cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Bacterial quorum sensing stabilizes cooperation by optimizing growth strategies

ABSTRACT Communication has been suggested as a mechanism to stabilize cooperation. In bacteria, chemical communication, termed quorum sensing (QS), has been hypothesized to fill this role, and extracellular public goods are often induced by QS at high cell densities. Here we show, with the bacterium Vibrio harveyi, that QS provides strong resistance against invasion of a QS defector strain by maximizing the cellular growth rate at low cell densities while achieving maximum productivity through protease upregulation at high cell densities. In contrast, QS mutants that act as defectors or unconditional cooperators maximize either the growth rate or the growth yield, respectively, and thus are less fit than the wild-type QS strain. Our findings provide experimental evidence that regulation mediated by microbial communication can optimize growth strategies and stabilize cooperative phenotypes by preventing defector invasion, even under well-mixed conditions. This effect is due to a combination of responsiveness to environmental conditions provided by QS, lowering of competitive costs when QS is not induced, and pleiotropic constraints imposed on defectors that do not perform QS. IMPORTANCE Cooperation is a fundamental problem for evolutionary biology to explain. Conditional participation through phenotypic plasticity driven by communication is a potential solution to this dilemma. Thus, among bacteria, QS has been proposed to be a proximate stabilizing mechanism for cooperative behaviors. Here, we empirically demonstrate that QS in V. harveyi prevents cheating and subsequent invasion by nonproducing defectors by maximizing the growth rate at low cell densities and the growth yield at high cell densities, whereas an unconditional cooperator is rapidly driven to extinction by defectors. Our findings provide experimental evidence that QS regulation prevents the invasion of cooperative populations by QS defectors even under unstructured conditions, and they strongly support the role of communication in bacteria as a mechanism that stabilizes cooperative traits.
Patterns of ambulatory care for AIDS patients, and association with emergency room use.

OBJECTIVE. We examined the association of patterns of ambulatory care for AIDS patients with any use of the emergency room (ER) and the monthly rate of ER visits in the six months after AIDS diagnosis. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING. The study population was obtained from the New York State Medicaid HIV/AIDS Research Data Base and includes patients diagnosed with AIDS from 1983 to 1990. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS. To examine patterns of care and ER use not leading to hospitalization, we studied patients who survived at least six months after their first AIDS-defining diagnosis. The data base included person level information on visits to different provider sites and patient demographic and clinical characteristics. STUDY DESIGN. We defined the dominant provider as the site delivering the majority of ambulatory care for patients with a minimum of four ambulatory visits in the six months after AIDS diagnosis. Dominant providers were classified by specialty and setting: generalist physician; general medicine clinic; AIDS specialty clinic; and other specialty clinic or physician (e.g., cardiology). Patients without a dominant provider were grouped into those with four or more visits and those with fewer than four visits. Regression analysis was used to estimate relationships between ER use and patterns of ambulatory care and patient demographic and severity of illness characteristics. PRINCIPAL RESULTS. The study population included 9,155 AIDS patients aged 13 to 60 years at diagnosis, continuously Medicaid-enrolled, and surviving at least six months after AIDS diagnosis. Among those with four or more visits (56 percent), over 70 percent had a dominant provider. Overall, 39 percent of the study population visited the ER while, in the group with four or more visits, 53 percent of those without a dominant provider had an ER visit. Patients without a dominant provider were estimated to have 32 percent higher odds of ER use than patients with a dominant provider. Among patients with a dominant provider, patients with a generalist or primary care clinic dominant site of care were estimated respectively to have 18 percent and 23 percent lower odds than patients with an AIDS specialty clinic as the dominant site of care. Drug users had higher odds of ER use, as did women. CONCLUSIONS. In this Medicaid AIDS population, a dominant provider delivering the majority of a patient's care was associated with less use of the ER by the patient. Among patients with a dominant provider, ER use was lowest for those with a primary care provider. Further examination of the type and availability of ambulatory services in AIDS specialty clinics and primary care settings, as well as more detailed information on patient characteristics, may reveal reasons for these patterns of ER use.
Comparative Effectiveness of Hands-on Versus Computer Simulation-Based Training for Contrast Media Reactions and Teamwork Skills.

