, such as eBay, provide a platform allowing customers to engage in business with each other. The success of a C2C market requires an appropriate pricing (i.e., transaction fee charged by the market owner) scheme that can maximize the market owner’s revenue while encouraging customers to participate in the market. However, the choice of an optimal revenue-maximizing transaction fee is challenged by the large population of self-interested customers (i.e., sellers and buyers). In this paper, we address the problem of maximizing the market owner’s revenue based on a hierarchical decision framework that captures the rationality of both sellers and buyers. First, we use a model with a representative buyer to determine the sales of products in the market. Then, by modeling sellers as self-interested agents making independent selling decisions, we show that for any transaction fee charged by the market owner, there always exists a unique equilibrium in the selling decision stage. Finally, we derive the optimal transaction fee that maximizes the market owner’s revenue. We find that to maximize its revenue under certain circumstances, the market owner may even share its advertising revenues with sellers as rewards to encourage them to sell products in the market and bring more website traffic. Our results indicate that the market owner’s revenue can be significantly increased by optimally choosing the transaction fee, even though sellers and buyers make self-interested and rational decisions.
Heat transfer and thermal stress analysis in electrified CFRP composites

Our recent studies 1,2 demonstrate that application of an electric current to carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) matrix composites may lead to an increase in the maximum impact load and reduction of the impact damage, whereas a prolonged application of the current has a rather detrimental effect due to current induced heating. In this paper we discuss thermal effects in electrified composites due to applied electric current. In particular, electric induced heating and thermoelastic deformation of electrified carbon fiber polymer matrix composite plates are investigated. I. Composites with coupled electrical, thermal, and mechanical response Carbon fiber polymer matrix composites that constitute the focus of this work consist of electrically conductive fibers and dielectric polymer matrix, and are electrically anisotropic and conductive at the macroscale. Their mechanical behavior in the presence of an electromagnetic field is characterized by a complex array of factors, among which are coupling of the mechanical and electromagnetic fields when both mechanical and electromagnetic loads are applied; Joule heating produced in conductive phases and its effects; changes in the failure mechanisms induced by the electromagnetic field. Some of these factors are either uniquely attributed to the carbon fiber polymer matrix composites, or have distinct characteristics in the composites. For instance, it is well known that the properties of polymer matrix composites are adversely affected by the heating. At temperatures above glass transition, a rapid degradation of the matrix occurs, which leads to deterioration in composite strength and elastic moduli. Thus, thermal effects cannot be ignored in evaluation of the mechanical behavior of composites subjected to even moderate electromagnetic fields and the corresponding problems need to be formulated considering interaction of mechanical, electromagnetic, and thermal fields. Mathematically speaking, in the most general case the problem of electro-thermo-mechanical coupling reduces to solving of equations of motion, Maxwell’s electrodynamic equations, and heat transfer equations. Here we discuss briefly the field equations for mechanically and electrically anisotropic composites subject to the mechanical and electromagnetic loads, which will provide theoretical background for the experimental studies and analysis presented in the following sections. Some of the details of the current discussion and derivations may be found in 3 . Equations of motion for conductive solids in the presence of an electromagnetic field have the form
Geopolitical Hypotheses in Technological Perspective

Great wars, the rise and decline of empires, observed differences in the power and influence of nations, and in general the uneven levels of national achievement in international politics have inspired much speculation and hypothesis-building. Men have felt the need for satisfying explanations of past events and patterns, and even greater need for plausible hypotheses with which to approach the future. The last seventy-five years or so have witnessed a bumper crop of hypotheses designed to account for or to anticipate the ordering of political relationships in the society of nations. One characteristic of most of these activities has been a persistent search for the “master variable” that would provide a simple yet plausible and satisfying basis for explaining or predicting the ordering of political relationships among nations.
High molecular weight derivatives of methotrexate as chemotherapeutic agents.

