cssi/SciSciGPT-SciSciNet huggingface dataset:
Democratization, Competitiveness of Political Participation and War

This study aims to test the relationship between democratization, competitiveness of political participation and the likelihood of war. Many of studies focus on the direct effect of democratization on the likelihood of initiation a war. However, proponents of this argument posit that democratization leads to the emergence of different groups which compete with each other in political arena, and this competition results in dangerous wars. In this study, I test both effects of democratization and the number of political groups on the likelihood of initiation a war. Results suggest that democratization does not have any effect on war. However, the number of competing groups does matter and negatively affects the likelihood of war. The more competing groups in a state, the less likely that this state initiates a war. This result is contrary to the argument made before which was not empirically analyzed.
Abnormal labyrinthine zone in the Hectd1-null placenta.

Abstract Introduction The labyrinthine zone of the placenta is where exchange of nutrients and waste occurs between maternal and fetal circulations. Proper development of the placental labyrinth is essential for successful growth of the developing fetus and abnormalities in placental development are associated with intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), preeclampsia and fetal demise. Our previous studies demonstrate that Hectd1 is essential for development of the junctional and labyrinthine zones of the placenta. Here we further characterize labyrinthine zone defects in the Hectd1 mutant placenta. Methods The structure of the mutant placenta was compared to wildtype littermates using histological methods. The expression of cell type specific markers was examined by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. Results Hectd1 is expressed in the labyrinthine zone throughout development and the protein is enriched in syncytiotrophoblast layer type I cells (SynT-I) and Sinusoidal Trophoblast Giant cells (S-TGCs) in the mature placenta. Mutation of Hectd1 results in pale placentas with frequent hemorrhages along with gross abnormalities in the structure of the labyrinthine zone including a smaller overall volume and a poorly elaborated fetal vasculature that contain fewer fetal blood cells. Examination of molecular markers of labyrinthine trophoblast cell types reveals increased Dlx3 positive cells and Syna positive SynT-I cells, along with decreased Hand1 and Ctsq positive sinusoidal trophoblast giant cells (S-TGCs). Discussion Together these defects indicate that Hectd1 is required for development of the labyrinthine zonethe mouse placenta.
Safety of anticoagulation in thrombocytopenic patients with hematologic malignancies: A case series

The incidence of venous thromboembolism is greater among cancer patients than the general patient population, with recurrence rates also much higher in patients with cancer diagnoses. Patients with hematologic malignancies often experience prolonged periods of thrombocytopenia throughout their disease course, making therapeutic anticoagulation a challenge. We describe 13 cases of patients with hematologic malignancies that were therapeutically anticoagulated with either low-molecular-weight heparin or unfractionated heparin during periods of severe thrombocytopenia (platelet counts < 50 × 109/µL). Patients were included if they had a diagnosis code for a hematologic malignancy and venous thromboembolism between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2012. The diagnosis of venous thromboembolism included both deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. There was one bleeding event, World Health Organization grade 2, that was documented in a patient receiving enoxaparin dosed twice daily, resulting in an overall bleeding rate of 7.7% in this case series. All 13 patients were administered platelet transfusions during the periods of severe thrombocytopenia. While each patient case must have the risks and benefits weighed individually, we observed that anticoagulation for the treatment of venous thromboembolism during periods of thrombocytopenia may be considered in patients with hematologic malignancies.
Adjuvant radiation therapy in uterine carcinosarcoma: A population-based analysis of patient demographic and clinical characteristics, patterns of care and outcomes

Abstract Objective To examine clinical and demographic characteristics of a population-based cohort of patients with uterine carcinosarcoma (UCS), to assess access to treatment and survival patterns. Methods Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database was queried for patients diagnosed in 1999–2010 and treated with surgery with or without adjuvant radiation therapy (aRT). The Kaplan–Meier method was used to estimate survival functions, and Cox proportional hazards regression - to analyze the effect of covariates on survival. Results 2342 patients were eligible. African Americans presented with more advanced AJCC stages than other races (35.4% vs. 29.1%; p p p p Conclusions We observed greater survival rate in the aRT group. African Americans were more likely to present with later stage disease and die of UCS than non-African Americans. Age and stage, but not race, influenced receipt of aRT. Patients treated more recently survived longer.
New Developments in Fault Analysis Based on Dynamical Perspective