Abstract Purpose To assess the performance of interprofessional teams of radiologists, technologists, and nurses trained with high-fidelity hands-on (HO) simulation and computer-based (CB) simulation training for contrast reaction management (CR) and teamwork skills (TS). Methods Nurses, technologists, and radiology residents were randomized into 11 teams of three (one of each). Six teams underwent HO training and five underwent CB training for CR and TS. Participants took written tests before and after training and were further tested using a high-fidelity simulation scenario. Results HO and CB groups scored similarly on all written tests and each showed improvement after training ( P = .002 and P = .018, respectively). During the final scenario test, HO teams tended to receive higher grades than CB teams on CR (95% versus 81%, P = .17) and made fewer errors in epinephrine administration (0/6 versus 2/5, P = .18). HO and CB teams scored similarly on TS (51% versus 52%, P = .66), but overall scores were lower for TS than for CR skills in both the HO ( P = .03) and CB teams ( P = .06). HO training was more highly rated than CB as an effective educational tool ( P = .01) and for effectiveness at teaching CR and team communication skills ( P = .02). Conclusions High-fidelity simulation can be used to both train and test interprofessional teams of radiologists, technologists, and nurses for both CR and TS and is more highly rated as an effective educational tool by participants than similar CB training. However, a single session of either type of training may be inadequate for mastering TS.
Is there an intrinsic duty to vote? Comparative evidence from East and West Germans

The duty to vote is a strong predictor of turnout, but little is known of its source, leaving much ambiguity around the nature of the motivation. This article shows that a powerful pathway lies in the ethical commitment many individuals feel to their nations. When the state is seen as an extension of one's national community, this national obligation is politicized toward state affairs, including the duty to vote. Conversely, when this linkage is weak or absent, an intrinsic duty to vote is weakened. By revising a key assumption in the traditional calculus of voting, I derive a statistical model to identify a nation-based, intrinsic duty to vote. The model is tested in Germany, where different experiences with unification in the East versus West yield contrasting predictions on an intrinsic duty to vote. The findings suggest new strategies for get-out-the-vote efforts to target the nationalistic source of the duty to vote.
Highly stable two-photon oxygen imaging probe based on a ruthenium-complex encapsulated in a silica-coated nanomicelle

A nanomicelle-based ruthenium-complex oxygen imaging probe is coated with a silica shell. The biostability of the silica-coated probe is improved by a factor of 4, while the oxygen-sensitivity is reduced by a factor of 3.
Accountability and control in American schools

AbstractOne of the most controversial and significant of contemporary education reforms has been the teacher accountability movement. From this perspective, low-quality teachers and teaching are a major factor behind inadequate school performance, and a lack of accountability and control in schools is a major factor behind the problem of low-quality teachers and teaching. In turn, to advocates of this reform movement, the solution is to centralize control of schools and hold teachers more accountable. Utilizing a sociology of organizations, occupations and work perspective, the objective of this article was to offer a critique of the teacher accountability perspective and movement. This article draws from, and summarizes, the results of a series of empirical research projects on the levels, distribution and effects of accountability and control in American schools. The argument of the article is that the teacher accountability perspective overlooks some of the most important sources and forms of organizat...
Resolution of the more anteriorly positioned psoas muscle following correction of spinal sagittal alignment from spondylolisthesis: case report

Several studies have described the radiographic, histological, and morphological changes to the paraspinal muscle in patients with chronic low-back pain due to degenerative diseases of the spine. Gross anatomical illustrations have shown that the psoas muscle lies lateral to the L4–5 vertebrae and subsequently thins and dissociates from the vertebral body at L5–S1 in a ventrolateral course. A “rising psoas” may influence the location of the lumbar plexus and result in transient neurological injury on lateral approach to the spine. It is postulated that axial back pain may be exacerbated by anatomical changes of paraspinal musculature as a direct result of degenerative spine conditions. To their knowledge, the authors present the first reported case of a more anteriorly positioned psoas muscle and its resolution following correction of spondylolisthesis in a 62-year-old woman. This case highlights the dynamic nature of degenerative spinal disorders and illustrates that psoas muscle position can be affected...
Equilibrium States and Dynamic Reactions of Iron in the Camphor Monoxygenase System

All basic life processes include reactions centering on the control, transfer, storage, and utilization of two essential quantities, information and energy. This chapter, in dealing with molecular enzymology, focuses on the latter commodity and deals with the oxygenase class of enzymes which, together with the other catalytic and metabolic systems, are ubiquitous in nature and required by many living organisms for existence.
Margaret Bourke-White and the Dawn of Apartheid

In September 1950, readers of the enormously popular American magazine Life encountered a report on ‘South Africa and Its Problem: In a Black Land White Rule and Human Liberty Clash’.1 The problem ...
Wisdom, Agency, and the Role of Reasons in Mengzi

I examine the role moral reasons play in the Mengzi and their relationship to Mengzi's conception of wisdom. Some commentators have argued that agency in early Chinese thought is best characterized as performance based rather than deliberation based. I propose that Mengzi's conception of agency is both performative and deliberative because he understands wisdom as a sort of expert decision making. Consequently, Mengzi relies on moral reasons of two sorts. First, duan-reasons are reasons to act so as to overcome internal obstacles to action and, second, renyi-reasons are reasons to act so as to achieve a goal that constitutes moral success.
Multi-Criteria Decision Making with Interval Criteria Satisfactions Using the Golden Rule Representative Value