Female BDF1 mice treated with methotrexate (MTX) covalently bound to bovine or murine serum albumin (BSA, MSA) show a higher, more prolonged serum concentration and a decreased rate of excretion of MTX compared with a similar group of mice treated with free MTX. Tritiated MTX-albumin derivatives circulate to the tissues as the covalent complexes but are cleaved prior to excretion and exit primarily as unbound MTX. [3H]MTX-albumin derivatives injected intraperitoneally into L1210 tumor-bearing mice results in prolonged localization in the ascitic fluid and elevated intracellular MTX levels after 24 hr. Approximately 90% of the tritium label found in the L1210 cells is located in the cell lysate as free, unmetabolized MTX, whereas when the albumin carrier is labeled with 125I, 80% of the radioactivity is found associated with the cell membrane. A single dose of MTX-BSA (equivalent to 15 mg of MTX per kilogram) injected into BDF1 mice 24 hr after inoculation of 106 L1210 cells is as effective as MTX in prolonging survival time from 8 (control) to 15 days. An equivalent dose of MTX-MSA, however, shows considerable toxicity. MTX-aminoethyldextran derivatives of mol wt 10,000-150,000 are ineffective antitumor agents. These observations suggest that the high molecular weight MTX-albumin derivatives are retained in the serum and extracellular compartments until the complexes are hydrolyzed, and thus markedly increase the lifetime of MTX within the animal.
Fingerprints of Leonurus heterophyllus Injection with capillary electrophoresis

Objective To establish the fingerprints method of capillary electrophoresis for Leonurus heterophyllus Injection.Methods Method of capillary zone electrophoresis was developed to establish the fingerprints of Leonurus heterophyllus Injection with the peak of stachydrine as reference.Results Fingerprints of Leonurus heterophyllus Injection obtained contained 12 major common peaks.Conclusion The method has good reproducibility and resolution which can be used for the quality control of Leonurus heterophyllus Injection.
Elite: Automatic Orchestration of Elastic Detection Services to Secure Cloud Hosting

Intrusion detection on today's cloud is challenging: a user's application is automatically deployed through new cloud orchestration tools e.g., OpenStack Heat, Amazon CloudFormation, etc., and its computing resources i.e., virtual machine instances come and go dynamically during its runtime, depending on its workloads and configurations. Under such a dynamic environment, a centralized detection service needs to keep track of the state of the whole deployment a cloud stack, size up and down its own computing power and dynamically allocate its existing resources and configure new resources to catch up with what happens in the application. Particularly in the case of anomaly detection, new application instances created at runtime are expected to be protected instantly, without going through conventional profile learning, which disrupts the operations of the application. To address those challenges, we developed Elite, a new elastic computing framework, to support high-performance detection services on the cloud. Our techniques are designed to be fully integrated into today's cloud orchestration mechanisms, allowing an o rdinary cloud user to requ est a detection service and specify its parameters conveniently, through the cloud-formation file she submits for deploying her application. Such a detection service is supported by a high-performance stream-processing engine, and optimized for concurrent analysis of a large amount of data streamed from application instances and automatic adaptation to different computing scales. It is linked to the cloud orchestration engine through a communication mechanism, which provides the runtime information of the application e.g., the types of new instances created necessary for the service to dynamically configure its resources. To avoid profile learning, we further studied a set of techniques that enable reuse of normal behavior profiles across different instances within one user's cloud stack, and across different users in a privacy-preserving way. We evaluated our implementation of Elite on popular web applications deployed over 60 instances. Our study shows that Elite efficiently shares profiles without losing their accuracy and effectively handles dynamic, intensive workloads incurred by these applications.
Regulation of hematopoietic development by ZBTB transcription factors

Hematopoietic development is governed by the coordinated expression of lineage- and differentiation stage-specific genes. Transcription factors play major roles in this process and their perturbation may underlie hematologic and immunologic disorders. Nearly 1900 transcription factors are encoded in the human genome: of these, 49 BTB (for broad-complex, tram-track and bric a brac)-zinc finger transcription factors referred to as ZBTB or POK proteins have been identified. ZBTB proteins, including BCL6, PLZF, ThPOK and LRF, exhibit a broad spectrum of functions in normal and malignant hematopoiesis. This review summarizes developmental and molecular functions of ZBTB proteins relevant to hematology.
Midwives and Midwifery