ABSTRACTElectric power system essentially belongs to strongly nonlinear complex dynamic system. It has strong coupling and other various dynamic characteristics. In theory, the nonlinear dynamical model associated with complex power system should exist. In this paper, we have discussed two kinds of nonlinear circuits, nonlinear RLC circuit that can be constructed to be Lienard equation model and Chua's circuit. In our research, the superstable periodic parameters of period doubling bifurcations are solved accurately, and it is also the fault characteristic in nonlinear circuits, which may represent the essential attribute of complex electric power system. The research will contribute to solving the blackout problems in real electrical engineering. It is an inevitable request that applying nonlinear dynamical system theory to the research of complex electric power system, which is not only beneficial to the effective solution of power system's own problems, but realizing new breakthroughs in nonlinear dyna...
Mechanisms of cis/trans Isomerization of (η5-C5H5)2Fe2(CO)2(μ-SR)2, Where R = Methyl or tert-Butyl, Under Photochemical and Thermal Conditions

Photolysis of cis,syn-(η5-C5H5)2Fe2(CO)2(μ-SMe)2 and mixtures enriched in the trans,anti isomer in frozen Nujol matrixes at ca. 90 K has revealed a complex set of wavelength-dependent photoproducts. These photoproducts include three species with bridging carbonyl groups that appear to be a set of conformers differing in the relative orientation of the S−Me groups, a dicarbonyl species that may be a conformer of the trans,anti isomer, and two species that appear to have a single terminal carbonyl group. Evidence is also presented for the formation of an IR-silent intermediate, (η5-C5H5)2Fe2(μ-SMe)2. Solution studies have demonstrated that the bridging carbonyl species are sufficiently stable to be observed at room temperature. These bridging isomers readily react with CO to mostly form the trans,anti isomer, providing one mechanism for cis to trans interchange. Photolysis of cis,syn-(η5-C5H5)2Fe2(CO)2(μ-SMe)2 in petroleum ether under 13CO at room temperature results in formation of both labeled and unlabel...
Synthesis and Application of Protein-Containing Block Copolymers

Proteins possess an impressive array of functionality ranging from catalytic activity to selective binding and mechanical strength, making them highly attractive for materials engineering. Conjugation of synthetic polymers to proteins has the potential to improve the physical properties of the protein as well as provide functionality not typically found in native proteins, such as stimuli-responsive behavior and the programmable ability to self-assemble. This viewpoint discusses the design of protein–polymer conjugates, an important class of block copolymers. Use of these hybrid molecules in biological and catalytic applications is highlighted, and the ability of the polymer to direct the solution and solid-state self-assembly of the hybrid block copolymers is reviewed. Future challenges in polymer and material science that will enable these hybrid molecules to reach their potential as protein-based materials are outlined.
Solar Still for Urban Environments

The supply of water purified for drinking and residential use is insufficient in many underdeveloped regions. Certain methods enable improved supply to rural villages, such as use of basic solar stills. However, urban environments are not suitable for such basic solar stills for several reasons, including a lack of space readily available for multiple solar stills, inadequate infrastructure, and harsh environment due to both people and environmental conditions. The aim of this project was to develop a solar still system that would be suitable for urban residences, which would purify water to provide a clean and drinkable supply. The two major components of the design were the still and the lens, which work together to purify water by tracking the sun and concentrating the sun rays. The primary goal was to contain a functional solar still in a smaller volume. The rate of evaporation was tested for prototyped modules of the design.Copyright © 2015 by ASME
Malignant side effects of null- hypothesis significance testing

Six decades-worth of published information has shown irrefutably that null-hypothesis significance tests (NHSTs) provide no information about the reliability of research outcomes. Nevertheless, the...
Abstract LB-A15: IACS-010759 is a novel inhibitor of oxidative phosphorylation that selectively targets AML cells by inducing a metabolic catastrophe