A multi-criteria decision function allows one to aggregate an alternative's satisfaction to the individual criteria to obtain the alternative's overall satisfaction to a decision problem. We provide a rule-based approach to the construction of these decision functions. Here, we make use of a measure-based representation of the importance associated with subsets of criteria. We then focus on the use of this multi-criteria decision function in the situation where the individual criteria satisfactions are interval valued. To have the capability of implementing the required ordering and comparing operations in the case of interval-valued information, we use the Golden Rule to provide a scalar representative value for these intervals.
A two-stage supply chain coordination mechanism considering price sensitive demand and quantity discounts

Abstract This paper explores the coordination between a supplier and a buyer within a decentralized supply chain, through the use of quantity discounts in a game theoretic model. Within this model, the players face inventory and pricing decisions. We propose both cooperative and non-cooperative approaches considering that the product traded experiences a price sensitive demand. In the first case, we study the dynamics of the game from the supplier's side as the leader in the negotiation obtaining a Stackelberg equilibrium, and then show how the payoff of this player could still improve from this point. In the second case, a cooperative model is formulated, where decisions are taken simultaneously, emulating a centralized firm, showing the benefits of the cooperation between the players. We further formulate a pricing game, where the buyer is allowed to set different prices to the final customer as a reaction to the supplier's discount decisions. For the latter we investigate the difference between feasibility of implementing a retail discount given a current coordination mechanism and without it. Finally the implications of transportation costs are analyzed in the quantity discount schedule. Our findings are illustrated with a numerical example showing the difference in the players’ payoff in each case and the optimal strategies, comparing in each case our results with existing work.
Customized therapy using distributions of reaching errors

While there has been recent success with robotic therapy approaches, individual differences in motor impairments motivate the need for customized therapy. Our latest work with healthy participants considered the likelihood of one's error to construct a customized force field training environment, which we termed an error field. We believe error statistics could characterize individual motor impairments for stroke survivors. Here we present preliminary results from a pilot study testing this therapy technique on individuals following stroke. We tracked the changes in error for three stroke survivors across multiple days using error field training, and found that participants' errors reduced for all target directions across sessions. We also used a modeling approach to test whether the changes in error reflected the specific mathematical structure of the intervention. These results provide encouraging preliminary evidence that error field training can be valuable for both characterizing deficits and custom-tailoring therapy.
Conjoined Tendon Transfer for Traumatic Anterior Glenohumeral Instability in Patients With Large Bony Defects and Anterior Capsulolabral Deficiency

Purpose To report outcomes of a conjoined tendon transfer procedure in a small case series of young active patients of various activity levels with recurrent traumatic anterior shoulder instability. Methods A retrospective chart review identified 10 consecutive patients who underwent conjoined tendon transfer (8 open and 2 arthroscopic) for anterior glenohumeral instability from January 2009 through December 2012. The indications were traumatic anterior shoulder instability with 25% or greater anterior glenoid bone loss, engaging Hill-Sachs lesion, or absent anterior-inferior labral tissue with anterior capsular tissue that did not readily hold sutures or a combination of these deficiencies. Patients did not undergo the procedure if they had healthy capsulolabral tissue and small bony defects or if they competed in high-level collision sports or were overhead throwers. The American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES) questionnaire and a physical examination were completed preoperatively. Postoperatively, patients answered questions about shoulder stability and completed ASES and Western Ontario Shoulder Index questionnaires. A physical examination was performed postoperatively to assess range of motion. Results Of 10 patients, 9 were available for follow-up. The mean age was 33.0 years (range, 18-51 years) at the time of surgery. Eight of nine patients underwent a physical examination at 31.3 ± 10.5 months (range, 24-58 months) postoperatively. There were no revisions or complications except for recurrent instability in 1 patient who underwent the arthroscopic procedure and reported gross deviation from the postoperative protocol. The ASES score improved significantly (62.8 ± 21.2 at baseline vs 89.2 ± 11.5 at final follow-up, P = .01). The postoperative Western Ontario Shoulder Index score was 74.5 ± 19.7. No significant change was found in external rotation in 90° of abduction (80.6° ± 12.9° at baseline vs 88.4° ± 6.1° at final follow-up, P = .11) or in flexion (145.6° ± 14.9° at baseline vs 153.1° ± 16.4° at final follow-up, P = .19). All patients returned to their previous activity level. Conclusions Stability was restored and no significant range-of-motion loss was observed in noncollision athletes who underwent conjoined tendon transfer. Recurrent instability occurred in 1 patient who underwent the arthroscopic procedure. There were no other complications. Level of Evidence Level IV, therapeutic case series.
Green energy distribution in Haiti