With their role in the care of women, it is assumed that midwives have practiced their craft since earliest times. Of importance to the context of this volume is the question of the extent to which midwives authored books on midwifery, contributed to depictions of “the gravid uterus and its contents,” and/or improved understanding of antenatal development. Attested by papyrus records and Bas reliefs, midwifery was a recognized practice by women in ancient Egypt. The Hebrew Torah contains several references to midwives, their characteristics and work. In medieval times, in addition to their care of the parturient, midwives baptized some newborn infants. Unfortunately, little is known of the early history of the midwife [middle English mid-wif, Latin cummater, with woman]. In part, this is a consequence of childbirth being regarded as an inferior task, or even forbidden for the physician. Also because few midwives had the benefit of formal education, for the most part their work went unrecorded and they learned their craft by serving as an apprentice. Because about 95 % of deliveries present few or no complications, the system worked quite well. Also, with it being considered highly inappropriate for a male to view, much less touch, a woman’s pelvic region, “women’s work” in serving and caring for other women was the norm.
Spatial Experience and Special Relativity

In recent work, David Chalmers argues that “Edenic shapes”—roughly, the shape properties phenomenally presented in spatial experience—are not instantiated in our world. His reasons come largely from the theory of Special Relativity. Although Edenic shapes might have been instantiated in a classical Newtonian world, he maintains that they could not be instantiated in a relativistic world like our own. In this essay, I defend realism about Edenic shape (RES), the thesis that Edenic shapes are instantiated in our world, against Chalmers’s challenge from Special Relativity. I begin by clarifying the notion of an Edenic shape by reference to Chalmers’s notion of the “Edenic” (or “presentational”) content of perceptual experience. I then reconstruct Chalmers’s argument that Edenic shapes could not be instantiated in a relativistic world. His reasoning proceeds from two assumptions. The first is that the only shape properties instantiated in a relativistic world are those which somehow involve relations to frames of reference. This is thought to follow from the phenomenon of Lorentz contraction, a consequence of Special Relativity. The second assumption is that Edenic shapes do not involve relations to frames of reference. One reason to accept the second assumption is that it seems that Edenic shapes could be instantiated in a classical Newtonian world, where the notion of a frame-relative shape has no meaningful application. I then proceed to defend RES against Chalmers’s argument by arguing that Special Relativity, properly understood, provides no support for Chalmers’s first assumption. More generally, I argue, by way of a careful analysis of the geometric structure of Minkowski space–time (the space–time postulated by Special Relativity) and Galilean space–time (the space–time of (neo-)Newtonian physics), that Edenic shapes are no less at home in a relativistic world than in a classical Newtonian world.
Palpation tomography - a new technique for modulus estimation in Elastography

In Elastography, strain estimation has been shown to be far more reliable compared to the elastic properties obtained using reconstruction techniques. In this study, to make the method less sensitive to noise in the experimental data and inspired by the clinical practice of palpation (i.e., the use of sequential finger loading), we investigated the effect of using several different smaller quasi-static load cases (instead of a one-time load on the whole boundary), with the error indicator taken as the sum of the errors from each load case. This increased the ratio of measurements to the fitted parameters, which made the method less sensitive to random errors. To demonstrate this effect, we calculated displacements from a two-dimensional, quadrilateral, plane-strain, finite-element model of a 40-by-40 mm region containing a cylindrical inclusion (7 mm in diameter) three-times stiffer than the background. The ratio of nodal pressures was chosen to produce approximately 0.75% strain. Known amounts of random displacement errors were then added at a signal-to-noise ratio varying from 60 dB to 20 dB. Elastic modulus reconstructions using the noisy displacement results from a single, total-boundary, pressure load (as is typically applied in elastography) were compared to reconstructions using data from nine smaller-width loading cases, and the reconstructed modulus distributions were compared to the original model parameters. It was found that in the cases of 60 dB and 40 dB the multiple loading cases resulted in noise reduction in the modulus reconstruction by at least a twofold compared to the single-loading case, at the expense of a 'shadowing' effect (i.e., erroneous modulus estimates) underneath the inclusion that could be eliminated by using larger loading areas for the individual loading cases. Finally, at 20 dB both the large single-load and combined, smaller five-load cases failed to accurately reconstruct the modulus of the inclusion; depicting thus a fundamental limit on the reconstruction method.
Hemochromatois-Associated Gene Mutations in Patients with Myelodysplastic Syndromes with Refractory Anemia and Ringed Sideroblasts.