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a highly aggressive disease with a high mortality rate that encompasses several genetically and clinically diverse hematological malignancies characterized by clonal expansion of transformed stem/progenitor cells with limited ability to differentiate into mature blood cells. Standard of care for AML has progressed minimally in the past 30 years for relapse/refractory AML, with survival rates of 65 years. Therefore, novel, highly effective therapeutics are needed for this population. Targeting bioenergetic susceptibilities is an exciting area of oncology therapeutics that is potentially applicable in AML. Our group and others have shown that AML blasts depend significantly on mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation to meet their energy and biomass production demands. Through an extensive medicinal chemistry campaign IACS-10759 was identified as a potent, selective inhibitor of complex I of the electron transport chain with excellent PK and a suitable overall profile. In AML cell lines and primary AML blasts treated ex vivo, we observe a robust decrease in proliferation and a concomitant increase in apoptosis with EC50 values of less than 10 nM. Response to IACS-10759 in AML cells was associated with induction of a metabolic catastrophe that negatively impacted the cells9 ability to sustain energy homeostasis, amino acid biosynthesis, and nucleotide production. In a primary AML patient derived xenograft model from a patient who was refractory to standard of care and salvage therapies, 42 days of IACS-10759 (QDx5/week) treatment at 10 mg/kg extended the median survival by greater than 2-fold. Inhibition of OXPHOS by IACS-10759 was confirmed in AML cell lines and PDX models by a decrease in oxygen consumption and significant changes in gene and protein expression, non-essential amino acids and nucleotides. Due to the robust response in AML cell lines, primary AML samples ex vivo, and in vivo efficacy in primary AML PDX models, IACS-10759 has been advanced through IND enabling studies with first-in-human studies targeted for the second quarter of 2016. Citation Format: Jennifer R. Molina, Marina Protopopova, Madhavi Bandi, Jennifer Bardenhagen, Christopher Bristow, Maria Alimova, Christopher Carroll, Edward Chang, Ningping Feng, Jason Gay, Mary Geck Do, Jennifer Greer, Sha Huang, Yongying Jiang, Marina Konopleva, Polina Matre, Zhijun Kang, Gang Liu, Timothy McAfoos, Pietro Morlacchi, Melinda Smith, Sonal Sonal, Jay Theroff, Quanyun Xu, Giulio Draetta, Philip Jones, Carlo Toniatti, M. Emilia Di Francesco, Joseph R. Marszalek. IACS-010759 is a novel inhibitor of oxidative phosphorylation that selectively targets AML cells by inducing a metabolic catastrophe. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference: Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics; 2015 Nov 5-9; Boston, MA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Mol Cancer Ther 2015;14(12 Suppl 2):Abstract nr LB-A15.
The construction of scale in museum exhibition design: Negotiating context and narrative with object display

Historical museums take large-scale events and attempt to recreate them within the spatial confines of the museum space. This shift from the large-scale event to the small-scale display is enacted in order to present a history to the public for educational and preservation purposes. This construction of scale, while necessary, is not without consequences. It is important for exhibit designers to acknowledge and understand how their decisions about scale influence the interpretation of the narrative. This study examined the exhibit designer’s role in the construction of scale, and the decisions made by them as they construct narrative space. A conceptual framework was generated to examine these issues, and two assessment tools were devised for designers that help to examine the implications of their design decisions on the constructed meaning and significance of the exhibit. Case studies of two interpretive historical exhibits were then conducted using the newly devised assessment methods.
Vasoactive Intracavernous Pharmacotherapy—The Nursing Role in Teaching Self-Injection Therapy

AbstractOur physician-nurse team management of a program in vasoactive intracavernous pharmacotherapy to treat male impotence has provided a high degree of patient and partner satisfaction. Nurses participate in the assessment of the ability of a patient or partner to master the self-injection technique, and the potential of a couple for compliance with and commitment to the program, all of which are key factors for successful home therapy. A nurse also teaches the self-injection technique. Audiovisual materials and handouts are used as teaching aids to ensure that complete and consistent information is given. The patient or partner is required to perform a self-injection under nursing supervision before a prescription for home use is written. Initial followup visits are scheduled with a nurse at 1 to 2-week intervals. At these visits the nurse identifies possible patient errors in self-injection technique, dose or frequency, and answers questions about the therapy. After the couple has mastered and is co...
The ultrastructure of escape organs: setose arms and cross-striated muscles in Hexarthra mira (Rotifera: Gnesiotrocha: Flosculariaceae)

Rotifers are common prey of predatory zooplankton and have evolved a suite of defensive and escape strategies to avoid being consumed. Species of the genus Hexarthra are extraordinary in bearing six highly setose, arm-like appendages that function in saltational jumps through the water column to escape predation. To date, there are no observations on the structure of these escape organs despite their exceptionality within Rotifera. Here, we apply transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to study the ultrastructure of the arm-like appendages, their setae, and their muscle supply. TEM reveals that the arms are hollow extensions of the trunk integument with a similar ultrastructure. The integument is entirely syncytial. The syncytium is bordered apically by a double-layered plasma membrane beneath which is a layered cytoplasm: The top layer is a thin and fibrous intracytoplasmic lamina and the bottom layer is an electron lucent region containing cellular organelles bounded by a basal plasma membrane and thin basal lamina. Arm spines are hollow evaginations of the integument with no special ultrastructure. The arms terminate in primary setae that give rise to secondary setae, all of which possess an ultrastructure similar to the arms. There are two types of primary setae: unarticulated setae that are direct extensions of the arm integument, and articulated setae that fit into a ball-and-socket-type joint in the arm. Neither type is innervated nor supplied with muscles. The skeletal muscles in the trunk and arms are all cross-striated with distinct sarcomeres. All muscles are richly supplied with glycogen granules and mitochondria. A complex sarcotubular system supplies the myofibrils and is proximal to dense regions of glycogen, suggesting a glycolytic pathway for fast ATP production and the rapid release and reuptake of Ca2+ for muscle contraction.
It takes two: how Eurosceptic public opinion and party divisions influence party positions

AbstractDo parties respond to voters’ preferences on European integration in elections to the European Parliament (EP)? Following recent research that shows political party responsiveness to Eurosc...
The ESRD Quality Incentive Program—Can We Bridge the Chasm?