In support of L'Institut Technique de la Cote Sud (ITCS), with funding through the IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee, a team from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) has led the design/install of a photovoltaic system to provide for daily educational electrical needs while simultaneously serving as a living laboratory for hands-on teaching at the vocational training institute for renewable energy students. The system will exist at the ITCS campus in Coteaux, Haiti, located in the Sud Department on the southwestern peninsula, an area recently hit by a devastating hurricane, Matthew, in the Fall of 2016. Novel to the system will be the inclusing of a Lithium Ferro Phosphate battery bank, which until now has had little exposure to this region of the world as an Energy Storage System (ESS). The utilization and performance of this system will be scrutinized throughout its life by the CU Boulder team. Discussed in the following will be the accounts of two trips to Haiti hitherto, the assessment and design processes, as well as community reactions and future plans for further development in the region.
Contemporary Robust Optimal Design Strategies

Researchers often find that nonlinear regression models are more applicable for modeling various biological, physical, and chemical processes than the linear ones since they tend to fit the data well and since these models (and model parameters) are more scientifically meaningful. These researchers are thus often in a position of requiring optimal or near-optimal designs for a given nonlinear model. A common shortcoming of most optimal designs for nonlinear models used in practical settings, however, is that these designs typically focus only on (first-order) parameter variance or predicted variance, and thus ignore the inherent nonlinear of the assumed model function. Another shortcoming of optimal designs is that they often have only p support points, where p is the number of model parameters. Measures of marginal curvature, first introduced in Clarke (1987) and further developed in Haines et al. (2004), provide a useful means of assessing this nonlinearity. Other relevant developments are the second-order volume design criterion introduced in Hamilton and Watts (1985) and extended in O’Brien (1992) and O’Brien et al. (2010), and the second-order MSE criterion developed and illustrated in Clarke and Haines (1995). This chapter underscores and highlights various robust design criteria and those based on second-order (curvature) considerations. These techniques, easily coded in the R and SAS/IML software packages, are illustrated here with several key examples.
Genetic divergence in rice germplasm collected from North east India

The nature and the magnitude of genetic divergence were estimated in 54 rice genotypes collected from Arunachal Pradesh and upper parts of Assam state using Mahalonobis’s D 2 statistics. The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among the genotypes for nine quantitative characters studied. The genotypes were grouped into 18 clusters showing fair degree of relationship between geographic distribution and genetic divergence. All the minimum and maximum cluster mean values were distributed in relatively distant clusters. Maximum numbers of genotypes were included in cluster I which has 26 genotypes. Traits contributing maximum to genetic divergence viz ., plant height, days to 50% flowering, 100 grain weight and leaf width may be utilized in selecting genetically diverse parents.
The association between PTSD and facial affect recognition.

Abstract The major aims of this study were to examine how, if at all, having higher levels of PTSD would be associated with performance on a facial affect recognition task in which facial expressions of emotion are superimposed on emotionally valenced, non-face images. College students with trauma histories (N = 90) completed a facial affect recognition task as well as measures of exposure to traumatic events, and PTSD symptoms. When the face and context matched, participants with higher levels of PTSD were significantly more accurate. When the face and context were mismatched, participants with lower levels of PTSD were more accurate than were those with higher levels of PTSD. These findings suggest that PTSD is associated with how people process affective information. Furthermore, these results suggest that the enhanced attention of people with higher levels of PTSD to affective information can be either beneficial or detrimental to their ability to accurately identify facial expressions of emotion. Limitations, future directions and clinical implications are discussed.
Banking Fragility, United States, 1790–2009

This chapter reviews the nature of banking crises, defined either as times of panic or times of widespread insolvency, and the history of banking crises in the United States. The United States was uniquely crisis prone among peer economies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its peculiar instability is traceable to the fragmented structure of the US banking system, which reflected various aspects of the US political system that resulted in limitations on nationwide branch banking. The banking instability produced by that fragmented structure gave rise to the Federal Reserve System primarily as a means of stabilizing the seasonal flow of credit and also gave rise to deposit insurance, which ironically further contributed to banking instability through its adverse effects on bankers' incentives.
Effectiveness and tolerability of atomoxetine in a real-world ADHD population: nonrandomized comparison with stimulants.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effectiveness of atomoxetine in a real-world attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) population. DESIGN A retrospective chart review with two nonrandomized samples-patients treated with atomoxetine and patients treated with stimulants. SETTING One community mental health clinic. PARTICIPANTS Over a two-year period, 85 patients treated with atomoxetine and 81 patients treated with stimulants were identified. Many patients had comorbid conditions and were treated concomitantly with other medications. MEASUREMENTS Clinical Global Impression-Improvement scale (CGI-I) and Global Assessment of Functioning scale (GAF). RESULTS On average, all patients showed mild improvement, as measured by the CGI, while staying on the same medication for approximately six months. There was no significant difference in GAF, at baseline or at endpoint, or in CGI at endpoint between the two groups. Even though more patients on atomoxetine showed side effects, there was a trend for patients to stay on it longer. CONCLUSION Taking into account the limitations of a retrospective chart review in nonrandomized samples, it appears that patients with (comorbid) ADHD benefit as well from atomoxetine as from stimulants. If replicated in larger, better controlled studies, atomoxetine should be considered a first-line agent for the treatment of ADHD.
On Egg Eclosion and Larval Development in Euglossine Bees