Complex interaction between a multitude of genetic variants may be responsible for differential susceptibility to specific diseases, and be responsible for phenotypic variability and heterogeneity of clinical presentations. Such a variability in clinical features confounded for many years investigations into the pathogenesis of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS). We made a curious observation of increased ferritin levels in some newly diagnosed patients with MDS RARS (refractory anemia with ringed sideroblasts) in whom transfusional iron-overload was unlikely due to very low transfusion burden. Hence, we hypothesized that RARS patients may harbor hemochromatosis-related mutations, which could contribute to the pathophysiology of this particular subset of MDS. We studied a cohort of 109 MDS patients; 42 with RARS, and 67 with other forms of MDS (18 RA, 12 RAEB, 7 RAEB-T, 1 CMML, and 29 MDS/MPD overlap). All patients were genotyped using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) method, designed to detect presence of C282Y and H63D mutations of the HFE gene. We found significantly higher frequency of heterozygozity for the C282Y mutation in 21% of RARS patients (vs 9% in control population, n=2016, p= 0.017) while H63D genotype was not increased. The possible pathogenic role of this finding in RARS was supported by the normal distribution of mutant HFE alleles in patients with other forms of MDS (5% vs. 9%, p =0.35). Interestingly, 3/7 patients with RA not fulfilling the RARS criteria, but having increased numbers of ringed sideroblasts (
State of Practice of Non-self-aware Virtual Machine Management in Cloud Data Centers

Hardware virtualization is the prevalent way to share data centers among different tenants. In this chapter, we present a large-scale characterization study that aims to better understand the state of the practice, i.e., how data centers in the private cloud are used by their customers, how physical resources are shared among different tenants using virtualization, and how virtualization technologies are actually employed. Our study focuses on IBM corporate data centers as a major infrastructure provider and reports on their observed usage across a 19-day period. We aim at answering two key questions in virtual machine management: (i) whether the VM are dynamically adjusted according to the system state given the high flexibility in resizing virtual resources, and (ii) what type of self-learning policy governing the VM migration can be found in real data centers given a plethora of studies on VM migration. Our study illustrates that there is a huge tendency in over-provisioning resources while being conservative to several possibilities opened up by virtualization (e.g., migration and co-location), indicating the lack of autonomic VM management and a great potential for developing self-learning systems.
Quality and Efficiency Improvement Tools for Every Radiologist

In an era of value-based medicine, data-driven quality improvement is more important than ever to ensure safe and efficient imaging services. Familiarity with high-value tools enables all radiologists to successfully engage in quality and efficiency improvement. In this article, we review the model for improvement, strategies for measurement, and common practical tools with real-life examples that include Run chart, Control chart (Shewhart chart), Fishbone (Cause-and-Effect or Ishikawa) diagram, Pareto chart, 5 Whys, and Root Cause Analysis.
Wired mobile phones: the case of community technology centers in favelas of Brazil*

