cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Pre-operative MRI exhibits limited utility in axillary staging for breast cancer

Abstract Introduction Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is commonly utilized in treatment planning of breast cancer patients. While axillary lymph node findings are routinely reported in these studies, the utility of these findings remains unclear. Methods In this retrospective study from 2008–2014, women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer who did not undergo neoadjuvant therapy were reviewed. MRI characteristics of axillary findings were compared to the final pathologic results. Results 210 of 338 female patients met inclusion criteria and comprised our patient cohort. MRI was found to have a sensitivity and specificity of 45% and 84%, respectively. The negative predictive value was 78% with an accuracy of 72% and a false negative rate of 14%. MRI was more often accurate in younger patients (p Conclusion MRI of the axilla is not a reliable tool for axillary staging in women with breast cancer. Microabstract The significance of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of the axilla after routine preoperative imaging is poorly understood. We evaluated the perioperative course including axillary findings on MRI and compared them to the final axillary pathology of 210 women with invasive breast cancer. MRI did not show adequate predictive capability in determining women with invasive cancer progression to the axilla. Clinical practice points Preoperative magnetic resonance imaging of the breast is often obtained for women diagnosed with breast cancer. Findings in the axilla are often commented on in the radiology reports of these studies. There is limited data evaluating the significance of axillary finding in breast cancer imaging. The current literature differs in two important ways from the findings revealed in this study. First, the majority of the current literature focuses on imaging obtained using axillary specific protocols. These findings to not contribute transferable information for the typical clinical practice as these protocols are not commonly ordered or performed. Second, currently available studies have small cohorts, typically less than one hundred patients, or are systematic reviews. This study provides analysis of 210 patients over 6 years and represents the largest single study cohort that evaluates the clinical significance of axillary findings obtained during preoperative MRI of the breast. The findings reported here will aid clinicians when completing the preoperative work up for women diagnosed with breast cancer. Further, the subgroup analysis of our true positives presents an opportunity to potentially identify a new set of breast cancer patients that would have a greater benefit from neoadjuvant chemotherapy and thus spare them the morbidity of axillary lymph node dissection.
Feature Recognition of Two-Dimensional Object Scenes Using Contour Curvature Representation

Abstract The contour curvature representation of object shapes yields a scale-and/or rotation-invariant model-matching technique for object recognition problems. General characteristics associated with the proposed curvature function axe discussed. In addition, an algorithm for computing the curvature function and recognizing object shapes is derived, and numerical results confirming the feasibility of shape recognition based on the proposed algorithm are shown. Finally, a general feature-tracking formulation for celestial bodies, such as comets and asteroids, is presented.
Robust optimization: Lessons learned from aircraft routing

Abstract Building robust airline scheduling models involves constructing schedules and routes with reduced levels of flight delays as well as fewer passenger and crew disruptions. In this paper, we study different classes of models to achieve robust airline scheduling solutions, with a focus on the aircraft routing problem. In particular, we compare one domain-specific approach and two general paradigms of robust models, namely, (i) an extreme-value based or robust optimization-based approach, and (ii) a chance-constrained or stochastic optimization-based approach. Our modeling and solution approach demonstrates the creation of data-driven uncertainty sets for aircraft routing using domain-specific knowledge and develops a completely data-driven simulation-based validation and testing approach. We first demonstrate that additional modeling, capturing domain knowledge, is required to adapt these general robust modeling paradigms to the aircraft routing problem, in order to meaningfully add robustness features specific to aircraft routing. However, we show that these models in their naive forms, still face issues of tractability and solution quality for the large-scale networks which are representative of real-world airline scheduling problems. Therefore, we develop and present advanced models that address these shortcomings. Our advanced models can be applied to aircraft routing in multiple ways, through varied descriptions of the uncertainty sets; and moreover, are generally applicable to linear and binary integer programming problems. Through our detailed computational results, we compare the performance of solutions arising from these different robust modeling paradigms and discuss the underlying reasons for their performance differences from a data-driven perspective.
Efforts to Explain Spontaneous Regression of Cancer

After a study of the 176 cases (Everson and Cole) of spontaneous regression of cancer and recent progress in immunology, the author is convinced stimulation of the immune process is the most important factor in S.R. of cancer. Stimulating factors are numerous including bacterial products, enzymes, infections, hormones, trauma, etc. Of the 176 cases reported by Everson and Cole, 71 (40%) were associated with some type of operative trauma. Since the effective anticancer agent interferon is an important protective agent (especially antiviral) in the human body, this product could readily play an important role. Immunoglobulins appear to be possible factors. The blocking and unblocking agents of the Hellstroms and associates support this supposition. Elimination of carcinogens appears important, considering the remarkable disappearance of cancer of the bladder in 12 of 13 patients having diversion of the urine from the bladder to the colon by transplantation of the ureters from the bladder to the colon. Innumerable antigens unknown to us at the present time could act as stimulants to our immune system, and thus cause regression of cancer. Hormonal factors must obviously be considered, but the author is doubtful that they exert an important role.
Renal Cell Carcinoma in Patients With Tuberous Sclerosis