The ESRD Quality Incentive Program (QIP) is the first mandatory federal pay for performance program launched on January 1, 2012. The QIP is tied to the ESRD prospective payment system and mandated by the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008, which directed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to expand the payment bundle for renal dialysis services and legislated that payment be tied to quality measures. The QIP links 2% of the payment that a dialysis facility receives for Medicare patients on dialysis to the facility's performance on quality of care measures. Quality measures are evaluated annually for inclusion on the basis of importance, validity, and performance gap. Other quality assessment programs overlap with the QIP; all have substantial effects on provision of care as clinicians, patients, regulators, and dialysis organizations scramble to keep up with the frequent release of wide-ranging regulations. In this review, we provide an overview of quality assessment and quality measures, focusing on the ESRD QIP, its effect on care, and its potential future directions. We conclude that a patient-centered, individualized, and parsimonious approach to quality assessment needs to be maintained to allow the nephrology community to further bridge the quality chasm in dialysis care.
Integrated RNA-Seq-Mirnome Analysis Reveal Interplay of Multiple Cancer Signaling Pathways Involved in B Lymphomagenesis

Abstract 1294 Conditional inactivation of both the essential non-homologous DNA end-joining repair gene XRCC4 and the tumor suppressor gene p53 in mature B cells in mice frequently leads to mature B cell lymphomas. The majority of B lymphomas recurrently harbor reciprocal IgH/c-Myc translocations, activating c-Myc, a hallmark characteristic of Burkitt9s lymphoma. We designed an integrated tumor RNA-Seq transcriptome profiling and miRnome based approach to dissect the interplay of signaling pathways and oncogenic signatures that lead to the development of the tumors in our model. Differential expression analysis of mRNA and 709 miRNAs reveal specific alterations in distinct signaling pathways, including upregulation of both Wnt and PI3K pathway signaling. For example, we found that Wnt10b, the wnt ligand expressed in B cells is upregulated. Correspondingly, frizzled receptors and it9s downstream effector disheveled are also upregulated, factors that contribute to beta-catenin stabilization. Our studies also reveal increased expression PIK3CD, a PI3K catalytic isoform expressed in B cells, with corresponding downregulation of miRNAs with seed matches to 39UTR of PIK3CD in the tumor; a factor that likely contribute to the stabilization of PIK3CD mRNA. Our analyses reveal an interplay of multiple pathway proteins and genes that serve as novel therapeutic targets for human B lymphoma. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.
Patch Clamp Technique and Applications

There are two main modes in patch clamp recordings: voltage clamp and current clamp. In the voltage clamp mode, the membrane voltage is controlled by the amplifier through the recording pipette and the corresponding current through the pipette is measured. In the current clamp mode, the amplifier controls the amount of current passing through the pipette and the corresponding change in voltage is measured. A third less used mode involves applying no clamp (often designated as I = 0 on the amplifier). This mode is similar to intracellular recordings with a sharp electrode. This chapter will focus on the basic setup and concepts of the patch clamp technique, including considerations of noise and voltage errors in the measurement.
Causal Viscous Hydrodynamics for Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

The viscosity of the QGP is a presently hotly debated subject. Since its computation from first principles is difficult, it is desirable to try to extract it from experimental data. Viscous hydrodynamics provides a tool that can attack this problem and which may work in regions where ideal hydrodynamics begins to fail. This thesis focuses on viscous hydrodynamics for relativistic heavy ion collisions. We first review the 2nd order viscous equations obtained from different approaches, and then report on the work of the Ohio State University group on setting up the equations for causal viscous hydrodynamics in 2+1 dimensions and solving them numerically for central and noncentral Cu+Cu and Au+Au collisions at RHIC energies and above. We discuss shear and bulk viscous effects on the hydrodynamic evolution of entropy density, temperature, collective flow, and flow anisotropies, and on the hadron multiplicity, single particle spectra and elliptic flow. Viscous entropy production and its influence on the centrality dependence of hadron multiplicities and the multiplicity scaling of eccentricity-scaled elliptic flow are studied in viscous hydrodynamics and compared with experimental data. The dynamical effects of using different versions of the Israel-Stewart second order formalism for causal viscous fluid dynamics are discussed, resolving some of the apparent discrepancies between early results reported by different groups. Finally, we assess the present status of constraining the shear viscosity to entropy ratio of the hot and dense matter created at RHIC.
From ITDL to Place2Vec: Reasoning About Place Type Similarity and Relatedness by Learning Embeddings From Augmented Spatial Contexts