The growing spread of mobile phones and internet has some practitioners and scholars arguing about the possible irrelevance of community technology centers (CTCs) serving low-income communities. Ho...
Outcomes of surgical intervention for refractory gastroparesis: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND Gastroparesis (GP) is characterized by delayed gastric emptying with symptoms of nausea, vomiting, early satiety, postprandial fullness, and abdominal pain. Various surgical options exist to treat GP not responding to medical treatments (refractory GP), including gastric electric stimulation (GES), gastrectomy (GTx), and pyloric interventions (PI), whereas the outcomes of these procedures have been published; few comparison studies exist. METHODS PubMed literature review for articles from September 1988 to October 2017 was performed for prospective and retrospective analyses reporting >5 patients. Unweighted (per study) and weighted (per patient) overall improvement and improvement in symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain were calculated and compared for the different procedures. RESULTS Of 325 studies satisfying search criteria, 38 met the study criteria and were included for analysis. Total response to intervention, both weighted and unweighted, was greater with PIs compared to GES (P < 0.05). For unweighted symptom improvements, nausea improved more with PI than with GES (P < 0.05). GES improved vomiting more than epigastric pain (P < 0.05). For weighted symptom improvements, pyloric surgery and GTx improved vomiting compared to GES (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Published outcomes of GES, pyloric surgery, and GTx for refractory GP are compared. Pyloromyotomy/pyloroplasty improves patient response greater than with GES. Weighing by number of studies, pyloric surgery improves nausea and abdominal pain greater than GES. For GES, vomiting is more likely to improve than abdominal pain. Weighing by number of patients, pyloric surgery and GTx improved vomiting compared to GES.
Metabolic measurements in the critically ill.

Critical illness is associated with major abnormalities in metabolism. The “metabolic response to stress” characterized by changes in metabolic rate, altered substrate utilization and catabolism, provides a challenge when designing nutritional support regimens. This has increased interest in measuring the metabolic rate and substrate utilization to provide a better understanding of how, when, and what to feed critically ill patients. In critically ill patients metabolic rate can be determined from measurements of oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production. Mechanical ventilation, with its elevated oxygen concentrations and airway pressures and abnormal respiratory patterns, presents a challenging environment in which to make these measurements.
Assessment of Uterine Receptivity

Uterine receptivity plays a key role in the establishment of a successful pregnancy, and its impairment may limit the success of assisted reproductive technologies. Histological, morphological, and functional aspects of the endometrium were investigated in order to establish a test to assess endometrial receptivity and consequently to better predict pregnancy outcomes. Currently, histological dating and molecular markers of endometrial receptivity are poor predictors of pregnancy, and their assessment does not lead to improved pregnancy rates. Likewise, endometrial sonographic parameters used to evaluate uterine receptivity still lack specificity. However, endometrial biopsy and ultrasonography can be used efficiently to diagnose gynecologic disease that may affect uterine receptivity. Although hysteroscopy is the gold standard to evaluate endometrial lining and was shown to improve pregnancy outcomes after failed IVF cycles, it should not be offered as a first-line investigation in all subfertile women. In summary, there is no perfect diagnostic tool to assess endometrial receptivity. However, ultrasonography should be the first-line modality in detection of various endometrial pathologies, and efforts to optimize implantation should be directed to the treatment of possible underlying gynecologic condition disrupting endometrial receptivity. Conditions known to affect endometrial receptivity include hydrosalpinx, endometriosis, leiomyoma, adenomyosis, endometrial polyps, endometritis, and polycystic ovary syndrome.
Estimating the Impact of Climate Variability on Cumulative Hurricane Destructive Potential Through Data Mining

In this chapter, we assess the relationship between climate variability and hurricane hazard in the U.S. using data mining techniques. Regression trees are developed to investigate the relationship between seventeen climate variables (with their quarterly and annual averages) on the yearly cumulative destructive potential of U.S. land-falling hurricanes. The U.S. coast is divided into three separate sections: the Atlantic Coast excluding Florida, Florida, and the Gulf Coast excluding Florida. Each region is analysed separately as well as the aggregate of all the regions in an effort to better understand the factors that drive the frequency and intensity of hurricanes making landfall in the U.S. The results indicate that a large number of climate variables contribute to the observed historical variations in hurricane activity. This insight is validated by demonstrating that the models outperform previously published models that are based on only two climate variables. The results show that geographic partitioning is essential in both understanding the pattern of past hurricane activity and forecasting future hurricane hazard. The analysis of variable importance shows that temperature-related variables are useful for explaining hurricane activity, even though their importance differs between regions.
Designing a trapping strategy to aid Giant African Snail (Lissachatina fulica) eradication programs