An adolescent with anemia and weight loss was found to have bilateral renal cell carcinoma (hypernephroma). Further investigation revealed an underlying tuberous sclerosis that had escaped previous clinical detection. Several reports of this association were subsequently found when the world9s literature was reviewed. Physicians treating patients with tuberous sclerosis should be aware of the possible development of these renal malignancies in their patients.
The Minor fall, the Major lift: inferring emotional valence of musical chords through lyrics

We investigate the association between musical chords and lyrics by analysing a large dataset of user-contributed guitar tablatures. Motivated by the idea that the emotional content of chords is reflected in the words used in corresponding lyrics, we analyse associations between lyrics and chord categories. We also examine the usage patterns of chords and lyrics in different musical genres, historical eras and geographical regions. Our overall results confirm a previously known association between Major chords and positive valence. We also report a wide variation in this association across regions, genres and eras. Our results suggest possible existence of different emotional associations for other types of chords.
Confirmation of the Utility of Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy of the Renal Allograft

Confirmation of the utility of fine needle aspiration biopsy of the renal allograft. Allograft immunobiologic theory would predict that analysis of immunocompetent cells infiltrating the renal transplant would be most instructive. Recently a new aspiration biopsy technique has been developed to permit such analysis in patients which can be safely and repetitively performed. The clinical utility of such a technique has been tested utilizing a randomized prospective trial in which an aspirate was obtained every other day from the third post-operative day until discharge. Analysis included examination of adequacy criteria and the capacity of pathologic diagnosis to corroborate clinical diagnosis from coded specimens. Ninety-six aspirates from 21 consenting transplant recipients were obtained and analyzed. In 94 instances a clinical diagnosis could be made; 80 aspirates fulfilled adequacy criteria. We found the technique to be highly sensitive (≥ 90%) and highly specific (≥ 90%) for the clinical diagnoses of acute allograft rejection, postoperative acute renal failure, cyclosporine toxicity, and normal function. We conclude that the fine needle aspiration technique is an important adjunct to analysis of clinical renal transplantation and offers a major advantage to the clinical scholar in understanding transplant biology.
Nuclear Medicine in Acute and Chronic Renal Failure

The diagnostic value of renal scintiscans in patients with acute or chronic renal failure has not been emphasized other than for the estimation of renal size. 131 I OIH, 67 gallium, 99m TcDTPA, glucoheptonate and DMSA all may be valuable in a variety of specific settings. Acute renal failure due to acute tubular necrosis, hepatorenal syndrome, acute interstitial nephritis, cortical necrosis, renal artery embolism, or acute pyelonephritis may be recognized. Data useful in the diagnosis and management of the patient with obstructive or reflux nephropathy may be obtained. Radionuclide studies in patients with chronic renal failure may help make apparent such causes as renal artery stenosis, chronic pyelonephritis or lymphomatous kidney infiltration. Future correlation of scanning results with renal pathology promises to further expand nuclear medicine's utility in the noninvasive diagnosis of renal disease.
The Inverse Shapley value problem

Abstract For f a weighted voting scheme used by n voters to choose between two candidates, the n Shapley–Shubik Indices (or Shapley values ) of f measure how much control each voter can exert over the overall outcome. The Inverse Shapley Value Problem is the problem of designing a weighted voting scheme which (approximately) achieves a desired input vector of values for the Shapley–Shubik indices. We give the first efficient algorithm with provable guarantees for the Inverse Shapley Value Problem. For any constant ϵ > 0 our algorithm runs in fixed poly( n ) time and satisfies the following: given as input a vector of desired Shapley values, if any “reasonable” weighted voting scheme (roughly, one in which the threshold is not too skewed) approximately matches the desired vector of values, then our algorithm outputs a weighted voting scheme that achieves this vector of Shapley values to within error ϵ .
Gene-by-Environment Interactions on Alcohol Use Among Asian American College Freshmen

Objective:Among northeast Asians, the variant aldehyde dehydrogenase allele, ALDH2*2 (rs671, A/G, minor/major), has been inversely associated with alcohol dependence. The strength of the associations between ALDH2*2 and drinking behaviors depends on the developmental stage, the phenotype studied, and other moderating variables. This study examined ALDH2 gene status as a moderator of the associations between parental drinking, peer drinking, and acculturation with alcohol use among 222 Chinese American and Korean American college freshmen.Method:Negative binomial regressions were used to test the main and interactive effects of ALDH2 with contextual factors on alcohol frequency (drinking days) and quantity (drinks per drinking day) in the past 3 months.Results:ALDH2*2 was associated with more subjective flushing symptoms and longer length of flushing but was unrelated to both alcohol frequency and quantity. Peer drinking was positively associated with both alcohol frequency and quantity, but neither was mo...
Signatures of the quark-gluon plasma

Abstract I review the various observables that have been proposed as signals for the change in the structure of dense hadronic matter, when it becomes quark-gluon plasma at high temperature, or quark matter at high baryon density. I also discuss the inherent ambiguities of these signatures.
Screening for colorectal cancer.