Understanding, representing, and reasoning about Points Of Interest (POI) types such as Auto Repair, Body Shop, Gas Stations, or Planetarium, is a key aspect of geographic information retrieval, recommender systems, geographic knowledge graphs, as well as studying urban spaces in general, e.g., for extracting functional or vague cognitive regions from user-generated content. One prerequisite to these tasks is the ability to capture the similarity and relatedness between POI types. Intuitively, a spatial search that returns body shops or even gas stations in the absence of auto repair places is still likely to satisfy some user needs while returning planetariums will not. Place hierarchies are frequently used for query expansion, but most of the existing hierarchies are relatively shallow and structured from a single perspective, thereby putting POI types that may be closely related regarding some characteristics far apart from another. This leads to the question of how to learn POI type representations from data. Models such as Word2Vec that produces word embeddings from linguistic contexts are a novel and promising approach as they come with an intuitive notion of similarity. However, the structure of geographic space, e.g., the interactions between POI types, differs substantially from linguistics. In this work, we present a novel method to augment the spatial contexts of POI types using a distance-binned, information-theoretic approach to generate embeddings. We demonstrate that our work outperforms Word2Vec and other models using three different evaluation tasks and strongly correlates with human assessments of POI type similarity. We published the resulting embeddings for 570 place types as well as a collection of human similarity assessments online for others to use.
A Systems Approach to Managing Organizational Integrity Risks: Lessons From the 2014 Veterans Affairs Waitlist Scandal:

An organizational integrity system consists of the range of institutions, policies, actors, and practices that are meant to promote the integrity of an organization. These include compliance-based ...
Attending to racial trauma in clinical supervision: Enhancing client and supervisee outcomes

This article is focused on racial trauma as a psychological outcome associated with experiences of racism. Guidelines for clinical intervention are presented and the role of the clinical supervisor...
Solitons, Euler’s Equation, and the Geometry of Curve Motion

A review is presented of some recent developments in the study of geomet rical aspects of the dynamics of curves in the plane. An examination of general conditions necessary for global geometric conservation laws such as those of length and enclosed area leads to a class of motions mathematically equivalent to a hierarchy of integrable systems related to the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation. The KdV, modified KdV, and Harry Dym hierarchies are then seen to be three equivalent views of the same underlying dynamics. It is shown that the nonlinear transformations between these systems have straightforward geometric meaning. These dynamics are found to be local approximations to the motion of vortex patches in ideal two-dimensional fluids, a result paralleling the connection between the Nonlinear Schrodinger equation and the motion of a vortex filament in space. The Hamiltonian structure of these integrable systems is recast in a form emphasizing the geometric interpretation in the language of curve motion. Applications of these results to physical systems are suggested.
Correction to "Continuum Microkinetic Rate Theory of Lattice Systems: Formalization, Current Limitations, and a Possible Basis for Continuum Rate Theory".

A broad class of reaction networks are controlled not by any thermodynamic ensemble but by rates and are referred to as "kinetically constrained". Here, microkinetic rate theory is extended into a model of arbitrarily complex reaction networks. This microkinetic rate theory takes a form where the constraints imposed by kinetically constrained systems apply naturally. This model is compared to numerically complete results and is shown to be quantitatively predictive. Model deviations are shown to emerge for systems with incomplete mixing. This model is analytical and may serve as a basis for device and continuum scale rate modeling.
Environmental Enforcement: An Exploration of Latino Political Representation:

This paper examines whether there are disparities in environmental enforcement. It contributes to the extant literature by examining if the political representation of Latinos influences levels of ...
New insights into the performance characteristics of the Planova‐series hollow‐fiber parvovirus filters using confocal and electron microscopy

Virus filtration remains a critical step in the downstream process for the production of monoclonal antibodies and other mammalian cell-derived biotherapeutics. Recent studies have shown large differences in virus capture behavior of different virus filters, although the origin of these differences is still unclear. The objective of this study was to use confocal and scanning electron microscopy to directly evaluate the capture of virus-size nanoparticles in Planova 20N and BioEX hollow-fiber virus filters. Confocal images of fluorescent nanoparticles were quantified using ImageJ image processing software based on the measured fluorescence intensity of the labeled nanoparticles. Nanoparticle capture by the Planova BioEX was independent of transmembrane pressure from 10 to 45 psi. In contrast, the Planova 20N showed significant differences in nanoparticle capture profile at low pressure, consistent with literature data showing virus breakthrough under these conditions. Images obtained after a process interruption show significant migration of previously captured nanoparticles in the Planova 20N filters but not in the BioEX. These results provide important insights into the nature of virus capture in different virus filters and its dependence on the underlying structure of the virus filtration membranes.
Applying machine learning approaches to analyze the vulnerable road-users' crashes at statewide traffic analysis zones