In pest eradication programs, traps can directly reduce pest populations; however, their application to gastropod programs remains relatively unexplored. The South Florida Giant African Snail, Liassachatina fulica (Pulmonata: Achatinidae), eradication program allowed a realistic evaluation of their utility. Field studies were conducted to determine the best bait, barrier and trap for use during the eradication program. Immature and adult snails were attracted to banana fruit and a commercially produced bait but only the commercially produced bait did not attract non-target and pest mammals. Four commercially produced traps and 4 barriers were field evaluated for snail retention efficacy. Snails escaped all traps and trap/barrier combinations but the rate of escape ranged from 10–100% after 24 hrs. Laboratory studies confirmed that snails can survive crossing a 5 cm barrier of copper tape, salt, insect stickem or antifouling paint. In the laboratory study snails did not cross copper sulfate but they crossed the barrier in the field. Adding salt to traps as a means to retain snails reduced the number of snails trapped. Laboratory studies confirmed that dry salt decreased the number of snails entering traps and snails did not enter traps when the salt was dissolved in water. Two trap types and the commercial bait were selected for a large-scale program test. For three months, trapping along with hand collection and pesticide application were conducted on 114 properties in five locations. Traps caught snails when surveys and regular pesticide applications on the same properties did not detect them. On 21 occasions snails were only found in traps, and both immature and adult snails were caught. This study showed that traps could be effectively deployed in an eradication program and they could capture snails that may have escaped other control measures.
Distributional impacts of the North Dakota gas flaring policy

Abstract This paper considers whether the reform of North Dakota’s natural gas flaring policy provided large operators a competitive advantage, leading to increased market concentration. North Dakota was the highest gas flaring and venting state in USA until it was taken over by Texas in 2015 coinciding with the implementation of its gas flaring policy in 2014. Two analyses are performed in North Dakota (and Wyoming, as a control) to compare the effect that the flaring policy had on the state’s oil sector. The analyses show mixed evidence, larger firms gained an advantage leading to fewer smaller firms operating in the state. The paper concludes with highlighting possible further areas for research, and methodologies for acquiring more reliable data.
Models of the U.S. Economy

THE field of economics provides many opportunities for applying mathematics. The quantification of economics that has occurred in the last thirty years has made it necessary that economists be trained in the uses of higher mathematics. Algebra, ge ometry, calculus, probability theory and statistics, higher analysis, linear algebra, and computer science are some of the tools being used in contemporary approaches to economics.
Probabilistic forecasting and economic evaluation of pressure-drawdown effect in unconventional oil reservoirs under uncertainty of water blockage severity

Abstract Applying mild pressure drawdown during early-time oil production from unconventional reservoirs is believed to be beneficial for the ultimate oil recovery because it prevents early fracture conductivity loss and mitigates water blockage. However, previous studies demonstrate mixed results – some studies report mild drawdown as beneficial for the oil recovery, whereas others detrimental. This paper investigates water blockage severity and stress-dependent permeability (SDP) as two of the main reasons for the mixed perceptions. To introduce the uncertainty of water blockage severity, this study builds five distinct reservoir solution models of different levels of water blockage severity to perform probabilistic forecasting. All of the models are validated using the same field production data. Meanwhile, to introduce the uncertainty of SDP, this study used a parametric analysis based on numerous SDP experimental data. The results demonstrate that the mild drawdown tends to result in a higher oil recovery when the reservoir permeability is barely stress-sensitive or when the water blockage is severe. We have also shown that this claim can straighten out the mixed conclusions among some previous papers. However, although the mild drawdown can be beneficial in terms of oil recovery, it can more likely be detrimental in terms of NPV, unless the reservoirs are severely water-blocked. This occurs because such reservoirs tend to generate additional oil recovery soon with a small water production volume.
A Role for Low-Density Lipoprotein Receptor-Related Protein 6 in Blood Vessel Regression in Wound Healing