Sidney Winawer and Ann Zauber claim that screening for colorectal cancer with the fecal occult blood test will save 12 325 life-years per 100 000 people screened annually and that it costs less than $20 000 per life-year saved.[1][1] I submit that neither conclusion is tenable. For colorectal
NonSTOP: A NonSTationary Online Prediction Method for Time Series

We present online prediction methods for time series that let us explicitly handle nonstationary artifacts (e.g., trend and seasonality) present in most real time series. Specifically, we show that applying appropriate transformations to such time series before prediction can lead to improved theoretical and empirical prediction performance. Moreover, since these transformations are usually unknown, we employ the learning with experts setting to develop a fully online method (NonSTOP-NonSTationary Online Prediction) for predicting nonstationary time series. This framework allows for seasonality and/or other trends in univariate time series and cointegration in multivariate time series. Our algorithms and regret analysis subsume recent related work while significantly expanding the applicability of such methods. For all the methods, we provide sublinear regret bounds. We support all of our results with experiments on simulated and real data.
A Pilot Randomized Trial of Oral Magnesium Supplementation on Supraventricular Arrhythmias

Low magnesium may increase the risk of atrial fibrillation. We conducted a double-blind pilot randomized trial to assess adherence to oral magnesium supplementation (400 mg of magnesium oxide daily) and a matching placebo, estimate the effect on circulating magnesium concentrations, and evaluate the feasibility of using an ambulatory heart rhythm monitoring device (ZioPatch) for assessing premature atrial contractions. A total of 59 participants were randomized; 73% were women, and the mean age was 62 years. A total of 98% of the participants completed the follow-up. In the magnesium supplement group, 75% of pills were taken, and in the placebo group, 83% were taken. The change in magnesium concentrations was significantly greater for those given the magnesium supplements than for those given the placebo (0.07; 95% confidence interval: 0.03, 0.12 mEq/L; p = 0.002). The ZioPatch wear time was approximately 13 of the requested 14 days at baseline and follow-up. There was no difference by intervention assignment in the change in log premature atrial contractions burden, glucose, or blood pressure. Gastrointestinal changes were more common among the participants assigned magnesium (50%) than among those assigned the placebo (7%), but only one person discontinued participation. In sum, compliance with the oral magnesium supplementation was very good, and acceptance of the ZioPatch monitoring was excellent. These findings support the feasibility of a larger trial for atrial fibrillation (AF) prevention with oral magnesium supplementation.
The Completeness of BCD for an Operational Semantics

The theorem of Coppo et al. ([3, 6]) states that an untyped lambda term is strongly normalizable if and only if it provably has an intersection type. Here we consider which terms have which types.
TrollSpot: Detecting misbehavior in commenting platforms

Commenting platforms, such as Disqus, have emerged as a major online communication platform with millions of users and posts. Their popularity has also attracted parasitic and malicious behaviors, such as trolling and spamming. There has been relatively little research on modeling and safeguarding these platforms. As our key contribution, we develop a systematic approach to detect malicious users on commenting platforms. Our work provides two key novelties: (a) we provide a fine-grained classification of malicious behaviors, and (b) we use a comprehensive set of 73 features that span four dimensions of information. We use 7 million comments during a 9 month period, and we show that our classification methods can distinguish between benign, and malicious roles (spammers, trollers, and fanatics) with a 0.904 AUC. Our work is a solid step towards ensuring that commenting platforms are a safe and pleasant medium for the exchange of ideas.
Uterocervical Angle Measurement Improves Prediction of Preterm Birth in Twin Gestation

Objective Twin pregnancies are associated with an increased risk of spontaneous preterm birth. Our objective was to compare the performance of uterocervical angle to cervical length as predictors of spontaneous preterm birth in this population. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of twin gestations at a single center from May 2008 to 2016 who received a transvaginal ultrasound for the evaluation of the cervix between 16 0/7 and 23 0/7 weeks. The primary outcome was prediction of preterm birth Results Among 259 women with twin gestation, the mean gestational age at birth was 34.83 ± 3.48 weeks. Receiver operator characteristic curves demonstrated optimal prediction of spontaneous preterm birth prior to 32 weeks at a uterocervical angle >110° (80% sensitivity, 82% specificity) [odds ratio (OR), 15.7 (95% confidence interval (CI), 7.2–34.4)] versus cervical length 114° (OR, 24.3 [95% CI, 6.7–88.5]) compared with cervical length Conclusion Uterocervical angles >110° performed better than cervical length for the prediction of spontaneous preterm birth in twin gestations.
Defects in GaN Pyramids Grown on Si(111) Substrates by Selective Lateral Overgrowth