Abstract Introduction : In this paper, we present machine learning techniques to analyze pedestrian and bicycle crash by developing macro-level crash prediction models. Methods: We collected the 2010–2012 Statewide Traffic Analysis Zone (STAZ) level crash data and developed rigorous machine learning approach (i.e., decision tree regression (DTR) models) for both pedestrian and bicycle crash counts. To our knowledge, this is the first application of DTR models in the burgeoning macro-level traffic safety literature. Results : The DTR models uncovered the most significant predictor variables for both response variables (pedestrian and bicycle crash counts) in terms of three broad categories: traffic, roadway, and socio-demographic characteristics. Additionally, spatial predictor variables of neighboring STAZs were considered along with the targeted STAZ in both DTR models. The DTR model considering spatial predictor variables (spatial DTR model) were compared without considering spatial predictor variables (aspatial DTR model) and the model comparison results discovered that the prediction accuracy of the spatial DTR model performed better than the aspatial DTR model. Finally, the current research effort contributed to the safety literature by applying some ensemble techniques (i.e. bagging, random forest, and gradient boosting) in order to improve the prediction accuracy of the DTR models (weak learner) for macro-level crash count. The study revealed that all the ensemble techniques performed slightly better than the DTR model and the gradient boosting technique outperformed other competing ensemble techniques in macro-level crash prediction models.
Investigating genes and micro-RNAs that may predict clinical benefits of anti-CTLA-4 therapy.

3043 Background: Blockade of T cell co-inhibitory receptor CTLA-4 with a monoclonal antibody, ipilimumab, has led to augmented anti-tumor immune responses, clinical benefit, and FDA approval of ipi...
Lipoaspiration and Controlled Compressive Therapy in Lymphedema of the Upper Extremity: A Comprehensive Systematic Review.

Lipoaspiration followed by controlled compression therapy has been used to treat lymphedema of the upper extremity. We aimed to describe the studies reporting on outcomes of this procedure, in addition to reporting the differences with patients that were treated only with compressive therapy. The PubMed database was queried for studies that evaluated the use of lipoaspiration for upper extremity lymphedema. The keywords "aspiration lipectomy" AND "lymphedema" and synonyms in different combinations were used for the search. From a total of 129 articles, 13 met inclusion criteria. Ten studies reported outcomes of patients treated with lipoaspiration followed by compressive therapy, and three studies compared this procedure with patients that had only compressive therapy. A complete reduction of the edema in the affected limb was found in all the studies. Better results were found in patients who had undergone both procedures. This systematic review suggests that lipoaspiration is recommended for patients with upper extremity lymphedema of any cause in stage two after a long period of compressive therapy that did not produce additional edema reduction.
Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Use Near the End of Life: A Single-Center Retrospective Study.

Background: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have revolutionized treatment for many patients with advanced cancer. Little is known about ICI use near the end of life. Objective: To describe ICI ...
A placebo controlled, randomized, double-blinded trial of olanzapine for the treatment of chronic nausea and/or vomiting, unrelated to chemotherapy/radiation.

118Background: Patients with advanced cancer experience substantial nausea/vomiting. Methods: Eligible patients had advanced cancer without receiving chemotherapy/radiation for the prior 14 days an...
2D or 3D? How cell motility measurements are conserved across dimensions in vitro and translate in vivo

Cell motility is a critical aspect of several processes, such as wound healing and immunity; however, it is dysregulated in cancer. Current limitations of imaging tools make it difficult to study cell migration in vivo. To overcome this, and to identify drivers from the microenvironment that regulate cell migration, bioengineers have developed 2D (two-dimensional) and 3D (three-dimensional) tissue model systems in which to study cell motility in vitro, with the aim of mimicking elements of the environments in which cells move in vivo. However, there has been no systematic study to explicitly relate and compare cell motility measurements between these geometries or systems. Here, we provide such analysis on our own data, as well as across data in existing literature to understand whether, and which, metrics are conserved across systems. To our surprise, only one metric of cell movement on 2D surfaces significantly and positively correlates with cell migration in 3D environments (percent migrating cells), and cell invasion in 3D has a weak, negative correlation with glioblastoma invasion in vivo. Finally, to compare across complex model systems, in vivo data, and data from different labs, we suggest that groups report an effect size, a statistical tool that is most translatable across experiments and labs, when conducting experiments that affect cellular motility.
Microelectrode Studies of S-NDR Copper Electrodeposition: Potentiodynamic and Galvanodynamic Measurements and Simulations