ABSTRACT This study explores egg eclosion and larval biology of orchid bees (Apidae: Euglossini) in light of existing knowledge from studies dealing with a group of tribes within the Apidae referred to as corbiculate bees. It reports that Eulaema (Apeulaema) polychroma (Mocsary) has five larval instars, and its first instar exists only briefly in that with the help of a band of spicules along both of its sides its exoskeleton is shed with the remnants of the chorion. Mature larvae of euglossines exhibit two anatomical features that are not characteristic of other corbiculates, namely the elongate, tapering area of the prothorax immediately behind the head and the small size of the cranium. These features are suggested to be accommodations allowing the development of the extremely long labiomaxillary region of the pupa, which in turn accounts for the lengthy mouthparts of the adult. Descriptions of the egg and mature larva of Euglossa (Euglossa) hemichlora Cockerell are appended as well as referenced in th...
FTIR Analysis of Molecular Changes Associated with Warming Injury in Cryopreserved Leukocytes.

In this article, we explored the effects of cooling rate, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) concentration, and thawing protocol on the post-thaw viability of frozen human white blood cells (WBCs). Different cooling rates (1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 °C/min) at two DMSO concentrations (5 and 10% v/v) were tested as the samples were cooled to −120 °C. Frozen samples were thawed following either a fast (100 °C/min) or slow (2 °C/min) warming protocol applied in either a single stage or in two stages interrupted by a 6 min hold at −40, −50, −60, −70, or −80 °C. The highest post-thaw viability was obtained when WBCs were cooled at 2 °C/min in a 5% DMSO solution and warmed at the fastest rate (100 °C/min) without any interruption. Post-thaw viability decreased when the warming rate was reduced or when rapid warming was interrupted by a hold at a temperature below −60 °C. To elucidate the mechanisms of warming injury in addition to the biological response, several key interfacial and molecular phenomena require greater unde...
Infections of the Ear

Infections of the ear are a common presentation to an acute care environment. In this article, the authors aim to summarize the most common presentations, and diagnostic and treatment options for typical infections of the ear. This article is geared toward the emergency physician, urgent care provider, and primary care provider who will likely be the initial evaluating and treating provider to assist them in determining what treatment modalities can be managed in a clinic and what needs to be referred for admission or specialty consultation.
Non-biological methods for phosphorus and nitrogen removal from wastewater: A gap analysis of reinvented-toilet technologies with respect to ISO 30500

The aims of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge (RTTC) include creation of an off-the-grid sanitation system with operating costs of less than US$0.05 per user per day. Because of the small scale at which many reinvented toilets (RT) are intended to operate, non-biological treatment has been generally favored. The RTTC has already instigated notable technological advances in non-sewered sanitation systems (NSSS). However, increasingly stringent liquid effluent standards for N and P could limit the deployment of current RT in real-world scenarios, despite the urgent need for these systems. The newly adopted ISO 30500 standards for water reuse in NSSS dictate minimal use of chemical/biological additives, while at the same time requiring a 70% and 80% reduction in total nitrogen and phosphorus, respectively. This document provides a brief overview of the mature and emerging technologies for N and P (specifically ammonia/ammonium and orthophosphate) removal from wastewater. At present, the dearth of nutrient removal methods proven to be effective at small scales is a significant barrier to meeting ISO 30500 standards. Closing the gap between RTs and ISO 30500 will require significant investments in basic R&D of emerging technologies for non-biological N and P remediation and/or increased reliance on biological processes. Adaptation of existing nutrient-removal technologies to small-scale NSSS is a viable option that merits additional investigation.
Machines as the New Oompa-Loompas: Trade Secrecy, the Cloud, Machine Learning, and Automation