Selective lateral growth of GaN is a promising technique for producing high quality material for microelectronic and optoelectronic devices. Single-crystal GaN/AlN layers have been grown on Si(111) substrates and subsequently used as the seeding layer for selective lateral overgrowth. GaN pyramids are formed above holes patterned in a Si3N4 mask. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM, which also denotes the microscope) of these structures shows that the GaN pyramid, GaN seed layer, and AlN buffer layer in the samples have the following epitactic relationship with respect to the Si substrate: $$\left[ {11\bar 20} \right]_{{\rm{GaN}}} \left\| {\left[ {11\bar 20} \right]_{{\rm{AIN}}} } \right\|\left[ {\bar 110} \right]_{{\rm{Si}}} $$ and (0001)GaN ∥ (0001)AlN ∥ (111)Si. In the core of the pyramid (at or above the seed windows), dislocations thread through the pyramid perpendicular to the interface plane with very high density. Some of these threading dislocations, which originate from the GaN/AlN seed layer, form 90° bends and half loops at the edge of the pyramid core. In the lateral growth part of the GaN pyramid, the dislocation density is relatively low. The majority of dislocations thread through the pyramid parallel to the interface plane. Planar defects, usually parallel to the interface plane, were observed near the interface. The defect density decreases with the distance away from the interface, so that the top several microns of material maybe completely defect free. The mechanism of the growth of GaN pyramids is discussed and related to this defect structure.
The Credit Rating Industry

Investors and regulators have been increasing their reliance on the opinions of the credit rating agencies. This article shows that although the ratings provide accurate rank-orderings of default risk, the meaning of specific letter grades varies over time and across agencies. Noting that current regulations do not explicitly adjust for agency differences, the authors argue that a reassessment of the use of ratings and the adequacy of public oversight is overdue.
A conserved function for pericentromeric satellite DNA.

On Earth, life is divided into three domains. The smallest of these domains includes all the creatures, from sunflowers to yeasts to humans, that have the genetic information within their cells encased in a structure known as the nucleus. The genomes of these organisms are formed of long pieces of DNA, called chromosomes, which are packaged tightly and then unpackaged every time the cell divides. When a cell is not dividing, the chromosomes in the nucleus are loosely bundled up together. It is well known that DNA is the blueprint for the building blocks of life, but actually most of the genetic information in a cell codes for nothing, and has unknown roles. An example of such ‘junk DNA’ is pericentrometric satellite DNA, small repetitive sequences found on all chromosomes. However, new experiments by Jagannathan et al. show that, in the nucleus of animal cells, certain DNA binding proteins make chromosomes huddle together by attaching to multiple pericentrometric satellite DNA sequences on different chromosomes. In fact, if these proteins are removed from mice and fruit flies cells grown in the laboratory, the chromosomes cannot be clustered together. Instead, they ‘float away’, and the membranes of the nucleus get damaged, possibly buckling under the pressure of the unorganized DNA. These events damage the genetic information, which can lead to the cell dying or forming tumors. ‘Junk DNA’ therefore appears to participate in fundamental cellular processes across species, a result that opens up several new lines of research.
Decentralization and redistribution : irrigation reform in Pakistan's Indus basin

Does decentralizing the allocation of public resources reduce rent-seeking and improve equity? This paper studies a governance reform in Pakistan's vast Indus Basin irrigation system. Using canal discharge measurements across all of Punjab province, the analysis finds that water theft increased on channels taken over by local farmer organizations compared with channels that remained bureaucratically managed, leading to substantial wealth redistribution. The increase in water theft was greater along channels with larger landowners situated upstream. These findings are consistent with a model in which decentralization accentuates the political power of local elites by shifting the arena in which water rights are contested.
Direct Measurement of the Protein Response to an Electrostatic Perturbation that Mimics the Catalytic Cycle in Ketosteroid Isomerase

electrostatic perturbation that simulates the charge displacement that occurs along the KSI catalytic reaction coordinate. Photoexcitation of a fluorescent analog (coumarin 183) of the reaction intermediate mimics the change in charge distribution that occurs between the reactant and intermediate state in the steroid substrate of KSI. We measured the electrostatic response and angular dynamics of four probe dipoles in the enzyme active site by monitoring the time-resolved changes in the vibrational absorbance (IR) spectrum of a spectator thiocyanate moiety (a quantitative sensor of changes in electric field) placed at four different locations in and around the active site, using polarization-dependent transient vibrational Stark spectroscopy. The four different dipoles in the active site remain immobile and do not align to the changes in the substrate electric field. These results indicate that the active site of KSI is preorganized with respect to functionally relevant changes in electric fields.
Functional Imbalance of Anterolateral Entorhinal Cortex and Hippocampal Dentate/CA3 Underlies Age-Related Object Pattern Separation Deficits.