Copper electrodeposition from a CuSO4—H2SO4 electrolyte containing a polyether suppressor and (0 to 100) μmolL−1 Cl− is examined using a 25 μm diameter microdisk electrode. Optical imaging during cyclic voltammetry and galvanodynamic measurements reveal hysteresis, overpotential inversions, and the morphological evolution accompanying breakdown of the polyether-chloride inhibition layer. Simulations involving co-adsorption of the suppressor-halide adlayer and its subsequent breakdown capture the positive feedback and negative differential resistance (S-NDR) evident in electroanalytical measurements as well as important aspects of electrode shape evolution. The impact of electrode shape change on simulations of electroanalytical experiments is quantified in comparison to a stationary interface approximation. For potentiodynamic conditions, adlayer breakdown propagates rapidly from the center of the microelectrode surface although the final deposit profile is non-uniform due to enhanced transport to the disk perimeter. In contrast, galvanodynamic experiments in more concentrated Cl− solutions reveal spatially selective suppressor breakdown with deposition initially localized to the microelectrode center followed by outward expansion as applied current is increased. The difference between potentiodynamic and galvanodynamic responses reflects the convolution of S-NDR critical behavior with the respective control-loop load lines. Microelectrodes constrain or frustrate the otherwise random bifurcation process giving rise to predictable morphologies unattainable on macroscale electrodes.
Efficient two-microphone speech enhancement using basic recurrent neural network cell for hearing and hearing aids

This work presents a two-microphone speech enhancement (SE) framework based on basic recurrent neural network (RNN) cell. The proposed method operates in real-time, improving the speech quality and intelligibility in noisy environments. The RNN model trained using a simple feature set-real and imaginary parts of the short-time Fourier transform (STFT) are computationally efficient with a minimal input-output processing delay. The proposed algorithm can be used in any stand-alone platform such as a smartphone using its two inbuilt microphones. The detailed operation of the real-time implementation on the smartphone is presented. The developed application works as an assistive tool for hearing aid devices (HADs). Speech quality and intelligibility test results are used to compare the proposed algorithm to existing conventional and neural network-based SE methods. Subjective and objective scores show the superior performance of the developed method over several conventional methods in different noise conditions and low signal to noise ratios (SNRs).
Facial Expression Recognition in the Wild via Deep Attentive Center Loss

Learning discriminative features for Facial Expression Recognition (FER) in the wild using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) is a non-trivial task due to the significant intra-class variations and inter-class similarities. Deep Metric Learning (DML) approaches such as center loss and its variants jointly optimized with softmax loss have been adopted in many FER methods to enhance the discriminative power of learned features in the embedding space. However, equally supervising all features with the metric learning method might include irrelevant features and ultimately degrade the generalization ability of the learning algorithm. We propose a Deep Attentive Center Loss (DACL) method to adaptively select a subset of significant feature elements for enhanced discrimination. The proposed DACL integrates an attention mechanism to estimate attention weights correlated with feature importance using the intermediate spatial feature maps in CNN as context. The estimated weights accommodate the sparse formulation of center loss to selectively achieve intra-class compactness and inter-class separation for the relevant information in the embedding space. An extensive study on two widely used wild FER datasets demonstrates the superiority of the proposed DACL method compared to state-of-the-art methods.
Radiomic texture analysis of immunofluorescence images of lupus nephritis biopsies to predict patient progression to end-stage renal disease

Lupus nephritis (LuN) is an autoimmune disease characterized by chronic kidney inflammation, which can lead to loss of kidney function, known as end-stage renal disease. The cellular mechanisms causing this progression are not well-defined. Radiomic texture analysis was used to identify image features of biopsies from ESRD+ and ESRD- LuN patients. Each biopsy was stained with 6 markers to identify 5 cell classes in fluorescence confocal microscopy images. Image features associated with the CD20 stain (B lymphocytes), image summary metrics of mean and standard deviation, and 4 GLCM features were identified as most effective in classifying ESRD+/- biopsy images.
A prospective study to validate pulmonary blood mass changes on non-contrast 4DCT in pulmonary embolism patients.