In previous work, I wrote about how trade secrecy drives the plot of Roald Dahl’s novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, explaining how the Oompa-Loompas are the ideal solution to Willy Wonka’s competitive problems. Since publishing that piece, I have been struck by the proliferating Oompa-Loompas in contemporary life: computing machines filled with software and fed on data. These computers, software, and data might not look like Oompa-Loompas, but they function as Wonka’s tribe does: holding their secrets tightly and internally for the businesses for which these machines are deployed. Computing machines were not always such effective secret-keeping Oompa Loompas. As this Article describes, at least three recent shifts in the computing industry — cloud computing, the increasing primacy of data and machine learning, and automation — have turned these machines into the new Oompa-Loompas. While new technologies enabled this shift, trade secret law has played an important role here as well. Like other intellectual property rights, trade secret law has a body of built-in limitations to ensure that the incentives offered by the law’s protection do not become so great that they harm follow-on innovation — new innovation that builds on existing innovation — and competition. This Article argues that, in light of the technological shifts in computing, the incentives that trade secret law currently provide to develop these contemporary Oompa-Loompas are excessive in relation to their worrisome effects on follow-on innovation and competition by others. These technological shifts allow businesses to circumvent trade secret law’s central limitations, thereby overfortifying trade secrecy protection. The Article then addresses how trade secret law might be changed — by removing or diminishing its protection — to restore balance for the good of both competition and innovation.
A Case of Ferumoxytol (Feraheme®) Prompting Critical Modification to Our Patient Prebreast Magnetic Resonance Imaging Questionnaire

Apparent gadolinium-based contrast enhancement was seen on precontrast-enhanced images on two breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for a patient done 1 week apart. This was caused by ferumoxytol, which is used to treat some anemias. Such nongadolinium-based therapeutics exhibiting unintended MRI contrast-like properties preclude assessment of enhancement kinetics in breast MRI significantly limiting diagnostic interpretation. This case prompted a group discussion and subsequent modification to the patient breast MRI safety screening questionnaire at our institution.
La privatización de las pensiones: tres décadas de fracasos

Entre 1981 y 2014, treinta paises privatizaron total o parcialmente sus sistemas de pensiones publicas obligatorias; en 2018, dieciocho paises habian revertido las privatizaciones. Este informe analiza el fracaso de los sistemas de pensiones privadas obligatorias para mejorar la seguridad de ingresos en la vejez y su bajo desempeno en terminos de cobertura, niveles de beneficios, costos administrativos, costos de transicion, e impactos sociales y fiscales negativos, entre otros.
DNA hypermethylation in disease: mechanisms and clinical relevance

Increasing numbers of studies implicate abnormal DNA methylation in cancer and many non-malignant diseases. This is consistent with numerous findings about differentiation-associated changes in DNA methylation at promoters, enhancers, gene bodies, and sites that control higher-order chromatin structure. Abnormal increases or decreases in DNA methylation contribute to or are markers for cancer formation and tumour progression. Aberrant DNA methylation is also associated with neurological diseases, immunological diseases, atherosclerosis, and osteoporosis. In this review, I discuss DNA hypermethylation in disease and its interrelationships with normal development as well as proposed mechanisms for the origin of and pathogenic consequences of disease-associated hypermethylation. Disease-linked DNA hypermethylation can help drive oncogenesis partly by its effects on cancer stem cells and by the CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP); atherosclerosis by disease-related cell transdifferentiation; autoimmune and neurological diseases through abnormal perturbations of cell memory; and diverse age-associated diseases by age-related accumulation of epigenetic alterations.
The Unavoidably Empirical Fourth Amendment: A Case Study of Kansas v. Glover

In Kansas v. Glover, the Supreme Court will consider whether a police officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that a vehicle is being driven by its registered owner — as opposed to some other authorized driver — when the sole fact known to the officer at the time of the stop is that the registered owner is not, in fact, lawfully allowed to drive any vehicle at all. This essay, adapted from an amicus brief filed in the Glover case, argues that the proper Fourth Amendment analysis in that case is unavoidably empirical in nature: The key question in the case can and should be resolved by real-world data, which the State in Glover was well-positioned to collect and present. Because it failed to do so, the State did not satisfy its burden of proof, and injected a narrow but significant error into the case that requires suppression, even if that result would not necessarily obtain in other cases arising in similar circumstances.
Design for resilience

Abstract The concepts of “high-reliability organizations” and “patient experience” have become relatively common in health-care operations parlance. However, to date, there have been few scientifically based systematized methods for operationalizing these constructs in the design of systems used in the delivery of human health care. This chapter explores the construct of “resilience” and how it may be used for the identification of outcomes and controllability of systems in health-care environments. Based on the epistemologies of psychology and engineering, resilience offers a vehicle for unifying the technical performance measures of optimal user-experience with the design-dependent parameters of high-reliability performance. An adaptive capacity taxonomy, applied-use case studies, and select systems engineering tools that can facilitate bidirectional visual traceability of systems design will be presented. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how principles of resilience can be used in the analysis, conceptual development, and formation of various types of human-centered health systems.
Gamification in General Chemistry