The entorhinal cortex (EC) is among the earliest brain areas to deteriorate in Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the extent to which functional properties of the EC are altered in the aging brain, even in the absence of clinical symptoms, is not understood. Recent human fMRI studies have identified a functional dissociation within the EC, similar to what is found in rodents. Here, we used high-resolution fMRI to identify a specific hypoactivity in the anterolateral EC (alEC) commensurate with major behavioral deficits on an object pattern separation task in asymptomatic older adults. Only subtle deficits were found in a comparable spatial condition, with no associated differences in posteromedial EC between young and older adults. We additionally linked this condition to dentate/CA3 hyperactivity, and the ratio of activity between the regions was associated with object mnemonic discrimination impairment. These results provide novel evidence of alEC-dentate/CA3 circuit dysfunction in cognitively normal aged humans.
Harry Potter and the Relational Child: Engaging Millennials in a New Generation of Counseling

ABSTRACTHarry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two (Rowling, Thorne, & Tiffany, 2016) is the latest installment in a franchise that has defined the millenial generation. The screenplay ca...
Characteristics of Female Genital Restoration Surgery for Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia Using a Large-scale Administrative Database.

Objective To analyze nationwide information on the timing of surgical procedures, cost of surgery, hospital length of stay following surgery, and surgical complications of female genital restoration surgery (FGRS) in females with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Materials and Methods We used the Pediatric Health Information System database to identify patients with CAH who underwent their initial FGRS in 2004-2014. These patients were identified by an International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) diagnosis code for adrenogenital disorders (255.2) in addition to a vaginal ICD-9 procedure code (70.x, excluding vaginoscopy only) or perineal ICD-9 procedure code (71.x), which includes clitoral operations (71.4). Results A total of 544 (11.8%) females underwent FGRS between 2004 and 2014. Median age at initial surgery was 9.9 months (interquartile range 6.8-19.1 months). Ninety-two percent underwent a vaginal procedure, 48% underwent a clitoral procedure, and 85% underwent a perineal procedure (non-clitoral). The mean length of stay was 2.5 days (standard deviation 2.5 days). The mean cost of care was $12,258 (median $9,558). Thirty-day readmission rate was 13.8%. Two percent underwent reoperation before discharge, and 1 (0.2%) was readmitted for a reoperation within 30 days. Four percent had a perioperative surgical complication. Conclusion Overall, 12% of girls with CAH underwent FGRS at one of a national collaborative of freestanding children's hospitals. The majority underwent a vaginoplasty as a part of their initial FGRS for CAH. Clitoroplasty was performed on less than half the patients. Overall, FGRS for CAH is performed at a median age of 10 months and has low 30-day complication and immediate reoperation rates.
Keynes on the Sequencing of Economic Policy:: Recovery and Reform in 1933

On 31 December 1933, The New York Times published an open letter from John Maynard Keynes to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). In it Keynes encouraged FDR to expand public works through govern...
Stochastic bandits robust to adversarial corruptions

We introduce a new model of stochastic bandits with adversarial corruptions which aims to capture settings where most of the input follows a stochastic pattern but some fraction of it can be adversarially changed to trick the algorithm, e.g., click fraud, fake reviews and email spam. The goal of this model is to encourage the design of bandit algorithms that (i) work well in mixed adversarial and stochastic models, and (ii) whose performance deteriorates gracefully as we move from fully stochastic to fully adversarial models. In our model, the rewards for all arms are initially drawn from a distribution and are then altered by an adaptive adversary. We provide a simple algorithm whose performance gracefully degrades with the total corruption the adversary injected in the data, measured by the sum across rounds of the biggest alteration the adversary made in the data in that round; this total corruption is denoted by C. Our algorithm provides a guarantee that retains the optimal guarantee (up to a logarithmic term) if the input is stochastic and whose performance degrades linearly to the amount of corruption C, while crucially being agnostic to it. We also provide a lower bound showing that this linear degradation is necessary if the algorithm achieves optimal performance in the stochastic setting (the lower bound works even for a known amount of corruption, a special case in which our algorithm achieves optimal performance without the extra logarithm).
The effects of implicit encouragement and the putative confession on children's memory reports.