Objective: The healing of skin wounds is typified by a pattern of robust angiogenesis followed by vascular regression. Pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF), a recognized endogenous antiangiogenic protein, regulates vascular regression in resolving wounds through an unknown receptor. Among the multiple receptors for PEDF that have been identified, low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 6 (Lrp6) has been described as a regulator of angiogenesis in multiple systems. The purpose of the current study was to determine if the Lrp6 receptor plays a role in vessel regression in wounds. Approach: Excisional skin wounds were prepared on C57BL/6 mice. RT-PCR and immunoblots were performed to measure Lrp6 expression over a time course of wound healing. Immunohistochemistry was performed to localize Lrp6 in both recombinant PEDF (rPEDF)-treated and control wounds. To examine whether Lrp6 is critical to the regulation of capillary regression in vivo, wounds were treated with Lrp6 siRNA to minimize its presence in wounds. Immunohistochemistry for CD31 was performed to quantify blood vessel density. Results: PCR and immunoblots revealed significant increases in Lrp6 expression during the vascular regression phase of wound healing. Lrp6 was found to colocalize with CD31+ endothelial cells in wounds. The addition of rPEDF to wounds caused an increase in Lrp6-CD31+ endothelial cell colocalization. Inhibition of Lrp6 by siRNA impeded the vascular regression phase of healing. Innovation: This study is the first to demonstrate an association between Lrp6 and vessel regression in wound healing. Conclusion: Lrp6 is expressed in wounds in a temporal and spatial manner that suggests it may be a receptor for PEDF during vascular regression. PEDF increases Lrp6 expression in the wound vasculature, and inhibition of Lrp6 blocked vascular regression in wounds. The results suggest that Lrp6 is important to vascular regression in wounds, possibly through direct interaction with PEDF.
Thermal Aware Task Scheduling for Enhanced Cyber-Physical Systems Sustainability

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are increasingly used in a variety of transportation, healthcare, electricity grid, and other applications. Thermal stress is often a major concern for processors embedded in such systems. High operating temperatures can dramatically shorten processor life. This, in turn, can require provisioning of significant amounts of additional computational hardware to withstand more frequent failures, with obvious implications for sustainability. This paper describes a novel approach to reduce thermally-induced damage in CPS processors by targeting Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) to high-activity task phases. That is, by preferentially slowing down high-activity task phases, significant additional savings in energy and thermal stress can be attained for a given amount of computational slowdown; this approach is shown to be superior to conventional methods that use DVFS without regard to activity levels. Also, our proposed task reassignment across cores is driven by estimates of current core reliability, which is superior to the usual approach of simply using either current temperature or temperature history. Our approach leads to a significant reliability improvement (around 20 percent) over baseline DVFS techniques.
Choline ameliorates ethanol induced alterations in tyrosine phosphorylation and distribution in detergent-resistant membrane microdomains of L1 cell adhesion molecule in vivo.

Background Exposure to ethanol during pregnancy is the cause of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. The function of L1 cell adhesion molecule (L1), critical for proper brain development, is dependent on detergent-resistant membrane microdomains (DRM). Ethanol at low concentrations disrupts L1 function measured by inhibition of downstream signaling and alterations in L1-DRM distribution in cerebellum in vivo and in cerebellar granule neurons (CGN) in vitro. We have previously shown that choline pretreatment of CGN partially prevents ethanol toxicity through improving L1 function in vitro. Here we show that choline supplementation reduces the impact of ethanol on L1 in cerebellum in vivo. Methods Pregnant rat dams were placed on choline free diet on gestational Day 5 (G5). Pups were treated with saline or choline from postnatal day (P) 1-5. On P5, pups were intubated twice 2 hr apart with ethanol or Intralipid® for a total dose of 6 g/kg/d and sacrificed 1 hr after the last intubation. The cerebella were harvested and L1 phosphorylation/dephosphorylation status and distribution in DRM were analyzed. Results Ethanol reduced L1 tyrosine phosphorylation and L1-Y1176 dephosphorylation in cerebella, and caused an increase in the percent of L1 in DRM. Choline supplementation of pups reduced the ethanol-induced changes in L1 phosphorylation status and ameliorated ethanol-induced redistribution of L1 into DRM. Conclusion Choline supplementation before an acute dose of ethanol ameliorates changes in L1 in vivo.