Humans learn by playing, and one of the best ways to learn is through failure in low-stress situations (Toprac 2018). This research employed the use of active learning to assess students’ academic performance in first-semester general chemistry through a 3D chemistry, computer-based, gaming environment, under the trademarked name LABMATTER. The study addressed the following question: Are single-focus academic games beneficial, or do they take away from learning in general chemistry? Results of this study suggested a moderately positive relationship between exam scores and study time (playing the game). Essentially, the more time spent playing the game or an online activity resulted in higher exam scores. Furthermore, we found a statistically significant difference (p < 0.05) between the experimental groups and the traditional group (no game or online activity) favoring the active learning environment.
Labor mobility and the cost of debt

Abstract This paper empirically shows that the cost of debt financing is systematically higher for firms that operate in mobile labor markets. We posit two channels through which labor mobility could affect firms’ cost of debt: 1. higher default risk, due to an increase in cash flow volatility arising from the potential loss of valuable human capital assets, and 2. less pledgeable assets, given that a firm has limited control and ownership over the firm’s human capital. Using across U.S. state variations in the enforceability of non-compete agreements that restrict employee job switches as a proxy for anticipated labor mobility, and state-level reforms to non-compete laws to capture exogenous shocks to labor mobility, we find that labor mobility has a significantly positive relation with the credit spreads of U.S. corporate debt issued from 1990–2014. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the effect of labor mobility is greater for firms that are more reliant on human capital – i.e., high R&D firms and firms with greater organizational capital – which corroborates the main results. Overall, these findings suggest that investors price financial contracts by taking into account the risk that arises from labor mobility.
Geographical disparities in human papillomavirus herd protection

Background Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination has occurred unequally across the United States, potentially contributing to uneven vaccine-type HPV prevalence between regions. We examined whether emerging vaccine-related herd protection exhibits regional differences among unvaccinated girls and women. Methods We evaluated the prevalence of vaginal HPV among women 14-59 years of age from 2003 to 2014 using repeated cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Women who provided an adequate vaginal swab sample were included. Vaginal prevalence of vaccine-type HPV (types 6, 11, 16, 18) were examined in four regions of the United States between 2003 and 2014. We examined vaccine-type HPV prevalence in 2007-2014 in each US census region among younger participants (14-34 years old) stratified by vaccination status to determine whether one or both groups contributed to uneven HPV prevalence. Results A total of 12 175 participants 14-59 years of age met inclusion criteria. Vaccine-type HPV prevalence decreased in all regions. Vaccine-type HPV varied by region only among unvaccinated 14-34 year olds, with a higher prevalence in the Midwest (13.8%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 10.7-17.0) and South (12.5%, 95% CI: 10.2-14.8) compared to the Northeast (8.9%, 95% CI: 6.5-11.2). No regional variation in vaccine-type HPV prevalence was observed among vaccinated participants. Conclusions Higher prevalence of vaccine-type HPV among unvaccinated women in the South and Midwest may contribute to regional disparities in HPV-related cancer incidence, as emerging herd immunity may not be as strong in those regions.
Molecular composition and biodegradation of loggerhead sponge Spheciospongia vesparium exhalent dissolved organic matter.

Abstract Sponges are critical components of marine reefs due to their high filtering capacity, wide abundance, and alteration of biogeochemical cycling. Here, we characterized dissolved organic matter (DOM) composition in the sponge holobiont exhalent seawater of a loggerhead sponge (Spheciospongia vesparium) and in ambient seawater in Florida Bay (USA), as well as the microbial responses to each DOM pool through dark incubations. The sponge holobiont removed 6% of the seawater dissolved organic carbon (DOC), utilizing compounds that were low in carbon and oxygen, yet high in nitrogen content relative to the ambient seawater. The microbial community accessed 7% of DOC from the ambient seawater during a 5-day incubation but only 1% of DOC from the sponge exhalent seawater, suggesting a decrease in lability possibly due to holobiont removal of nitrogen-rich compounds. If this holds true for other sponges, it may have important implications for DOM lability and cycling in coastal environments.
A 617-TOPS/W All-Digital Binary Neural Network Accelerator in 10-nm FinFET CMOS