Abstract The current study tested the effects of two interview techniques on children's report productivity and accuracy following exposure to suggestion: implicit encouragement (backchanneling, use of children's names) and the putative confession (telling children that a suspect "told me everything that happened and wants you to tell the truth"). One hundred and forty-three, 3–8-year-old children participated in a classroom event. One week later, they took part in a highly suggestive conversation about the event and then a mock forensic interview in which the two techniques were experimentally manipulated. Greater use of implicit encouragement led to increases, with age, in children's narrative productivity. Neither technique improved or reduced children's accuracy. No increases in errors about previously suggested information were evident when children received either technique. Implications for the use of these techniques in child forensic interviews are discussed.
Peer victimization and substance use: Understanding the indirect effect of depressive symptomatology across gender.

Abstract Objective Peer victimization in school is common, with emerging literature suggesting that it may also increase risk for substance abuse. Yet, little is known about the underlying mechanisms within this risk pathway. The objective of this study is to use a prospective 3-wave design to examine the mediating role of depressive symptomatology on the relationship between peer victimization and substance use, as well as examine if the pathway varies based on gender. Method 801 youth between 6th and 12th grade completed surveys across three years, which included measures on school peer victimization, depression symptomatology and substance use. Models tested the mediational pathway between victimization, depressive symptoms, and substance use. Models were stratified by gender. Results Controlling for grade and the effect of each variable across waves, a significant indirect effect of peer victimization on substance use through depressive symptoms was found for females, with a non-significant indirect effect for males. Conclusion Results suggest that female youth who are victimized by peers engage in substance use behaviors, at least in part, due to increases in depressive symptoms. Given its effect on depression, female victims may therefore benefit from coping skills training that targets emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills in order to combat increased risk for substance use behaviors as a coping response to their victimization. Further research is warranted to better understand the risk pathway for male youth who also experience peer victimization.
Changing Trends in Computational Drug Repositioning

Efforts to maximize the indications potential and revenue from drugs that are already marketed are largely motivated by what Sir James Black, a Nobel Prize-winning pharmacologist advocated—“The most fruitful basis for the discovery of a new drug is to start with an old drug”. However, rational design of drug mixtures poses formidable challenges because of the lack of or limited information about in vivo cell regulation, mechanisms of genetic pathway activation, and in vivo pathway interactions. Hence, most of the successfully repositioned drugs are the result of “serendipity”, discovered during late phase clinical studies of unexpected but beneficial findings. The connections between drug candidates and their potential adverse drug reactions or new applications are often difficult to foresee because the underlying mechanism associating them is largely unknown, complex, or dispersed and buried in silos of information. Discovery of such multi-domain pharmacomodules—pharmacologically relevant sub-networks of biomolecules and/or pathways—from collection of databases by independent/simultaneous mining of multiple datasets is an active area of research. Here, while presenting some of the promising bioinformatics approaches and pipelines, we summarize and discuss the current and evolving landscape of computational drug repositioning.
How, When, and Where Relic DNA Affects Microbial Diversity

Extracellular or "relic" DNA is one of the largest pools of nucleic acids in the biosphere. Relic DNA can influence a number of important ecological and evolutionary processes, but it may also affect estimates of microbial abundance and diversity, which has implications for understanding environmental, engineered, and host-associated ecosystems. We developed models capturing the fundamental processes that regulate the size and composition of the relic DNA pools to identify scenarios leading to biased estimates of biodiversity. Our models predict that bias increases with relic DNA pool size, but only when the species abundance distributions (SADs) of relic and intact DNA are distinct from one another. We evaluated our model predictions by quantifying relic DNA and assessing its contribution to bacterial diversity using 16S rRNA gene sequences collected from different ecosystem types, including soil, sediment, water, and the mammalian gut. On average, relic DNA made up 33% of the total bacterial DNA pool but exceeded 80% in some samples. Despite its abundance, relic DNA had a minimal effect on estimates of taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity, even in ecosystems where processes such as the physical protection of relic DNA are common and predicted by our models to generate bias. Our findings are consistent with the expectation that relic DNA from different taxa degrades at a constant and equal rate, suggesting that it may not fundamentally alter estimates of microbial diversity.IMPORTANCE The ability to rapidly obtain millions of gene sequences and transcripts from a range of environments has greatly advanced understanding of the processes that regulate microbial communities. However, nucleic acids extracted from complex samples do not come only from viable microorganisms. Dead microorganisms can generate large pools of relic DNA that distort insight into the ecology and evolution of microbial systems. Here, we develop a conceptual and quantitative framework for understanding how relic DNA influences the structure of microbiomes. Our theoretical models and empirical results demonstrate that a large relic DNA pool does not automatically lead to biased estimates of microbial diversity. Rather, relic DNA effects emerge in combination with microscale processes that alter the commonness and rarity of sequences found in heterogeneous DNA pools.
Hope, goals, and pathways: Further validating the hope scale with observer ratings