Abstract Purpose Limited diagnostic options exist for patients with suspected pulmonary embolism (PE) who cannot undergo CT-angiogram (CTA). CT-ventilation methods recover respiratory motion-induced lung volume changes as a surrogate for ventilation. We recently demonstrated that pulmonary blood mass change, induced by tidal respiratory motion, is a potential surrogate for pulmonary perfusion. In this study, we examine blood mass and volume change in patients with PE and parenchymal lung abnormalities (PLA). Methods A cross-sectional analysis was conducted on a prospective, cohort-study with 129 consecutive PE suspected patients. Patients received 4DCT within 48 h of CTA and were classified as having PLA and/or PE. Global volume change (VC) and percent global pulmonary blood mass change (PBM) were calculated for each patient. Associations with disease type were evaluated using quantile regression. Results 68 of 129 patients were PE positive on CTA. Median change in PBM for PE-positive patients (0.056; 95% CI: 0.045, 0.068; IQR: 0.051) was smaller than that of PE-negative patients (0.077; 95% CI: 0.064, 0.089; IQR: 0.056), with an estimated difference of 0.021 (95% CI: 0.003, 0.038; p = 0.0190). PLA was detected in 57 (44.2%) patients. Median VC for PLA-positive patients (1.26; 95% CI: 1.22, 1.30; IQR: 0.15) showed no significant difference from PLA-negative VC (1.25; 95% CI: 1.21, 1.28; IQR: 0.15). Conclusions We demonstrate that pulmonary blood mass change is significantly lower in PE-positive patients compared to PE-negative patients, indicating that PBM derived from dynamic non-contrast CT is a potentially useful surrogate for pulmonary perfusion.
Decision Making with Differential Privacy under a Fairness Lens

Agencies, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, release data sets and statistics about groups of individuals that are used as input to a number of critical decision processes. To conform to privacy and confidentiality requirements, these agencies are often required to release privacy-preserving versions of the data. This paper studies the release of differentially private data sets and analyzes their impact on some critical resource allocation tasks under a fairness perspective. {The paper shows that, when the decisions take as input differentially private data}, the noise added to achieve privacy disproportionately impacts some groups over others. The paper analyzes the reasons for these disproportionate impacts and proposes guidelines to mitigate these effects. The proposed approaches are evaluated on critical decision problems that use differentially private census data.
Unexpected shift to introductory soil field activity at home: teacher and student experience

Abstract Introductory soil science courses are an important part of the undergraduate curriculum in agriculture, environmental sciences, and natural resource management and traditionally include an in-person laboratory where students acquire both hands-on learning and practice important skills This all changed when all classes quickly transitioned to completely online because of the COVID-19 pandemic The objective of this paper is to document student and instructor experiences transitioning two field-based labs into asynchronous, online distance labs and evaluate students? performance in an introductory soil science course Two lab sessions were modified so that students could complete them from home using household equipment and pre-lab instruction was delivered using online videos After the course, student performance on learning objectives for each lab, evaluated using rubrics, and student grades were analyzed Students performed well on soil color and texture but struggled with new concepts like identifying landscape positions Students were able to practice hands-on skills and learn more about soils near their homes The lessons learned from the experience were that students need to submit photos or maps to document their lab exercises and to be used in grading and verification, to ensure that students have equipment and tools they need to complete the labs, and frequent feedback or communication during laboratory exercises is needed This article is protected by copyright All rights reserved
Good News for Bush? Economic News, Personal Finances, and the 2004 Presidential Election

The forecasting model presented here is a revised version of a model developed prior to the 1996 election (Holbrook 1996) and is essentially a referendum model. The original model regressed the incumbent party percent of the two-party vote on presidential popularity, an aggregate measure of satisfaction with personal finances, and a dummy variable coded “1” for years in which the incumbent party had held the White House for at least two consecutive terms and “0” for all other years. The first two variables are intended to capture the political and economic performance of the incumbent administration, while the latter variable (borrowed from Abramowitz 1988) is based on the idea that it may be easier to convince voters that it is “time for a change” if the incumbent party has held the White House for at least two consecutive terms. This model provided a fairly accurate forecast of the 1996 election and also had close out-of-sample post-dictions of elections from 1952–1992. However, the 2000 election represented a significant bump in the road, and the model over-predicted Gore's percent of the vote by approximately 10 percentage points.
Governance Choice on a Serial Network

This paper analyzes governance choice in a two-level federation in providing road infrastructure across jurisdictions. Two models are proposed to predict the choice of centralized or decentralized spending structure on a serial road network shared by two districts. While the first model considers simple Pigouvian behavior of governments, the second explicitly models political forces at both a local and central level. Both models led to the conclusions that the spending structure is chosen based on a satisfactory comprise between benefits and costs associated with alternative decision-making processes, and that governance choice may spontaneously shift as the infrastructure improves temporally.
Studying Science Inequities: How to Use Surveys to Study Diverse Populations

Inequities in science have long been documented in the United States. Particular groups such as low income, non-White people, and indigenous people fare worse when it comes to healthcare, infectious diseases, climate change, and access to technology. These types of inequities can be partially addressed with targeted interventions aimed at facilitating access to scientific information. Doing so requires knowledge about what different groups think when it comes to relevant scientific topics. Yet, most data collections on science-based issues do not include enough respondents from these populations. We discuss this gap and offer an overview of pertinent sampling and administrative considerations in studying underserved populations. A sustained effort to study diverse populations can help address extant inequities.