A binary neural network (BNN) chip explores the limits of energy efficiency and computational density for an all-digital deep neural network (DNN) inference accelerator. The chip intersperses data storage and computation using computation near memory (CNM) to reduce interconnect and data movement costs. It performs wide inner product operations to leverage parallelism inherent in DNN computations. The BNN chip leverages lightweight pipelining at a near-threshold voltage (NTV) to reduce the overhead of sequential elements. It employs optimized data access patterns to reduce memory accesses for convolutional operation with pooling layers. The combination of these techniques enables the BNN chip to achieve a peak energy efficiency of 617 TOPS/W. The digital BNN chip approaches the energy efficiency of analog in-memory techniques while also ensuring deterministic, scalable, and bit-accuracy operation. Moreover, the all-digital design leverages process scaling and does not require additional memory transistors or passive devices to attain a peak compute density of 418 TOPS/mm2 and a memory density of 414 KB/mm2. The binary design is extended to enable bit-serial integer precision operation with a reconfigurable 1-b multiplication circuit and element-wise partial sum shift and accumulate. This technique allows for fine-grain mixed precision and retains energy efficiency by exploiting parallelism inherent in DNNs. The bit-serial binary operation allows for bit-accurate operation and high DNN accuracy that multibit analog compute-in-memory designs struggle to attain. It provides favorable energy tradeoffs compared with small-integer digital DNN accelerators.
Development of WRRL: A New Computerized Measure of the Reflecting/Reorganizing Function

Reflecting/Reorganizing (R/R) is one of the three functions described by Bucci (Overview of the referential process: the operation of language within and between people, 2021a) as part of the referential process. The Weighted Referential Activity Dictionary (WRAD) was previously developed to model the Symbolizing function of the referential process. This paper presents the development of the Weighted Reflecting Reorganizing List (WRRL) as a model of the R/R function. The basic premise of this approach is that by rating segments of text rather than individual words, and using a word by word weighting procedure designed for this purpose, it is possible to identify the nature of the language style that is connected with particular degrees of involvement in the psychological process being modeled. Starting with a brief description of the R/R function, an iterative process was applied that resulted in a clear scoring manual for the R/R function. The method of developing the dictionary is described, a study providing validation for the measure is presented, and the nature of the language style used to express the R/R function is discussed. As was described for the WRAD, the language style of the WRRL was found to involve use of particular function words, applicable across a wide range of contents.
Lessons Learned—Fluoride Exposure and Response

Laboratory research can expose workers to a wide variety of chemical hazards. Researchers must not only take personal responsibility for their safety but also inevitably rely on coworkers to also w...
Attacks and countermeasures in communications and power networks

The threat of malicious network attacks has become significant ever since networking became pervasive in our life. When adversaries have enough control over the network measurements and control procedures, the effect of attacks can be as detrimental as the breakdown of the whole network operations. This dissertation studies possible adversarial effects under certain protection strategy, the conditions under which attacks can be detected, and protection strategies to render attacks detectable. Specifically, attacks on two types of networks are considered: communications networks and power networks. First, we consider an attack on communications networks, where a pair of nodes are suspected to belong to the chain of compromised nodes used by the adversary. If the pair belongs to the compromised chain, it forwards attack packets along the chain, and thus there should exist an information flow between the pair. Detection of an information flow based on node transmission timings is formulated as a binary composite hypothesis testing. An unsupervised and nonparametric detector with linear complexity is proposed and tested with real-world TCP traces and MSN VoIP traces. The detector is proved to be consistent for a class of nonhomogeneous Poisson processes. Secondly, the topology attack on power networks is studied. In a so-called man-in-the-middle topology attack, an adversary alters data from certain meters and network switches to mislead the control center with an incorrect network topology while avoiding detection by the control center. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of an undetectable attack is obtained, and countermeasures to prevent undetectable attacks are presented. It is shown that any topology attack is detectable if a set of meters satisfying a certain branch covering property are protected from adversarial data modification. The proposed attacks are tested with IEEE 14-bus and IEEE 118-bus system, and their effect on real-time locational marginal pricing is examined. Lastly, a new attack mechanism aimed at misleading the power system control center about the source of data attacks is proposed. As a man-in-the-middle state attack, a data framing attack is proposed to exploit the bad data detection and identification mechanisms at the control center. In particular, the proposed attack frames normal meters as sources of bad data and causes the control center to remove useful measurements from the framed meters. The optimal design of data framing attack is formulated as a quadratically constrained quadratic program (QCQP). It is shown that the proposed attack is capable of perturbing the power system state estimate by an arbitrary degree using only half of the critical measurements. Implications of this attack on power system operations are discussed, and the attack performance is evaluated using benchmark systems.
Transforming event graphs to colored Petri nets

The paper explorers a comparison between the two approaches, event graphs and colored Petri nets, in terms of their modeling and simulation capabilities. A methodology for transforming an event graph model of a Discrete Event System (DES) to an equivalent colored Petri net model is presented with an illustration.