ABSTRACTObjective: For the past two decades, hope theory has been an important framework for conceptualizing goal pursuits. Surprisingly there has been little effort to test the underlying supposit...
On the Capacity of Single-Server Multi-Message Private Information Retrieval with Side Information

We study Private Information Retrieval with Side Information (PIR-SI) in the single-server multi-message setting. In this setting, a user wants to download D messages from a database of $K \geq D$ messages, stored on a single server, without revealing any information about the identities of the demanded messages to the server. The goal of the user is to achieve information-theoretic privacy by leveraging the side information about the database. The side information consists of a random subset of M messages. The identities of the messages forming the side information are initially unknown to the server. Our goal is to characterize the capacity of this setting, i.e., the maximum achievable download rate. In our previous work, we have established the PIR-SI capacity for the special case in which the user wants a single message, i.e., $D = 1$ and showed that the capacity can be achieved through the Partition and Code scheme. In this paper, we focus on the case when the user wants multiple messages, i.e., $D\lt /p\gt \gt 1$. Our first result is that if the user wants more messages than what they have as side information, i.e., $D \gt M$, then the capacity is $\frac{D}{K-M}$, and it can be achieved using a scheme based on the Generalized Reed-Solomon codes. Our second result shows that when $D\leq M$ the capacity can be higher. We present a lower bound on the capacity based on an achievability scheme which we call Generalized Partition and Code.
Dynamic Routing on Deep Neural Network for Thoracic Disease Classification and Sensitive Area Localization

We present and evaluate a new deep neural network architecture for automatic thoracic disease detection on chest X-rays. Deep neural networks has shown great success in a plethora of vision recognition tasks such as image classification and object detection by stacking multiple layers of convolutional neural networks (CNN) in a feed forward manner. However the performance gain by going deeper has reached bottlenecks as a result of the trade-off between model complexity and discrimination power. We address this problem by utilizing recently developed routing-by agreement mechanism in our architecture. A novel characteristic of our network structure is that it extends routing to two types of layer connections (1) connection between feature maps in dense layers, (2) connection between primary capsules and prediction capsules in final classification layer. We show that our networks achieves comparable results with much fewer layers in the measurement of AUC score. We further show the combined benefits of model interpretability by generating Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) for localization. We demonstrate our results on the NIH chestX-ray14 dataset that consists of 112,120 images on 30,805 unique patients including 14 kinds of lung diseases.
Total Variation Approximation of Random Orthogonal Matrices by Gaussian Matrices

The topic of this paper is the asymptotic distribution of the entries of random orthogonal matrices distributed according to Haar measure. We examine the total variation distance between the joint distribution of the entries of $$W_n$$, the $$p_n \times q_n$$ upper-left block of a Haar-distributed matrix, and that of $$p_nq_n$$ independent standard Gaussian random variables and show that the total variation distance converges to zero when $$p_nq_n = o(n)$$.
Crime, Urban Flight, and the Consequences for Cities

This paper analyzes the link between rising city crime rates and urban flight. Each additional reported crime is associated with a roughly one-person decline in city population. Almost all of the crime-related population decline is attributable to increased out-migration rather than a decrease in new arrivals. Households that leave the city because of crime are much more likely to remain within the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) than those that leave the city for other reasons. Migration decisions of highly educated households and those with children are particularly responsive to changes in crime. Causality appears to run from rising crime rates to city depopulation.
Robust Image Stitching with Multiple Registrations

Panorama creation is one of the most widely deployed techniques in computer vision. In addition to industry applications such as Google Street View, it is also used by millions of consumers in smartphones and other cameras. Traditionally, the problem is decomposed into three phases: registration, which picks a single transformation of each source image to align it to the other inputs, seam finding, which selects a source image for each pixel in the final result, and blending, which fixes minor visual artifacts [1, 2]. Here, we observe that the use of a single registration often leads to errors, especially in scenes with significant depth variation or object motion. We propose instead the use of multiple registrations, permitting regions of the image at different depths to be captured with greater accuracy. MRF inference techniques naturally extend to seam finding over multiple registrations, and we show here that their energy functions can be readily modified with new terms that discourage duplication and tearing, common problems that are exacerbated by the use of multiple registrations. Our techniques are closely related to layer-based stereo [3, 4], and move image stitching closer to explicit scene modeling. Experimental evidence demonstrates that our techniques often generate significantly better panoramas when there is substantial motion or parallax.
The Liquidus Temperature for Methanol-Water Mixtures at High Pressure and Low Temperature, With Application to Titan

Methanol is a potentially important impurity in subsurface oceans on Titan and Enceladus. We report measurements of the freezing of methanol-water samples at pressures up to 350~MPa using a volumetric cell with sapphire windows. For low concentrations of methanol, the liquidus temperature is typically a few degrees below the corresponding ice freezing point, while at high concentrations it follows the pure methanol trend. In the Ice-III regime, we observe several long-lived metastable states. The results suggest that methanol is a more effective antifreeze than previously estimated, and might have played an important role in the development of Titan's subsurface ocean.
The Effects of Critical Audit Matter Removal and Duration on Jurors' Assessments of Auditor Negligence

SUMMARY A primary concern facing the PCAOB's requirement of disclosing critical audit matters (CAMs) is increased auditor litigation risk. Evidence with Key Audit Matters from the U.K. indicates au...
Nonlinear Pricing of Software with Local Demand Inelasticity

Nonlinear usage-based pricing is applied extensively in software markets. Customers of software products usually cannot vary their required usage volume, a property we label local demand inelastici...
Foundations of Security for Hash Chains in Ad Hoc Networks

Nodes in ad hoc networks generally transmit data at regular intervals over long periods of time. Recently, ad hoc network nodes have been built that run on little power and have very limited memory. Authentication is a significant challenge in ad hoc networks, even without considering size and power constraints. Expounding on idealized hashing, this paper examines lower bounds for ad hoc broadcast authentication for ?TESLA-like protocols. In particular, this paper explores idealized hashing for generating preimages of hash chains. Building on Bellare and Rogaway's classical definition, a similar definition for families of hash chains is given. Using these idealized families of hash chain functions, this paper gives a time-space product ?(k2 log 4 n) bit operation1 lower-bound for optimal preimage hash chain generation for k constant. This bound holds where n is the total length of the hash chain and the hash function family is k-wise independent. These last results follow as corollaries to a lower bound of Coppersmith and Jakobsson.
NQO1-dependent, Tumor-selective Radiosensitization of Non-small Cell Lung Cancers.

Purpose: Development of tumor-specific therapies for the treatment of recalcitrant non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs) are urgently needed. Here, we investigated the ability of s-lapachone (s-lap, ARQ761 in clinical form) to selectively potentiate the effects of ionizing radiation (IR, 1-3 Gy) in NSCLCs that over-express NAD(P)H:Quinone Oxidoreductase 1 (NQO1). Experimental Design: The mechanism of lethality of low dose IR in combination with sublethal doses of s-lap were evaluated in NSCLC lines in vitro and validated in subcutaneous and orthotopic xenograph models in vivo. Pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) studies comparing single versus co-treatments were performed to validate therapeutic efficacy and mechanism of action. Results: s-Lap administration after IR treatment hyperactivated PARP, greatly lowered NAD+/ATP levels, and increased DSB lesions over time in vitro. Radiosensitization of orthotopic, as well as subcutaneous, NSCLCs occurred with high apparent cures (>70%), even though 1/8 s-lap doses reach subcutaneous versus orthotopic tumors. No methemoglobinemia or long-term toxicities were noted in any normal tissues, including mouse liver that expresses the highest level of NQO1 (~12 Units) of any normal tissue. PK/PD responses confirm that IR + s-lap treatments hyperactivate PARP activity, greatly lower NAD+/ATP levels and dramatically inhibit DSB repair in exposed NQO1+ cancer tissue, while low NQO1 levels and high levels of Catalase in associated normal tissue were protective. Conclusion: Our data suggest that combination of sublethal doses of s-lap and IR is a viable approach to selectively treat NQO1-overexpressing NSCLC and warrant a clinical trial using low-dose IR + s-lapachone against patients with NQO1+ NSCLCs.
DdcA antagonizes a bacterial DNA damage checkpoint

Bacteria coordinate DNA replication and cell division, ensuring a complete set of genetic material is passed onto the next generation. When bacteria encounter DNA damage, a cell cycle checkpoint is activated by expressing a cell division inhibitor. The prevailing model is that activation of the DNA damage response and protease-mediated degradation of the inhibitor is sufficient to regulate the checkpoint process. Our recent genome-wide screens identified the gene ddcA as critical for surviving exposure to DNA damage. Similar to the checkpoint recovery proteases, the DNA damage sensitivity resulting from ddcA deletion depends on the checkpoint enforcement protein YneA. Using several genetic approaches, we show that DdcA function is distinct from the checkpoint recovery process. Deletion of ddcA resulted in sensitivity to yneA overexpression independent of YneA protein levels and stability, further supporting the conclusion that DdcA regulates YneA independent of proteolysis. Using a functional GFP-YneA fusion we found that DdcA prevents YneA-dependent cell elongation independent of YneA localization. Together, our results suggest that DdcA acts by helping to set a threshold of YneA required to establish the cell cycle checkpoint, uncovering a new regulatory step controlling activation of the DNA damage checkpoint in Bacillus subtilis.